A wartime drama with dragons

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OLLIE UPTON/HBO/HBO MAX

HBO MAX

By Brontë H. Lacsamana, Reporter

Tv Review
House of the Dragon
HBO Max

(Spoilers ahead.)

SET 200 years before the events of the hit fantasy series Game of Thrones, the spin-off drama House of the Dragon has had two seasons filled with warring factions of a family grappling for power with the help of their dragons. This June, weekly airing of the third season has commenced.

Available on HBO Max, the HBO Original series is based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, which chronicles the history of House Targaryen. Season three will continue bringing their tumultuous story to life through eight episodes.

In a preview on June 19, BusinessWorld saw the first episode, which sees Emma D’Arcy return as Rhaenyra Targaryen, leader of Team Black, struggling to establish her rule as queen in a realm unwilling to place their trust in a woman. Olivia Cooke is also back as her ex-best friend Alicent Hightower, the queen mother on the Team Green side of the war, carefully managing her volatile sons who are hungry for power.

The first episode continues moving around the chess pieces left behind from last season — Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen loyally rallies the troops in the Riverlands, Ewan Mitchell’s Aemond Targaryen makes conniving decisions that threaten to upset the course of the war, and Tom Glynn-Carney’s severely burnt invalid king Aegon Targaryen II runs off.

But what steers the episode into a thrilling, tragic disaster are Steve Toussaint’s Corlys Velaryon, who captains a fleet during a precarious-turned-fiery naval battle, and Harry Collett’s stubborn Prince Jacaerys Velaryon, who leads his dragon towards the fight with drastic consequences. There’s also Phoebe Campbell’s Rhaena Targaryen on her quest to tame a wild dragon, coming into play in the worst possible way.

The pilot episode’s centerpiece, The Battle of the Gullet, holds the third season as a television event to watch, proving that a fight on ships is just as exciting as a fight on dragon-back, thanks to tight direction by Loni Peristere. It also poses a challenge for the rest of the episodes to somehow keep up the audience’s interest.

Described as a story of “the Targaryen dynasty at the absolute apex of its power, with more than 15 dragons under their yoke,” House of the Dragon gradually sets up the warring family’s downfall, episode by episode.

For those who gave A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (the most recent Game of Thrones spin-off based on George R.R. Martin material) a shot, returning to the dragon stuff means a drop in storytelling depth, as it relies heavily on extended action sequences and heightened family drama to keep a powerful family’s unraveling interesting.

Co-creator, showrunner, and executive producer Ryan Condal is more than capable of executing an exhilarating vision of a dragon war, with all the bells and whistles of visual and sound effects and hard-hitting character deaths that come with it, but don’t expect to glean any new insights about the story beyond what’s in the logline.

What you see is what you get with House of the Dragon, and if you’re here for the badass (and screwed up) medieval-style royalty tearing each other apart with their dragons leading to the downfall of their clan, then you’ll be pleased.

House of the Dragon airs weekly on HBO Max.