House of  The Dragon Episode 2 Review: In the new episode of House of the Dragon “The shadow of the throne” we would dare to call it more interlocutory than what we saw in the premiere without huge revelations, but there are certainly interesting aspects to analyze with first of all the return of the initials with the iconic Game of Thrones theme and a new sequence dedicated to the Targaryen family. 

We understood that, at least at the beginning, the dragons will not be engaged in battles but are simply the representation of power and used as a “threat” by those who dare to oppose the Targaryen on duty. 

The investment in House of The Dragon was immense (200 million euros for the first season), especially as regards the special effects in making them and the result is sensational. The technical quality of House of the Dragon when compared to the first episodes of Game of Thrones here is clearly superior, also because here we are talking about a budget of four times higher.

House of the Dragon, however, would be an understatement to define it as a special effects product with dragons, because its real strength at least in these first two episodes was in the richness of the dialogues wisely written by Ryan Condal flanked by George R.R Martin who wants to take his rematch after criticism for the Game of Thrones finale. 

The prequel operations are not always able to arouse so much enthusiasm and often the references to the main series exasperated do nothing but create problems and inconsistencies to the detriment of the fanservice, just think of the half disaster of Fantastic Beasts just to mention another product of Warner Bros. Discovery, but in the case of House of The Dragon at least, for now, everything is taken care of perfectly thanks to the intelligence of HBO.

House of the Dragon, the relationship between Rhaenyra and Allicent is increasingly central

In this new episode of House of the Dragon, it follows what was seen in the premiere with the expulsion of Daemon Targaryen to Dragonstone, a painful but inevitable decision for King Viserys. Now the heir is Rhaenyra, who finds herself having to manage the responsibilities of her new role but also mourning the death of her mother at such a young age. 

In all this, the character played, up to now, by Milly Alcock turns out to be incredibly the most mature and lucid in her decisions, almost retracing the choices of the first Daenerys. On the contrary, the intrigues and palace games that are unleashed behind the second marriage of the widowed sovereign allow us to better discover some secondary characters, above all the princess Rhaenys Targaryen played by Eve Best who allows us to fully know her and Lord’s intentions. 

Colrys Valarion as well as highlighting the cultural legacies of society in Westeros. The reality is that House of The Dragon is up to now a Game of Thrones in which playing Game of Thrones is a family affair, compared to the intrigues between Baratheon, Targaryen, and Lannister that we had seen in the original series. It will also be interesting to find out how the Starks will come into play in the next episodes.

One of the most interesting and changing characters, however, is certainly Allicent, more sister than a friend of Rhaenyra, even if the surprise choice of King Viserys is destined to radically change things in their relationship and in the delicate balance of power in the kingdom. 

Paddy Constantine’s King Viserys for his part demonstrates all his inadequacy in the role of King underlined by Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen, with the first real decision as a sovereign which proves to be a terrible boomerang by irremediably changing the balance of the chessboard in the imminent war. 

His character, even with a very short screen time of “The shadow of the throne”, manages to make those few minutes shine with a magnetism that only great characters can give. A conflict is coming where the dragons will certainly dominate for much more action-packed episodes than those we have just witnessed, but which served to understand how the games for the throne were actually even 200 years before Daenerys and Cersei and that the rules were more or less the same.

The appointment with House of The Dragon is scheduled for tonight at 9 pm for the broadcast of the first episode in Italian and next Monday for the third episode in the original language and for the second dubbed episode.