House of the Dragon gets off to a confident, compelling start

“The Heirs of the Dragon,” the series premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon, is good. I wanna start by saying that, to put you and myself at ease. We’ve been waiting for this show for a few years now, and there was a part of me that was afraid it wouldn’t live up to expectations. This is only the premiere, of course — anything could happen between now and the end of the first season — but this is a self-assured episode of TV that evokes the spirit of Game of Thrones without being chained to it.

Like any series premiere, the first job of “The Heirs of the Dragon” is to set the scene. We begin around 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, at a moodily lit council held at the crumbling castle of Harrenhal. The Old King Jaehaerys Targaryen finds himself without an heir and has called the great lords of Westeros to choose a new one: they pick Viserys Targaryen, one of the king’s grandchildren….even though many thought that another of his grandkids, Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best), had a better claim. She was older than Viserys and the child of Jaehaerys’ firstborn, but the fact that she’s a woman got in the way.

This opening sequence is dark, operatic and suitably dramatic. It also shows how concerned House of the Dragon will be with history and how it reaches out its hand from the past to control the present. That was a theme on Game of Thrones as well, but House of the Dragon seems like it’s more concerned with the particulars.

New names, new faces, old problems, old places

After that we jump ahead a handful of years to pick up with Viserys’ teenage daughter Rhaenyra, who’s riding her dragon Syrax over King’s Landing. House of the Dragon does a good job of referencing Game of Thrones while still establishing its own identity. We recognize King’s Landing and the Red Keep, but it looks in better repair than before, and no one looks up when a dragon flies overhead, since this is probably something that happens on the regular in this day in age.

If I’m being honest, the Red Keep may even look a little too shiny and perfect, but I get that they’re trying to evoke a golden era here. The dragons, of course, look tremendous, but the premiere doesn’t dwell on them because it knows that a TV series lives and dies by its characters, and House of the Dragon gives us some good ones right out of the gate.

“The Heirs of the Dragons” is basically concerned with four: there’s Rhaenrya (Milly Alcock), a spirited girl who is expected to marry and bear children but would rather ride into battle and explore the world. Shades of Arya with the bearing of Sansa…and a dragon. The show gets a lot of early mileage by pairing her with Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey), the daughter of Hand of the King Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans). Alicent is deferential where Rhaenrya is rebellious, shy where Rhaenyra is bold. They do kind of have an Arya-Sansa thing happening, only in this case they’re best friends rather than sisters from different planets.

Their chemistry works; I was especially charmed by their scene in the godswood where Alicent is quizzing Rhaenyra on history while the princess of the realm jokes about cake. And it’s important for their chemistry to work, considering where their story is going.

Never were there such devoted brothers

Then there’s Rhaenyra’s father King Viserys (Paddy Considine), a well-meaning monarch with a young son on the way, or so he is convinced. That’s good, because a king without a male heir means uncertainty, and uncertainty can mean war. At present, his heir is his younger brother Daemon (Matt Smith), an irascible hothead too impulsive for his own good. In an early scene, Daemon — who is in charge of the city watch — takes it upon himself to round up the criminals of King’s Landing (or random passersby, it’s not really clear) and just start lopping off their body parts. It tells you two things: 1) House of the Dragon is determined to find ways to gross us out that Game of Thrones never got around to, and; 2) This guy is a pain in the ass to an establishment that wants things calm and predictable. Otto Hightower in particular loathes him, and would do anything to keep him off the Iron Throne.

As with Rhaenyra and Alicent, the relationship between Viserys and Daemon is immediately believable, and quite a bit more dramatic. Viserys is calm and collected, Daemon wild and unpredictable; Viserys is the steady hand at the rudder, Daemon the choppy sea before him. They love each other, but they don’t get each other. They have a great shouting match towards the end of the episode where Viserys orders his difficult younger brother away from the city, we sense not for the first time.

Special mention should be made of Daemon. When I read George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, he seemed like an asshole and I wondered how the show would make him sympathetic. They pull it off by leaning into his complexity. Daemon is an asshole, but he also has moments of vulnerability, like when he interrupts vigorous sex with his paramour Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) to hang his weary head upon her breast.  He bucks authority, but he also defers to his brother, the highest authority in the land. This is a complicated, difficult part, which is why they needed an actor of Matt Smith’s caliber to play it. If everything works out, this could be the role of his career.

Mysaria is one of several secondary characters who populate the margins of the episode. There’s also the dashing knight Ser Criston Cole (Fabian Frankel). Rhaenys, now known as the Queen Who Never Was, is still around, as is her husband Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), a powerful lord. None of them get as much attention here as the four we talked about above, but they will.

The show also does a good job with its tertiary characters. I like Graham McTavish’s avuncular take on Ser Harrold Westerling, the Lord of Commander of the Kingsguard. (I also like his Scottish accent.) Master of Coin Lyman Beesbury (Bill Paterson) delicately steals a couple of moments, first when he’s flustered at a small council meeting and later when he discreetly places bets on Daemon during a joust. Characters are the building blocks of any good show, and House of the Dragon has a fine set.

If I lose the flower of Westeros, I shall lose the branch too

House of the Dragon also wastes no time in doing something with those characters. In the middle of a tourney Viserys is throwing in honor of the impending birth of his son, Viserys is called away to attend his wife Aemma Arryn (Sian Brooke), who is having an extremely difficult labor. It’s clear that Viserys and Aemma love each other — they have a tender private scene earlier — and that Aemma and Rhaenyra love each other. This is as happy a family as you’re likely to find in Westeros, which is what makes what happens next so hard.

Grand Maester Mellos (David Horovitch) gives Viserys a choice: risk losing both mother and child with a natural birth or perform a medieval caesarian section to save the baby but doom the mother. Viserys chooses the latter. Aemma is not consulted. The attendants hold Aemma down, Viserys tells her, “They’re going to bring the babe out now,” she screams, and we watch as she is forcibly cut open and bleeds out.

This scene moved and disturbed me. It also underlines some of the show’s themes in a direct, honest way that didn’t feel preachy or pandering. Cast and crew members have talked about how House of the Dragon is partly about how a patriarchal society disempowers women and pits them against each other. It’s easy to hear that and be cynical, to wonder if the producers are more interested in sending a message than telling a story. But if you’re good, you can do both.

Westeros is a brutal, sexist, unfair place; this scene drives that home in a way that’s hard to forget. I predict people will be talking about this scene, both on its own merits and for how it echoes in our world.

Verdict

Viserys’ son dies within a day. Without an heir of his body and wary of allowing Daemon a chance to seize power, Viserys names Rhaenyra his heir instead, which sets up the climax of the episode, where the lords of Westeros are summoned to swear loyalty to her. Even though we’ve only spent a little bit of time with these characters, the moment lands well.

The show isn’t perfect; the dialogue will take some getting used to, I think. It has a formal ring to it. Most of these characters are upper crust types who speak like they just took in a full weekend of Shakespeare in the Park. It works, but I found myself wanting a Bronn or a Davos Seaworth to come in and dirty things up a bit.

Still, the premiere episode of House of the Dragon succeeds where it counts. I hope people are intrigued enough to keep watching. I was.

Episode Grade: A-

House of the Bullet Points

• We have to mention the bit where Viserys tells Rhaenrya that their ancestor Aegon the Conquerer came to Westeros in part because he had a vision of the White Walkers invading the world of the living and resolved to unite the Seven Kingdoms so they could fight as one when that moment came. This has been theorized among fans for years, and it’s in the show on George R.R. Martin’s request. I’m curious to see whether it plays a further role.
• Maybe it’s because I know where this is going, but I sensed a bit of wildly inappropriate romantic tension between Daemon and Rhaenyra when they spoke in the Iron Throne room. Targaryens and incest, amirite? Also, way to play full scenes in High Valyrian.
• Viserys has a lesion on his body, which obviously means he’s going to die. That’s not a spoiler, just a rule of film and TV: if a character so much as coughs once onscreen, they’re toast.
• I guess I don’t know my lore as well as I should, cause I have no idea why everyone on the Small Council was playing with those little marble balls.
• I didn’t mention how spectacular the tourney looked. We never got a proper joust on Game of Thrones, not like this. They spent money here. The moment where Daemon was knocked off his horse and dragged along the rail in the middle? Lit.
• I don’t think they did a good enough job establishing that the first dude Daemon tilts against in the tourney is Alicent’s brother, which is why she was so nervous. There’re a lot new names and relationships to learn, I know.
• Viserys cut himself on the Iron Throne. That never happened on Game of Thrones despite George R.R. Martin mentioning it a fair number of times in his books, so it’s nice to see it turn up here.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels