House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 8 Review: Soapy season finale abandons logic, coherence and intelligence

1/5

House of the Dragon is a show built on tensely coiled anticipation. The thrill hasn’t been so much invested in action as it is in witnessing intrigues unfold or being foiled. At its best, the series has richly expanded on the source material, endowing characters with a fullness of depth and texture. Motivations are maximised in telling detail. Several other folds of insinuations are interwoven into the pre-existing plot. Misogyny and patriarchal entitlement conjoin in the show to deliver a scabrous commentary on the machinations of power, especially circling how few characters are driven to their worst, base impulses out of pure love for their child/family.

Self-preservation doesn’t have the privilege of being a rosy reality in the world of Westeros, where duty and greed call on men to betray their kin. But the series is also indistinguishable from a clutch of inclinations that troublingly grew over the course of this season to potentially undermine every intermittent rousing patch of glorious action or a particularly biting exchange. The show has a team of formidable actors who unfailingly lift creakily unconvincing scenes littering several episodes. Truthfully, I can’t think very highly of Alicent as a well-developed character if there was no Olivia Cooke to faithfully keep me riveted on her, despite the show regularly seeming like it has utterly lost its direction with her.

A slew of atrocious screenwriting decisions has routinely marked the second season. Nothing can justify the head-scratching overkill of the interminable Daemon-Harrenhal track. After a point, it just became painful to watch a bewildered Matt Smith struggle through these underlined, needlessly overstretched portions. We get it that the place acts almost like a site where he gets to confront his demons, issues of guilt, betrayal and his constant nagging thirst for the Iron Throne. The show even grants him the vision of Song of Ice and Fire, to make him accept not just Rhaenyra’s place on the Throne but also that they are mere parts in the larger story of having to unite the realm against an impending common enemy, the White Walkers. However, the sequence, interspersing iconic moments from Game of Thrones including Dany and the birth of her three dragons in the fire, veers embarrassingly to feed fandom wishes.

When Rhaenyra ( Emma D’Arcy) confronts Daemon at Harrenhal at last about his true agenda, the scene that should have bristled instead plays out as a cringe-inducing soap opera. Rhaenyra is bundled her customary share of ambivalence yet again. She, who thought by gaining three additional dragons would be adequate to unequivocally tilt the war in her favour, is nudged by everyone around her that she also has to strike before too many days run out and the enemy gathers new allies and lays fresh schemes. But what about the thousands of innocents that would turn casualty in her attempts at establishing control? Who pays the price? These aren’t what her father, Viserys, would have remotely preferred. Even Mysaria tells her, “ You must prevail.”

The threats are numerous indeed, as Tyland Lannister ( Jefferson Hall) successfully brokers a deal with the Tyroshi commander, Sharako Lohar ( a crackling Abigail Thorn), to cut off the Gullet blockade but not before proving his might in a mud fight. This diversion, however, ultimately detracts the necessary focused energy of a finale episode. The Rhaena ( Phoebe Campbell) track continues to fare disappointingly, the show consigning her to wander the Vale for two episodes so that she could finally and predictably discover the rumoured dragon. At Dragonstone, Jace ( Harry Collett) continues to mope about at the prospect of the bastard dragon-riders.

Meanwhile, Aemond ( Ewan Mitchell) is all fired up and incensed at the revelation of Rhaenyra’s added dragon power, choosing to take out his fury at innocents and burning down an entire town. Larys ( Matthew Needham) senses this and exhorts Aegon ( Tom Glynn-Carney) that they must escape the danger posed by Aemond and immediately leave King’s Landing. He promises Aegon that it’d be wiser for him to wait out the war and return to take the throne after both sides have destroyed each other.

At its heated centre, the story of House of the Dragon has always been about Rhaenyra and Alicent, two people once the best of friends but compelled into being foes at the behest of patriarchal power games. Written by Sara Hess, the finale stages another Rhaenyra-Alicent reunion, this time the latter coming to Dragonstone. Alicent is tired of plotting and desperately seeks to remove herself from all strife. Rhaenyra is icy as the other pleads. Even though Emma D’Arcy is terrific at showing the internal strain in asking her former friend to consider the impossible sacrifice of a mother, the Geeta Vasant Patel-directed episode doesn’t manage to land the scene as wholly credible. To tie up the finale with yet another montage promising great action in the next season, scheduled to arrive in 2026, does nothing but to cement that biding feeling in me that I’ve been entirely betrayed as a viewer.