House of the Dragon’s Season 2 Finale Promises a Spectacular Season 3

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 2 finale of House of the Dragon.]

There’s a good reason to be frustrated by the Season 2 finale of House of the Dragon, which is that it ends just when things were getting good. The Game of Thrones prequel series, long ago renewed for Season 3, devotes its final minutes to a montage that’s largely table-setting for the action to come next time: Armies marching to battle, ships taking to sea, young women finding dragons. (Normal prestige drama stuff.)

Yet while the ending could not be any more of a cliffhanger, taking precedence over any frustration is genuine joy at the fact that with this 18th episode, House of the Dragon has finally found its footing as a show.  Not because it’s finally set things up for a third season of epic battles, but because its stable of characters feels like it’s finally come alive.

While it’s always been well-produced and compelling from week to week, for most of House of the Dragon‘s run, the show has always felt a little dry in its approach, which can arguably be traced back to the source material. The primary text on which House of the Dragon is based is House of the Dragon co-creator George R.R. Martin‘s Fire & Blood, which is written not like a dynamic piece of fiction, but as a history book chronicling this fictional history. (Its in-universe author is Archmaester Gyldayn, a historian writing hundreds of years after the events being chronicled.)

The problem with adapting a history book, even a fictitious one, is that the events of the story get emphasized over the people involved, leading to a show in need of breakout characters from the margins of the page. People aware of life outside of a throne room, with interests beyond who happens to wear the crown, who might even choose to smile every once in a while.

There was potential within the established ensemble early on: The yearning for her birthright of Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock, then Emma D’Arcy), the complicated scheming of Larys (Matthew Needham), the clandestine love between Laenor (John Macmillan) and Joffrey (Solly McLeod). But it’s really in Season 2 where certain folks have begun blossoming. Take Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), who had a few intriguing moments in Season 1 as well — before really maturing in Season 2 as a savvy advisor to Rhaenyra.