GamesRadar+ Verdict

Despite some intriguing moments, this slower-paced follow-up to the Battle at Rook’s Rest means that House of the Dragon reaches a mid-season lull.

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Warning: This review contains spoilers for House of the Dragon season 2 episode 5.

House of the Dragon season 2 has contained some of the most electric moments in the show’s history, but also some of its dullest. After the drama of the Battle at Rook’s Rest, episode 5 falls into the latter camp with a slow, understated episode that never really manages to ignite.

It all starts well. After the flames of “dracarys” have been extinguished, the consequences of the brutal battle remain for both sides. Corlys sags over in grief as he learns of Rhaenys’ death, while Aegon is bed-bound as the maesters slowly tear his armor from his flesh. The grisly opening is amplified by the corpse of Meleys’ head being paraded through King’s Landing, rotting and covered in flies. Conversations about bad omens of dragon deaths played against small details like the incense being lit to cover the stench make for a powerful opening.

There’s no doubt that the stakes of this battle have been upped, and as Criston Cole says later, “What we must now do is terrible”. The consequences of this turning point in the Dance of the Dragons are explored too through a series of stark images. As in her previous episodes, director Claire Kilner is particularly adept at setting up moments to show our beloved characters’ emotions, rather than simply telling them. Whether it be Corlys almost falling over or Rhaenyra looking out at Dragonstone, it’s all very evocative.

Power shifts

However, pained looks are not enough to sustain a full episode as the narrative shifts to war planning and the plotting of what tactics come next. Conversations around strategy and subtle power dynamic shifts are the bread and butter of the Game of Thrones universe, but after several episodes, it’s all starting to feel a little tired.

In King’s Landing, Aemond wastes no time in becoming regent during his brothers’ incapacitation as the topic switches once again to allegiances of various houses. Meanwhile, in Dragonstone, Rhaenyra has almost identical conversations of her own as she once again airs her frustrations about not being able to hop aboard Syrax and fight her own battles.

There is a nice parallel between Rhaenyra and Alicent fighting against the misogyny of their advisors, but it feels a bit heavy-handed. It plays out best during a sequence in the green camp where we hear discussions of strategy while the camera focuses solely on Alicent’s face. Olivia Cooke masterfully handles the frustration, despair, and rage of her character, and it’s one of the standout points of the episode.

The narrative thread about the frustrations of King’s Landing residents doesn’t quite fit into the episode either. Over the season so far, we’ve seen a family struggling with food and whether to stay in the city, which is stepped up a notch in episode 5 as the citizens try to flee as the gates are closed under Aemond’s orders. It feels like this may be sowing seeds of discontent that will come to fruition later on, but it’s hard to care when we only see snippets of their lives.

Ghost story

The standout storyline remains Daemon. Completely tonally different from everything else we’ve seen in House of the Dragon so far, his gothic and atmospheric scenes in Harrenhal are captivating. There are some truly wild moments too, including a very graphic sex scene with his mother (incest is a constant for House Targaryen) and strange, disconcerting appearances of his dead wife.

Alys Rivers – House of the Dragon’s most intriguing new arrival – is behind them all, and her barbed exchanges with Daemon recall the heat between Milly Alcock and Matt Smith’s season 1 chemistry. Interesting too is the King consort’s uneasiness with his position. All of his actions, whether it be instructing Willem Blackwood to bring House Bracken to heel or rebuilding Harrenhal with his own hands, are calculated, and Alys sees right through them. It will be fascinating to watch that antagonistic dynamic continue to develop.

Elsewhere in Westeros, more alliances are formed as Rhaena forges a relationship at the Eyrie and Jacerys wins over House Frey at The Twins. Even Baela is working hard as she wins over Corlys in his grief to take on the Hand of the Queen mantle. This all leads to a final exchange between Rhaenyra and Jacaerys as they plot about how to build up their dragons, which while a neat set-up for a way to turn the tide in the Dance of the Dragons, is not really dramatic enough to earn the episode’s cliffhanger.

Mid-season lull

All in all, episode 5 has its moments, but it is too often repetitive and slow to live up to the lofty heights of battles and dragon fire we’ve had so far. The weekly release schedule makes such a dip a bit more hard to swallow as we have to wait a whole other week for any action to heat up again.

It’s hard not to draw comparisons to season 1’s pacy narrative, which jumped through time jumps to focus on key events. Season 2 has slowed right down to cover in chronological order, meaning that instead of decades passing, it’s merely been a few weeks this time around. It was an approach I was initially on board with, having grown frustrated with missing key chunks of the story with the yearly time hops and struggling to keep up with the constant casting changes.

However, after the crawl of episode 5 spent mostly around the council tables, I can’t help but feel that the series needs the heat of a “dracarys” to kick things up a notch. After all, we’ve only got three more episodes to reach a conclusion thanks to the chopped-down length of season 2. Let’s just hope these remaining outings lean more toward Blood and Cheese than war strategy bickering.