![]() “The Black Queen” showed the other side of that maneuvering, with Rhaenyra learning of Aegon’s hurried coronation and deciding whether to march against him or stand down in the name of peace. The show’s ninth episode saw Alicent and her father, Otto (Rhys Ifans), conspire to place her son Aegon on the throne after the death of her husband, Viserys (Paddy Considine)-against Viserys’s stated wishes that his eldest daughter, Rhaenyra, be first in the line of succession. The time-jumping nature of House of the Dragon’s first season allowed the show to cram an emotional saga into 10 episodes, beginning with the teen friendship between Rhaenyra and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), and ending with them plotting dragon-led war against each other. Read: The glaring flaw at the heart of House of the Dragon ![]() The shifting nature of Rhaenyra’s second husband (and uncle) Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) was difficult to keep track of-he started as a feckless rabble-rouser, became a fearsome one-man warrior, and then spent much of the back half of the season as a supportive and unobtrusive husband up until the finale. Whatever drew Rhaenyra Targaryen (played by Emma D’Arcy) to Harwin Strong (Ryan Corr), the secret father of her first three children, wasn’t really elucidated, even though the rumored illegitimacy of her offspring had been a major thread. The scope of Season 1 necessitated skipping over some massive developments. But that prospect only makes House of the Dragon’s first season a more impressive and downright avant-garde achievement. ![]() Martin–written source material to know that from here on out, the story is going to have to slow down dramatically. For its first season, set over 19 years, House of the Dragon charted the seeding of a civil war within the ruling House Targaryen, but not until the end of “The Black Queen” did that war truly begin. Still, my biggest takeaway from last night’s Season 1 finale, “The Black Queen,” was the amusing surprise that the preceding episodes had all just been table-setting, albeit on a grand scale. If anything, the show has felt rushed, jumping madly through time and sacrificing some character development for the sake of plot, plot, plot. House of the Dragon, its big-budget fantasy rival on HBO, leans into the opposite extreme. I watched every episode of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power with my arms crossed grumpily, astonished that such an expensive production dared to have little to no narrative momentum for most of its running time. Whole seasons contain plotlines that probably could fit within one episode characters spend a year getting ready to do something. One of the most common complaints about serialized television in the streaming era is that it moves far too slowly. This story contains spoilers for the entire first season of House of the Dragon.
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