House of the Dragon aired its Season 2 finale tonight, and much like the entire second season, it is drawn-out, disappointing, meaningless, and underwhelmingly trash, featuring useless, overly decompressed storytelling.
Can David Zaslav do us all a favor and fucking sell HBO to someone who has some money? Like f’n ASAP?
It’s obvious the entire budget of the show has been cut because Warner Bros. Discovery is broke as fuck. Not only has House of the Dragon Season 2 been cut back by two episodes, but NOTHING fucking happened the entire season. The 5-minute dragon battle in Episode 4 does NOTHING to make up for the bunch-of-nothing happening. The Season 2 finale is a bunch of NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENING.
The Season 2 finale could easily have served as the first episode of this season. The entire season did nothing to advance the story from where we left off in Season 1. I’m both frustrated and flabbergasted by such a lackluster episode.
So, what happens at the start of tonight’s episode? Once again, we’re fucking told about some cool shit happening, but we NEVER get to see it. This is at least the fourth or fifth time we’ve heard about a cool battle, but don’t get to witness it (it’s because WBD has NO money!). Tonight’s episode begins with the aftermath of Prince Aemond burning some obscure town to the ground—but we don’t get to see the actual destruction. We’re TOLD how Prince Aemond is angry and desperate after fleeing from the other dragons—but we didn’t get to see that either! The end of last week’s episode was a big mess. We never got to really see or feel Aemond’s fear, anger, or any real emotion—he just turns around and that’s it.
Tonight’s episode also finally wrapped up Prince Daemon’s time at Harrenhal. However, he was completely wasted throughout the entire season. It was all about not having a budget, so his story – just like every other character this season – was dragged out and then was dumped on us at the end. Daemon touches the tree, and the Three-Eyed Raven contacts him (or whatever) to show him the future, including events from the main Game of Thrones series. The White Walker looked awful (again, no budget). There goes Daemon’s plans for conquest – magically gone – and now he’s again loyal to Queen Rhaenyra, who isn’t even loyal to him and cheated on him with that one chick (that didn’t happen in the book). Question: Is this how it all goes down in the book?
More drawn out bullshit comes with the reveal that Lord Corlys is the father of those two dudes. It took all season for these reveals? And then nothing happens [rips hair out].
The episode also wastes time on Ser Criston Cole, showing him becoming a mopey, whiny little bitch. And speaking of disappointments, Tyland Lannister is a complete embarrassment to his family name and a disgrace compared to Tywin Lannister, Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister, and Tyrion Lannister.
Or how about the complete drawn out nonsense surrounding Rhaenyra and Alicent? Why the fuck is Alicent even in this series anymore? Last episode she goes camping. Then in this episode she is back in King’s Landing. WTF is going on? And then she ends up in Rhaenyra’s castle to contact Rhaenyra (it’s like the fourth time they’ve done this). Question: How much distance is there between these castles and lands?! Because it’s like they can teleport at fucking will!
While watching the drawn out decompressed dialogue (is Bendis a writer?!) between Rhaenyra and Alicent, I said to myself, “They’re just doing this to waste time. They’re doing all this bullshit dialogue throughout the entire episode just to fill the runtime. There’s going to be no action. Nothing! WTF?!”
They could and should have used the amount of time wasted on Rhaenyra and Alicent to develop the other characters.
Speaking of WTF is going on, where the f’k was Ser Otto? Was he captured? Imprisoned? Didn’t they send for him to be the new Hand? So he never answers and they never decide to fucking check on him? Then in the finale we only get a glimpse?
House of the Dragon Season 2 is a complete waste of time. The Season 2 finale is an even more waste of time. The lack of action, the drawn-out dialogue and exposition, and the crappy storytelling are inexcusable. There is absolutely no payoff. It’s all fizzle. It’s a dud. This episode gets a 2/10 rating only because Matt Smith and Ewan Mitchell deliver good performances for what they are given (and it’s not much) but unfortunately they’re characters, like every other character, are severely underdeveloped and underutilized.
