Fantasy

Greg Yaitanes directed this episode of House of the Dragon, along with the second and third episodes. The season finale had me ruminating on famous words from a poem by Edgar Albert Guest: "Grief's hours are long, and cold is the chill of it." Those words, in my opinion, typify what Rhaenyra went through in…

A Succession War will turn into a War of Annihilation. Clare Kilner directed this episode of House of the Dragon, along with the fourth and fifth episodes. She is a multi-award-winning director and screenwriter known for her strong understanding of performance. She delivered what showrunner Miguel Sapochnik described as a thriller cooped in a race…

Geeta Vasant Patel directed this episode of House of the Dragon. She is an Emmy-nominated Sundance filmmaker known for her emotional, form-pushing and nontraditional style in comedy and drama. Her fingerprints are all over the episode; she midwifed a moving masterpiece that allowed Paddy Considine to deliver a compelling performance that had me thinking of…

Miguel Sapochnik did an excellent job directing episode six of House of the Dragon, and he is back at it in this one. Episode seven is titled “Driftmark” because it takes place entirely on the island west of Dragonstone in Blackwater Bay. The opening scene is a sad one. The charred remains of Lady Laena…

Miguel Sapochnik directed the sixth episode of House of the Dragon. His opening statement in the after-show discussion for this episode will form part of my preamble to this review.“In six, we have the time jump and the changeover of actors, and it felt like a second pilot.” We have a ten-year time jump in…

Clare Kilner did an excellent job Directing episode four of House of the Dragon, and she is back at it in this episode. Titled “We Light the Way,” this midseason episode opens the valve on the pressure cooker that has been the first half of the season. In the previous episode, Viserys had banished Daemon…

Claire Kilner directed this episode and achieved what she set out to do. She delivered a slow burn and buried landmines. The coming episodes will be explosive. Characters that were on the same side, albeit for the wrong reasons, are now on a collision path. Your guess is as good as mine. I’m referring to…

The third episode of House of the Dragon, titled “Second of His Name,” aired on September 4, 2022, following news earlier that week announcing the departure of Miguel Sapochnik as Co-Showrunner. Sources say his exit was due to the three exhausting years of effort he put into the Game of Thrones successor show. Miguel will…

Finally, my skin was itching, much like an addict suffering withdrawal from substance abuse. I couldn’t wait for the second episode of House of the Dragon to air, and boy, how good was it! I watched it with my notepad and pen resting on the arm of my lazy boy. Twenty minutes into the episode,…

The first episode of House of the Dragon, titled “The Heirs of the Dragon,” aired on August 21, 2022, on HBO and HBO Max, raising the viewership bar for Series Premiere. The episode drew nearly 10 million views across both platforms overnight, making it HBO’s most prominent series opener. When writing this review, the viewership…