House of the Dragon
Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO
Early reviews said that House of the Dragon was at the top of its game in season 3, after a periodically unsteady run before that. So far, that has proven to be correct, not just among critics, but audiences.
After last night’s episode 2 of season 3, House of the Dragon has now hit a new record on IMDB. More than one, depending on how deep you want to get into it. With these first two episodes, Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood, and Queen’s Landing, House of the Dragon has had its strongest seasonal opening in three seasons with 9.2 and 9.4 episode scores, respectively. That’s also the best two-episode string of the series overall. The 9.4 is tied with season 2 episode 4, The Red Dragon and the Gold.
If you want to go past that, this is almost a record for the entire Game of Thrones universe. Those IMDB scores are higher than the first two episodes of the beloved A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, but stacked up against the original show, that opening is higher than any season out of all eight of Game of Thrones other than season 4, which had a 9/10 and 9.7/10 for its first two episodes. That second episode was The Lion and the Rose, Joffrey and Margaery’s poison-interrupted wedding. Season 4 as a whole had a stunning 8 out of 10 episodes above a 9/10, which nothing else has come close to repeating. Well, I guess we’ll see about season 3 of House of the Dragon here.
House of the Dragon season 3 has had the benefit of its first episode essentially being what was supposed to be the finale of season 2, which is why that run of episodes fizzled out. Then, they made episode 2 something that also could have been a season finale with Rhaenyra taking the Iron Throne after her and Alicent’s scheme goes, shockingly, according to plan. Well, minus one headless father. I also rather enjoyed Aemond getting possibly fatally knifed by the least intimidating nobody in the series.
From what I’ve heard, the next few episodes are also great. I don’t believe critics have seen the entire season yet, as these high scores are based on the first half, but things seem to have really found their groove. This actually comes in the wake of a public schism between showrunner Ryan Condal and universe overlord George RR Martin, who has bemoaned significant changes to his original story. He’s been busy praising A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms for its faithfulness, but now we can see that both series are going quite well at the moment. I cannot wait until next week, and that’s not something I’ve said about House of the Dragon too often.
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