Why within the seven hells did not ‘Home of the Dragon’ Season 2 have 10 episodes?

How will you greatest sum up the Home of the Dragon Season 2 finale? 4 phrases: good episode, underwhelming finale.

In some ways, the Season 2 nearer, titled “The Queen Who Ever Was,” ought to be a Home of the Dragon viewer’s wildest dream. The present treats us to scene after scene of unbelievable, dialogue-driven character work, from Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent Hightower’s (Olivia Cooke) charged reunion to Alyn of Hull’s (Abubakar Salim) brutally trustworthy confrontation together with his father, Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint). Plus, we get a number of fascinating nods to the magical powers at work in Westeros, like Daemon Targaryen’s (Matt Smith) weirwood imaginative and prescient and Helaena Targaryen’s (Phia Saban) dragon dreaming prophecy.

However a lot of that goodness loses its shine when you think about “The Queen Who Ever Was”s many missteps, and the place this episode stands within the context of Home of the Dragon as a complete. It is the top of the season, so why are we simply now spending a lot time on Tyland Lannister’s (Jefferson Corridor) tour to Essos? Why does Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) hunt the dragon Sheepstealer for your entire episode, just for the finale to finish earlier than they honestly work together? Why do the final two minutes play like a “next week on” trailer for a nonexistent ninth episode, as a substitute of delivering a particular conclusion to Season 2?

The purpose is, it seems like one thing is lacking because the finale’s credit roll. And what’s lacking are the additional two episodes that may have taken this season from eight episodes to a much-needed 10, identical to Home of the Dragon‘s first season and far of its predecessor Recreation of Thrones. Two extra hours of storytelling — I might even settle for only one! — would have allowed Home of the Dragon extra room to increase on the various arcs that really feel woefully incomplete by the top of Season 2. One specifically involves thoughts: the much-teased Battle of the Gullet.

“To the Gullet on the morrow!” (However actually, Season 3.)

The Home of the Dragon storyline that’s maybe most emblematic of all the frustration in the direction of the Season 2 finale is that of the Velaryon blockade within the stretch of ocean often called the Gullet. We have heard concerning the blockade since Season 2’s very first episode, and it has been a continuing murmur all through the season ever since: Rhaenys (Eve Greatest) discusses patrolling it, Corlys plans to hitch it as soon as his ship is repaired, Group Inexperienced laments the strain it places on King’s Touchdown, and Rhaenyra and Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) finally use it to their benefit in gaining the smallfolk to their facet. Principally, Home of the Dragon is telling you again and again that the blockade within the Gullet is a huge deal.

All this emphasis on the blockade creates expectations. With each point out of the blockade, Home of the Dragon units up a story sample that it needs you to concentrate to. Consider it like Chekhov’s gun. After we see a loaded gun onstage, we all know it should go off by the top of a play. After we hear a lot concerning the blockade within the Gullet, after all we’ll anticipate {that a} large-scale battle will play out within the Gullet by the top of Home of the Dragon Season 2.

Sadly, Chekhov’s gun will get jammed right here, and Home of the Dragon doesn’t go to the Gullet in Season 2. As an alternative, it pushes the pivotal battle off to Season 3 together with Rhaena’s (seemingly) claiming of Sheepstealer, no matter’s up with jailed Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), Rhaenyra and her dragonriders’ assault on King’s Touchdown, and the various forces converging upon the Riverlands. The frustration round these storylines not reaching any strong conclusions just isn’t as easy a criticism as “we yearn for sweet, sweet dragon action!” It is truly exasperation over being promised one thing for a whole season, then being instructed to attend one other few years for payoff. Because it stands, “The Queen Who Ever Was” seems like an episode constructing as much as a finale. Think about if Home of the Dragon adopted it up with the Battle of the Gullet in a possible Season 2 episode 9 or 10! We might have gotten closure on one in every of Season 2’s largest-scale conflicts — and nonetheless had greater than sufficient to get enthusiastic about in Season 3.

Why Home of the Dragon‘s Season 2 ending would not work — and why we would have liked the Battle of the Gullet.

Steve Toussaint in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit score: Ollie Upton/HBO

The stability between narrative satisfaction and constructing anticipation is a difficult line that each one season finales should stroll. Apart from Rhaenyra and Alicent’s chic confrontation and Daemon lastly bending the knee after six episodes of weirwood remedy, “The Queen Who Ever Was” would not actually deal in satisfaction. It leans too far into anticipation and errors an unfulfilling cliffhanger for narrative momentum (one thing we might have used within the lull following Rook’s Relaxation).

To know simply how unsatisfying Home of the Dragon‘s Season 2 finale was within the grand scale of Westerosi storytelling, let’s evaluate it to an analogous season finale from a well-known present: Recreation of Thrones.

“The Winds of Winter,” the Season 6 finale of Recreation of Thrones, shares some similar-seeming beats with “The Queen Who Ever Was.” Each episodes characteristic game-changing visions: Bran learns that Jon is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, whereas Daemon learns of the Music of Ice and Fireplace. Each episodes additionally finish with new alliances. In Recreation of Thrones, the Tyrells, Yara Greyjoy, and Sand Snakes ally with Daenerys Targaryen, whereas in Home of the Dragon, Alicent and Rhaenyra hatch a plan collectively, and Tyland Lannister secures the Triarchy’s naval help. However the largest commonality that stood out to me was the quite simple proven fact that these finales finish with “People On Boats Sailing Towards Big Things.” Recreation of Thrones‘ model of that is Daenerys lastly crusing to Westeros along with her fleet (and lots of allies). Home of the Dragon, then again, options Alyn and Corlys rowing out to the blockade, with Tyland and Lysene admiral Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn) crusing to fulfill it.

That is a variety of Individuals On Boats about to do Massive Issues, however there’s one key distinction between the 2. Recreation of Thrones spent all of Season 6 — no, the complete present — constructing in the direction of Daenerys leaving for Westeros. Her departure from Essos is in itself the top of 1 narrative arc for her, and the beginning of one other. It is each narratively satisfying (she’s leaving, what an enormous step!) and in addition makes you need to know what she’ll do when she reaches the subsequent section of her journey. In Home of the Dragon, we’re nonetheless mid-blockade arc. The present has particularly been constructing to the Battle of the Gullet (and Rhaena’s dragon claiming, and the showdown within the Riverlands, and Daeron’s arrival from Oldtown, and, and, and…) for the entire season, so stopping now could be mainly the equal of stopping Recreation of Thrones Season 6 earlier than the Battle of the Bastards.

Home of the Dragon is already falling into the pitfalls of shorter seasons.

Freddie Fox in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit score: Ollie Upton/HBO

Whereas Recreation of Thrones actually caught the touchdown on its Season 6 finale, its seventh and eighth seasons proved disappointments. Similar to Home of the Dragon Season 2, these two seasons have been shorter than their predecessors, which means the story acquired much less respiration room. Overly rushed character improvement and plot factors compounded on each other till we have been left with an underdeveloped, unsatisfying letdown.

Equally, Home of the Dragon Season 2 is already feeling the pressure of a shorter episode order. Within the finale alone, there have been a number of scenes that felt like we have been lacking connective tissue between “The Queen Who Ever Was” and its predecessors. How did Aemond Targaryen’s (Ewan Mitchell) barbecuing of Sharp Level play out? How did Alicent act upon her return from her cleaning lake swim? Why did Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox) select this episode of all episodes to immediately confront Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) over his affair with Alicent? These are all issues Home of the Dragon lets us infer pretty effectively, however there’s nonetheless sufficient of a disconnect between episodes that we might have used somewhat extra time fleshing out the moments between them.

Home of the Dragon is way from the primary style present to battle with a shorter episode order, a sacrifice seemingly made to be able to pull off high-budget sequences like Rook’s Relaxation and the Purple Sowing. Recreation of Thrones, clearly, involves thoughts, and as a lot as I really like latest Star Wars providing The Acolyte, I will be the primary to confess it wanted extra time to really develop its story and concepts.

Nevertheless, Home of the Dragon does really feel like the primary present whose “missing” episodes I’ve felt essentially the most. No less than with Recreation of Thrones and The Acolyte, you are getting the entire story. Watching Home of the Dragon Season 2, I really feel like I am lacking 20 p.c of the narrative — and an important 20 p.c at that.

Home of the Dragon Season 2 is now streaming on Max.