House Of The Dragon Review: The series kicks off with a bloody, brutal premiere

Even three years later, we still all get a bitter taste in our mouths when we hear the name Targaryen. That’s because Game Of Thrones, a show so popular that it became the most-watched series in television history, ended with what is arguably the most poorly thought-out character assassination in television history: In a rushed heel turn, Daenerys Targaryen, our intelligent, ambitious, and charismatic (if controversial) heroine for eight seasons, looked down on King’s Landing from astride her dragon, went abruptly apeshit, and started to hoover the streets of the city with dragon fire, committing senseless mass murder against her own subjects. Then she was assassinated by her lover/nephew Jon Snow because, y’know, can’t trust those ladies when they get power.

One of the first scenes of prequel series House Of The Dragon seems like an apology for how badly David Benioff and D.B. Weiss did Dany dirty. Another Targaryen soars over King’s Landing on dragonback—but it’s a joyful flight rather than a war crime. Safe on the ground, a young woman jumps off her mount who bears more than a passing resemblance to Emilia Clarke. This is Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock), the future Khaleesi’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great aunt.

House Of The Dragon, created by Ryan J. Condal and Westeros mastermind George R.R. Martin, is set 172 years before the overthrow of the centuries-long Targaryen reign that kicked off the events of Game Of Thrones. The first episode kicks off with a lengthy bit of exposition. The aged King Jaehaerys calls a council to decide who his heir will be: His eldest descendant, Rhaenys (Eve Best), or his eldest male descendant, Viserys. Surprise! The kingdom goes to the dude. Jaehaerys did this to prevent a civil war, because, as a voiceover warns us, “the only thing that could tear down the House Of The Dragon was itself.”

Nine years later, King Viserys I (a refreshingly subtle by Paddy Considine) has enjoyed a peaceful reign. He’s a genuinely nice guy, which Game Of Thrones vets know means he’ll probably get his head hacked off at some point. Rhaenyra is his only child, but his wife Aemma (Sian Brooke) is pregnant with what the powers that be hope will be a male heir.

Then everything goes fine and Aemma has a healthy baby boy, and the rest of the show is just the royal fam being happy-go-lucky sweethearts. Psych! This is Westeros, dummy, and things are gonna get hairy—and bloody—real fast.

Viserys sits down with his Small Council, led by Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), the Hand of the King. The subject of the day is planning a jousting tournament in honor of the maybe-prince’s maybe-birth, and it seems like these guys are really playing dice with the Old Gods and the New. The other big names you need to know here are Lord Corlys “The Sea Snake” Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), the husband of the throne-jilted Rhaenys, and the guy who’s pointedly not in the room: Viserys’ little brother Daemon, who sounds like he’s a lot.

And boy, is he ever. The family firebrand, portrayed with slimy magnetism by Matt Smith, makes his entrance by sitting on the Iron Throne, which he most definitely is not allowed to do. Only Rhaenyra knows that her uncle is in town. You see, he’s heard there’s going to be a tournament in his honor. The princess points out that it’s for her father’s heir, and Daemon is like: Yep, that’s me.

Rhaenyra—and the viewers—get a moment of respite when she goes to relax in the garden with her BFF Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey), who also happens to be Otto’s daughter. Alicent asks if all this heir business bothers her friend, but the princess says she’s happy to have someone else rule; she’d rather keep having adventures on her dragon than get repeatedly throne-stabbed. (Speaking of the metal chair, the king has an infected wound on his back that the maesters can’t figure out how to heal. That will probably turn out fine.)

The king goes to check in on her while she’s in the bath. The baby is due any day, and the pregnancy has been a rough one. Aemma is justifiably worried, but Viserys says he had a dream that their son was born and everything went amazing, so it’s definitely all going to be A-OK. Unlike Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister, by the way, Viserys and Aemma seem to genuinely love each other.

Meanwhile, we find out that in addition to being a drama queen, Daemon is also a sadist. He takes up his long-neglected duties as commander of the City Watch by spurring his men into “cleaning up” the city. And in case you were worried House Of The Dragon wasn’t going to have as much gore porn as its forbear, buckle up: The Gold Cloaks go full thin blue line on the small folk of King’s Landing, slaughtering petty criminals with abandon and carting away piles of dismembered bodies.

Daemon shows up at the Small Council the next morning proudly covered in the blood of his victims. Viserys waffles over whether the massacre was justified, but Otto isn’t having it. Daemon hurls insults at the Hand, and the two stare daggers at each other. Later that night, the rowdy prince has very public intercourse with a sex worker, because you knew a Game Of Thrones show couldn’t wait too long before doing a brothel scene. This is Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), who is due to play a pretty major role in the series.

Then it’s time for the tourney, which is taking place just as Aemma goes into labor. Daemon is up for the joust, of course, wearing a fabulous dragon-shaped helmet that wouldn’t look out of place on Drag Race. But things get gruesome real fast, as most jousts end in the competitors ditching their horses and bashing each other’s heads in. The gore gets so intense, in fact, that a young squire on the sidelines vomits in the dirt—and I almost did too.

Director Miguel Sapochnik uses this brutality to devastating effect by interspersing the knights’ skirmishes with Aemma’s harrowing labor. The grand maester tells Viserys it’s a breach birth, meaning the king must decide whether to save either the life of his child or his wife, but not both. After weighing his options, he holds Aemma’s hand in his, offering comforting words as the maesters and midwives carry out the choice he’s made without asking her.

The sequence is gorgeously filmed and edited, but it’s so graphic that it’s hard to say whether it’s masterful storytelling or gratuity for gratuity’s sake—a question that often plagued Game Of Thrones. There’s something extra horrific about how Sapochnik’s camera never turns away from the violence visited upon Aemma’s body; the knights who are beating each other to a pulp consented to their degradations—but she never did. In any case, it was all for nothing: It’s only minutes after the prince is born (and named Baelon by his stricken father) that he starts struggling for breath.

They build a funeral pyre for the bodies of Aemma and her child by the sea. An uncharacteristically grave Daemon tells Rhaenyra that her father needs her. She replies that she’ll never be the son he wanted. Still, the princess steps forward and utters the first “Dracarys!” of the series, and the king’s dragon sets the bodies aflame.

The Small Council is sharply divided over who will be Viserys’ new heir. The obvious choice is Daemon, but Otto knows this is the wrong choice: The prince is a loose cannon who could drag Westeros into ruin. Then he presents an unexpected option: Rhaenyra, who, if crowned, would become the first woman to ever sit on the Iron Throne.

Viserys is too overwhelmed with grief to make a choice. Luckily, Daemon makes it for him. The prince throws an orgy at the brothel for his men, and in a speech whose audience includes a couple mid-coitus, the prince toasts himself and calls Baelon “the heir for a day.” When the king catches wind of this, he chastises his wayward brother, tells him he’s chosen a new heir, and sends him packing.

Rhaenyra has no idea what she’s in for when her father calls her to the cellar of the Red Keep, standing before the huge skull of Balerion, the dragon their ancestors used to conquer Westeros. Viserys begins with a warning: The control their family holds over the dragons is an illusion that led to the infamous Doom of Valyria, and if they forget their history, they’re doomed to repeat it. Then he drops the bomb: With Baelon dead and Daemon out of the picture (for now), it’s her who’s going to inherit the Seven Kingdoms.

The lords of Westeros pledge fealty to their future queen, looking so young and lost in her royal raiment, over Viserys delivering the rest of his message to his daughter and heir. Aegon the Conquerer, the first Targaryen king, foresaw the end of the world of men, beginning with a terrible winter. In the throne room, a Stark bows to Rhaenyra.

If this first episode is anything to go on, House Of The Dragon will be a more staid affair than Game Of Thrones, for better or worse. So far, there are no characters as instantly appealing as Arya Stark or as funny as Tyrion Lannister. Time will tell whether the prequel will become as addictive as its forebear—and whether it will do better by its own would-be dragon queen.

Stray observations

• The outfits, technology, and jargon in House Of The Dragon are basically identical to the ones in Game Of Thrones, which takes place almost two centuries later. I know this is just an accepted thing in high fantasy, but, like…come on.
• The Iron Throne is even more foreboding back in the day, bracketed on both sides by melted swords that stick up at all angles like deadly cattails.
• Aemma tells Rhaenyra that the way women serve the realm is by bearing children, but her headstrong daughter would rather be a knight. We have a feeling that in the days to come, she’ll have to be a little of both.
• Lord Corlys gives the council a warning about trouble brewing in the Free Cities across the Narrow Sea—but it goes largely ignored thanks to the hubbub around the tournament. Keep an eye on that eastern horizon.
• Daemon loses the tournament’s most epic fight to Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), who looks to be House Of The Dragon’s resident hottie. Here’s hoping no one explodes his beautiful skull!
• Otto comes off as a decent dad right up until he sends Alicent to the king’s bedchamber to “comfort” him in his time of grief. It is real, real rough to be a teenage girl in Westeros.
• Viserys says that Aegon the Conquerer called his vision for the rise of the Targaryens and the eventual invasion of the White Walkers “a song of ice and fire.” Get it? Get it?!