House of the Dragon returns with a great Season 2 premiere, though changes from the book are a little perplexing. Written review: www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...
I like the change to the Blood and Cheese scene. Now, with Aegon no longer having another male heir, it sets up the same dynamic that existed between Viserys and Daemon (Aemond is now second in line for the throne). Also, Alicent's relationship with Criston being partially responsible for what happened to Jaehaerys is a great change, especially since Larys may have been involved with allowing it to happen so he can gain even more control over Alicent (while removing Criston as a suitor).
Alicent also gets to see the consequences of her actions first-hand and on display for a crowd as well next episode. So that point is kind of moot as well.
Very much board setting for sure, but it was good to see where the pieces were aligned as well as the various cliques/divisions within each. However the fallout next episode should be pretty nuts.
Ironically they split the baby with this ending. The ending in the book is so dark. The ending of this episode was very dark but it really could have been so much worse. This was a red wedding level event and they went with the Freys murder scene instead, impactful but not what it could be. I turned off the Boys 30 minutes in. I do not want to sit through modern day American politics in my satire, so I’m out. We get it, orange man bad. Then the comparisons to Rittenhouse were so on the nose but also a gross misunderstanding of what happened. Kripke said if you don’t like the politics don’t watch, based on the rotten tomatoes score many are like me and tapping out.
Oh god. The Boys sounds more on the nose and insufferable than S4 of Supergirl, with the constant anti gun and pro immigration narratives, with LITERAL illegal aliens trying to gain US citizenship storyline 🤦
I haven't bothered with this season of the Boys, the gradual icrease in politicking thru S1-3 got too unbearable. Plus a cringey homage to Seth Rogan in S3 was nauseating.
I prefer the weekly release model for shows that I like, but don't love. It's nice to just have one episode of something to put on during my lunch hour. However, for shows that I really get into, I very much enjoy hunkering down over a weekend and watching it all at once. It just makes it easer to remember the details of the early episodes and analyze how character arcs and themes develop throughout the season.
I thought they did the blood and cheese scene fine. But then once I read what happened in the book, i did feel like they made some unnecessary changes for the worse. Can’t help but feel that these were the sorts of changes George was talking about.
I'm just not over-the-moon for HotD like I was w/ GoT. I've read all the source material multiple times, and I have to say I've been disappointed so far with the way the showrunners are fleshing this thing out. One of the writers at least said 'our version' or 'this version' in the after-the-show thing, I believe, and this is definitely a different version. I didn't hate it, but I wish it steered nearer to the source material than what we're getting. I'm pretty sure what annoyed me about season-1 will continue to annoy me about season-2: that being, the two queens are just victims of all these men. I also don't like the way Daemon is depicted. Aemond is a decent depiction so far, even though I doubt his dragon 'accidentally' killed Luc in the novella, but Daemon comes off as a more complicated and, on occasion, low-key noble character in the stories (and if not noble, just more cunning and reserved), not this insufferable 'Targaryen prince' ordering people around for them to just shrug him off (and the argument folks made about the differences in season-1 was that the maesters wrote the stories, so they are skewed against the Targs, only for them to depict Daemon more noble and the women like villains, which makes no sense - are the maesters against the Targs or against women? dumb). I'll watch next week's episode - gonna give it a chance - but I might not finish the season.
I agree with your commentary, in the book this sounds like a very exciting and climactic scene, in the screen on this episode, it was just a dud and fizzled out quick!
If I remember , the boys last name switched to Targaryen when their mother took the throne? Thats per the original agreement between King Vicerys and the Lord of Tides in S1. Note that Alencent called Lucerus "Valerian" not not Luc Targaryen, when lighting the candle for him. I could be wrong, would have to go back and watch it.
I do prefer the weekly drop, but it's much much more enjoyable for shows that suck-diddly-uck, like Rings of Power, mandalorian S3, Ashoka. The online pile on around the show is vastly more enjoyable in that case (but shows that badly made are hard to find)
Great show but I honestly dont understand how anyone knew that Aemond had killed Lucerys. They were in the middle of a giant storm. No-one saw them or what happened. All Aemond had to do was go home and pretend he hadnt seen him and no-one would have been any the wiser, surely? They couldnt have blamed him without proof at least? Even if someone happened to see the dragon fall into the ocean, it could have been struck by lightning in the storm or something?? Weird.
One thing I tell my other book buddies… the Blood and Cheese in the books can still happen. If Alicent goes “Hey… my and Kristen were not banging and my daughter caught as after the murder… we were all attacked in my bedroom and this is really what happened….”
I'm pretty sure the dialog at the Wall was along the lines of "Why would our ancestors build a 50 billion foot tall wall??.. Because there's more out there to fear than just Wildlings... yadda yadda death itself". Definitely referencing White Walkers.
Having read the books, I'm ok with them changing that scene, violence against kids is a really rough thing to depict, it's possible that the writers, producers and actors just weren't down with pushing the envelope that far, especially considering the revised scene gets most of the theme across very well.
But they don't really remove the violence against kids. The big changes were Alicent not being there and the choice Helaena had to make. I do agree taking out the rape threat was wise.
@@ErikKain I do agree that without her in the room there was a real need for a change for it to make sense. I still think it got the point across though, made me cringe pretty hard.
I think they did push it more far for one aspect, because according to book Blood decapitated kid in one swoop swing of the sword, but in show you can hear him struggling and gurgling, before they finally manage to start sawing his head off with blade... and you cannot depict this on camera for obvious reasons: the kid-actor is to young to play this all out, and there probably would still be a lot to cgi around it... Personally, they did almost perfect, but the last scene with Cole and Alicent did took me out immediately...
That's why I made my channel when this show aired cos i knew i wouldnt remember any of it myself 2 years later lol and I wanred to entertain myself in the process 😅👍
The book readers unhappiness with the 'Blood & Cheese' scene is hilarious to me. 'Outrage Culture' at its finest. 1) Comparing the level of violence to what happened in 'GoT' is goofy, as that show was under DIFFERENT SHOWRUNNERS. 2) You people don't even realise how debased and bloodthirsty you are in saying "We wanted more hardcore violence in the unaliving of children", which in essence shows how far society has fallen, and is a DIRECT reflection of yourselves. And as for you Erik, stop issuing mea culpas because you cant pronounce Targaryen names. We will enroll you in High Valerian 102 summer school.
This is a Game of Thrones property. We’ve seen children set on fire, pregnant women stabbed in the abdomen, etc. I don’t buy the claim I’ve seen elsewhere that they were wise to make this more PG to retain an audience. They should have leaned in to make this as horrific as possible. That would include having Alicent in the scene as a hostage instead of how she was depicted with Cole
