IR TV Review: HOUSE OF THE DRAGON - EPISODE 7 [HBO]
The notion of instinct and nature is one that plagues House Tagaryen. What is interesting about the jump now (as Episode 7 continues to flush out) is that the impulse Rhaenyera had in her youth seems to complicate ten-fold into her adult life. With the addition of family comes more questions and questionable decisions on both sides of the aisle. Every single one of these characters are imperfect with their good and bad sides. Impulse control plagues them all at one time or another. While the children of the different unions bring their own issues, the jockeying for ambition, place and one-upmanship (or in this case upwomanship) takes another path. Emma D'Arcy brings a steeliness wasn't in Milly Alcock at Rheanyera and of course the precociousness and sense of wonder is gone. She is more hardened to her station and her approach and yet regal and still impulsive in both good and bad ways . In the flip, Olivia Cooke actually has brought something more primal to Alicient and this episode continues to show those depths but a larger context might be in order beyond the surface elements.
Matt Smith and Paddy Considine as the jockeying brothers even after 15 years simmer below the surface. While a confrontation in the great hall and aspects of revelations create some interesting dynamics and throttle points that this world is known for, nothing has taken on a cinematic superlative like Daemon's taking of their foe on the beach in battle. There likely will be more of that but the scene that precedes said confrontation is supposed to affect wonder to give a sense of burgeoning but beyond some simple chiding, we don't know the character involved well enough to know what danger he might bring. The superlative at the end of the episode makes sense in the context of what is happening...and the climax of the last episode was pretty dire (if not a tad overdramatic) to warrant what happens here and open the characters up in different ways. But the House Tagaryen does have a plan. It is the just the path the King tried to choose at the beginning of the season is what brought him to this place. The House of Dragons will survive but what it needs to do for it to stay so perhaps in the end is not worth the price. As Lord Velaryon says ay one point in the episodes, power at times can mean nothing, History remembers names. B
By Tim Wassberg
