A lot has happened since season one of Game of Thrones -spin-off House of the Dragon aired in the summer of 2022. Taylor Swift released two albums, we’ve had several changes of taoiseach and Ireland got knocked out of the Rugby World Cup once again (consistency in a universe gone mad). To put it another way, with life coming at us full speed and after a 24-month interlude, do we have the mental space to recall the granular details of this knotty George RR Martin spin-off, with its hostile Hightowers, threatening Targaryens and avalanche of angry teenagers in blond wigs? The answer is no, of course we don’t.
However, House of the Dragon (Sky Atlantic and Now, Monday 9pm) has decided not to take this into account as it stages its grand return and plunges straight back into the action. You may dimly recall series one concluding with a significant escalation in the simmering fallout between the rival factions within the ruling House Targaryen as Prince Aemond (blond, eye-patch, huge dragon) accidentally killed rival princeling Lucerys (brown hair, tiny dragon). The beacons are lit.
War between the “Green” and “Black” factions of the royal family is now inevitable. Game of Thrones was hardly a cuddly watch. But House of the Dragon hits like a pint of Special Brew compared to its predecessor’s fizzy shandy of gratuitous nudity, stab-happy weddings and performative sadism.
It is deeper, denser and darker – a sort of anti-TikTok that demands the viewers’ unwavering .