Second of His Name

Normally don't review individual episode. But this one deserves individual praise. Paddy Considine's portrayal of Viserys Targaryen is probably better than how GRRM wrote him. The musics, specially in the end was on point. It elevated the visuals rather than being a distraction. Rhys Ifans and Matt Smith brought their a game. Even Milly Alcock (as Rhaenyra), whose acting I found a bit wooden in previous two episodes, improved her overall performance. Gave 9/10 instead of a perfect score coz. The Dragon CGI needs a little bit of work. Otherwise this was a flawless 1 hr entertainment.

Now I really feel bad for the billion dollar dumpster fire that is the Rings of Power, whose review is still locked on IMDb.

When I find myself looking forward to the next episode I know that the show has succeeded in capturing my interest. There is no question HotD has done that. Those that are comparing it to GOT after 3 episodes are just ridiculous. Let's wait for an entire season and then we can make comparisons but so far so good. They are developing the characters, the writing is intelligent and the production values are off the charts.

Oh and pro tip, if you see any interview with the word "woke" in it, don't even bother reading because it is more than likely written by some little fragile little thing that just can't handle diversity in any form as it apparently threatens their world view. It is sooooo tiresome.

This is definitely my favourite episode so far. The acting was as always outstanding. Without giving anything away, I want to say that there were a couple of unexpected moments through the episode. These moments only made it more exciting to watch. I think that they did a great Job with the time jump. Personally I was a bit scared about the time jumps, but this one was done in a proper way. You immediately knew what happened in those 3 years and it didn't get confusing to me. The most exciting part of this episode was definitely the battle in the Stepstones. The directing and fighting was phenomenal. After watching this one, I am even more curious about what's going to happen in the next! Definitely worth watching.

Actually, the director of this episode doesn't seem to be very good at directing battle scenes on the battlefield. They should let Miguel Sapochnik direct the fight scenes in this episode. Personally, the battle scene at the end of this episode didn't convince me. Just all the blood and killing each other, so disturbing and uncomfortable, instead of giving the viewer a sense of drama and fear when the characters rushed into battle. When I saw Daemon hurling himself at the pirates and getting a rain of arrows, I was pretty sure he would survive, so what's the point of that scene? Even the fact that the crabfeeder was killed so easily and without saying a single word, this unsurprised me no more than a Velaryon riding a dragon and shouting "Dracarys!". Wow what a not-so-interesting scene. I was waiting for the climax at the end, and I was disappointed. Actually the detail at the end could develop the Daemon character, but the beach fight scene is really boring. GOT has a lot of interesting battles, but this is not one of them.

Speaking of what happened before that battle, wow I must say I'm so satisfied. King Viserys is so well developed and as a viewer and know many interesting GOT characters, I'm starting to get interested in this squishy and soft king. The emotions and thoughts that Viserys has experienced and felt in more than 10 years of being King, I can personally understand through just over half an hour in this episode. And including the relationship between father and daughter, the disagreement between generations, I believe this episode has messages for real-life families, in today's modern generation as well. And once again I would like to commend the team of costumes, setting design, so beautiful, so dreamy. Through this episode we also get to know many new characters, and hopefully they will join this game in a larger role.

Masterfully written & directed episode, accompanied by multiple standout character performances, and a truly haunting soundtrack.

So reminiscent of early-mid GoT in terms of quality, pace, and writing, that it's actually scary. Everything was on point. The tempo didn't feel too rushed nor too slow, the story was seamlessly immersive and real, despite being set in a fantasy world where dragon sightings are an everyday occurence. Only complaint would be that, at times, it felt like tiny bits of the plot were missing ever so slightly. Some things that happened off-camera might've been decent additions to the already great episode, but that's really nitpicking.

All in all, a great display of screenwriting & execution.