House of the Dragon Episode 2 Review: Matt Smith's Daemon Steals Every Scene

I just finished House of the Dragon episode two and I am digging this show, man, I am really digging this show. This is my immediate reaction, shot from the hip right after watching, before I have looked at anything else online. This one stays spoiler light.

I could see people going online and saying this episode was a slow burn where nothing really happened, and I would push back on that hard. In my view every single scene was really important. Rhaenyra is really coming into her own in this episode. She is not being taken seriously, getting brushed off like she is just there to fill up the coffee, and she has to push back and say this is what I have going on. She ends up putting forward maybe the only person who should be running the King's Guard, and it turns out to be the same man who knocked Daemon on his backside in the first episode.

Matt Smith's Daemon Targaryen delivers what I am calling his star turning performance

Speaking of Daemon, every time Matt Smith shows up on screen in this, he just takes over. I said it back when the trailers came out, and now that I have seen it play out, this is the one. I know Matt Smith from Doctor Who and everything else he has done, but this, right now, is his star turning performance. He is so good in this, and what makes it work is that the character has purpose. It is not just some lunatic doing lunatic things.

There is a scene between Daemon and Rhaenyra involving a dragon where it looks like it is about to turn into a lot of bloodshed, like it is going to go full Game of Thrones style violent, and then something else happens instead. There is a lot going on in that moment.

The king's storyline and the Targaryen politics are setting up what comes later

There is also a thread about the king still trying to figure things out, with some creepy possibilities hanging over whether he will or will not act on them. Alongside that there is the political maneuvering tied to the Targaryens, and how that could end up mattering for the heirs down the line. All of that combined with the performances made this, in my words, a genuinely well done episode. I loved this episode. Every single scene was powerful, every single scene, and the characters keep getting more intriguing the more we learn about them.

This felt like classic Game of Thrones without feeling gratuitous

This felt like classic Game of Thrones territory to me, with one house trying to do one thing, one character chasing power a different way, everyone maneuvering. There was no gratuitous stuff in this episode. I did not think the first episode was gratuitous either, even though I know a lot of people did. I think, given the era and the way the show set things up, it fit the world they are building, and I understand why it bothered some other viewers even if I did not feel that way myself. Episode two, to me, sets up a lot for what is still to come.

Did you like this episode, or were you bored by it? And beyond Daemon, who is standing out to you so far, is it Rhaenyra, or is the king pulling you in too?