You'd be forgiven for watching House of the Dragon and thinking, “Wait, what happened to Game of Thrones?” The glory days of sex, blood, and rock and roll are a distant memory. The most tense scene in the latest episode of House of the Dragon was the meeting of the Small Council of House Black to decide who should become Prince Regent. There were some sex scenes, but these took place entirely in Damon's (Matt Smith) imagination. I mean, who am I kidding! No third baseman could say “It was all a dream”! That would probably have been a 12A rating. HBO's sequel industrially cleaned up Westeros. What's in the wash? A political podcast.
And for good reason, these shows are all the rage. At the time of writing, the most popular podcast in the UK is The Rest Is Politics. Number three? The Rest is Politics: US. Number six is The News Agents. There were at least three more in the top 20 last week (Sky's show Electoral Dysfunction is a notable example). No doubt the election cycles in the UK and US have boosted their popularity, but they should be going strong regardless. People love to hear people argue about other people. Who would have thought that?
Dragons have created a rhythm. There are shocking moments, followed by a lot of chatter about strategy. At the beginning of the season, Daemon paid an assassin to behead Aegon's (Tom Glynn-Carney) child. It sparked a lot of discussion about fighting back. More recently, Aegon jumped into the fight only to be defeated by his brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell). It sparked a lot of discussion about how to replace Aegon. These conversations — the green ones in the Small Council at King's Landing, the black ones around the Painted Table at Dragonstone — have a particular podcast feel. There's a laugh spurt, an interjection, a final line. In episode five, various members of Aegon's team — particularly Larry's Strong (Matthew Needham) and Christon Cole (Fabian Frankel) — debate why Aemond and not Alicent (Olivia Cooke). Alicent's statement was dismissed, the music started playing, and after an awkward conversation it felt like we were cutting to an ad break: “Are you interested in a mattress subscription?”
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If you know the ending, you probably won't be surprised to learn that both families are utterly inept. It makes the whole thing much more interesting and fun to discuss. It's good to hear clever insights, but I love to see the incompetence. These strategy meetings attract idiots. I think real strategy meetings attract idiots. But there are some star idiots: Kol, Aegon, and, whisper it, Rhaenyra (Emma Darcy). Jace (Harry Collett), who was previously only described as sweet, is making smarter moves about how to solve the dragonrider shortage.
In the latest episode, the head of Meris (she's a dragon) was paraded through the streets of King's Landing, shocking the locals. It was preceded by the brutal death of Rhaenys (she's a dragon rider, played by Eve Best) in Rook's Rest. The clip was circulating online a few days before the episode, with people from X commenting that House Green had committed an extremely stupid act, as required by law, to show that dragons, previously thought to be fire-breathing omnipotent beings, could be conquered. Good point, I thought, and kept scrolling. And then I watched the episode, nodding again to the dejected resident who stated that dragons were “just meat.” I felt like we were all in a recording studio together. This is the show that knows how to talk about it on every level, and made us all podcast hosts.
House of the Dragon is available to watch on Sky Atlantic and NOW
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Henry is Esquire's Senior Culture Writer, covering film, television, literature, music and the arts for the magazine and website. He has previously contributed to The Guardian, Telegraph and the Evening Standard. At Esquire he explores all forms of entertainment and writes regular film and TV reviews, from feature pieces on the legacy of Lost in Translation to trend pieces on Taylor Swift. He has also written a number of profiles for Esquire and interviewed the likes of George Clooney, Austin Butler and Mike Feist.
