House of the Dragon is back with another episode titled "The Green Council" and there are only one episode left after this. The premise the episode: While Alicent enlists Cole and Aemond to track down Aegon, Otto gathers the great houses of Westeros to affirm their allegiance. What follows is some brilliant drama and scenes that will stay in your mind, the writing and direction is superb. With how the scale is smaller than Game of Thrones, it becomes much more character driven and more personal which I found to be quite great for this show. It gives us a more mature story, told by better writers that have faith on its viewers. This was exactly what I wanted after the previous episode and they didn't disappoint, it was an hour of spectacular television.
With Viserys Targaryen death in the previous episode, we are left with the aftermath and the ascension of a new king/queen have started. I have nothing but praise for Olivia Cooke in this episode, she was terrific, bringing an Award worthy performance. Like many others. Eve Best did her best performance as Rhaenys Targaryen, Rhys Ifans gave one of his best as Ser Otto Hightower. At first I was quite surprised in how the episode was solely situated in King's Landing as it meant no Rhaenyra and Daemon, but it was the right choice, thus giving the supporting cast more time to shine.
I wrote before how brilliant the writing is and I can't praise it enough, I think Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik along with George R. R Martin have done perfect job with creating the show, with the two former being show runners. Sara Hess wrote episode 1.09 "The Green Council" and her work was brilliant, with Clare Kilner directing it and her work was too quite phenomenal. There's a Shakespearean quality to this show that makes every scene so interesting to watch, really giving the show a different feeling than it's predecessor and other shows. It feels much more serious and mature, more intelligent in a sense, than Game of Thrones. The characters are so richly drawn and the tension and conflict that's built up between them so compelling and complex. Despite the plethora of dragons, it is less fantastical for one thing. It's also more focused and less epic, with a smaller cast and a tighter focus. Sometimes I do miss that big scale and epicness Game of Thrones had, but I'm sure we'll get that back in season 2 when Dance of Dragons begins. Episode 1.09 was brilliant, the whole production was superb, but the musical score... Just wow, with the piano to the epic music, Ramin Djawadi continue to impress.
