Rad: FYI, I didn’t actually watch [Game of Thrones]. I came into House of the Dragon Season 2 kind of cold. With that in mind, Sean, what did you make of the big finale?

Sean: Well, call me old fashioned, but I’m the kind of person who thinks that when a season of a television show builds to a big, epic battle, it should show the big, epic battle. And so for the second time this year — first with Shōgun, and now with House of the Dragon — I wound up being kind of disappointed by the end. But I understand why they made the decision that they made.

Even a show like House of the Dragon has a limited budget, and doing all those effects-intensive dragon sequences costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time. They had a shorter season than they had the first time around; I’d imagine that changed the rhythm around a bit. It’s not maybe how I would have emphasized things towards the end, but I thought that as an episode it was so effective at building that tension. It was almost like a victim of its own success — like, if I hadn’t been so invested in all those fights happening, I wouldn’t have felt so disappointed. So in that way, it worked.

Variety tv critic Alison Herman and I appeared on Commotion on CBC yesterday to discuss the House of the Dragon finale. We both liked it! Click here to read some of the discussion and find links to watch/listen to the whole thing.

Chekhov warned writers against placing just one gun on the mantel without firing it by the end, let alone a dozen. In its second season finale, “House of the Dragon” calls Chekhov’s bluff 11 times over.

Vhagar, Dreamfyre, Syrax, Vermax, Vermithor, Caraxes, Seasmoke, Silverwing, Moondancer and the newcomers Sheepstealer and Tessarion: These are the living dragons introduced thus far, all available — theoretically, anyway — to take part in hostilities when the episode begins. (Aegon pronounces his dragon, Sunfyre, dead, so that takes him out of the action; more on Sheepstealer and Tessarion later.) Eleven beasts locked and loaded, and not a single one fired when the closing credits roll.

True, Vhagar torches a town off-camera at Aemond’s command, a horrific crime that shocks both the Black and Green camps. Still, the entire episode — the entire season — builds to a conflagration that never arrives. Even the abundance of dragons soaring together in the opening credits’ tapestry feels like a bait and switch.

That final cut to black knocked the wind out of my sails. Unfortunately, the episode is so good at building tension and anticipation for the three-front war on the horizon that it becomes a victim of its own success when the action doesn’t arrive.

I reviewed the season finale of House of the Dragon for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

This was the big one. In retrospect, the fourth episode of Lady in the Lake makes the first three look like they were holding their breath (when they weren’t gasping it out while fucking or dancing or running for their lives, of course), waiting for this big inevitable exhalation of raw unadulterated plot movement. A lot happens in this episode — some of it above and beyond what seems strictly necessary, or even advisable, to tell the story of these two women.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Lady in the Lake for Decider.

Lady in the Lake is two shows in one. Each half has a charismatic female protagonist, a murder-mystery/crime-thriller plot, and an awareness of the race, class, and gender power differentials at work. But they don’t feel the same, do they, despite all that? And it goes beyond the skin color and religion of the leading players, too. Creator-director Alma Har’el and writer Briana Belser make this not just a tale of two cities, but almost of two genres.

I reviewed last week’s episode of Lady in the Lake for Decider.

In Sunday’s episode, Queen Rhaenyra, played by Emma D’Arcy, recruits commoners of noble blood — the illegitimate children of Targaryen royals, known as dragonseeds — to see if these dragons will accept them as riders, in order to expand her army. Most die in fiery agony, but an unassuming barfly named Ulf claims Silverwing.

“I worked out quite quickly that Silverwing is one of the kinder dragons and, I believe, the most beautiful,” said Tom Bennett, who plays Ulf. His performance is different as a result: “It’s the first time you ever get to see someone flying a dragon laughing.”

Vermithor was something else, said Kieran Bew, who plays a commanding blacksmith named Hugh. The significance of the character, who has been seen throughout the season, is revealed when he claims the ill-tempered dragon.

“We talked about how Vermithor is the Bronze Fury — an angry dragon,” he said. “From a performance perspective, knowing that leads to the choices Hugh makes during the claiming. You’ve got to make yourself big, man.”

I talked to showrunner Ryan Condal, VFX supervisor Daði Einarsson, and actors Clinton Liberty, Tom Bennett, and Kieran Bew about how House of the Dragon creates its dragons for the New York Times.

Elsewhere in the realm, Rhaenyra’s husband, Daemon, has other matters on his mind. (His daughter Rhaena, coincidentally, is off in the Vale on a dragon hunt of her own.) Oscar Tully (a commanding Archie Barnes), the teenage lord paramount of the pivotal Riverlands region, has come to Harrenhal with all his vassals for an audience with the self-appointed king. Daemon thinks this will be a simple matter of cowing a kid, then getting him to cow all the lords and ladies sworn to follow him.

But Lord Oscar is made of sterner stuff. Risking death by dragonfire, the kid dog-walks Daemon in front of all the Riverlords — proclaiming openly his dislike of the man, calling his conduct reprehensible and generally declaring him an unfit representative for a just cause. Finally, Oscar forces Daemon to execute one of his own loyal lords for war crimes if he wants the others’ help at all. Daemon glowers and fumes and … then does what he is told.

On the very day that he is brought to heel by a green boy who better understands politics than he does, Daemon is visited in a vision once again by his brother, King Viserys, maimed and deformed as he was in his dying days. Viserys holds his golden crown in his hands, telling his brother of its crushing weight, of the endless pain it causes.

“You always wanted it, Daemon,” the dream-king says. “Do you want it still?” For the first time since the show began, it feels as if the answer may be no.

I reviewed this week’s episode of House of the Dragon for the New York Times.

Stefan and I discuss this week’s ep of House of the Dragon on the longest-running A Song of Ice and Fire podcast still alive and kicking—available here or wherever you get your podcasts!

But throughout the season, I wasn’t really asking myself who killed Carolyn Polhemus. I was asking myself Why does Rusty act that way? and Since he’s constantly thinking of her in sexual terms, is he going to try to satiate that sex drive elsewhere again at some point? and Can Tommy Molto be saved? and Why does Nico Della Guardia sound like that anyway? Solve as many murders as you want as long as you let me keep those investigations wide open.

I reviewed the season finale of Presumed Innocent for Decider.

I’m not agnostic on whether it’s hot to watch a baked Natalie Portman come on to, and I mean come on hard to, a younger man she barely knows, from across any number of racial, religious, class, and career divides. The formation of desire, from its first primordial stirrings to the moment when the chemistry between mind, heart and body bursts into sensual life, is one of the core features of cinema. Har’el captures that spark of desire, the moment when the idea of sex goes from “huh! interesting!” to “I am making this happen,” beautifully here.

I reviewed the second episode of Lady in the Lake for Decider.

“They say,” the narration begins, “until the lion tells its story, the hunter will always be the hero.” Crime stories, true or otherwise, often bear this out; you don’t have to be an aficionado to notice that, but it helps. I once spent an unhappy time in my life learning about serial killers, and one fact kept stopping me short: While the killer’s story begins when he starts killing, the victim’s story ends at the same time. Killers take away a person’s right to tell their own story, in their own time.

Based on the novel by Laura Lippman, creator/writer/director/co-editor Alma Har’el’s Lady in the Lake aims to redress this problem. “Aims” may be understating it: From the very first lines, spoken by a woman who’s talking to you from beyond the watery grave we’re watching her get dumped into, Lady takes a damn sledgehammer to the killer-centric narrative. It’s not subtle, is what I’m saying. But maybe it shouldn’t be.

I reviewed the first episode of Lady in the Lake, Apple TV+’s new Natalie Portman/Moses Ingram murder mystery, for Decider.

The hug lasts 45 seconds before they kiss. Yes, I counted. In the terms of that episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” where Larry hugs Auntie Rae for a little too long, it’s nine “five Mississippi”s. And like any long, drawn-out take on this densely packed show, it stops everything in its tracks.

For three quarters of a minute, we watch empathy, respect, gratitude, warmth, heat, curiosity, desire and, finally, passion all play out in the silent embrace between Queen Rhaenyra and her friend and counselor Mysaria. For the first time in their lives, each of these two very different people has found somebody she sees as an equal, and who sees her as an equal in turn, and the thought quickly goes from comforting to intoxicating. Dragons are flying, men are burning, reigns are teetering, but for as long as that embrace lasts, the world of “House of the Dragon” exists between these two women’s arms.

I reviewed tonight’s episode of House of the Dragon

This, ultimately, is the smartest move made by writer-creator Robert Rodat in the development of this show: Pairing the destinies of the power player we like the best and the one we like the least. Every victory is tainted, every loss contains a glimmer of hope. It leaves you wanting things to both happen and not happen at the same time — like the senators who offer up the weakest “Hail, Caesar” in human history as a response to Domitian’s ascension, we both accept it and don’t. It’s very smart storytelling.

I reviewed the final two episodes of Those About to Die for Vulture. It was a hoot.

I’m growing increasingly fond of Those About to Die as it goes. I enjoy unexpected filigrees and flourishes like Xenon coming on to Scorpus, like the playful “tchk tchk” sound Antonia makes when she tells her prospective new driver, Elia, that he’ll need to prove himself (if that wasn’t an invention of actor Gabriella Pession, I’ll eat an Andalusian), or like Tenax proclaiming what might as well be this show’s house words as he maps out his plan for the soon-to-open Flavian Amphitheatre, a.k.a. the Roman Colosseum: “Enough is good, more is better, too much is perfect.”

I reviewed episodes seven and eight of Those About to Die for Vulture.

And as the world’s biggest sucker for cooperation, I can’t tell you how my heart leapt to see Tenax, Domitian, and Titus work together to thwart Marsus’s play for the throne. None of these guys are such great shakes, so it’s not like, “Hooray, evil is defeated” or anything like that. It’s more that it’s simply pleasant to watch people who have every incentive to be at each other’s throats instead choose to work together, help each other, and treat each other decently in the process. When Titus sincerely thanked Domitian for saving his life, I wanted to get in on a group hug. Life may be cheap in Rome, but that’s all the more reason to let your bro know you love him.

I reviewed episodes five and six of Those About to Die for Vulture.

Blue, white, red, green, gold — these are the colors of the factions whose drivers thrill the crowds at the Circus Maximus. But the color I want to talk about is purple. A dawn purple, a dusk purple, making the streets of Rome look cool and rich and inviting. This particular shade of purple doesn’t really show up until director Marco Kreuzpaintner takes over from Roland Emmerich for Those About to Die’s fourth episode. But after spending much of the intervening time in the amorphous, blue-and-orange color-graded no-man’s-land favored by so many TV productions today, it’s nice to spend a little time in lavender and violet. Feels appropriately imperial, doesn’t it?

I reviewed the third and fourth episodes of Those About to Die for Vulture.

With a cold-blooded murder orchestrated by its main character within its premiere episode’s first minute, Those About to Die ain’t your daddy’s sword-and-sandal action epic. Except that, well, it kind of is. Its writer-creator, Robert Rodat, is the Academy Award–nominated screenwriter of Saving Private Ryan, perhaps the greatest dad movie of them all (give or take a Shawshank Redemption). Roland Emmerich, director of the first two episodes, gave us Independence Day among many other “Sunday afternoon on TNT in a hotel room” blockbusters.

The show is largely being sold on the strength of a pivotal but minor role played by Anthony Hopkins, who achieved megastardom more than 30 years ago. Even the source material — the dubiously accurate and extraordinarily lurid “history” of Roman gladiatorial games and combat-sport spectacles by Daniel P. Mannix, the cover blurb of which is transcribed above — is the kind of thing you’d find moldering on your granddad’s bookshelf. For all its nudity and gore, the latter liberally splashed across the streets and statuaries of Rome in the CGI opening credits, Those About to Die is not in danger of crossing any kind of artistic Rubicon anytime soon.

The short version: This is the most obviously Game of Thrones–inspired show to come along since Shōgun, and it lacks half that show’s vision or restraint.

But sometimes you just wanna see sexy people in gladiator uniforms run around snogging and fighting and using old-timey accents to sound faux ancient. Well, I do, anyway. And even if there’s a lot of fat that could have been trimmed from these first two hourlong episodes, as well as a lot of dramatically inert characters who could have been spun into something more substantial, well, to paraphrase Gladiator, I was at least entertained.

I reviewed the first two episodes of Those About to Die for Vulture.

I still can’t say enough good things about the performances. The way O-T Fagbenle slowly emits the word “fuuhhhcked” from his mouth has to be heard to be believed. Peter Sarsgaard is like the Gollum of legal thrillers. Jake Gyllenhaal maintains an intensely physical vibe through careful placement of intense workouts and equally intense snippets of his sex life with Carolyn. You need to feel that passion, as he puts it on the stand. You need to feel how it’s both exciting and destructive. 

I reviewed this week’s fine episode of Presumed Innocent for Decider.

The new episode of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour on House of the Dragon 2×05 is up! Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts!

In his series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire, the author George R.R. Martin has based a trio of men-at-arms on Curly, Moe and Larry, the Three Stooges. He has used the superheroes Blue Beetle and Green Arrow as the basis for noble houses’ emblematic sigils. During the events depicted in “House of the Dragon,” the important House Tully is variously ruled over by Lords Grover, Elmo, and Kermit, with a Ser Oscar thrown in for good measure, as if “Sesame Street” had come to the Seven Kingdoms.

So do I think it’s possible that in his book “Fire and Blood,” the basis of “House of the Dragon,” Martin put Prince Aemond Targaryen in control of Westeros just as a cheeky way to illustrate the maxim “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”? I wouldn’t put it past him.

I reviewed tonight’s episode of House of the Dragon for the New York Times.

Presumed Innocent is a good-looking show in a non-ostentatious way, and that’s true throughout this episode. Little moments like Barbara and Rusty hugging in their living room. Tommy returning home and displaying genuine, uncomplicated happiness as he hugs his adorable orange cat. Jaden clinging to Rusty almost for dear life. The almost expressionistic positioning of Rusty, Mya, Ray, and Barbara for the camera in their meeting discussing Barbara’s demeanor in court. It’s nice to feel rewarded for watching.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Presumed Innocent for Decider.