Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Contains spoilersIt is customary for prestige TV shows, the kind with bottomless budgets and big set pieces, to end a season with a bang and a cliffhanger. But in closing the second series of House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel set during the rule of the Targaryen dynasty, its creators have gone for the cliffhanger without the bang.Westeros remains on the cusp of a civil war between rival Targaryen factions, and King’s Landing, home of the crown, looks set for a bloody pummelling. But that is still in the future. The final, supposedly climactic episode is about last-minute unions, pledges of allegiance and the assembling of troops and dragons, rather than action. But will audiences still be on tenterhooks by the time series three comes around? That’s not to say this series has been a bust — far from it. It has dealt with the glaring problems of the first season, notably the mumbling dialogue and scenes drenched in murk; someone, thankfully, has had the good sense to turn the lights on. It has also shone a light on major characters previously introduced in haste, providing a clearer sense of their history and complexity: the sensible, stoic Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), cheated out of the Iron Throne; her husband (and uncle — incest is rife among the Targaryens) Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), an emasculated schemer prone to ghostly visions; Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke), widow of the morally upstanding King Viserys, weighing personal status and the security of her children against her aversion to war.If the first season was about the problem of succession, this one examines the problem of men and their violent impulses. We see Alicent trying and failing to rein in her sons: King Aegon, who has allowed the people of King’s Landing to fall into poverty while he lives in splendour in the Red Keep, and his brother Aemond, the emergent arch-villain who likes to slaughter villages whenever his nose is out of joint.Meanwhile, in Dragonstone, the Targaryen’s ancestral seat, Rhaenyra has resisted the calls of her all-male counsel to wage war on Aegon. But now with more dragons on her side and the errant Daemon, previously off raising an army, returned to the fold, she is finally able to claim what is hers.Some unanswered questions remain. In what world does a casting director think Cooke, who is 30, can convince as the mother of Aegon, played by 29-year-old Tom Glynn-Carney? And how exactly does a dragon rider saddle up their 20ft steed? But implausibilities aside, in its second outing, House of the Dragon has cemented itself as a fantasy drama of weight and worth, one that has favoured smart, streamlined plotting and emotional heft over empty spectacle. And with war on the horizon, one suspects the best is yet to come.★★★★☆On HBO/Max in the US and Sky Atlantic/Now in the UK
