House of the Dragon Episode 4 Review

gamerant.com:

This week's episode of the House of the Dragon took a rather different tact than any of the other episodes of the HBO Max series has and that particular approach worked out quite well for a series that is certainly blazing its own path from the show it's spun off from. At this point in the first season of Game of Thrones, there were already all kinds of people getting killed and thrones being fought over. In House of the Dragon, the show continues to be a slow burn as people gently and carefully position themselves into a spot where they might be able to take over ruling the land eventually.

Of course, one of the things that have made this HBO show stand out so well so early on is that the pacing seems to be perfect so far. It feels like the series has been going on for quite a bit longer than just four episodes now. Obviously, some of that is because there simply aren't as many characters to get to know so that when someone is introduced in House of the Dragon, the audience really gets to know them — with the exception of the Crab Feeder — and gets to know what kind of person they are.

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There's also the fact that there are just some very good actors in this show and people like Matt Smith and Paddie Considine add a level of gravitas to a series that is driven quite a bit more by dialog than it is action. That's not to say that Game of Thrones didn't have really good actors at times, but it also had people who were mostly pretty and looked competent wielding a sword. Some of the scenes in this episode of House of the Dragon were staged in such a way that if felt as if each actor was delivering their lines just to show off how talented they are.

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