SHOW OF THE WEEK 1: House of the Dragon (Now on HBO/Crave with new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m.)
If you long for a certain brand of backstabbing betrayal and political discord, stomach-churning violence and frank sex, the “Game of Thrones” prequel is here. But it’s not rival families jockeying for power, but members of one family turning on each other in this story about the ancestors of Dragon Queen Daenerys Targaryen.
As “House of the Dragon” begins, things start out well enough for King Viserys I, an amiable but weak-willed monarch played appealingly by Paddy Considine. He was chosen as king over a cousin who had a better claim to the Iron Throne but was discounted because she was a woman, Princess Rhaenys Velaryon (Eve Best).
But there is peace in the kingdom, Viserys has a queen he loves, who he’s certain is about to bear him a son, and a daughter, Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock), who seems content to play second fiddle to an infant. Yet childbirth is the battlefield of women, as mother Aemma (Sian Brooke) reminds Rhaenyra, and a shattering loss leaves Viserys without his longed for heir.
By tradition, Daemon, the violent, impulsive and vain brother of the king (played with sinister panache by Matt Smith), would inherit the throne, but he finally exceeds the forbearance of Viserys when he mockingly toasts the king’s dead son while partying in a brothel, which leads Viserys to name Rhaenyra as heir — despite the prejudices against women on the throne.
If you’ve read up on Targaryen family history or you just have an appreciation for foreshadowing, you’ll know this can’t end well.
The six episodes that were made available for review trace the fallout of that decision.
Also jockeying for position are the hand of the king, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), and Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint, read my interview with him here), husband of spurned Queen That Never Was Rhaenys. Both men use their daughters to try to solidify their power by offering them as new wives to Viserys, though one is just 12 and the other, Rhaenyra’s best friend Alicent (Emily Carey), is 15. I know that sort of thing was actually done in the times that inspired George R.R. Martin’s novels, but that doesn’t make it any more palatable.
And while we’re on the subject of creepy couplings, incest among the Targaryens is apparently still on the table in “House of the Dragon.” Jon Snow doing it with his Aunt Daenerys was not a highlight of “Game of Thrones” for me, but at least they were consenting adults. Daemon taking his 15-year-old niece to a “pleasure palace” is considerably ickier.
This spinoff appears to be trying to give its female characters more of a voice although women still get the short end of the stick in the Seven Kingdoms. I suppose if Rhaenyra doesn’t end up power-mad, scorching the streets of King’s Landing with her dragon, that will be an improvement.
Speaking of dragons, they are a regular feature here and the CGI is passable, but just as Targaryen rulers can’t depend too much on their dragons, as Viserys warns Rhaenyra, a TV series can’t either.
“House of the Dragon” has a lot going for it. It’s handsomely shot and expertly acted, and great care obviously went into the production.
But a lot has happened in the world since “Thrones” signed off in 2019, so one question becomes whether the brutality inherent in the “Thrones” universe is as palatable now in a war-weary, pandemic-pooped and politically fragile milieu.
Heads, limbs and other body parts are lopped off when Daemon and his City Watch go on a rampage; fights between knights end with skulls getting caved in; and there’s a childbirth scene bloody enough to make women of child-bearing age book tubal ligations.
What’s more glaring are the things that “Thrones” had that “Dragon” does not, chiefly humour and variety. There is no Tyrion Lannister here for comic relief, for instance. And the action is mostly confined to King’s Landing and Dragonstone, with some brief forays to places like Pentos, Harrenhal and the Stepstones, where Daemon and Corlys combine to quash a rebellion of the Free Cities.
It’s not that characters like Rhaenyra and Daemon aren’t of interest, but the glorious — as well as the sometimes maddening — thing about “Game of Thrones” was how widely it ranged within Westeros and beyond, and how many plots and people it presented for our regard.
It remains to be seen whether the travails of one family in a small part of the vast Seven Kingdoms is enough to hold viewers’ attention in an even more competitive TV landscape.
PHOTO CREDIT: Robert Clark/Stalwart Productions/AMC
SHOW OF THE WEEK 2: Kevin Can F**k Himself (Aug. 22, 9 p.m., AMC/AMC+)
If you worried where Season 2 of “Kevin Can F**k Himself” would go, with Allison’s (Annie Murphy) plot to kill her husband Kevin (Eric Petersen) foiled and exposed to his best friend Neil (Alex Bonifer), you can exhale.
Season 2 brings a satisfying, if dark, conclusion to this tale of the behind-the-scenes torment of a sitcom wife.
It begins where Season 1 left off, with Neil on the floor of Allison’s kitchen, which is where his sister Patty (Mary Hollis Inboden) put him after he tried to strangle Allison. He’s still threatening to tell about the murder plot, though, which brings another blow to the head and an abduction.
That chain of events causes trauma for all three characters, puts a dent in Allison’s and Patty’s friendship, and sees Neil spending more time in the single-camera dramatic universe of “Kevin Can F**k Himself.” He tries to resume his position as the faithful sidekick in Kevin’s brightly lit, laugh-tracked, multi-cam world, but he has seen behind the curtain of his own and Kevin’s dysfunction, and that knowledge won’t stay buried.
Alison, meanwhile, knows that she can’t murder Kevin, not least because his bid for public office has brought him temporary fame after a ridiculous campaign ad goes viral.
If she can’t kill Kevin, what about herself? She hatches a new scheme to fake her own death, into which she draws to varying degrees Patty, her former lover Sam (Raymond Lee) and her aunt Diane (Jamie Denbo). But, as is usual for Allison, the more she tries to fix things the more they go awry.
What is gratifying is that Allison, like Neil, gains greater self-awareness, a realization that not everything that’s gone wrong in her life is Kevin’s fault and that she can be selfish in her own right, particularly when it comes to Patty.
That’s not to say that Kevin gets any less reprehensible. He continues to sow chaos for everyone in his orbit while pursuing his own gratification. Allison even begins to use Kevin’s talent for getting himself out of jams to her advantage, telling Sam that after 15 years of Kevin taking from her she’s starting to get something back.
But when Patty’s police officer girlfriend Tammy (Candice Coke) begins to unravel Patty’s part in the murder-for-hire scheme, Allison takes drastic action to keep her friend safe.
Along the way, she gains the confidence to do what she should have done from the beginning rather than plotting murder. I won’t tell you how it ends, but Kevin is torn from his sitcom cocoon — finally — by Allison’s honesty. And when the chips fall, Patty is still by Allison’s side.
It turns out “Kevin Can F**k Himself” was a love story all along, just not one that had anything to do with matrimony.
Odds and Ends
Sorry folks, I’m still not up to full screening speed yet, so I don’t have any short takes this week. As usual, Netflix has a plethora of new offerings. The one that seemed of most interest to me was “Mo” (Aug. 24), a semi-autobiographical comedy in which comedian Mohammed Amer stars as a Kuwait-born Palestinian refugee in Houston, hustling to make a living while seeking asylum for himself, his mother and brother. Also on the menu: the prank comedy “Chad & JT Go Deep” (Aug. 23); kids’ show “Lost Ollie” (Aug. 24); luxury real estate reality series “Selling the OC” (Aug. 24); legal drama “Partner Track” (Aug. 26), starring Arden Cho as a young New York City lawyer; gearhead docuseries “Drive Hard: The Maloof Way” (Aug. 26) about the racing, stunt-driving Maloof family; and the film “Me Time” (Aug. 26), a dads on a wild weekend comedy starring Mark Wahlberg and the ubiquitous Kevin Hart.
I had every intention of screening “The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe” (Aug. 23, Britbox), a new true crime drama about a man who faked his own death with the connivance of his wife. It stars the excellent Eddie Marsan (“Ray Donovan”) and Monica Dolan (“Vanity Fair”). And it’s just four episodes, so get binging.
There’s been buzz around the docuseries “Welcome to Wrexham” (Aug. 24, 10 p.m., FX), about actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buying a football club in the scrappy Welsh town of Wrexham. The “Ted Lasso” comparisons are inevitable, but I have to say it looks pretty darn heartwarming in the trailer. FX also has Season 13 of animated comedy “Archer” (Aug. 24, 10 p.m., FXX) and new animated comedy “Little Demon” (Aug. 25, 10 p.m., FXX), starring Danny DeVito as the voice of Satan and his real-life daughter, Lucy DeVito, as the devil’s offspring.
Mike Tyson has made his feelings clear about the bio-series “Mike” (Aug. 25, Disney+ Star) — hint, he’s not happy — but I guess you can make your own judgment about the miniseries starring Trevante Rhodes as the heavyweight champion.
Apple TV+ has the third and final season of “See” (Aug. 26), starring Jason Momoa as a warrior and father in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has lost the sense of sight.
Finally, if you’re partial to Sylvester Stallone and/or aging superheroes, Prime Video has the film “Samaritan” (Aug. 26), in which Sly stars as a superhero who has to come out of retirement to save the world again. Of course he does.
NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified the times where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste. The Odds and Ends section includes shows that I have not watched.
Edited because, duh, I mixed up Arden Cho’s name with her character name.
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