The Watch - Exit Survey for ‘House of the Dragon’

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

Chris and Andy break down the finale of ‘House of the Dragon’ and reflect on the season as a whole. They talk about whether the finale changed how they felt about the season (15:07), what they would like to see more of in future seasons (34:33), and their favorite moments from the final episode (47:08). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ask your doctor about Trimphaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimphia, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going.

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The treasurer of Boros Perathians book club. It's Andy Greenwald. Boris doesn't seem like that warm of a host. He's illiterate. Did you notice that? Oh. Yeah, that was why I made the book club joke. Oh, I get that.

Okay. I thought you meant that like usually when you have a book club, you have like snacks and hummus and stuff laid out. And he just had a giant stone room. Yes. Yeah. You know what I mean? And a murderous one-eyed child standing there with him. Oh, okay.

Because when they're like, yo, here's the message. And he's just like, God damn it. Where's the guy who reads? Oh, that's why he called him over. Yeah. Okay. Hey, this is going great so far. Chris, Chris, Kaya, I'll be back in 59 minutes.

I'm just going to watch the episode again. Yeah, because Boros not being able to read changes everything. That is, that's pretty shocking. Greenwald, lovely to see you. It's Monday. I recorded Talk the Thrones last night with Mallory and Joanna right after the House of the Dragon finale.

We're going to talk about it today, though. We're going to talk about a couple of different things. I want to record a podcast on Sundays, too. Just so I'm like, get my reps in. You know what I mean? Because you come on Monday. You're in fighting shape. Me?

Oh, yeah. You're like Ranger Suarez coming out of the bullpen on one day's rest. So, dude. So you didn't, did you? Andy and I have had a very special weekend because the Philadelphia Phillies are going to the World Series, improbably. I did not expect this to be a component of my autumn.

So in a lot of ways, we're making it up as we go along. This is Second City. We're the groundlings. I don't know what to do with my hands right now, but I saw something on Twitter, Andy. Did you see, and I think it was from the account Philly's Muse, where they took Bryce Harper's going, ahead Homer.

Yep. And played the music for Moneyball over it. Yes. And I watched that 306 times in the last 12 hours. Yeah, it's

probably the most emotionally moving piece of media I've seen this century. Thank you. You shared it with me. I think we need to, I mean, I want to be honest with our listeners, you know, that like,

people know at this point, that are, you know, we're busy guys. We love doing this podcast with each other. We love talking. We love consuming culture. But our time to be in the content trenches isn't what it used to be. You know, and so we have to apportion that time sagaciously. And it has been surprising that all of my watching time over the last week has been devoted

to my friends at Fox Sports One. Like I just, as you, as Chris said, Like, baseball is a real son of a bitch. What if we, what if the title of this episode was, has Fox Sports One won the streaming wars? I mean, like, is John Smoltz the most important man in media? The look on my, my daughter's face when they've turned on the television, you know, they've, I always, I always like hit the menu button on the Apple TV a couple extra times to make sure that, you know, the frozen image that they, turn on on weekend mornings, isn't Rishi and Harper from industry just blowing rails and then having the red band trailer of Gangs of London? Exactly. So I do my best. But their face over the last

few days when they've seen that somebody's been watching the Fox Sports app has been really wither. It's been withering the looks I've been getting. So yes, I've been watching a lot of baseball. And as people know, baseball is really, really long and doesn't give an F a bit. your plans or your schedule or your obligation. So we are going to talk House the Dragon. We might riff on some other things. But mostly, I mean, I've never seen in my life some of the things that we saw in this baseball series and I feel really good about them.

Yeah. And when you look at like how the other half lives, I was watching. So I was after, after recording? No, no, it was before recording Talk the Thrones last night. So it was seven L.A. time, which means it was 10 p.m. New York time. it was like the third inning of this Yankees game and Ted Cruz is in the audience

and there's like I gotta say it looked like it was about a 75% full Yankee Stadium like not a lot of believers it can go real wrong in baseball where all of a sudden you find yourself like wondering about the choices

you've made in your life but it turns out we chose we chose wisely we chose really really really wisely and now we just get to send each other screen grabs of backup outfielders talking about smoking cigarettes in the clubhouse and how life feels like college again.

So here's what I want to do today. We have, I thought, a wonderful, like, serotonin hit of getting footage from the new succession before House of the Dragon played. But in terms of it being, like, setting up the board and what's this season going to be about, I found it about as educational as a scenes from next week on Madman, you know? You mean the succession stuff? Yeah, the succession stuff. Yeah, here's my takeaway from the succession stuff.

And I don't want to belabor. I mean, we love that show. We love covering it. We can't wait for it to come back in spring, 2023. Yeah. But the steady drip, drip, drip of images and scenes from season four hasn't, like, lit my hair on fire, like, oh, my God, they've reinvented the wheel again. And what actually I've found to be really pleasant is that it is normalizing succession. Because we had a really long time without that show.

And it became almost like an object like a scarcity thing, right? Like we were so desperate for any information about it leading into season three that it started to feel like the kind of luxury watch that Connor Roy might buy and then forget about and leave on a yacht. This should be a regular occurrence in our lives every 12 to 14 months. It wins Emmys. We care about it, recurring characters. I'm thrilled with this version of Succession. I don't really care what they show in the clips because broadly, we know what Succession is. It is a situation drama, right?

Like, we know. We get it. The joy is going to come from the twists and turns and the dialogue along the way. How are you celebrating or observing Jeremy Strong on Mark Marinday? this is a big day I mean I think we're going to have a lot we could do have we ever done an entire podcast about another podcast

I've tried multiple times okay so let's talk about House of the Dragon okay I have put together a series of questions for you as an exit survey but I wanted to allow for

open conversation and a frank exchange of ideas if you want to talk about this episode specifically. Because I know as a big Luke Targaryen guy, you know, you were just, you were like, I have a lot riding on this kid. I had a wild third-generation Targaryen Parlay on Fanduel. Yeah.

And I really messed up. I really, really, really messed it up. Look, Chris. I think that for people who are, eager or appalled the thought of me criticizing the show again buckle up for a little bit

it's going to be a little bumpy like it was by Casa Barathean but broadly I do want to talk about what the show accomplished and what is to come because the show is going to be in our lives for a while and I am open to that possibility I have to give you my

unfiltered reaction that's what it says on your Twitter bio open to new experiences but unfiltered reactions There was a moment when our heroin was clawing a stillborn baby out of her own body where I did think, what's wrong with us as a culture? Like, what are we doing? You know what I mean?

Like, I did go to that place where I was like, what are we doing here with our art and our storytelling where this is the season finale of a show. And that we had, I don't know, I mean, I get when two guys named Ryan and Miguel are like, bro, the womb is the new battlefield. Like, look, you had my interest and now you have my attention. But the kind of just po-faced documentary filmmaking of the rigors of difficult childbirth on this show really kind of knock me off my square because I don't understand what it was in service. Two. You know what I mean? I think that there is a something feels off to me in both of the cultural compass largely, but particularly in this show. Whereas, and I know I cited this the other week, and I think you haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I did want to just draw people's attention again if they could to our buddy, Wesley Morris, who wrote an essay in the New York Times a week or two ago about essentially the missing element of trash culture in the movies and how a kind of. lurid pleasure-seeking, risk-taking, occasionally law-breaking appetite that used to exist

in a certain type of movie went out of the culture sometime around 9-11, and we just haven't really brought it back. And superheroes took over, and everybody wears tights, but nobody has sex, right? Can you give an example of, like, something from Wesley's piece that he's talking about as an example of trash culture? And I know you cited the Barber Striseand, Richard Dreyfus. That's how it starts. It's wild.

Yeah. But is there... But he's talking about like erotic thrillers. He's talking about wild things. That movie from 1998 is one of the last things. He basically was like wild things on the Star Report came out the same summer. The Star Report was a bigger hit. And the Star Report was both relishing in these details, but then also scolding us for wanting them.

And something kind of went awry at that moment. And then he goes into politics and talks about Kellyanne Conway. I mean, it's a very Wesley piece. And I love it. He talks about Kelly Ann Conway. And he talks about Lee Daniels. as being one of the few people who still works in this world, and Ryan Murphy is being someone who still works in this world.

And I was only thinking about it in terms of House of the Dragon because there's something about it that feels like homework when if you're making a show about incestuous dragon riding Aryans, couldn't there be at least some twisted or perverse sense of fun in it? And I think that the show got closest when Reniro went clubbing with her uncle. Now, you know, is there sin in that a little bit? But the show is also, you know, I think that at least that suggested a little bit of the sort of celebratory perversity that's possible in a world like this, where there might be some human-based pleasure that isn't just about normalizing everything, then marrying your perverse uncle and just sitting around forming a war council. Do you know what I mean?

And I, there's something that is so just stoic about the show that I find really. challenging, even as it marches towards something that is potentially more interesting. And obviously, I have more thoughts as we go up and down the episode about what's to come, about what it means, and about what the show paid attention to to get us here. But that particular lack of just, there's no joy in this world. We know that. But I guess sort of just a fuller range of human emotions other than anguish and anger. Yeah.

I just find deeply limiting and frustrating because I think that the other emotions, as we've said many times over the course of this season, are what made Game of Thrones truly moving and compelling to a broader audience than those who might otherwise be interested in drag. Do you think that the trashier version of this show would have worked? So this is when we get into the challenging thing of what's working. Now, I went pretty far in front of my skis last week or the last time we talked about it. And I want to be clear, the show is working in the sense that tens of millions of people are watching it. It is a huge success for HBO and HBO Max. Like, it's working. When the show returns and it's just like, guess what?

The dragons fight now. Like, it's going to probably do better. Right. So having a Game of Thrones show being received by large audiences around the world and being in consistent production, done. It's working. I would be more interested in a show that was more interested in things other than laying the proper groundwork for the dragon battle. That's what I would be interested in. Now, is this show interested in that?

No. And so you have to respect that for what it is. Do I think there was potentially room at the margins for some of those other colors to shade in? I still believe. So, yes, I do think that. So to me, it isn't working in that spirit. And to just circle back to the point I made last week, I think those. decisions and potential flaws

could damage the brand long term. The brand is not at all damaged in late October 2022 at the end of season one. I want to be very clear about that. But I, using only myself as the bellwether, because I was the one who said the Phillies

were going to win game two even when it looked a little dicey, right? Uh-huh. They lost game two, didn't they? I know. My interest in this world and in this IP has diminished. And I wonder where we are with a casual fan,

if that matters. But that argument we're not doing right now, because I do want to talk specifically about how we got here in this episode for this show. Okay, so I have a couple of questions for you as a kind of exit survey. And the first one is going off of what you've been saying anyways. Did the finale change how you felt about the season at all?

No. No, I think that we keep, again, in the spirit of like, did this work or not, Ryan Condal, the co-creator with George R. Martin and the co-showrunner and I guess the primary showrunner going forward because Mikhail Sapachnik has stepped back. It seems like it hit his targets. I mean, he is in the press saying, like, yes, we had these time jumps and it moved a little slowly, but it was really important to take the time to lay the groundwork and introduce all of these characters

so you cared about them going forward. Now, I think it takes a particular kind of context. to say that when you've ended a season with a Fred Savage looking kid getting chomped that I couldn't care less about, whose name I did not know until this episode. In a circumstance that I didn't understand until this episode that maybe dragons haven't fought so much before and they can't be controlled by these kids who have just been riding around like their ATVs and in Creed 1. You know, I didn't know that this was a thing that could happen. So, but mission accomplished in the sense that like this sets up a big war. Yeah. But it was a real slog to get there, I think.

Tell me, let me turn it back to you. What did you enjoy in this finale? Not that you haven't been enjoying things along the way, but what particularly about this finale? And I don't say this with like, I'm not, this isn't a gotcha. I'm really curious. Set you up with higher hopes or interest in season two.

The compression of the last two episodes, I thought it was very successful for me. In terms of I was really struggling at various points, especially in the end of the Millie Alcock, Emily Carey part of the season and the beginning of the Olivia Cook, Emma Darcy part of the season. So it's basically like four through six or seven.

But I thought eight, nine, and ten, for whatever you want to say about it, moved. You know, like I thought that they had smart events to basically bring everybody together, not unlike succession, you know, not unlike, say, an episode of the Crown, where you're like, okay, funeral, wedding, whatever it is, name day or crowning or whatever. Like, let's get everybody in a

room sniping at each other. And so the last few episodes I thought had a velocity that the earlier episodes, I just, I just never really was able to like latch on to the, and now 10 years later, and now 21 years later, or whatever. And if anything, I thought that the pace of the first few episodes was oddly too fast because it kind of, I kind of never was able to latch on to the Viceris part about it. And now that Viseras is out of the picture, for as much as I thought Patty Constantine did a good job as Vassarist, I'm kind of glad that that's behind us now. And that this is essentially these two women on the opposite sides of a, I guess, narrow sea, being like, we're going to be fighting each other for a few seasons now.

Yeah, I agree with all that. I do think that one of the missed opportunities is the Viceris of it. So something that comes out in this episode that I was really interested in was the way Vesaris has spoken about. And he's spoken about very fondly. Yeah, as a guy. And I believe not just he individually is a nice guy who liked his Lego sets, but as someone who did the most important thing one can do as ruler,

which is, sustain a piece. And because the show is so devoted to gnarliness and high stakes, because the stakes of this series were so high in terms of getting people right back into conflict, having left the previous series not only probably too many years ago for people's liking in the corporate suites, but also at the point of like absolute war, it had to get right into it. But I never understood, because the show is so deeply focused on this family, I never understood that the realm was largely at peace because we were never in the realm. Yeah.

We never understood what the common person thought of Asaris, let alone, oh, there's a kid Stark in the north? Okay. Now, I know we're not doing that show anymore. But I would have been curious if they were all like, this is cool right now. Finally, we got a nice run where we can just do the things we want to do and maybe we could, like, write a poem or invent something, you know? as opposed to just kill each other all the time. The show instead had to be like, oh my God, he hasn't had a son yet?

What? In the house of this family. And so again, I just come back to that initial point of like, can you help me understand the Targaryans why I care or I don't care? I think that they're actually, they're not really very good rulers. They have dragons.

They have dragons. The series itself opens with a preamble of Vissaris being selected over Reignis in an act that kind of starting this schism within their family, you know, and that there's always going to be this, she should have been the queen, but no, the world would never expect a woman, a woman ruler, but Vassaris was ineffective, but was Veseris actually so ineffective that it was very peaceful and nobody got incinerated and then his inability to get a son and then his inability

to, I don't think that there's ever been this like, you know, back in the FDR days, we just, we just had the works progress and it was awesome, you know, I mean, it was It's like they're always fucking backstabbing one another, but nobody bothers to stop them because they might get lit on fire. I agree. I guess, you know, the way the dragons were deployed

in the first few episodes gave us some sense of that. Like every time they would land on a parapet or whatever, and everyone gets freaked out. I understand that. All the soldiers were like, oh, shit. You know what I mean? Like every time that they would be confronted with them, yeah. I guess I would have liked a sense of, you know,

the Stepstones thing didn't feel, relevant to the Westeros that I understand. So if instead the dragon had been deployed briefly to some sort of uprising in the north or the Lannisters, and we see their resentment, but their ultimate obeisance, as they keep saying on this show, to the nuclear power, then I think I understand how it works a little bit. But I also, you know, I say this respectfully. Like this is easy to Monday morning quarterback. Monday morning quarterback because what made Game of Thrones compelling was, was it began with a black hole, with a vacuum at the center of the kingdom that had been held together.

And then all the people angling for it. This show intentionally, and I don't begrudge this idea of doing something different, begins with the opposite. There is a firm control of the center and how do they keep that control. So that makes sense. But it does rob you, or rob me, of some dramatic stakes or engagement when it's like, oh, now we're flying. on missions to the Barathians, who we haven't really seen, and we're referring to Starks.

And I think all of this, though, comes from something that I need to, and I'll do my best, I need to just erase for my hard drive, which is this is an adaptation of something that is incredibly thorny and twisty and pre-established and canonical to the people who love it, and can't be changed because the author is involved in it.

If you walked into a room or tried to write a pilot, where you were like, Actually, they have five kids, but only two of them are relevant right now. The first note would be like, just have two kids. Just have two kids. And you're like, yeah, let's just make it an amalgamation of a couple of these kids or composite character of a couple of these kids. And how about we strip away a couple of these guys and make auto the like everything is sort of making it so that Reese Efen's has like more screen time. So we're taking away like some of the other people in, in Allison's ear, for instance.

You know, like, I was, my second question was going to be about the way in which the season ended with the final two episodes being exclusively about one side or the other. Because I kind of liked it. I kind of liked that feeling that like once somebody left a room, we would go into the next room with them. And there would be some continuity to, I guess the emotional stakes of what was happening in any given place at a given time. and I find some of like, probably when you go back and watch Game of Thrones, as a rewatch,

the more challenging part is to, like, now that you know what happens, is to be like, yeah, let's just, let's just do the house of black and white or whatever the hell of the, like, some of, like, some of DeNaris's, like, adventures into the desert

and into mysticism where you're just like, all right, like, I'm sure this is going to work out. You can fast forward that. And I was, I'm curious to see if we get to a place with Dragon where everything is so far flung because people have now gone off to the different parts of the world to basically bring banners under the house of whatever

that we're going to have like a little bit of like, I'm not super into the Gisaris part of this or I'm not super into the Laris part of this. It'll be fascinating to see, but I kind of liked the one-on, one-off aspect of the last two episodes. I think it ultimately worked. I think my note last week was that it felt odd to have this sort of like middle, middle stakesy kind of conflict between Allison and her father just to get Agon from wherever he was. Yeah.

As opposed to cutting to the person who would be taking this the hardest, which would be Reneira. But I think in terms of considering. But it deepened Allison a little bit. It deepened Allison. No, I agree with you. I think my complaint about the show is that I don't really know any of these people still or care about them. spending more time with them is always going to be a good thing. There's just such a, this is a quote unquote historical show to a degree that is just really mind boggling to me.

There is a feeling watching it that's not dissimilar to going on like one of the old-fashioned rides at Disney where you sit in the chair and you are propelled through scenes of things, but you move a little bit too fast and you just keep going because it's always going to end up in the same place. And I can feel, and I have a lot of respect for the creative process in trying to find wrinkles in aspects of the story that might otherwise just be effortlessly smooth. So the Renice moment of hesitation last week, that had to happen that way

because George R. Martin has written this story. But I think, and you could read this in Eve Best, the actors, and I think she's great, by the way, interview where she's just like, no, this deepened Renice because she's not going to be the one to pull the trigger and she's not that person. So it's like, okay, so we've added some richness. Similarly, every time Allison is like,

you were serious about that to her father, I find it a little bit that it beggars belief, but at the same time, that adds to that character. I think the ultimate example of that, and I kind of want to hear your thoughts on it, was this dragon battle at the end of the episode, which totally tries to have it both ways, where Amund is, you know,

has been egging on and provoking and bullying and taunting his cousin. and then decides to scare him a little more with his galaxy-sized dragon. And then in this moment, the dragons kind of just becomes self-aware and do what they want to do anyway. So he kills him, but he didn't mean to kill him. Now, reading some stuff this morning suggests that- That deviates from the books. Right. In the books, it's like, Amund is like, I'm going to go if I can kill this kid.

Or the books are more true to my sense of this, which is, it's an oral tradition, right? Like, it's just, I'm sorry, this was not really reported on. we did not have body cameras at the time. I thought that was kind of interesting that like this happens way above the clouds. So people were watching it from like the bay, but there's no account of what actually happened. I think it's like generally assumed that Aman is just like, he chases him up into the sky and then like...

And eats him, jumps on. Yeah. And that they... But do you know what I mean in the sense that I do want to give credit to the attempts to complicate and shade these people who are going to be spending multiple seasons with, even if it feels, you can feel kind of the effort because this is all happening no matter what. So let me ask you this then.

So I guess this is like, it's not spoilery, but like we've talked about this a lot on Talk the Throne. So I would assume if you're interested in this show, you kind of are aware of this or don't mind knowing. The other thing that is not book canon is this Song of Ice and Fire vision that Viseras is passed down to Reneira and that then is miscommunicated to

Allison, which leads her to saying, hey, we got to make Agon King because that was Vassaris's last wish. I thought that that scene where Damon chokes Renira, which was, I'm sure, controversial, but also, like, pretty alive, you know? Like that moment and this idea that, like, oh, you don't know about this thing that is actually my guiding principle,

because I know that like something big is going to happen to this place and I need to keep this kingdom together to be able to fight against it. Actually felt like very, I don't know if I, pretty electric. You know, like, I mean, it felt like a little bit more, it was almost like the fact that they had come up with this new idea that they could play with throughout this show rather than, then this happens and then this happens and then this happens. Right.

I kind of liked it. Well, I think any opportunity to let Matt Smith run hot Yeah, that was, yeah. Is the right choice. And I think that, you know, again, to their credit, the people making the show know that. And that's another thing that's been a constant in the post-mortem interviews with Brian Condal,

you know, is like we know what we have here. Like, we know where the real Dragon Fire is. Anything that makes this version of Reneura emotionally alive and surprising and urgent in the present, not in relation to a future claim on the throne, which is now, you know, this is where we're at, not in relation to a future prophecy is better.

Like, this show needs to live in the present, and it did not for, you know, the better part of eight episodes. So it's odd to say this because we're, you know, maybe to take a step back. Like, we cover Game of Thrones a certain way, and because we do this podcast twice a week, and because we're older fellows, like we still process these things in a certain way.

And we don't believe in, maybe it's because we're like three true outcome guys. Like we don't believe in throwing it bats away. But to take a season and basically clear your throat to get to the story you want to tell, I have a problem with that. I just have a problem with that as a viewer and as a podcaster.

But, but, but I don't see the game board. I don't see the whole map that's lit up the way these characters do. and that each small, you know, oath kept or, you know, stepstone secured leads to something larger, it's very possible than the totality of the series, if it is a five or six season epic about this Targaryan Civil War, you needed the prologue. Maybe you do need the prologue. I can't say that at this moment. All I can say is these were 10 hours that I found a struggle. I found them to be a struggle to get through. Yeah, I mean, I think it's.

also impossible to turn back the clock and imagine watching this show with non-game of Thrones eyes. So, like, being able to see this show with the same sort of, I guess, innocence that we watched the first series with, where we're like, oh, I don't know, it's not really my thing. I don't really watch a lot of, like, fantasy. People, you know, everybody you know is just like, no, no, no, you really have to see this. You really have to see this. And it's not like that. And it wasn't like that. And you did have to see it. And that was still airing at a time that first season when momentous things could happen in a season of television that would still be kind of not guarded, but I was able to watch the first season of Game of Thrones knowing big things happened and that you're not going to believe what happens, but not knowing about Ned and not knowing about what was in store for me. Yeah. And it's not that you went into the House of the Dragon knowing, oh, at the end, Luke's going to get eaten by a dragon and it's going to set off this chain of events that's probably going to lead to.

a Civil War, you just went into it being like, this has a lot to live up to. And because of the way Game of Thrones ended, a lot to correct. I agree with that. And I also turn back to the fact that if I say worry, it sounds like I'm concerned trolling. I don't mean it this way. But thus far, House of the Dragon has not made the case that it can deliver a jaw-dropping scene or a gut-punch of a moment without the dragons. Did you find that? Did you think that the air battle at the end was like that was like a gut punch scene or a jawed rock copy scene? It was cool.

I mean, I think first, I mean, Greg Catanis is a great, great, great, great director and especially a great episodic TV director. He was the showrunner on set of Banshee, a show that I loved. He directed all of Quarry, a show that I think we both really loved. He's just consistently done phenomenal. work. And he was one of the producing directors on this. He did this finale. Like, that's really hard. This is an entirely CG scene in a lightning storm with two actors, one of whom we now recognize definitely because of the eye patch. But I don't know where our allegiances are. And visually,

it was coherent. You know, that sounds like low bar. I don't mean that. I think that was really impressive. I thought that the image of the bigger dragon, like sort of like appearing above this kid was like a real like, oh shit, this dude. This is not going to work out for this dude. Also, the fact that the entire episode, Renaro was like, don't worry, Luke, it'll be an easy little errand. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the whole communication structure,

we already said weeks ago that this meeting could have been a Raven. Like this one really was a little concerning about that. Yeah, I thought that was cool. But at the same time, you know, the CG is creaky at times. Now, it's not, that's not a dig at this show or HBO's production values, which are as high as it could be. I can't imagine something being more expensive than this hour of television.

But we know, we've been talking about this. Like these CG houses are overworked. And there are moments, like when Damon was, you know, threatening the Kingsguard guys with what would happen to them if they weren't on their team, where I'm like, you know, he was very much alone on that hill when they drew. a dragon in. Like, first of all, let me say, I know he was alone because dragons are not real, but it was asking a lot of CG in that moment. There were a couple moments like that. So if you're

overly relying on it, like, I want it to be, I want it to be, I want it to be, I want to be on the characters. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools.

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Visit the website for full terms and conditions. So my question for you... You're interrupting the flow of my survey. Well, this is a free-flowing conversation. Well, this is why the census is collapsing, you know? Like, we can't get anything else. Oh, I don't fill that out. And in fact, I'm quite hostile to people who try to take it.

People who knock on my door. Well, you know what? You ask me yours because I think my question is better served at the end. Okay. I was just going to say, was there a moment or an episode from this season where you thought to yourself? Yes, more of this. Like, I want this to be the thing that they run forward with.

It's a good question. The show didn't sit with anybody for very long for that to be the case. I thought the hunting episode where they got out of Kings Landing was one of the highlights, both because it had already established itself as a pretty claustrophobic show, but I thought that gave an opportunity to see different variations and different shadings of the characters. I think any time they kind of broke free from the, palace intrigue that wasn't intriguing enough to happen even within one decade. It needed two decades of sometimes off-screen time to unfold.

So, you know, the Reneer's Wild Night episode, in retrospect, I think was pretty good because it was a version of the show that I think it could lean more into or could have leaned more into where, okay, so this isn't going to be like Game of Thrones where I'm like, this is a plus level drama, regardless of what close. they're wearing, right? But is it more like, and I don't say this dismissively, but is this more like Bridgerton, in that it is a pleasure-seeking show, not just the character-seeking pleasure. I know Bridgeton is tongue-in-cheek and almost entirely irrelevant to this point, but I just mean there are different ways to enjoy our long dramas in this era, and one of them is, you know,

the way we talk about succession or Better Call Saul, where we're like, this is elevating. This is transcending. This is craftsmanship and this is taking me out of myself and making me think about the world or emotions or human beings in a different way. Or there's like, this is dope. Yeah. Like this is, the dopamine is going and I'm enjoying it and I'm in it. And I don't relate to it, but I'm having a great time, even if the time is, you know, fraught. And that episode was leaning more in that direction. But I, as I said at the top, I feel like it pulled back from that. So that kind of leads to my question, which ultimately, I think the show is season one, kind of a where it has the epic scope and grandeur of Game of Thrones,

but maybe it's smaller and more tightly focused that it actually wants to be something a little bit different, but it's kind of in between. Yeah. This is where I'll skip ahead to one of my questions. I would just say that my yes, more of this is Matt Smith. I think that the show that he is in is the show that I want to watch.

I think that the show that he is in is the show that Emma Darcy joins him in. over the course of this finale and their fight in front of a fireplace where she's just like, oh, you didn't even know, is like kind of cool. She has that weird like laugh, smile, but also like my husband just choked me out

and this is now I have like enemies both within and outside. I thought, I just think that like the show that he is on is the one that I want to watch. Calling people to C-word, being a fucking like maniac, but also the, like the speed

with which he's delivering this dialogue, the facility. he has with it. I think it's the thing that I am most drawn to about this show, even though obviously he is a wife murderer. I totally agree with you. And in fact, I want to call your attention to one moment that I thought was probably the best moment in the episode. And it was when Renice walks in and says what happened. And Matt Smith in that moment is pure chaos energy. He is conveying something so much more alive than so many other scenes

in the show have allowed us to see his hands are clenching and unclenching his sword. He is he's trying to find his place in this conversation where he's gone immediately to rage, right? Like he did not even pass go. He immediately says

oh, they murdered him. My brother's been slain let's roll. And it feels dangerous, right? It feels unstable. And I think that in the best version of the show that you and I would agree with that I think Mallory and Joanna would agree with,

I think Ryan Condal and Miguel Sopachanick would agree with, is when the unpredictable nuclear bomb energy of dragons is actually in a Targaryen, not in a CGI manifestation of a dragon, right? Like that's what we're all chasing with this show.

And briefly in that scene, it's there. Yeah. And I love, I'm not couching this. I love that. Carrie Bradshaw voice, and I couldn't help but wonder, if the real dragons were us. Yeah, look, I'm not made of stone.

Like, that works. Yeah. That absolutely works. I was going to ask you as the sort of flip side of that question is, was there a moment or of this episode or season when you thought, no, no more of this? But I think we both probably agree with all OBGYN content can exit the stage. I just, I don't know what it's in service to. Yeah.

It bothers me. I mean, we were talking about this last night on Talk the Throne. It kind of is, it harkens back to whether or like, what was, what was some of the sexual violence in early Game of Thrones or in all of Game of Thrones really in service of? Like the very graphic and on-screen sexual violence where it's like, did we need to see that? And I would take it a step further. I read an interview with Ryan Condal where he was talking about the restraint that he showed and that he feels this show has demonstrated. And his example was, I know. And his example was, we didn't show Agon raping his chambermaid.

We just showed how it really affected the young woman. And I was like, but you didn't really do that either. Like, it really, she's not a character on this show. She was a vessel for us to understand Agon's depravity and also Allison's moral malleability, right? which are useful things for those characters, but had nothing to do with the young woman. And I'm not saying I want a whole episode about her. I'm not arguing that.

That would not work dramatically. I'm just saying there are a lot of choices that this show still makes that are to tell us something that we may already know. And that's why I'm still never going to get over the like, we're not going to show Renera this episode. We are going to establish preschool fighting pits. Right. Like, we need you to know that that's here.

It's like I could have. assumed that was here. Right. So I, look, actors, actors love this stuff. So, so, my God, I'm in a blank under name, Emma Darcy. Mm-hmm.

Right. Emma Darcy. Emma Darcy is such a powerful performer that when given the opportunity to do a solo childbirth scene, like she's going to do her best job with it. She's really giving it her all. Similarly, like at the end of the episode,

when they do the Broadchurch Walk of Bad News into her, you know, which again, I did think they showed restraint on that, and I appreciated the way that that was framed in front of the fire. I thought that was well done. But they're going to take these moments or like Matt Smith walking on the beach when his son is stillborn. Like, they're going to

make the most out of them. These are world-class actors. But what is the stillborn doing for us? Like, what is it showing us? And I don't know if I'm the one to comment on it, but I'm curious. I'm curious about the effect of it and what it actually means for the, for what's earned on the show emotionally.

I don't know, but it left me in a strange place. In terms of the way the season was broken down, my next question is essentially one of, uh, I'm curious about the writer brain versus I, and also your viewer brain here. But in retrospect, yeah,

if I offered you a duo over here of this season, where the show itself essentially starts with episode six. It starts with, Reneira played by Emma Darcy, pregnant. Allison is queen. Maybe there's some flashbacks here and there, but like, do you think that the show would have been better served

if we had been with these versions of these characters the entire season and maybe had more, a little more time with Eiffens or, you know, Lara Strongs or whoever? What you lose is the crab feeder. Okay. I'm willing to make that trade. You lose, I guess. setting up Damon and you lose, I guess, setting up this friendship, quote-unquote, that these two women had. And I guess you lose some Vassara stuff. I mean, the funniest part of this

episode unintentionally is when Coralus walks into the room and he's like, good news. Everything's fine. I did the stepstones right this time. I'm like, cool. Cool use of your life, bro. I hope that pays off. I don't have a good answer for this because I don't think you can unwind it like that. I think that when you choose to do this story, you're pretty much locked in to what we saw unless you are some sort of galaxy brain god level writer, of whom there are many in town and in the world, I'm sure. But actually, I don't know if there are many because you get into the weeds of you're adapting George Martin's fictional history book. And let's say, okay, let's say you pitch him an alt. George, hey, George, just flew in from the code.

You know, and I love what you've done. George, we love this. We love this. We love it so much that we have an idea of how to change it. And if you pitch that Vesaris makes the decision about his succession when Emma Darcy's playing the part, right? If you're picking it up in episode five, you've just undone something that I think makes George R. Martin's books interesting.

He identified her in a sort of in a bind. He was like her. and then not only her, but I'm going to like imbue her with this stuff, yeah. But more than that, I think that what makes George Martin, what makes him successful from the beginning, right, is he's like, I'm going to look at how medieval monarchies actually functioned and then apply them to high fantasy. And in actual medieval monarchies, succession and marrying people off

and having that secured was everything. So you couldn't go into a Game of Thrones show and be like, Fissaris yada yada at it and said he'd get to it later. Yeah. Like we wouldn't have reached the point that episode six was in unless something had already been done or decided. So I don't, it's like almost like where do you drop the needle on the record? Sure. The previous tracks existed.

So I'm sympathetic to that. I just think this is so heavy. And I don't know how you can't feel the weight of it. You know, I'm very, well, this is one of the great unknowns, right? but like what would Game of Thrones the show have looked like if when David Benyoff and Dan Weiss had delivered. Benny Offenwise? If Benjamin, if Dr. Benjamin Offenweiss, whose office is on Market Street, 18th to Market, Philadelphia, delivered their pilot at a time when the series was done. If George R. Martin had written these books to completion.

And then they started the adaptation. And everybody knows at the end of these books. X, Y, or Z happens. John Hasrinera lit up, yeah. DeNaris. DeNaris, yeah. I think the prevailing thought would be, oh, the last two seasons would have been awesome. My counterfactual idea is I don't know if the first few seasons would have been awesome.

Because I think that the open-ended, like they had a lot of incredible stuff to work from, But I think they felt free. There will never be another moment like that. No, I know. Of where it's like in mid-air, where you had a huge contingent of people who were invested in this story because they've read these books

and they care so much about what's going to happen to these people. And this fucking guy will not write the books and tell them. And then you have a huge, even bigger contingent of people who are catching up by watching this show and are even more invested possibly

because they have no idea what's going on at all. And like the red wedding and all these things are surprises. And then I think I do think that we're sort of saying the same thing though, because one of the interesting elements of what happened at the end of Game of Thrones was the idea that they sped through the ending because they wanted to be done with the show. Yes. And now we're sort of criticizing House of the Dragon for being too slow about getting to inciting events. Now, Game of Thrones, the reason why I was like, why are you guys rushing is because I like Game of Thrones.

And I really enjoyed the way that Benny Off and Weiss wrote characters and wrote dialogue and all that stuff. It just felt like after waiting six or seven years to get to the point where John and DeNeros were together, now we're just going to kind of blow through this in two episodes. And I want to be clear. I am not saying that I thought that those guys landed the plane successfully. and I celebrate them for that.

That's not been my opinion. What I'm saying is they came in, and you're right, by the way, it's just a totally different moment for everything. It's really, it's barely comparable. But as writers, they came in with some feelings of playfulness, lightness, and creativity, which are crucial to telling good stories and doing good work,

for two reasons that are not present here. I think one is because the future was unwritten, which probably freaked them the F out, but also gave them a sense that they could change things to help themselves because they didn't know. So I think that's definitely part of it. I think the other part of it is that when they came in, I'm not saying that those two guys were the draw, but HBO wasn't in the IP business, right?

And so they were interested in making a show with David Benioff, I'm sure, because of his stature and talent is a screenwriter. And so they were like, we overly weight you guys. and they weren't as concerned with the fan base because they were HBO. And they had Boardwalk Empire on the air, so they didn't care. And vinyl in the pipeline.

This moment now is so different. George R. Martin is the most valuable and important player to keep honest in Sweden. So they are doing his work. And honestly, like the way that they're treating this franchise is basically the exact opposite of, say, D.C. and to some extent, Marvel right now, because they're being incredibly,

incredibly close readers of the text with Game of Thrones. There is not going to be a multiverse. We're never going to get a, what if this had happened? You know, like, we're not going to get fun and or crappy spin-off, like, that go against what the show is and what the story is. Whereas in DC, you could have three jokers, and in Marvel, they can have the multiverse and just be like, Krasinski's this guy. No, he's not, you know, like they can do that because they've been,

because they kind of need to and they need to feed the beast. Game of Thrones, they can make three or four of these shows and they will never deviate from what it is. Well, it's interesting. It's not a way I had thought about things before until I recently had a conversation with someone that pointed out something similar with Star Wars, which is there's never going to be a multiverse.

Star Wars is a myth, and it's one myth that is all interlinking, and it all happened. And similarly, Game of Thrones is history. it's not of our world, but it is history. Yeah. So everything in it happened. I've noticed Condal say several times, like he refers to this show as medieval times. And I'm like, it's not, though.

Like, you could do, like, it doesn't have to be. But it's like, I understand why he's using it as like, that's my model for like what is technologically or maybe culturally or whatever happening in this world at any given point. You have to understand that like it's medieval times. So she, there's not a lot of like help that she can get medically for the. stillborn baby. Like, you know, it's like, they haven't evolved surgery at any point, whatever it is. But I don't really care when it, is it applies to that.

But there is a little bit of a constriction to the idea that you are adhering to this sort of, this is history part that I think that show sometimes buckles under. I mean, and you know this from the Game of Thrones days. Like, God, I wish there was a Dornish wine merchant or someone from Bravo's who's just like, hey, I invented something called antibiotics and I'm going to help this side. You know, like, just like something from not this miserable. You say that, but we had to sit through quite a few episodes of scraping grayscale off a guy, remember? That was hot.

Like, talking about perversity, that's, well, that was also later seasons. Yeah, you're right. I mean, I'm throwing stuff out there and you're right. We have gotten some of this. There's a moment to end more positively. Sure. Here's a, I mentioned the Damon moment that I loved. and there's one other moment that I really, really liked,

and I don't want it to let it go unnoticed. And that was when... It was pretty funny that, like, when Otto made his little parlay, like, he brought the whole gang. Yeah. I was like, that's... What was the...

You know, it's like the traveling party? Like, remember on VEP when, like, some people couldn't go? Yeah. I feel like, did anyone get left off of this? Like, how many days did it take to get there? They set the Grand Maister? You know, what if someone needs to get their gray scale? scraped. Anyway,

they're on the parapets. You've got to have meetings on parapets or whatever, bridge, whatever. And Renier flies in on the dragon, she does her stunting, whatever. I really like that she grabbed his pin and threw it into the ocean. He's dope. Yeah. I really liked it because it was so small

and it was so useless of a gesture. But throughout this entire show, it's like considered this incredibly important totem. Yeah, and it was a sign, it said more than it was. It communicated is something on a character level, but also on a cultural, contextual level, right,

that we are breaking norms here in a way that probably is going to become more to the forefront in the second season. But there's something, and I know people have talked about this, I've seen the argument that this show feels stiffer

in its language because it is at a more medieval time, right? It's like 200 years before. Yeah. Okay. But I have felt that the show is very stiff,

and it's not just the good morrows, but it's just, so to see someone be hot-blooded with another character. It isn't necessarily... I mean, you're pointing out the Damon choking his wife thing,

but I preferred this moment of hot-bloodedness. Of him being like, I'm going to stuff your dick and your dead body. He did say that. Yeah. He did say that.

Do you think that was... Do you think he workshop that? Does he have a room? I don't think that's in the text. So I think that might be a Maddie original. Oh, I don't mean just Matt Smith. I mean, do you think that Damon

has a bunch of like bright boys in the back? like scribbling some, some zingers for him? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's off the dome. If that's off the dome, that's impressive.

Let's wrap it up there. We'll wrap a Pallas of Dragon there. Andy and I are going to do Andor on Thursday. We're going to do Atlanta on Thursday. We'll maybe preview a little bit of White Lotus on Thursday. Is White Lotus coming this week? The first two episodes are October 30th. Wow.

So we have another week. No, we have six days. So, yeah. Six days. So yeah, we'll preview a little bit of White Lotus. A lot of fun stuff. Andy. Thank you for riding with me throughout.

Thank you for being such a good sport about having me on your dragon with you. It's been a bumpy ride sometimes through the storm. We'll talk about it more at the end of the year. I just think this is a really weird show, man. Being in love means never saying you're sorry, Andy. So don't worry about it, man. Wasn't this a weird?

It was weird. It was a weird show. Not me talking about it. But it's a weird show that we received at the level that we let go of Game of Thrones. and I don't know if that's fair to anybody. You know, I will make that point. Like shows take time to find their sea legs and to say what they are.

And this is all going to show up in season three of Breaking Bad. Lots of stuff can still happen on House of the Dragon. They could come back. Alan Taylor can be like, everybody loosen up. You know, like a lot of different things can happen next season. I'm looking forward to it. What do you think the battlefield is going to be next season? Because childbirth was done.

Oh, yeah. The Battlefield of the womb has been, we put a pin in that. I don't know. Election Security. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for never cowering. Thank you for always speaking the truth on this podcast. I really appreciate that. We were produced by Kaya McMullen. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you on Thursday.