It’s time for size-and-spectacle, season two

This is a question many of us might ponder: What is it like to ride one of Hollywood’s make-believe dragons?
“It’s just like riding a dragon in real life,” Eve Best semi-explained. “It’s deeply uncomfortable.”
She should know. She’s Princess Rhaenys in “House of the Dragon” (shown here), the “Game of Thrones” prequel that starts its second at 9 p.m. Sunday (June 16) on HBO and Max. Late in the first season, she had a dragon-riding escape that fans considered spectacular.
Best will have to take their word for it. “I’ve never seen it (the show),” she claimed, in that dry, British way. “I heard it’s fantastic.”
And the new season could be bigger. It has “two sequences that outstrip the size and spectacle of anything in Season One,” said producer Ryan Condal,
In the season-finale, life crashed in on Princess Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy). Her father, King Viserys, had died … her baby was stillborn … her son Luke and his dragon were killed… and she was crowned queen.
But Alicent (Olivia Cooke) – once her childhood friend, now her father’s widow — had other ideas. She had already had her son (Rhaenyra’s younger half-brother) crowned King Aegon II. He was cheered by the masses … a triumphant moment tarnished by the dragon-riding escape.
This is “House of the Dragon” in full flourish. Condal talks about moments “of spectacle and shock” and then “off we go to the next tragedy.”
Rage keeps growing, especially for Daemon (Matt Smith, shown here), who is both the brother of the late Viserys AND the second husband of Viserys’ daughter, Rhaenyra. “Grief is the catalyst of the season,” Smith said.
Now there are two crows and two women graspng for power.
One is Rhaenyra, now fighting for the throne she’d been promised since she was 7. “She never expect to find herself in this position,” D’Arcy said.
And the other is Alicent, the childhood friend who became her stepmother.
“She’s no longer the queen at 17,” Condal said. “Now she’s the dowager queen. (She’s) sort of been force into early retirement.” Or into war.