This week's House Of The Dragon is undone by a slow first half - The A.V. Club

The pacing of House Of The Dragon is a curious thing, oscillating between a breakneck speed that hardly lets us learn the names of its players before it dispatches them and lethargic, plodding slowness.

Basically everyone we’ve ever met on the show is here, with their sundry axes to grind in tow: Viserys, Alicent, and their brood; Rhaenyra, Laenor, and their kids; the newly widowed Daemon and his children; and Corlys and Rhaenys, mourning the passing of their only daughter.

Ser Laenor and Prince Aegon are both blasted drunk—the former because he’s reeling from the loss of his sister, the latter because he’s just a teenage dirtbag, baby.

Later that night, Aemond tracks the dragon until he finds him sleeping among the dunes.

And this isn’t just any dragon: Vhagar is the oldest and largest dragon in the Seven Kingdoms—and a living relic of Aegon the Conqueror’s fabled takeover of Westeros.

Aemond nearly gets dracarys’d for his audacity; but he’s a Targaryen through and through, and Vhagar responds to the boy’s commands.

You’re rooting for Aemond by the time he lands in front of the castle, right up until Laena’s daughters confront him and we realize that he’s stolen the last piece of their mother they had.

He prepares to brain Luke with a rock, but that’s not even the worst thing coming for him: Aemond names Rhaenyra’s boys bastards, taunting Jace with the title “Lord Strong.” In a skirmish that’s more West Side Story than Westeros, a knife winds up in Luke’s tiny hand—and the Kingsguard arrive just in time to see him slash open Aemond’s eye.

The ordinarily gentle Viserys is more thunderous than we’ve ever seen him, demanding the truth from his grandson over the shouts of Alicent, Rhaenyra, and their sons.

(When is this guy gonna realize he’s not living in The Brady Bunch?) Alicent says no thanks—she’d rather go full Hammurabi and rip out Luke’s eye in exchange for Aemond’s.

“Do not mourn for me, mother,” Aemond says as the queen stares at her former best friend in mute shock.

And now that they’ve got Westeros’ most legendary living dragon in their corner, the scales are tipped in their favor.

On a balcony overlooking the sea, Rhaenyra approaches Daemon with an indecent proposal: The only way for her to strengthen her weakening claim to the Iron Throne is for the two to join forces Targaryen-style, which is to say with an incestuous marriage.

Meanwhile, Rhaenyra and Daemon have the most Targaryen elopement possible, complete with mild mutilation to lock down that fire and blood vibe.

House Of The Dragon devotes ample time to lovingly teasing out the dynamics between its headliners at the cost of building compelling character arcs for almost anyone else?

Perhaps the greatest strength of Game Of Thrones was its ability to build whole worlds behind almost every member of its sprawling cast—and it’s one that House Of The Dragon consistently fails to deliver on