My Top Ten Episodes of "Halt and Catch Fire"

All the spoilers ahead.

"Close to the Metal" - Joe McMillan is positioned as the lead of "Halt and Catch Fire" in the first season, this Machiavellian asshole who will go to extreme lengths to get what he wants.  Here, after a nail-biting episode where Cameron, Gordon, and finally Donna are all stretched to their limits to save accidentally deleted code, it's revealed that Joe engineered the whole crisis.  It's a credit to the writers that you can look back on this episode and marvel at how far Joe is from this early version of himself by the end of the show.  And maybe Boz too.

"Adventure" and "Landfall" - I think I like the first season of "Halt and Catch Fire" more than most, even though the characters were less developed, and it was following the template of other prestige AMC shows pretty closely.  It managed to wring some great drama out of every step of the product development process, and the clash of big egos was always fun.  "Adventure" is the episode where Joe and Gordon take separate tacks to salvage a deal for LCD screens, while Cameron gets to know Joe's awful father and get some insight into how Joe thinks.  "Landfall," the next episode, is the one with the hurricane.  Joe goes on a tragicomic quest for Cabbage Patch Dolls while Joe is trapped with Donna and the kids.  Both are really about the characters slowly but surely learning to work in collaboration with each other.

"Up Helly Aa" - The trip to COMDEX is very eventful with the Cardiff team throwing an epic party, the Slingshot revealing what Donna's evil boss was up to, Joe saving the Giant by betraying Cameron, and finally the Apple Macintosh making its debut.  I love the recreation of the 1983 convention, the last minute rush to the finish line, and the heartbreaking sacrifices that eke out a win at the last second.  However, this is the episode that could serve as the show's logline.  In spite of all their brilliance and all their best efforts, this is not the story of the ones who won the race.  

"Kali" - Season two was a much slower and less structured year, putting all the characters in new places and letting all the different plot threads play out more gradually.  This episode was the big climax, seeing Gordon hit a low point with his medical condition while Joe tries to give Cameron her due after Westgroup steals Mutiny's users.  It's the culmination of Joe's whole season-long attempt to reinvent himself, only to keep falling into the same patterns of bad behavior.  Cameron, of course, has her own plans in motion, which deliver some sorely needed comeuppance.      

"And She Was" - The episode where Gordon and Cameron bond and play Super Mario together, while Donna is out of town.  Despite their differences, the two most brilliant minds on the show really should be friends, and we finally get to see it happen at just the right moment to give Gordon somebody to confide in when he needs it most.  This is also the episode where Joe loses control of MacMillan Utility, and uses one last card up his sleeve to burn everything down again.  And it's also the beginning of the Mutiny IPO storyline that leads us right into…      

"The Threshold" - This is one of the major turning points for the series, where Donna and Cameron's different approaches to the IPO blow up their partnership, and eventually the entire company after a dramatic meeting and confrontation.  Cameron resorting to an ultimatum and discovering that nobody is on her side is devastating to watch.  The irony is she's right, but her inability to compromise her plans and Donna's eroded trust means that there's no fixing the situation this time.  We also finally see the other shoe drop in the Joe and Ryan story.

"NIM" - The show's biggest timeskip yet takes us to COMDEX in 1990, where Joe and Cameron reconnect, and it feels like there's a future for them together.  Donna and Gordon have divorced, and Joanie is now a sullen teenager played by Kathryn Newton.  The episode does a fantastic job of reorienting us to the new normal, setting up all the pieces for the next phase of the show and the next big idea.  After four years some of the old animosities have gone away, but others remain.  And some things will never change, like the printer bros.

"Who Needs a Guy" and "Goodwill" - These are arguably the show's finest hours.  I've never seen any death on a television show handled as well as Gordon's, with the actual death heralded by these heartbreaking final hallucinations and then the immediate reactions of everyone else to the loss.  The next episode has the main cast coming together to pack up Gordon's house, creating the opportunity to put everyone together to have uncomfortable conversations and reach some epiphanies.  Donna and Cameron go a long way toward burying the hatchet, while Joe has to confront failure again as he and Haley search for a missing sweater.  And Boz showing up with chili at the end is just perfect.    

Honorable Mentions: "I/O," "1984," "Limbo," "Ten of Swords."

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"Halt and Catch Fire," Year Four

Minor spoilers ahead.

I understand why "Halt and Catch Fire" is held in such high regard by some viewers, but I came away from it a little shell shocked, and I'm still processing the last stretch of episodes.  I want to make it clear up front that I enjoyed the whole series and I admire that the show's creators were willing to take their characters to some pretty difficult emotional places.  Nobody gets what I would consider a happy ending, but at least they reach an understanding about who they are, and who they are to each other.  

It's now the early '90s, and Gordon and Joe are working on internet indexing/search, with Cameron often flaking on them as she finishes on her newest video game.  The Clark girls are now teenagers, rebellious Joanie (Kathryn Newton) and nerdy, brilliant Haley (Susanna Skaggs).  Meanwhile, Donna is leading a team that is putting together Rover, a competitor to Gordon and Joe's outfit, which will eventually be named Comet.  There are a couple of new faces in the mix, including Anna Chlumsky as a new Comet employee, and Molly Ephraim as Alexa, a financier who is very interested in working with Cameron.  

After a big time jump in season three, the only relationships among the four main characters that are doing pretty well are Joe and Gordon's working partnership, and the tentative rekindling of the Joe and Cameron pairing.  "Halt and Catch Fire" continues to have its tech innovation battles stand in for the animosity between the characters, and this time it's personal with Donna on an opposing team.  The show is much better now that it's putting more focus on the characters' growth and change, and boy have there been some changes.  I think Donna in her relative isolation has the most ground to cover this year.  She's now a much more Joe-like figure on the finance side, struggling to balance priorities and decide what she really wants.  Cameron also makes some important breakthroughs and finally acknowledges some of her faults.  I spent most of the season rooting for her and Joe, and knowing from pretty early on where that storyline was going.

I didn't really connect to Joanie and Haley as characters, but the actresses are great, and they signal a new generation on the rise.  Parenting is one of the big themes of the season, and suddenly Gordon and Donna's relationships with their daughters are put front and center.  Gordon and Haley get the bulk of the screen time, with a little interference from Joe, but Donna and Joanie certainly have their moments.  The Clark family functions so differently from how they did in the first season, with Gordon and Donna practically switching roles.  The girls' issues reflect how they've been in the thick of the drama the whole time, so a lot of their storylines feel like Gordon and Donna's chickens coming home to roost.  Boz, of course, is still the best Dad in the show by a considerable margin. 

The shift into the '90s and the internet era  is a lot of fun, bringing a different set of cultural references that I was more familiar with.  (Haley's a comedy fan, so "The Kids in the Hall" gets a shoutout).  The passage of time is a major part of the story, with season four taking place a full decade after season one, and a lot of history repeating itself.  Even Boz ends up in trouble again, though this time around it's in a completely different context.  And finding everyone running the same races and fighting the same fights is a big reason why the final round of resolutions play out as well as they do.  I reacted badly to the ending initially, but the more I think about it, the more I like it.  I'm still getting my head around what kind of story "Halt and Catch Fire" really is, and that it's way more thoughtful and perceptive than it appears to be at first glance.

I probably shouldn't have binged so much of the show, but I enjoyed the ride immensely.  I'll get into more discussion of spoilers in my Top Ten episodes list for "Halt and Catch Fire," coming up soon.

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"Knowing" is the Strangest Disaster Film

Spoilers ahead.

Alex Proyas is a talented director, best known for making two of the best genre films of the 90s, "The Crow" and "Dark City."  His later films got middling to bad reviews, and I know I skipped "Knowing" because of the terrible critical reception.  I read the spoilers for the ending at some point, which just reinforced my decision.  However, recently I stumbled across the Nicolas Cage action film "Next," where he plays a magician who has precognition.  I remembered that people frequently got "Next" mixed up with "Knowing," where Nicolas Cage also wrangles with precognition, so I thought it might make for a fun double feature.  And maybe I could get a post out of it.  It turns out there is plenty in "Knowing" for a whole post by itself.

"Knowing" was released in 2009, the same year as apocalypse movies "2012" and "The Road."  All three seemed to be building on anxieties about the impending Mayan apocalypse while processing some of the lingering fallout of 9/11.  Nicolas Cage plays a widower with a young son, who stumbles across a list that predicts a series of fatal disasters, culminating in the end of the world.  The first hour of "Knowing" is an excellent supernatural thriller, full of creepy revelations and building suspense.  Cage decodes the list and tries to prevent the disasters, but fails every time.  Meanwhile, sinister figures dubbed "The Whisper People" keep showing up, looming over Cage's son.  There's a good argument that "Knowing" should be considered a horror movie, with occasional jump scares, smash cuts, and some of the most spectacular kill sequences ever put on film.  The plane crash and subway derailment sequences are still jaw-dropping to watch, among the best I've ever seen.  However, it's the bleak tone and paranoid atmosphere that really set "Knowing" apart, where the hero is helpless to do anything except witness the carnage.  At times it feels like a repudiation of the Roland Emmerich style disaster films like "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow."  

The second half of the movie is about the discovery of an apocalyptic event coming to wipe out all life on Earth, and how the characters respond.  The final disaster is solar flares destroying the atmosphere, and this is scientifically pure bunk, but that's not really the point.  Suddenly the movie shifts to more spiritual and existential matters, as Cage is forced to confront his own faith, and the Whisper People are revealed to be benevolent creatures, interceding to save some of the children of Earth from annihilation.  There are visual indicators that they might be aliens or they might be angels, but it's left ambiguous on purpose.  This is the material that left so many viewers dumbfounded, and in some cases very upset.  The impact on me was blunted by the fact that I had read the spoilers, but I agree that these elements should have been set up better than they were, since many viewers clearly weren't ready or receptive to them.  The ending is a perfect illustration of tonal whiplash, as we're treated to a view of the total destruction of life on Earth, immediately followed up by shots of the rescued kids running through an Edenic alien landscape, ready to start over.  

However, "Knowing" turning out to be part Biblical allegory, and pivoting to a different genre in the last act felt familiar and oddly nostalgic to me.  "Dark City" had a similar reveal, though that one showed its hand earlier, and the dark sci-fi tone was still pretty much the same throughout.  The answers to supernatural mysteries in films like this are frequently so insubstantial or incomplete that it was a wonderful shock to realize that "Knowing" was giving us something completely different.  Suddenly I was watching a "Twilight Zone" episode, where I was being asked to accept an answer that was much bigger and stranger than I had been anticipating.  It was Revelations all along!  And as silly as it sounds on its face, this is a satisfying answer, even if the sequence of events to reach it is shamelessly contrived to fit the demands of a suspense thriller.  I want to make it clear that I'm not Christian and have no particular attachment of affinity for Christian mythology.  However, I respect and appreciate the writers of "Knowing" incorporating this kind of material in a thoughtful way.

"Knowing" turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasant surprise, and it now gives me a third Alex Proyas film I can wholeheartedly recommend.  It's not a great film, and will not work for everyone, clearly, but the parts and pieces are so interesting that I think it warrants further consideration.  Roger Ebert certainly thought so, devoting multiple pieces to "Knowing" and its deeper themes that I had to go to the Wayback Machine to dig up.  And they're worth digging up. 

  

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My Favorite James Whale Film

It's nearly Halloween, so let's talk about a monster.  

There are only a few really iconic images from the early days of film that are still potent in the present day.  One of these is Boris Karloff's portrayal of Frankenstein's Monster from the 1931 version of "Frankenstein."  The Monster's incredible impact on the history of film and popular culture can't be overstated, serving as a common point of reference for so many outsiders, both in and out of the horror genre. You can find the film's influence everywhere, from the work of Andy Warhol and Tim Burton to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," to Victor Erice's anti-Francoist fairy tale, "The Spirit of the Beehive."   The Monster may be one of the most parodied characters of all time, with humorous versions appearing in "The Munsters," "Young Frankenstein," Franken Berry cereal boxes, and the "Hotel Transylvania" franchise.

  

I debated for a while about writing this entry for "Bride of Frankenstein," where the Monster is more verbal and self-aware.  Many of the famous lines and images associated with "Frankenstein" actually come from this film, and it's just as highly regarded among critics.  However, the original "Frankenstein" is far more iconic and unsettling.  It has the famous "It's alive!" scene and the notorious drowning sequence that was widely censored until the 1980s.  Frankenstein is such a familiar figure now, it's hard to remember that the film is a straight horror picture, and audiences found its depiction of the Monster truly disturbing and frightening in the 1930s.  There were significant censorship challenges, and the film was banned in multiple countries over its subject matter.  A great deal of its effectiveness comes from Boris Karloff's portrayal of the Monster, who was initially conceived as a far more inhuman, mindless grotesque.  Karloff gives him a sense of pathos and tragedy.  You can feel his inarticulate frustration in all his attempts to interact with the people he encounters.       

The filmmaking is also excellent on every level.  Arthur Edeson's cinematography establishes so much of the film's atmosphere of dread and gloom.  Makeup artist Jack Pierce designed the immortal look of the Monster.  Charles D. Hall and Kenneth Strickfaden were responsible for putting together Frankenstein's laboratory, and filling it with sinister electrical machinery.  The electrical effects were a novelty in 1931, but so successful that they were soon popping up everywhere in the subsequent Universal Monster films.  "Frankenstein" was already very much part of a franchise, designed to follow up to the success of "Dracula" - in fact Bela Lugosi had been cast in an earlier version of the film before James Whale took over and brought in Karloff as his leading man.  Whale was best known for war films up to that point, and his approach to "Frankenstein" was to apply elements of German Expressionism to the visual style.  A fan of German directors like Paul Leni, Fritz Lang, and Robert Weine, he used heightened, exaggerated shots, dramatic chiaroscuro lighting, and distorted images to give the film an unconventional, ominous look.         

"Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein" were both directed by James Whale, who was also responsible for helming "The Invisible Man," and other Universal horror classics.  However, Whale wasn't keen on being known as a horror director, and went on to direct several other excellent films in multiple genres, including the 1936 adaptation of "Show Boat," an American adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's "Marseille Trilogy," and a murder mystery farce called "Remember Last Night?"  However, he was never able to escape the shadow of his early successes, and left Hollywood for a career directing theater by the 1940s.  In recent years, he's become more celebrated for his LGBT identity - he was one of the rare uncloseted gay directors in the 1930s.  You can definitely read LGBT themes into the "Frankenstein" films without much effort.  

However, I've always viewed Frankenstein's Monster as cinema's patron saint for every minority and everyone ever treated as an unfortunate.  There have been some pretty good modern adaptations of "Frankenstein," but not many of these have been on film.  The power of the 1931 version remains too potent and inescapable, even after nearly a century.  

What I've Seen - James Whale

Frankenstein (1931)

The Old Dark House (1932)

The Invisible Man (1933)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Remember Last Night? (1935)

Show Boat (1936)

The Great Garrick (1937)

Port of Seven Seas (1938)

Sinners in Paradise (1938)

Wives Under Suspicion (1938)

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Rank 'Em - 2024 Summer Thrillers and Chillers

I have a significant list of horror and thriller films that were released over the summer that I don't feel I need to write a whole review for, but I still would like to express some opinions on.  I'm going to try something new and do this in the form of a "Rank 'Em" post.  This list is in no way comprehensive - I'm skipping "The Watchers," "The Deliverance," "AfrAId," and the Russell Crowe exorcism movie  among other things, and I don't categorize movies like "The Crow" as a horror/thriller picture.  

Ranked from best to least, here we go.

Oddity - The more I think about this Irish horror film from Damian Mc Carthy, the more I like it.  True to its name, this is a fascinating, weird, and singular piece of work.  The supernatural ideas are familiar - a blind medium seeks answers about her sister's death - but it's the way the twists and turns play out that really sets this apart.  Carolyn Bracken is excellent in a double role as the two sisters, and I really have to admire the ending for not pulling any punches. 

Strange Darling - JT Mollner's unnerving indie serial killer movie snuck up on me.  Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner are fabulous, while the shuffled storytelling works great.  Some of the commentary is a little pointed, but I like the filmmaking - several long shots that let scenes play out in interesting ways, and a dreamy soundtrack and sound design that helps set the mood.  The killer fits into a trope that I'm a little uncomfortable with, but the execution is very strong (pun totally intended).  Moller and his actors ensure that the title character is more than just a trope.  

Blink Twice - Lots of rough edges here, but I like Zoe Kravitz's directing debut an awful lot.  I like that it has a sense of humor, that it's got a great role for Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum gets to go ham, and that it's not afraid to get really dark when it needs to.  It's definitely influenced by Jordan Peele's work, but has its own very distinct voice and style.  The mechanics of the plotting are a mess, but the control of the tone is something special.  This would be higher on the list with a couple of fixes to the third act, and I can't wait to see what Kravitz does next.

Cuckoo - It took me about an hour to figure out what this movie was doing, but once I did, I really enjoyed the ride.  Cuckoo is a German co-production with an international cast, and like "Oddity" it really benefits from the more European sensibility.  The frights are genuinely unsettling, but there's a lovely undercurrent of sentiment that works better than I was expecting.  Also, if Dan Stevens does nothing else in his career but play kitschy character parts in genre films, I will be thrilled.     

Longlegs - Oz Perkins' film is very distinctive and not scared of being a little slow and a little off-kilter.  I admire its ability to create a real mood of apprehension and unease.  However, I really think that the refusal to spell out more of what was actually going on undercut the movie, especially in the final round of reveals.  The filmmaking is excellent, and the performances are very strong -  I like Maika Monroe's more than Nicholas Cage's - so "Longlegs" is well worth the watch.  I just can't get on its wavelength when it comes to the turn from serial killer movie to supernatural horror.  

A Quiet Place: Day One - I don't know that this quite qualifies for this list.  Sure, it's a "Quiet Place" prequel and has some excellent scenes of suspense and destruction when the aliens invade New York City.  On the other hand, this is such an intimate melodrama for so much of the running time, where the stakes are kept very low.  It often feels like a post-apocalyptic survival film, with Lupita Nyong'o and Joseph Quinn putting in unusually nuanced performances for a summer genre picture.  I had qualms about the abrupt ending, but otherwise this was a treat.

Trap - The first half of the film is a lot of fun, with Josh Hartnett delivering an excellent performance, and a really novel, if logistically ridiculous scenario for a manhunt movie.  "Die Hard" at a teen idol concert, from the POV of the baddie.  And then M. Night Shyamalan makes the mistake of leaving the arena, handing over the reins to a different character, and the whole thing quickly deflates.  The first half is good enough that this isn't a total wash, but "Trap" could have been a lot better than it turned out.

MaXXXine - Of Ti West's trilogy, I thought "Pearl" was great and "X" just okay.  "MaXXXine" has the most stacked cast, with Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Debicki, Halsey, and Lily Collins joining Mia Goth on her tour through the seedy underbelly of Hollywood, but the movie is oddly toothless compared to the prior movies that "MaXXXine" is supposed to be connected to.  I was waiting for the whole movie for Goth to really let loose and show us the monster we know she's capable of being, and the actual, heavily Manson-inspired storyline was such a letdown to see unfold.

In a Violent Nature - I like the premise here, where we see everything from the POV of a  Jason Voorhies-like killer as he sets off on a murderous rampage to recover stolen property.  The trouble is that this idea can't sustain a feature length film, especially one where the characters and story are so slight.  With no stakes to work with, it gets awfully boring watching our protagonist shamble around from kill to kill - I couldn't help but feel like I was watching someone else playing a video game, and not a very good one.  

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Goddammit, Neil

I was very tempted to write a eulogy for Neil Gaiman in this post, in order to express my extreme displeasure at discovering that he's yet another in a long list of celebrities revealed to be a heinous abuser.  The sexual assault allegations against him are serious, and I have no reason not to believe them.  I'm incredibly frustrated that yet another artist whose work I love and support is somebody I'll need to shun and denounce going forward.  I used to count myself a fan of Johnny Depp, Woody Allen, Louis CK, Bill Cosby, and Joss Whedon.  Gaiman's the worst one yet, because he's been my favorite author for the past twenty years.  I have a whole shelf full of his books and comics, and upcoming adaptations of his work are among the few pieces of media I'm actually looking forward to.

Did I know or suspect that Gaiman deserved to be canceled?  No.  When I was a starry-eyed fan in my twenties I read his blog daily for years, but I stopped putting him on a pedestal after his first divorce, when he became more famous in the 2010s.  A couple of incidents made it clear to me that he was very fallible and probably behaved very differently when he was out of the public eye.  I figured he had a few skeletons in his closet, because nearly everyone does, but I didn't suspect they were anything like what's been alleged.  But that said, I've always enjoyed his public persona very much.  I was always glad to see him when he did promotion for his projects, or when he'd pop up on social media stumping for social causes or clapping back against the bigots.  Gaiman has always been very good at being a public figure, even thriving on social media in spite of its toxicity.  He was an LGBT ally so much earlier than most, and a big presence during the WGA strike.  There's a conspiracy theory going around that the allegations against Gaiman were manufactured by the outlet that reported them - The Tortoise - which has right-wing ties.  I want that to be true, but it isn't.

It's hard not to draw parallels to "Calliope," the issue of "The Sandman" comic Gaiman wrote thirty years ago.  It's about a young writer who enslaves and sexually abuses an ancient Greek muse to fuel his success.  The recent adaptation of that story for the "Sandman" television series added some eyebrow raising details, including that the writer styled himself as a feminist and championed progressive causes.  Gaiman didn't script that episode, but he had an awful lot of influence on the show.  Instead of coming off as perceptive and self-critical, "Calliope" reads as awfully confessional now.  "Writers are liars" is one of the memorable lines, spoken by the abusive writer's equally terrible mentor.  I've spent a long time wondering who that character might have been based on (Harlan?  Roger? Surely not Terry?), and if I may have to go through this whole mess again with another of my favorite authors.    

Speaking of the "Sandman" television series, a selfish part of me is the most upset about the various adaptations of Gaiman's work that could be in jeopardy.  The allegations against Gaiman haven't turned into a wholesale canceling of everything he's involved with.  However, this can't be ruled out, and the potential blowback will affect a lot of projects - the second season of "The Sandman," the third season of "Good Omens," which has been reduced to a final ninety minute wrap-up movie, the "Anansi Boys" miniseries, and multiple movies that are in development.  "Good Omens" has been affected most so far because Gaiman is the showrunner and primary writer.  The next season of "The Sandman" is far enough along that it'll be completed, but I don't know if we're getting further seasons to finish off the series.  I've been waiting a very long time to see some of this material adapted, and I'm going to have to do mental gymnastics to justify to myself that it's okay to enjoy them.

And at the end of the day it is okay to enjoy them.  I'm not going to throw out a whole shelf of books or my copies of the "Coraline" and  "Stardust" movies.  I'm going to keep watching "Sandman."  Maybe "Good Omens" too.  It's perfectly reasonable to not support Neil Gaiman's work as a writer going forward, but I draw the line at denying the twenty-year relationship I already have with his older output, and the adaptations that are the collaborative work of so many other people.  I'm going to treat Gaiman like he's dead, and grieve the person that I thought he was.  And I'm going to brace myself for the next cancellation, because now this is a normal part of my life and consuming media.

And it sucks, but it is necessary.  And it'll get done.

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"House of the Dragon," Year Two

Second seasons are always tough, and "House of the Dragon" has just gone through a rough one.  "Game of Thrones" didn't have a particularly good second season, but it moved the plot along and didn't try anyone's patience.  Then again, it also didn't have the kind of behind-the-scenes meddling that "House of the Dragon" has had to deal with, which has resulted in a major battle being kicked ahead to the third season, and its episode count reduced from ten installments to eight.  This is a common issue in 2024, where we've seen several high profile series delivering compromised, often unsatisfying seasons due to production troubles.  "House of the Dragon" was one of the few shows that wasn't significantly delayed by the WGA and SAG strikes last year, but they had the fallout from the Warner/Discovery merger to contend with, and showrunner Miguel Sapochnik bowing out after the first season.

The show's co-creator Ryan Condal has stepped up to helm season two, which sees both Rhaenyra and Alicent preparing for war.  Alicent's son Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) is currently on the throne, married to Helena (Phia Saban), with his one-eyed brother Aemond (Ewan Matchell), the strongest dragon rider in the kingdom, constantly scheming for power behind his back.  Sir Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), is elevated to Hand of the King this year, through events I will not spoil. Over at Dragonstone, Rhaenyra has the support of Lord Corlys and Rhaenys, her son Jace (Harry Collett), and cousins Baela (Bethany Antonia) and Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), but far fewer resources for a coming war.  She sends Daemon to Harrenhal to raise an army, while finding an unexpected ally in his former lover, Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno).

It's actually a pretty eventful season, with several deaths, destruction, dragon combat, lots of secretive plotting, and a lot of new characters introduced.  Lord Corlys's illegitimate sons, Addam (Clinton Liberty) and Alyn (Abubakar Salim) come into play, along with seeming nobodies like Ulf White (Tom Bennett) and Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) from King's Landing.  You might recognize Simon Russell Beale playing the current overseer of Harrenhal, or Freddie Fox as Alicent's little-seen older brother Gwayne.  However, it's difficult to keep track of everyone from episode to episode.  We're running into one of the major challenges from the original "Game of Thrones," which is too many characters and storylines all vying for attention.  I completely lost track of some characters like Baela and Gwayne.  Fortunately, there are no major time skips this year, and we don't have to juggle younger and older versions of the characters

However, the biggest problem this season isn't a new one - pacing.  While the buildup to the bigger clashes is diverting enough, the action frequently slows to a crawl, and it's exasperating that season two only covers a few months, after season one covered multiple years.  We're going to have to wait until 2026 or later for battles we've already been waiting since 2022 to see.    Some of the major characters don't have enough to do, and are stuck stagnating in their own doubts for multiple episodes.  Daemon suffers this the worst, holed up in Harrenhal where he contemplates betraying Rhaenyra, with a witchy healer woman named Alys (Gayle Rankin) facilitating a lot of troubled dreams.  It's nice to get a few cameos from familiar faces, but Daemon's crisis of faith feels far too drawn out and unnecessary.  Alicent is another one who spends multiple episodes wavering in her resolve, her screen time wildly out of proportion to her importance in the story this year.  

So while there are some really fantastic high points in this batch of episodes, including a three-way dragon fight, a terrifying test for potential dragon riders, and an assassination attempt going wrong in the worst way, it's often a slog to get to them.  Characters being set up to be pivotal figures in the future often feel shortchanged in favor of others who feel like they're treading water.  Most episodes amount to a series of conversations capped off by an action scene at the end.  It wouldn't be so bad if these conversations weren't so repetitive and the participants were more varied.  Alas, there aren't many humorous wildcards, and far too many angsty young nobles going on endlessly about their birthrights.         

I continue to enjoy "House of the Dragon," and have a brighter outlook on its future seasons than I had with "Game of Thrones," because the source material is already finished.  However, this season is plagued by too many of the same issues that I've been seeing in prestige television across the board lately.  The quality level remains high in the acting, production design, music, and cinematography, but they can't compensate for the fundamental deficiencies with how this season of television was put together.  I'm not saying that having a big climax would have solved all of the show's problems, but it certainly would have engendered much more goodwill from the fans going into the next long hiatus.    

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