How can you best sum up the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale ? Four words: good episode, underwhelming finale. In many ways, the Season 2 closer, titled "The Queen Who Ever Was," should be a House of the Dragon viewer's wildest dream. The show treats us to scene after scene of incredible, dialogue-driven character work, from Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and Alicent Hightower's (Olivia Cooke) charged reunion to Alyn of Hull's (Abubakar Salim) brutally honest confrontation with his father, Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint).
Plus, we get several fascinating nods to the magical powers at work in Westeros, like Daemon Targaryen's (Matt Smith) weirwood vision and Helaena Targaryen's (Phia Saban) dragon dreaming prophecy . But much of that goodness loses its shine when you consider "The Queen Who Ever Was"s many missteps, and where this episode stands in the context of House of the Dragon as a whole. It's the end of the season, so why are we just now spending so much time on Tyland Lannister's (Jefferson Hall) excursion to Essos? Why does Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) hunt the dragon Sheepstealer for the entire episode, only for the finale to end before they truly interact? Why do the last two minutes play like a "next week on" trailer for a nonexistent ninth episode, instead of delivering a definite conclusion to Season 2? The point is, it feels like something is missing as the finale's credits roll.
And what's missing are the extra two episodes that would have taken th.