Most of us tuned in to House of the Dragon because we wanted more of the same. That might be the most obvious statement in history: of course we’d want more of Game of Thrones, the high fantasy series that effectively ended all high fantasy series. The HBO juggernaut cruised on a cocktail of gleeful bloodshed, eerie magicks, and enough copulation to put one off watching anything with their family ever again. House of the Dragon was poised to go double-or-nothing: by virtue of being a prequel, it had something Thrones did not — a whole army of dragons, and more Targaryens than lone fan-favorite Daenerys (Emilia Clarke). That it promised to pitch the incestuous, ancient clan into an epic civil battle, the Dance of Dragons, only further stoked the hype, despite its subdued first season. But fans were patient. The battle, much like the winters of Westeros, was inevitable; we needed only wait for it.

Five years later, though, and House of the Dragon is still withholding the “more.” Its second season was the definition of a stall tactic — sure, there were battles, but none with any of the escalation or momentum that fans expected after so much table setting. Much like the dueling queens at its center, the series seemed loath to go to battle at all. It kept its most volatile (and entertaining) warriors locked in imaginary purgatories. It murdered the momentum of its emotional bombshells. And, most damningly, the credits rolled just as it was coming up to its most anticipated conflict, the Battle of the Gullet.