House Of The Dragon Returns To Two Key Game Of Thrones Locations (With A Much Bigger Budget)

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of "House of the Dragon."

If season 2 of "House of the Dragon" has felt like something of a reunion tour so far, you're not the only one who's noticed. The premiere episode set the nostalgic tone right from the start by checking back in with the Northerners at Winterfell before moving on to Tom Taylor's Cregan Stark at the freezing Wall, a setting and a people we haven't seen since Jon Snow (Kit Harington) rode out into exile during the final episode of "Game of Thrones" in 2019. Of course, many of the major locations initially featured in the original series remain the same as in the prequel– after all, it'd be tough to tell another story about infighting over the Iron Throne without returning to the Westerosi capitol city of King's Landing or the island fortress of Dragonstone, to name just two. But while the novelty of our new Targaryen characters walking the same steps and sitting in the same rooms that Ned Stark, Jaime Lannister, and Joffrey Baratheon once did (or, rather, eventually will in a couple hundred years, give or take) has probably worn off by now, the same can't be said for others.

After the high-flying thrills of the Battle of Rook's Rest last week, episode 5 takes a step back for the two warring sides to focus on their next strategic moves. Wars can't be won with dragons alone, as fearsome as they may be, so both Team Black and Team Green have had to resort to some tricky negotiations and alliances. That just so happens to have brought them to a pair of very familiar castles with very stubborn hosts: House Arryn in the Eyrie and the Twins, controlled by House Frey.

One major benefit of "House of the Dragon" riding on the coattails of the success of "Game of Thrones" is that, unlike its predecessor, HBO has given creator/showrunner Ryan Condal a soaring budget that the first few seasons of the original were never able to enjoy. While that's allowed the prequel's creative team to depict much bigger and more expansive battles, load up every frame with hundreds of extras, and generally create an all-encompassing sense of grandeur, another happy side effect is that they're able to go back on occasion and improve upon what came before.

Episode 5 first does so in the subplot following Rhaena Velaryon (Phoebe Campbell) as she accompanies the young children of Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) and those precious dragon eggs to the Eyrie in order to secure her alliance with Lady Jeyne Arryn (Amanda Collin), a close relative of Rhaenyra's late mother and a key wildcard in the region known as the Vale. It doesn't take long at all for "House of the Dragon" to show off its new-and-improved take on the Eyrie, lingering on a gorgeous shot of the mountain fortress that proves why it has withstood many a siege over the long centuries. This already feels more extensive compared to the noticeably brief looks we had in season 1 of "Game of Thrones," when Tyrion was brought to the same castle as a prisoner and the then-unproven series went out of its way to confine the action to interior sets that only hinted at the location's notoriously faint-inducing heights.

To be fair, this episode of "House of the Dragon" similarly limits its scenes in the Eyrie to one terse conversation between Rhaena and Jeyne indoors, but we can safely expect future episodes to expand on this even more.

Ah, the Freys ... how we've missed this family of conniving, overambitious, and utterly unlikable brutes. Most (in)famous for being the masterminds behind the savage and traumatic Red Wedding that cut the Stark family at its knees during the War of the Five Kings, the most hated House in Westeros makes their grand "House of the Dragon" introduction in very fitting fashion: squabbling over what they can gain from allowing passage through their strategically-placed twin castles spanning the Trident river. Unfortunately, it's the self-appointed burden of Rhaenyra's son Jacaerys (Harry Collett) to put up with their blatant attempts to win as many benefits for their House as possible — in this case, gaining nothing less than the stronghold of Harrenhal itself — in order to lessen their dependence on the undependable Prince Daemon (Matt Smith) in the Riverlands and make it easier for Cregan Stark's promised army to make their way south.

But even with this one scene, we're given a much more complete view of the actual Twins than we were ever afforded in "Game of Thrones." Fans may remember how the original series was forced to use several filmmaking shortcuts, either opting for cleverly-chosen shots of forced perspective to give the appearance of the Twins' scope and scale or simply relying on close-ups of one castle or the other. Thankfully, "House of the Dragon" is free to dispense with any such techniques ... and even throw in an expensively-detailed dragon hanging out in the background on top of it all, because why not!

Unlike the Eyrie, it's unclear whether we'll return to the home of the Freys in future episodes. Even if not, this one taste of the Twins goes a long way. 

"House of the Dragon" premieres new episodes every Sunday on HBO and Max.