I have been liking it a lot. Just all of it really, but especially the two protagonists. The little boy who plays Egg is going to have a hell of an acting career ahead of him. He really steals every single scene especially with his emotive range for such a young actor. Dunk is also great in that humdrum naive farm boy aspiring to be a hedge knight way but his performance is far more subdued. Together their performances compliment each other wonderfully.
Wait what?
Unless I am mistaken, S2 of House of the Dragon was planned to have two more episodes. Those were cut because of scheduling restraints around the writer’s strike. This would have included a big naval battle around King’s Landing? I think, it’s been a minute.
Edit: https://winteriscoming.net/house-of-the-dragon-director-addresses-season-2-getting-cut-from-10-episodes-to-8
Damn I did not know that. I would have loved to see more of the naval stuff too. One of my favorite parts of the books was Euron Greyjoy and his mysterious journey to and back from the smoking sea.
The plot beats from the cut episodes are very impactful to the story, so they have to put them into the beginning of s3 in some form.