THE DRAGON PRINCE S.2

                       The Dragon Prince Season 2: A Netflix Regression??? 

 

The Dragon Prince Season 2 follows the journey of the two Human Princes Ezran, Callum and their Elven counterpart Rayla as they venture into Xadia in search of a home for the Dragon Prince. In their quest, they are joined by familiar faces, foes and friends alike and friendships and bonds are once again tested in the faces of compelling and gut wrenching revelations.

The second season of the Dragon Prince is largely disappointed and never really lived up to the expectations of the first season. The first season left huge boot prints for Netflix to follow and the premise upon which the prequel ended was the perfect foothold upon which the second season was supposed to soar to astonishingly high points, however the story and the scripting team made a hash job of it.
  Talking about the plot and the concept, it remained true to the original idea and story but with introduction of new twists and dimensions. As good as diversifying the storyline and plot / conflict elements may seem, it is only ever successful if proper attention is paid to the principal theme element and it's development. This was a total contrast to the norm as we saw the script tilting towards uncertainty rather than solidifying what had already been established in a very good first show. The conflict all of a sudden became very shaky due to the actions of Viren, who until something different is revealed remains the principal source of conflict for the Dragon Prince himself and the Princes of Humans. That was perhaps another aspect where the scripting was botched. The opening sequences of the season saw Aunt Amaya pitted against A fire Element Elf, a combatant who not only matched General Amaya, but bested her in their first encounter. This felt like the proper time for the creative team to introduce the Elven conflict into the equation, presenting their motivation for feuding with humans and build some character on their side of the divide. For not so doing, it's a tremendous amount of fail for one creative team to bear. It's foolish and quite ridiculous. How many books do we think Netflix has left with this show? 3 more Books(seasons)? 

Incredibly, and for the first time in like forever, an attempt to create a compelling back story for the character and the conflict element itself ended up weakening the storyline and deconcentrating the already solid conflict element. We saw Viren for a confused villain who knows what he wants but obviously doesn't know how to go about achieving his desires. A character who even in a field he professes mastery is nothing more than a little cog in the machinery, a character who has an objective but one who lacks a compelling motivation for his actions. Perhaps Netflix was trying to create a relatable character in Viren, but ended up creating a disgusting monster without a face and without a heart. Viren does not and cannot lead the show as it's principal villain, unless there is yet more treachery expected of his new found mentor Aaravos. Now that is a character who has a lot of prospects and untapped potentials, we just hope Netflix don't botch his big reveal.

The single most interesting aspect of their season has to be the incredible narrative by Viren, of the sacrifices of two Queens, King Harrow and Queen Sarai, the epic confrontation with the magma Titan and the majestic emergence of the Dragon King of Xadia. The narrative technique employed mixed a storytelling brilliance of a master orator (Viren) and a well drafted letter of both love, caution and advice( from Harrow to Callum). The entire episode detailing the back story flowed with amazing fluidity with the contents of the letter and it made for the best watch of the 2nd season. This essentially tells you how poor the 2nd season was, compared to the first if this is the highlight of the second season.

Again, we had a lot of time on our hands to notice two very weird aspects of the show. The fact that two communities could be on the precipice of all out conflict, and yet there were no isolated skirmishes, except for the two part confrontation between General Amaya and The Fire elemental Elf and her soldiers. That being said, there was not a lot of fight scenes for the show, and where there was it was boring and slow, not impressive. Secondly, the script writer tried so hard to make Callum relevant and created an unexplained and hazy plot armour for him to once again do magic. Not only did the process unnecessarily bore viewers, but abnormally diluted some episodes to the irritation of viewers.
  On a personal note, I quite loved the Claudia and Soren angle and how it did conclude. It offers the show a whole lot of options going forward and we hope the creative team chooses the best option for these two characters.

In a nutshell, it's a good show to follow especially with hopes for a more compelling 3rd season. We are however not too impressed with the general feel of the 2nd season especially when compared with the massive positives of the 1st season. This may be one of those occasions where a production company has dug itself a hole from which it may never emerge by creating an electric, eccentric and a visually elegant pilot season as Netflix did with the first season of The Dragon Prince. We still have high hopes for this show, and will still recommend this to our viewers.

Created by: Aaron Ehasz, Justin Richmond
Written by: Aaron Ehasz, Justin Richmond
Directed by: Villads Spangsberg, Giancarlo Volpe
Voices of:
Jack DeSena
Sasha Rojen
Paula Burrows
Composer: Frederik Wiedmann

FCA's AppR: 7.5/10