Sunday night’s episode of House Of The Dragon is the penultimate episode of Season 2. We have just one more episode left before another long—agonizingly long—wait while they cook up Season 3.
They’ll be cooking with dragonflame at this point. Enough dragons have come to roost—to fight and wage war upon one another and, ultimately, to die. There’s a reason that no dragons remained when Game Of Thrones started, and we’re watching it unfold. The Dance of Dragons, it was called. What a tragic little jig.
If you’ve been keeping up with my recaps of Season 2, you’ll know that several weeks ago I bonded with my very own dragon, Rhaelyx. (Googling ‘Rhaelyx House of the Dragon’ will result in both my recaps that involve our red-and-black winged wyrm, including last week’s). It was a very fine affair. The dragon landed outside my office—a garden shed in my backyard—and I knew exactly why. It needed a rider to take notes, chronicle all these Westerosi wheelings and dealings. Someday, all the dragons will be dead but Rhaelyx will live on, long after even Drogon passes from human memory, because Rhaelyx is a chronicler of stories, not a participant. As any good writer knows, that’s a safer bet.
In any case, while my bonding with the she-dragon went quite smoothly, the same cannot be said for the Dragonseeds in tonight’s dramatic episode—though both Ulf the White and Hugh Hammer came out on top in the end, for better or worse.
Last week, we saw Addam of Hull tracked down by Seasmoke. In the opening of this Sunday’s episode, Rhaenyra confronts Addam and learns that he has no bloody idea what’s going on and just wants a hug. Or something like that. He’s very keen on serving her and even more excited by the prospect of his deadbeat dad—Corlys Velaryon—acknowledging him. So is his brother, Alyn of Hull, who proudly tells his father “I am of salt and sea, I yearn for nothing more” only to be met with a half-arsed nod. Addam receives no better from daddy: “Well done,” the Sea Snake tells him curtly.
These are “the misbegotten offspring” of Houses Targaryen and Velaryon, Rhaenyra’s “army of bastards” that her son, Jacaerys, is so bent out of shape about. You see, he knows full well that he, too, is a bastard. It’s a matter of skin pigment. His father is a Strong, not a Velaryon, and his only real claim to legitimacy is that he’s a dragonrider, something that bastard dragonriders threatens. But Rhaenyra, while sympathetic, has no choice.
In the end, thanks to the whispering of Rhaenyra’s underpaid and overqualified handmaiden, the rest of the Dragonseeds make their way to Dragonstone, where Vermithor and Silverwing await. And fire. Lots of fire. Many of the potential riders are slain by Vermithor, until Hugh stands up and makes his bold claim.
I turned this moment into a Dark Souls screenshot:
Meanwhile, Ulf the White takes a very different approach. Hugh may be brave and tough, but Ulf is a coward—as evidenced by his reluctance to even go to Dragonstone in the first place, a decision born of peer pressure more than anything—but as he runs from Vermithor’s cavern of death, he steps right into his own pile of dragon dung, and Silverwing’s loving embrace. Soon enough, Ulf is on a joyride above King’s Landing:
The Dragons Of Team Black
Now, Team Black has the following list of dragons and riders, and I include Daemon because even though he’s off trying to raise his own army, he’s still an asset to Rhaenyra and her cause:
- Rhaenyra / Syrax
- Daemon / Caraxes
- Baela / Moondancer
- Jacaerys / Vermax
- Erik Kain / Rhaelyx (yes, I’m on Team Black despite my Alicent crush!)
- Hugh Hammer / Vermithor
- Ulf the White / Silverwing
- Addam of Hull / Seasmoke
For more on the Dragonseeds, I have penned this guide.
There is but one more dragon to enter the fold of Team Black—a wild winged beast up in the Vale, where Rhaena is currently. We only see her briefly this evening as she and Rhaenyra and Daemon’s young sons are sent packing from the Eyrie by a stern Lady Jeyne Arryn.
(Briefly: Jeyne is played by Amanda Collin and Alyn of Hull is played by Abubakar Salim, the actors who played Mother and Father in the wonderful—and tragically cancelled—HBO series Raised By Wolves. That’s the kind of trivia you can label as both “fun” and “terribly sad”).
If Rhaena does mount the wild dragon known as Sheepstealer (because it steals sheep!) it will be a pretty major, but very understandable, departure from the book.
A Change Is Gonna Come
The other main storyline this week takes place in that dreary castle we call Harrenhal. I admit, as much as I’d like to go sit through another hallucination nightmare, Rhaelyx is fed up with this storyline and even the prospect of another Viserys I scene won’t change her mind. A dragon’s mind is rarely subject to change, after all, and even the lovely performance of Paddy Considine is not enough to make her budge. I get the feeling she thinks that all of that ought to have been wrapped up last week. I can’t argue with that perspective.
We’ll just have to hoof it, then, since Rhaelyx is opting for a trip to the nearby hot springs (seriously, Harrenhal is host to the very best hot springs in Westeros!)
Daemon’s quest to unite the Riverlands has been a bit of a bust until now. Thankfully, old Grover Tully is dead and his grandson, Oscar Tully is in charge (yes, it’s a Sesame Street joke thanks to George R.R. Martin who also includes an Elmo Tully as well as a Bert and Ernie duo in Fire & Blood).
Oscar seemed somewhat meek when we first met him, but he’s all brass balls now, basically telling the Riverlords that while he doesn’t like Daemon, the scumbag, his grandpa did swear an oath, and Riverlanders are not oathbreakers, even if Daemon is a big jerk with a stupid jerk face.
Bravo, young Oscar. You have surprised me in a good way. You were very close to being the MVP of this week’s episode.
Close but no cigar. That award goes to Ser Simon Strong (again) for his one firecracker line. When Oscar condemns Lord Blackwater to die and tells Daemon it’s his job to mete out justice, the old castellan looks at him and says “Oh dear!” in what might just be the funniest moment in this entire show. Daemon, at once irked and impressed by young Oscar, obliges. Off with his head!
Oh dear!
Hightower Blues
Meanwhile, Team Green is not having the best time. Their defenses of King’s Landing are crap, allowing ships carrying Rhaenyra’s spies easy access to Blackwater Bay. Despite Aemond having recently ordered the city shut to comers and goers, the local Dragonseeds have no trouble exiting via ship. Larys Strong, the Clubfoot, the Master of Whisperers, is no Varys—to put it mildly. Aemond is forced to ride from the city to find Vhagar in the end when Ulf takes his joyride over the city, and forced to retreat when he gets to Dragonstone where plenty of other dragons await, as well as one angry dragon queen:
In King’s Landing, nothing is going to plan. Aegon—the poor young king—is up and walking and about as glad of it as Hank was in Breaking Bad. It turns out that Larys, despite his pretenses otherwise, is behind these attempts at recovery. I’m not sure what his motive is just yet, but I can’t trust Larys as far as Rhaelyx could throw him, and she could throw him rather far if she had the inclination. This would be a good time to invade the Red Keep, too, since only Vhagar defends it and Rhaenyra has over half a dozen dragons.
The one bright spot in all of Team Green’s cloudy day is Daeron, Alicent’s youngest son who we still haven’t met. He and his dragon, Tessarion, have taken to wing. Tessarion could once again shift the balance, though the Greens (despite their stronger armies) are badly outnumbered in the sky.
Alicent is perhaps the unhappiest of all these characters other than the maimed and mangled Aegon. She leaves the city and goes off to take slow strolls through the forest and lovely little swims in the lake, with but a single knight as her guard. It’s an odd callback to Rhaenyra’s own flight during her father’s hunt, when a young Ser Criston Cole became her sole companion.
I do feel for Alicent, who was but a child when her father, Otto Hightower, used her as a pawn in his dastardly game of Westerosi chess. If you get your pawn to the other side of the board, it becomes a Queen, and so it was with Alicent. But now she’s been cast aside by her son and his advisors. When her knight asks when she plans to return to the city, she tells him she’s not sure she ever will. And why should she? Her children are there, but her love for them feels a lot like their love for her—or Viserys’s love for any of them: Cold and distant, like the way one might love a shimmering star.
Ah, here is Rhaelyx, bathing in a hot spring in the very same forest Alicent is traipsing about in with her befuddled Kingsguard. It’s a lovely, mossy place. The sort of place one might go to forget about war and bloodshed and old betrayals and mangled sons. We’ll rest here awhile before taking flight. Soon enough, the air will shake with the beating of dragons’ wings and the earth will tremble with marching hosts flying green and black banners. Winter is coming. Or something.
I’ll add a “Scattered Thoughts” section later. For now, Rhaelyx and I will be soaking in this lovely hot spring with Alicent—a fate I can come to grips with, I assure you.
One episode left, dearest readers. What are your thoughts on Season 2 so far? Let me know Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Also be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me here on this blog. Sign up for my newsletter for more reviews and commentary on entertainment and culture.
Looking for another great fantasy show with dragons? The Dragon Prince on Netflix is a great series that you can watch with your kids. I highly recommend you check it out.
