This is a recap of the most recent episode of HBO's House of the Dragon. It contains spoilers. That's what a recap is.
Cold open! On a broad green plain which looks a lot like a battlefield but will turn out not to be one, Team Black and Team Green face each other.
The Blacks are represented by Daemon and Hugh and their dragons, the Greens by the Hightower host, led by the preening Lord Ormund Hightower and — in the background — Daeron's dragon Tessarion!
Daemon delivers his terms, sneeringly. If the Hightower army bends the knee, disbands and returns to Oldtown, they will not be turned into cherries jubilee, and can live the rest of their lives (and Daemon spits this last bit out with utter contempt, as if it's a chunk of underripe melon) "... in peace."
Ormund makes a show of agreeing to the surrender only to save his men, and not to save his own soft, supple hide. He surrenders and is just about to saddle up back home when Daemon demands he give up Alicent's youngest son Daeron, whom he knows has been serving as Hightower's squire.
A nervous, bleach-blond tween steps up. Ormund consigns the poor kid to a hard life in the enemy's clutches with bluff advice to be strong, pip pip, cheerio, stiff upper lip and whatnot, there's a good lad. He's only had a scant few minutes onscreen, but Ormund is really coming off like a gigantic tool. That's efficient characterization, you have to admit.
Credits! And a few new additions to the Die, You! Tapestry: A triumphant Rhaenyra and her dragon flanked by Mysaria and Daemon. Corlys and his family, posing stiffly like they're taking this year's Christmas-letter photo at a strip mall Olan Mills. A rat licking blood from the Iron Throne. A crowd of Kings Landing folks raising their hands to welcome Rhaenyra. And then the whole tapestry rips in two, which I should have seen coming, and isn't exactly subtle, as metaphors go. Still, it's a cool effect.
Rhaenyra's got 99 problems and whoops no wait make that 100 problems no wait 101 …
In the Red Keep, Rhaenyra reminisces about her dead father Viserys in his old bedroom, which — in case you're wondering — still has his gross sexually explicit tapestries hanging on every wall. That must be a bit like clearing out your dead father's stuff and finding his stack of smutty magazines. Rhaenyra talks a big game about living up to the horny old codger's kingly standard, and ruling in a just and wise way — but then in the very next sentence starts Bridezilla-ing about how ridiculously expensive her official crowning will be, because it needs to be perfect.
They meet their hostage, the nervous young Daeron. Hilariously, she grills him about Ormund, Aemond and Aegon. "What of their movements?" she demands, as if the little dude was privy to the tactical vicissitudes of Westerosi war strategy.
In her Small Council chamber, Rhaenyra learns that Tyland Lannister (probably dead! But we haven't seen a body!) sent the entire royal treasury out of the city for safekeeping, and nobody knows where. The crown is flat broke — but Rhaenyra keeps insisting that her coronation be elaborate, with all the bells and whistles. Jewel-encrusted bells! Gold-leaf whistles! And, presumably, sterling silver party hats and satin balloons and noisemakers that blat "Ode to Joy."
Plus, the food reserves are depleted and the crops won't be ready for harvest, the Red Keep's run out of candles, something's wrong with bedchambers, etc. etc. It's tough to rule, is the gist. This will be the theme of the episode.
Both this show and Game of Thrones before it have struck this odd "I hold absolute power; pity me" note before. Back in Season 2, Aegon had to suffer through the demands of his subjects, and on GoT, both Daenerys and Joffrey spent several scenes learning the difference between thrill of conquest and the petty picayune particulars of governing.
Rhae-united and it feels so good
Heads up! For the first time since Season 1, Rhaenyra and Alicent share the screen in a scene that makes perfect logical sense! That doesn't strain credulity until it splits down the middle! And that doesn't entirely depend on every last member of their respective vast and highly trained contingents of elite royal guards completely sucking at their dang jobs!
That's because Alicent and Helaena are now Rhaenyra's royal prisoners. She goes to visit them to ask them what they know about the missing royal coffers and Aegon's whereabouts, which isn't much.
The stress is getting to Rhaenyra. She's sweaty and pale and agitated, and she's hallucinating seeing poor dead Jacaerys walking the Red Keep halls. She resolves to murder Daeron, and wants the staff questioned. She sees the High Septon's refusal to officially crown her as an insult, which it very much is. Turns out the Faith of the Seven has no love for dragons or blood-magic. Or, it is heavily implied, for women in power. (After all, Rhaenyra's like the seventh Targaryen to rule; you'd think this whole anti-dragon stance would have come up before.)
At dinner, Corlys asks for Rhaenyra to officially recognize Alyn and Addam as his sons; Rhaenyra, looking even more sweaty and anxious than before, doesn't answer. Instead she roams the halls of the Red Keep and ends up in Daemon's bed.
We continue with the Burden of Rule theme as Rhaenyra sits the Iron Throne to hear petitioners. One of them complains that the rich hoarded food and resources during Rhaenyra's blockade. She socks that news away for later.
She knights her dragonseeds — Ulf the White, Hugh the Hammer — but! She refuses to bestow the name Velaryon on Addam, instead knighting him as Addam of Hull. Corlys blows up at her.
Still more requests! Alicent asks that her father's remains be sent to Oldtown for burial, and Rhaenyra takes the opportunity to seek advice on negotiating the demands of being a queen. Alicent tells her you'll do things you don't want to do; Rhaenyra hates this answer and refuses to accept it. And there it is: This marked inflexibility, and her belief that she is uniquely called to rule? That's the show's writers laying track that Rhaenyra's future as queen is either gonna be very short or very dark or both.
Case in point: At a dinner for the nobles who supported her, she makes nice for a while before serving them grilled rat, because it's what the poor were forced to eat while these pampered schmucks hoarded wealth. The nobles protest, as you'd imagine, and it's clear she's made her some powerful enemies this day. It's also clear that the writers have just laid down another few miles of track.
On her way out of the dining hall she meets Ser Torrhen Manderly, an oily sort who's all like, "Nice move with the rat entree, your grace! It had a fascinating balance of textures and flavors, – piquant, unctuous and somehow jejune!" Rhaenyra doesn't buy it, but at least he got himself some facetime with her.
Suddenly Daemon's a real Nostradumbus, over here
Rhaenyra and Daemon debate their status as rulers. Daemon wants to take their dragons and conquer Dorne, Essos — the whole world. Just like the prophecy said. Or anyway, just like the prophecy said, in his own weirdo, haughty, narcissistic interpretation of it.
See now, I like this specific use of the prophecy element in the story — because it just fits: Of course Daemon would seize upon it as an excuse to enforce his pompous will on the world.
But Rhaenyra reminds him that her father warned way back in Season 1 that dragons aren't playthings, and that the Targaryens' control over dragons is an illusion. (This conviction is neatly borne out by the death of Lucerys back in Season 1, when Aemond lost control of Vhagar, and mostly recently by Rhaena's hubristic belief that she could tame a wild dragon like Sheepstealer, which … didn't end well.)
No, she says, they should stick to fixing King's Landing before they do anything else.
Imagine! An insanely rich person expressing the belief that there is such a thing as too much wealth and power! Talk about high fantasy.
Deploy the decoy!
Rhaenyra comes clean with Alicent, admitting that she's got Alicent's youngest son Daeron hostage. She then insists that while she could by all rights have him executed, she's such a good and fair and just and merciful and wise ruler that instead she'll just consign him to the Wall for life.
Alicent's reaction to this news: Somewhat less than overjoyed. Decidedly underjoyed, in point of fact.
She takes Alicent to see the kid. When she does, Alicent can't quite keep it together, and Rhaenyra guesses — correctly — that this tow-headed moppet is not Daeron. Turns out the boy's Keira Knightley in The Phantom Menace, a decoy. Ormund told him if he didn't pretend to be Daeron he'd kill his mom. (See above in re: Ormund, not a good dude.)
She's then informed that the Hightower army have seized the small merchant town of Tumbleton and taken its people hostage, ensuring that if her team tries to attack them by dragon, she will also murder her loyal subjects. (The guy telling her this seems to be a dragonkeeper, yet he's perfectly eager to pipe up with his considered opinions on the reputational costs and benefits of conducting urban warfare, because I guess now anybody can serve on her Small Council, even members of the weird cult of singing animal husbandry monks.)
As the last trappings of Team Green burn in the Red Keep's courtyard, Rhaenyra regards the bonfire with resolve. Or possibly concern. Maybe resignation? Anyway, with something.
Parting Thoughts
- Watch Helaena's reaction when Rhaenyra lets it slip that Alicent agreed to let her kill Aegon, Helaena's husband/brother. That look on her face — it's … not exactly alarm, is it? Or anything remotely like it?
- Operation: Daeronwatch concludes, sort of. We'll talk more about it next week.
- Daemon's arrogant dismissal of the complaints of the poor is ruthlessly on-brand, as is absolutely everything about the guy. Matzoh's got more layers than he does.
- A light-on-plot episode this week, as the writers hammer home Rhaenyra's tenuous purchase on the Iron Throne. Now that everyone in Westeros realizes that Rhaenyra's occupation of the Iron Throne is less a finale than an intermission, things should get burny again soon.
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