House of the Dragon: Queen's Landing

“In this moment, you will become Queen.”

Things are moving fast. I like it.

Although, if the last episode felt as if it would have been a solid season finale, this one feels like it would have been a pretty great season premiere.

Regardless, this was an excellent continuation from where we last left off. This one speeds us along to a new chapter in the Dance of the Dragons.

The Blacks end up winning the Battle of the Gullet when the Dragonseeds arrive to aid Baela, but as Corlys later points out, it is a hollow victory for all involved. Rhaenyra is presented with the body of Prince Jacaerys, her firstborn son, and the queen falls into despair once again. Baela joins Alyn and Addam of Hull recovering Corlys from the wreckage of the battle. The Sea Snake mourns the loss of the high seat he had built for his family, but decides to make a new legacy by giving Alyn and Addam the name Velaryon.

Daemon has to leave his lively war campaign in the Riverlands to attend to Rhaenyra’s needs. A shame, since this seems to be his happy place and leaving it means he goes right back to doing the only other thing he does best: antagonizing the people around him. Alys Rivers demands Harrenhal from Rhaenyra, but Daemon dismisses this request. He scolds and condescends to Ulf and Hugh for abandoning their post at Harrenhal. And he resumes his battle of wits with Mysaria, now that they rival each other for influence over the queen.

Once again the prophecy comes into play, with Daemon reminding the grieving Rhaenyra of his vision of her sitting the Iron Throne and the mythic destiny they are a part of. The Song of Ice and Fire. Sure, it mostly just reminds many of us viewers of Game of Thrones and its poorly executed climax. But I like the way this show plays it for tragedy, how the Targaryens are misreading this vague prophecy, individuals members thinking it centers around them when it all really seems to be doing is steering the realm toward a particular outcome. And the wars, the massacres, the families ripping each other apart, the people condemning themselves and their loved ones, it's all a means to an end that won't be seen for generations.

Speaking of Daemon's vision, he had that at Harrenhal, the haunted castle in the Riverlands he spent most of last season losing his mind within. The castle was used to pick apart Daemon's tyrannical ambitions, both thematically and tangibly within the narrative. In this episode, Aemond seizes Harrenhal with fire and blood, wiping out the castle's garrison with Vhagar and murdering Simon Strong and his sons. But he gets mortally wounded in the process and finds himself at the mercy of Alys Rivers. Just when one dangerously insecure Targaryen prince refused her the castle, a younger and even more dangerously insecure one arrives and unwittingly hands it to her on a platter. Aemond's about to take a deep dive into madness.

While he's seizing Harrenahl, Rhaenyra and Daemon fly together and seize King’s Landing without much bloodshed, thanks to Alicent and Helaena getting most of the city's defenders to stand down. Seeing the queen and king-consort striding to the Iron Throne together, Daemon killing any who oppose them, was very cool; sublime acting from Matt Smith and Emma D'Arcy throughout. After the City Watch sides with Daemon, their former commander, the Red Keep quickly falls under the blacks control. Then comes the episode's twist. On the hunt for heads to take to mark their victory, it is revealed to Daemon that Larys Strong imprisoned Otto Hightower in the black cells. The former Hand of the King, Daemon's longtime rival, the mastermind behind the greens and the one who originally proposed that Rhaenyra become queen. With Aegon II fled, Otto is presented to Rhaenyra for execution.

This was a beautifully executed scene; pun intended. It's a moment of becoming for Rhaenyra. She is compelled to personally kill someone for the first time as a rite of passage to her claiming her throne and becoming queen. It highlights Rhaenyra's strength and fragility; her shakily whispering to Daemon "I don't know if I can do it" was a great detail. Despite messing it up a bit, Rhaenyra does the deed and ascends the throne, her footsteps stained with the blood of a man she'd known all her life. The episode ends as a captured Alicent arrives just in time to see Rhaenyra sitting above her father's headless corpse.

The game has changed once again on the House of the Dragon, this time in a big way. But it's never as simple as just taking the throne. How one keeps it and sits it is a different kind of battle.

Blacks and Greens:

* Rhaena is on the run after the Battle of the Gullet. The Blacks don’t know she’s Sheepstealer’s rider, but Rhaenyra wants her and the dragon dead for what happened to Jace. Rhaena seeks refuge back in the Vale, offering Lady Jeyne Arryn protection in exchange for a place to hide.

* Jeyne Arryn is another good example of the show’s writers fleshing out a character who only got a name drop and a brief description in Martin’s writing. While I’m not in love with this storyline, the new dynamic between her and the fugitive dragon rider, Rhaena is unique.

* Larys and Aegon II are able to escape when their captors come under attack by the broken Triarchy pirates, who are fleeing inland after the sea battle. Larys is forced to follow as Aegon sets off for Rook’s Rest, where he and his dragon fell in battle last season.

* From what I've read online, a lot of people are loving the part with Corlys, Alyn, Addam and Baela together in the Gullet. The scene, comprised entirely of black fantasy characters, was well-received by many black fantasy fans who have enjoyed the genre despite the lack of representation.

* The bats flying up out of Harrenhal as Aemond and Vhagar arrived was such lovely imagery, appropriate for both Aemond’s level of villainy and the spooky mystique of the castle itself.

* I don’t know if the scene of Jasper Wylde attempting to sexually assault Alicent was necessary. Other than drawing a parallel to the increased frequency of modern politicians (up to the most esteemed lawmakers) being exposed as predators. We already knew Jasper was a scumbag, and I’m not sure we needed much more indication of how unstable Team Green has become. I guess it did provide an easy excuse to get Daemon down to the dungeons, where the real prized prisoner was waiting.

* Grand Maester Orwyle, once again, narrowly avoids death at the hands of a rogue prince.

* The confrontation in the throne room that is ultimately settled by the gold cloaks' intervention directly mirrors a similar event from the first season of Game of Thrones. Likewise, Otto’s execution is framed almost like a villainous version of Ned Stark’s.

Quotes:

Queen Rhaenyra I: “Are your lives too not forfeit? Have you not betrayed your queen?”

Rhaena: “I have done a terrible thing.”

Lady Jeyne Arryn: “I would say you had lost all sense, but then I doubt you had any in the first place.”

Simon Strong: “Reminds you of old times. When the Riverlands were ascendant, music and meat and virile young men.”
Daemon: “And which of these delights drew you to us through glade and glen?”

Alys Rivers: “Some other reward? I ask for food, and you offer me rubies. For all their worth… they will never satisfy my hunger.”

Corlys Velaryon: “If this be victory, I hope I never see another.”

Daemon: “What game are you playing? Retribution for insults, real or imagined? Do you coil yourself here in order to strike at me?”
Mysaria: “Not everything is about you, Daemon.”

Rhaenyra: “The boys who… clung to me, who… hid their little faces in my skirts, dead, so that I may sit upon a throne of swords?”
Daemon: “Will you let them die in vain?”

Jasper Wylde: “I am the Master of Laws, for the sake of the gods! Unhand me!”

Queen Helaena Targaryen: “This is strange. It isn’t the season.”
Helaena breaking the fourth wall over here.

Alicent: “I think now not of what you may deserve, but what might make you happy. You, I may yet redeem.”
Helaena: “… I think I might like to keep chickens.”

Rhaenyra: “Bring Aegon… the Usurper… to me!”

Otto Hightower: “I assume everyone else is dead?”
Sad, even if he did have it coming.

I'd grown fond of Rhys Ifans's performance as Otto, but that was a superbly done scene. And this may be one of the show's best episodes. Five out of five thrones taken.