HBO
The latest episode of House of the Dragon is called ‘Second of His Name’ which in this case heavily refers to the now two-year old son of Viserys and Alicent Hightower, named Aegon, the second after the famous first one that conquered Westeros. But the big wrapper is the situation in the Stepstones, starting with things doing poorly for Daemon and Corlys, as the Crabfeeder and his troops keep retreating into caves and making the dragons useless.
There’s a direct line from the start to the end, as Viserys gets increasingly frustrated by all the ‘politicking’ around him and his lost connection with his daughter. Fascinatingly, he only ends up agreeing to send aid to Daemon because he’s reminded of family by Alicent, who was in turn instructed by her father to push Viserys towards recognizing Aegon as his new heir. Although we don’t see it, it seems that perhaps Alicent chooses a different path here, maybe because she’s still distressed that she’s lost her friendship with Rhaenyra.
When Daemon attacks the messenger with good news from Viserys, I get it — not that I agree with it, but I get why, as this whole thing has been brought about by Daemon’s need to prove himself to his brother and the world. So getting the kind words and help from his brother immediately makes him feel a failure, so no wonder he immediately chooses to offer himself up as bait to trap the Crabfeeder and his men.
It’s a trap that works perfectly, even if Daemon does get hit with a few arrows — he’s clearly a much better warrior than the pirate leader. At the end of the episode, Daemon has achieved his purpose finally, albeit with the plan of Corlys’ son Laenor and his dragon. A fascinating setup because it only serves to help his position and hurt Viserys.
The rest of the episode centers around a Royal Hunt that is all about politics and symbolism. There’s word of a famed white hart, symbolic of kings, but Viserys needs a lot of help to kill the beast, a spear from the ambitious Tyland Lannister, explicit instructions from the Royal Huntsman, and the hart being held down with ropes — and even so it takes him two spear thrusts.
HBO
In contrast, Rhaenyra kills a wild boar with an assist from Ser Criston, but she is covered with blood unlike the pristine King (except for the time he sniffs dung, a choice of filth for him). Later as she and Ser Criston gaze over the beautiful countryside that is theoretically hers to inherit, they spot a white hart — hard to miss this sort of fun symbolism, that Viserys can’t do anything himself and is weak at heart, while Rhaenyra is wild but strong. And there’s also a clear parallel too to the final shot of the episode where Daemon is also covered in blood after his own victory.
I appreciated that we got more parallel political games, with the failed gambits of Lord Tyland and the intriguingly disparate advice from Otto and Lyonel Strong. The former naturally offers his own grandson to marry Rhaenys and strengthen his own family’s claim (a classic Targaryen in-family tactic) while the latter offers the idea of Corlys’ son, an even better idea. At this point Lyonel does actually seem to be the only one giving even slightly non-biased good advice.
Viserys had a lot of self-inflicted suffering this episode, and his teary, drunken speech with Alicent against his own actions and his grief and regret. It’s spectacular acting from Paddy Considine here, who is tremendous this episode as a man in freefall. His final scene in the episode with his daughter is similarly strong, with the really reasonable compromise that although she must marry, she can pick whom. Hard to get a much better deal than that for a noble lady.
A really well executed episode in general, I think, with well considered escalation and a lot of gorgeous visuals — and quite a number of legitimately humorous lines — I did particularly like when talking about Lannister that ‘his pride has pride’. I quite liked the first two episodes but this one worked even better for me — I really appreciate the thematic considerations and the time jumps thus far are working for me. A really strong continuation from where we started.
New episodes of House of the Dragon premiere Sundays on HBO, streaming on HBO Max.
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