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This HOUSE OF THE DRAGON review contains spoilers.
Action-packed episodes like last week’s “The Red Dragon and the Gold” rightfully take up a lot of space within the Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon canon. That installment’s awe-inspiring aerial battle presented the kind of glorious spectacle that only the combined forces of George R.R. Martin’s imagination and HBO’s budget are capable of. This week’s episode, however, proves that House of the Dragon‘s quieter moments are often every bit as powerful as the draconic destruction.
While House of the Dragon season 2 episode 5* doesn’t featuring anything on the same kinetic level of Aemond, Rhaenys, and Aegon’s dance of dragons, it’s still among the most narratively tight and thematically consistent hours of the series thus far. That’s because, as internet poet dril might say, this whole thing smacks of gender.
*HBO has been kind enough to provide screeners for House of the Dragon season 2 to outlets ahead of time but has not revealed those episode’s titles until the night of release. That’s proven to be a bit of a writing challenge for this critic who is a little…fixated on the art of the TV episode title.
This is one of the most overtly feminist entries from a Game of Thrones series yet and it greatly benefits from maintaining that strict point of view. The perils and perceptions of womanhood are at the core of everything here, starting from the opening moments in which a properly roasted King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) returns from his misadventure at Rook’s Rest.
The sight of Aegon’s charred body is another win for the House of the Dragon VFX and makeup departments. The Green king’s melted flesh pulling away from its muscle as his Valyrian steel armor is removed is as gruesome as anything this show has depicted thus far. Aegon got the Anakin Skywalker treatment at Rook’s Rest but there is no Darth Vader suit to keep him alive – only the maester’s rudimentary medical techniques and his mother’s prayers can do that. That seems to be enough for now as the king clings to life, rotting in the Red Keep like his father before him.
This world being what it is, of course, Alicent (Olivia Cooke) has little time to confront what the war she helped start has done to her eldest son, or Gods-be-good, the role her second son may have played in it. Instead, there’s work to be done, as there always seems to be. Before Aegon can even return to baseline human temperatures, the Small Council has gathered to debate who should be the realm’s regent while he recovers. But really, there is no debate. It has to be Aemond (Ewan Mitchell).
Some part of Alicent has to know that there is nothing she can say to overcome the Greens’ original sin of primogeniture. This entire war is being fought on the theory that men’s voices matter more. Making Alicent regent now would only concede legitimacy to Rhaenyra’s claim. Surely Alicent understands that but she makes the argument for herself anyway…an argument that is almost immediately swatted away by the men around the table, including her trusted “allies” Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) and Lord Larys Strong (Matthew Needham).
As Aemond accepts the mantle of regent and gets to work plotting his side’s next move, the camera locks in on Alicent’s devastated face and the audio of Aemond’s words drop away until it’s only a low drone. The close-up lasts for around 30 seconds but it feels closer to 30 minutes. Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon rarely use stylistic visual techniques like this outside of battle sequences, making this moment stand out even more.
Through four episodes this season, Ancient has endured unimaginable trauma. Just weeks ago, her eldest grandson was literally beheaded! She was then compelled to ride through the rickety streets of King’s Landing alongside his hastily stitched-together corpse. And yet, this is the thing that necessitates the PTSD zoom-in filter on director Clare Kilner’s camera. But of course, why wouldn’t it be? This isn’t just a matter of life and death to Alicent. It’s something far more important: it’s a matter of Alicent to Alicent. This episode keenly understands that drama is something that happens to you; tragedy is something that happens to me.
Over on Dragonstone, Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) is encountering similar sexist frustrations. The last thing that either side of this war wants to project right now is weakness, and Rhaenyra can’t seem to convince the male nobility of Westeros of her strength. Still, it’s telling that Rhaenyra’s own trusted (if annoying) advisor, Ser Alfred Broom (Jamie Kenna), has to be reminded that he has the same level of experience in waging war that Rhaenyra does. That is to say “none.” The realm inherited years of peace from King Jaehaerys I and then King Viserys I. Outside of the usual petty skirmishes over territory, there’s hasn’t been a proper pitched land battle on the Westerosi continent in a generation. And yet, Ser Alfred can almost be forgiven for misremembering otherwise. Why do men carry these swords around if it’s not to eventually unsheath them? War is a man’s job, or so they say, even if they’ve not worked in years.
That’s why Rhaenyra turns to someone who is, in fact, familiar with war as her new Hand of the Queen. The Lord of the Tides (Steve Toussaint) is understandably devastated by the death of his wife, Rhaenys (Eve Best), who haunts this episode like one of Daemon’s Harrenhal spirits. Some of the hour’s best moments come while Rhaenyra, Corlys, and Baela (Bethany Antonia) grapple with her loss. Corlys proves that he’s the right man for the job when he offers to name Baela his new heir. She turns it down as a true Targaryen, saying “I am blood and fire. Driftmark must pass to salt and sea.” Now if only Corlys knew where to find a salt and sea heir. In Hull perhaps?
If Rhaenyra had been properly trained in the ways of war, she might not even need Lord Corlys as a running mate. As Rhaenyra later points out to Lady Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), her father never taught her how to fight, despite naming her his heir. Instead of a sword, she got a cup to bear. The irony here, however, is that a cup-bearer might be far more useful than a swordsman or swordswoman right now. And bless her, Rhaenyra seems to be figuring that out.
If House of the Dragon season 2 episode 5 has a secondary theme, it’s undoubtedly the importance of good public relations. It’s hard to overstate the level to which the Greens are fucking up in King’s Landing right now. Parading the severed head of Meleys through the streets of the capital is a strategic mistake of the highest order, and one that Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) would never have let happen. The legitimacy of House Targaryen relies on their mastery of these otherworldly creatures. Allowing the smallfolk to see that dragons are every bit flesh and bone as they are fire and blood is disastrous.
“I thought the dragons was gods,” one King’s Landing resident mutters upon seeing the fly-ridden corpse.
“It’s just meat,” our old friend Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) replies.
By episode’s end, Hugh, his wife, their sickly daughter, and countless other peasants rush the gates but aren’t granted exit. The smallfolk not getting paid for their work (like Hugh still hasn’t) is problematic, but expected. They’re all used to be being exploited by royalty at this point. Finding out that the scaly protectors that roam the skies can be killed, however, is a mortal blow to the common man’s psyche. Rhaenyra and Mysaria have a plan to attack that weakness, though we are not yet privy to its details.
The episode’s tight focus on sex and gender even extend to the goings-on in Harrenhal. On paper, Daemon is doing what one would expect from a king in a fantasy novel. He’s thrown on his best armor, waxed his dragon, and arrived in a blighted land to inspire its people and raise an army. But regardless of what he says, he is no king. He’s merely a damaged man wandering around the halls of an equally damaged castle. Daemon doesn’t even need a woods witch’s help to be haunted, he’s haunting himself fine enough on his own.
After countless sleepless nights spent with the ghosts of wives past, a new woman enters the mix: Daemon’s own mother, Alyssa (Emeline Lambert). Naturally, Daemon has graphic sex with this hallucination, because he’s Daemon. But the moment goes far beyond nightmare Freudian psychology. Daemon doesn’t just want Rhaenyra, Laena, Aemma, or even mothers’s love. Daemon quite simply wants everything…because he was told he could have it. That gods damned iron chair is right there, tantalizingly out of his reach.
While it’s not accurate to call Daemon a “victim” of anything, he is certainly as influenced by the gender politics of the Seven Kingdoms as Rhaenyra and Alicent have been. That’s because he’s bought into the lie that he can assert his masculine dominance over the realm as easily as he convinced his young niece to fall in love with him. What he comes to find out in this episode, however, is that little princesses are far more enchanted by displays of arrogance and power than an entire region of farmers, merchants, tradesmen, and common folk just trying to get through the day.
Daemon’s, ahem, encouraging of Willem Blackwood to visit rampant war crimes upon House Bracken is as big a public relations nightmare as the Green’s Meleys Day Parade.
“This is not war. This is a crime against the innocent that any upright man would repudiate,” Alys (Gayle Rankin) tells Daemon.
“You think me an upright man?” he cracks.
And yet Daemon has no jokes for the Riverlords as they arrive at Harrenhal in the dead of night, very upset that the sacred septs have been looted and the Bracken children have been kidnapped. He can only look down as one noble Riverlands lady delivers the verbal killing blow “Dragon or no, we will not raise our banners for a tyrant.”
The Targaryens have co-existed among the dragons for so long that they’ve come to forget there’s a whole country of people out there with the combined might of all the beasts of Dragonstone. This war already has plenty of dragons on both sides. What it needs is some more good ideas and some more good people. Thankfully, Team Black seems to have finally found a path to both
This episode closes with the tease of a major Fire & Blood moment as Rhaenyra and Jacaerys (Harry Collett) come to realize that not everyone in the known world with Targaryen blood has the Targaryen surname.
“Are you suggesting we put a Mallister on a dragon? A Tarly?” Rhaenyra asks.
“It’s better than death and defeat,” Jace responds.
Rhaenyra begins this episode concerned with her ability to project power. By episode’s end she finds a way to secure actual power in the form of dragonseeds atop Dragonstone’s many excess dragons. To get there, all she had to do is overcome centuries of Targaryen arrogance by accepting that even thin dragonrider blood is dragonrider blood all the same.
Would a king have ever come to this realization? It’s impossible to say. All we know is that five consecutive Targaryen kings didn’t and this Targaryen queen did.
New episodes of House of the Dragon season 2 premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
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