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.
Credits! And the “Die, You!” Tapestry gets a teensy bit longer. There’s the burnt, broken bodies of soldiers on the field of Rook’s Rest, and there the two fallen dragons, Meleys and Sunfyre (who’s conceivably just resting his eyes, guys! He’s just out for the season, I tells ya!) staining the canvas with their black blood. Figured we would have gotten these additions last week, but you can’t rush craftsmanship. Plus, that Team Black blockade must have emptied the shelves of the King’s Landing So-Fro Fabrics.
In the Westerlands, Ser Jason Lannister (oafish brother of his twin brother Tyland Lannister, the squirrelliest member of Team Green’s Small Council) is marching east from Casterly Rock and is about to cross over into the Riverlands to confront Daemon at Harrenhal. Before he does so, he and his growing Green army stop into the Golden Tooth, seat of House Lefford, a wealthy Westerlands family faithful to the Lannisters.
The lord of the Golden Tooth reluctantly agrees to temporarily garrison the Green army, and eyes its cages of actual lions nervously. (Are these beasts part of the Lannister infantry, or are they more like football mascots? During battles, do they just sort of run along the sidelines and make the cheerleaders uncomfortable?)
Before he avails himself of the Golden Tooth’s day-spa facilities, Ser Jason sends a raven to King’s Landing. The message instructs Aemond to meet him there on Vhagar, so the Prince Regent can protect the Lannister army when they march on Harrenhal, where Daemon is still cooling his heels and tripping on goof-juice.
Everybody hates Aemond
Cut to King’s Landing, where Aemond predictably reacts to Ser Jason’s demand by being hella outraged at it; his usual cool, sneering demeanor cracks and decays into the whiny fulminating of his brother Aegon. (This is another example of the show’s fondness for narrative parallels – Rhaenyra and Alicent, sure, but also Aemond and Daemon, whom in this episode will similarly break, and abandon his default snootiness.)
Aemond tells the council that he will reach out to the Triarchy – you’ll recall them from season one. They’re the three Free Cities (Myr, Lys and Tyrosh, if you’re taking notes for the final) that lie across the Narrow Sea from Westeros. It was the navies of the Triarchy that Daemon and Corlys battled for control of the Stepstones. (Remember the Crabfeeder? The putatively badass admiral who went down like a chump when Daemon took him out offscreen? That.)
The council doesn’t love the idea – the Triarchy are mercenaries and not to be trusted. But Aemond thinks he’s only being practical: After all, the Blacks’ blockade of the bay needs to be broken. Yes, the Lannisters are building an army, but they’re still a long way away. And yes, the Lannisters and the Hightowers have fleets of ships, but it will take them months to arrive. Meanwhile, the Triarchy’s navies are very near, and could set to work weakening the blockade immediately.
We get a mention of the Greyjoys of the Iron Islands – but evidently they’ve not declared for either side just yet. Aemond tells Criston Cole to set out for Harrenhal immediately: His army will attack Daemon at Harrenhal from the East, the Lannister army from the West. (Classic temporal pincer movement!)
Aemond keeps Alicent behind and wastes no time making his Small Council that much smaller by dismissing her from it. Alicent reaches out to cradle his face and lovingly stroke his scar – it’s not clear whether this is just a cynical gambit she’s busting out to convince him to let her stay, or if somehow the mother in her truly sees him, and registers how the wounds of his childhood haven’t healed. (Olivia Cooke, bless her, finds a way to play both versions at once.) This moment of mother-son tenderness is another parallel with Daemon, who also shared an intimate exchange with his mother last episode. (That exchange between Daemon and his mother, however, was messier. Literally and figuratively.)
“You’ll love him. He’s got a great personality.”
On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra’s own council has once again gathered around the Painted (But Not Actually Painted, Technically Glowing) Table. Corlys has accepted the position of Hand of the Queen without a fuss. She summons Ser Steffon Darklyn, leader of her Queensguard. Y’all remember him – he’s the son of Ser Gunthor Darklyn, whose head Criston Cole lopped off at Duskendale back in episode 4. He’s also the guy who accompanied Rhaenyra on Operation: Two Queens Stand Before Me, when she somehow managed to skulk incognito into King’s Landing to meet with Alicent.
She tells him of her current plan. Let’s call it Operation: Have I Got A Guy For You, which consists of trying to match riders to the riderless dragons hanging on and around Dragonstone. She tells him she’s been down to the Dragonstone Records Department in the basement of the library, poring over the microfiche, and she’s learned that his grandmother’s grandmother was a Targaryen princess. So … maybe?
Her council scoffs at this, and points out to her that she’s grabbing at some pretty thin genetic straws. The noisiest dissenter, now that surly ol’ Ser Alfred Broome has been sent away, is the excellently named Ser Bartimos Celtigar of Claw Isle. Rhaenyra then reads Ser Steffon a memo from Trish in Legal, informing him that attempting to bond with a dragon could result in injury or death for which RhaenyraCorp and its subsidiaries cannot be held responsible. He agrees.
And it’s a good thing he signed the waiver, because injury and death are exactly what occur.
At the Dragondock, the dragonkeepers go all Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos and summon the dragon Seasmoke. This was Laenor Velaryon’s dragon, but you’ll remember that Laenor faked his death last season and scarpered off to the Summer Isles to open a clothing-optional men’s resort with Ser Qarl. (No, it’s not canon, but let me have this.)
The blind date seems to be going well, at first. But then something happens. Maybe, in their telepathic bond, Ser Steffon made a racist joke or treated the server rudely or told Seasmoke he really needs to read Jordan Peterson. Whatever the reason, no love connection gets made, and Seasmoke summarily smokes both Ser Steffon and an unnamed dragonkeeper. Later, a preening Ser Bartimos attempts to serve Rhaenyra a steaming pot of Told You So, but she slaps him for forgetting his place. Which: Yes. More slapping! All these old white dudes could use a palm across the kisser!
Rhaenyra is brooding on the Dragonstone ramparts when Jacaerys joins her and tells her not to fret about Ser Steffon Cracklyn, er, Darklyn. You can’t make a dragonrider without breaking (and scrambling, and blowtorching) a few knights, after all. Also, kudos for throwing hands at the old dude. Rhaenyra isn’t ready to hear that, she’s restless; she wants to fight, and is tired of everyone condescending to her. Jacaerys tells her that even if she led their army herself, she’s not enough, they need Daemon and his dragon.
Alys is through the looking glass here, people
At Harrenhal, Daemon dreams, or is haunted, or is tripping. The why doesn’t matter, the what very much does. And the what is question is Daemon reliving the moment his brother King Viserys (Paddy Considine, you! Have! Been! Missed!) told him he’d named Rhaenyra as his heir and angrily exiled Daemon to the Vale.
He wakes/comes to/returns to reality to find himself threatening poor Ser Simon Strong, accusing him of causing his looney-tunishness, and of being in league with the Hightowers, or Ser Larys or even Rhaenyra herself. “And stop watching me!” he shouts, resulting in a low-key hilarious reaction shot wherein Ser Simon busies himself inspecting Harrenhal’s moldering, guano covered floors, walls, and ceilings.
Smith, too, is very funny in this scene, playing a man convinced he’s coming off cool and threatening but actually looking to all the world like a paranoid Wall Street bro coming down from a three-day coke bender.
He sets out to leave, but on the way to mount Caraxes he meets Alys Rivers in the courtyard by Harrenhal’s weirwood tree. Daemon lashes out, but Alys doesn’t rise to the bait and remains her cryptic, spooky-ooky self, though she adds some therapy-speak to the mix this time, admonishing him about his anger issues, and how his desperate striving for the crown makes him less worthy of it. She goes so full-bore Dr. Melfi, in fact, that Daemon can’t help but go Tony Soprano to match her – he asks for her advice on dealing wit dese gagootz Riverlords.
She tells him he needs House Tully to control the Riverlands; he reminds her that its Lord, Grover Tully, still clings to life. She tells him to hang on a sec, she’s gonna get riiiiight on that.
On Driftmark, Corlys Velaryon’s ship, which has been getting repaired in drydock all season long, is finally ready. He asks/orders Alyn to be his first mate. Alyn agrees, reluctantly. Later, he and his brother Addam bicker over their status as Corlys’ kids. Addam shaves his head so no one can see his platinum-blond hair and consider him a nepo baby, while Alyn would be only too happy to get some love – emotional and fiduciary – from Papa Seasnake.
What’s it all about, Ulfie?
In a tavern in King’s Landing, Ulf is bellying up to a meager meal, and bellyaching about it. Evidently it’s been weeks since anyone’s had anything but fish (put a pin in that, it’ll come back later). A woman at the next table complains, a bit too loudly and clearly, that the smallfolk are starving while the royal family feasts on roasted meat. She’s a Mysaria plant, and she’s selling the part. Ulf seems fittingly – and exploitably – annoyed.
Later, when he sees a cart of sheep being hauled to the Dragonpit to keep Team Green’s dragons fat and happy – or whatever passes for happy, to a dragon – his mood sours further.
That night, a small fleet of boats bearing fresh produce and meats and cheeses sails onto the beach around King’s Landing, bearing Rhaenyra’s sigil.
And just in time. At the now very-small-indeed Small Council, Larys warns of unrest in the city, which Aemond dismisses. He also rebuffs Larys’ transparent bid to be named the King’s Hand, and tells him to summon Otto Hightower back to King’s Landing, so he can resume the title.
Larys’ expression makes it clear that Aemond has made himself a powerful, albeit slimy, enemy this day.
The Grandmaester enters and announces that Aegon will recover. The Small Council looks worriedly at Aemond, who says “What happy news,” in a tone that expresses the concept of happiness in precisely the same way that Todd Solondz did in 1998.
He goes to a wheezing Aegon’s bedside and checks to see how much of the battle the king remembers. Aegon, in an uncharacteristically smart move, pretends to recall nothing at all, earning himself another day.
The good mother. Good, not great.
Alicent, meanwhile, is on the second stop of her whirlwind “Seeing What It Feels Like to be an Actual Mother” tour. She sits at Aegon’s bedside. Grandmaester Orwyle enters and tells her that they don’t know where her father Otto Hightower is, but not to worry overmuch, as the war may be preventing effective communication. House Beesbury is warring with House Hightower – evidently faithful ol’ Lord Lyman Beesbury’s descendants have been informed that Criston Cole straight-up murdered him last season and have switched sides. How fickle.
Next stop: The courtyard of the Red Keep, where Criston Cole and Alicent’s brother Gwayne are preparing to head out for Harrenhal. She asks Gwayne about her youngest son Daeron, who was sent away to Oldtown while still young. He’s sixteen now, he tells her, and smart and strong and kind. That last word brings her up short, because it makes such a powerful and damning case for “nurture” over “nature.” Gwayne tries to reassure her that she’s a good mother, it’s just that she raised her other kids in the Red Keep, and that’s why they’re the way they are. To her credit, she doesn’t for a moment believe this.
Final stop: Helaena’s room. Helaena’s keeping what look like crickets in tiny cages. She comments that “This one stopped singing,” and yeah I don’t know what it means either but everything Helaena says means something so I’m writing it down to refer back to later. Alicent invites her daughter to join her in a trip outside the Red Keep to the Grand Sept, so they can light candles for Aegon, among others.
Hugh the Blacksmith is stomping through the streets when he’s surrounded by streams of people carrying the food that Rhaenyra’s just DoorDashed to the city. He rips a grocery bag full of cabbages out of the arms of some poor schmoe and takes it for himself. He heads home just as the excited crowd grows into a riot.
A riot that, as it happens, surrounds the very same Grand Sept that Alicent and Helaena are praying in. The Kingsguard attempt to escort them to safety, but their carriage is a considerable distance away, and lots of things go south as they make for it. The crowd hurls both seafood and insults at them (“There’s the Queen of Fishes!” one dude shouts just as he whips a cod in Alicent’s face). (That’s what that earlier line about fish was setting up.) They get separated briefly, and when one hapless citizen grabs Alicent, her guard lops off the guy’s arm. Eventually they make it their carriage, a bit banged up – though the guard who did the arm-chopping gets swarmed by the crowd and left for dead, as cries of “Long live Queen Rhaenyra!” echo in the streets. The people know what side their bread is buttered on, not to mention who sent them the bread and butter. And cabbages. So many cabbages.
In the Red Keep, Lord Larys sits at a suffering Aegon’s bedside and delivers a nifty little “We’re not so different, you and I” speech, to Aegon’s growing horror. Larys basically tells him that people will pity him, and underestimate him, which he can use to his advantage. He also tells him that Aemond will try to kill him – something that (as Tom Glynn-Carney’s performance makes abundantly clear) Aegon has already figured out.
Cut to: What I hope will be the final leg of Daemon’s Long Strange Harrenhal Acid Trip. He’s flashing back again, comforting Viserys as the king weeps over the body of his beloved first wife Aemma. You remember Aemma, don’t you? From the very first episode of season one? The woman he told the Maesters to let die in childbirth, so they could try to save the child? Only to have both mother and child die? That Aemma? (Imagine a world where the life of the mother gets weighed against the life of a child! What a rich escapist fantasy universe this is!)
Daemon awakes, and Ser Simon Strong informs him that Grover Tully has finally died – despite the best efforts of their healer, Alys Strong. Daemon smiles, realizing that Alys did, in fact, get right on that.
In Soviet Westeros, Pokemon choose you!
In the Vale, Rhaena complains about her lot in life to young Joffrey (no, not that one) as they wander the hillside. She tells him she’s resigned to being his and his half-brothers’ babysitter, even though she wanted something more. Just then they find a burnt patch of grass littered with sheep bones – a telltale sign of a dragon.
She confronts Lady Jayne about it, who admits that there have been sightings of a large and formidable wild dragon recently. She also informs Rhaena that Prince of Pentos has agreed to host Li’l Joffrey, Li’l Viserys and Li’l Aegon the Baeby, along with Rhaena herself, to protect them during the war. But Rhaena, of course, being dragonless herself, is focused on that first part.
On Driftmark, Addam is minding his own business doing random fisherman stuff when Seasmoke buzzes him and all the other folks on the beach. Addam runs into the trees, just like Criston Cole did in episode 3. But while that tactic worked for Criston, because that dragon had a rider with orders not to engage, Seasmoke is his own beast, and he is determined. He finds Addam, and stares him down. Addams stares back. At this moment Theme from A Summer Place does not start playing on the soundtrack, which is something of a missed opportunity, I feel.
Another parallel: On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra and Mysaria … how to put this? They share a romantic embrace. They … rent a figurative U-Haul. They bring each other to the potluck, as it were. They get a dog and tie a bandana around its neck. They open a Vietnamese restaurant called It’s a Pho. They visit Lesbos, which may or not be one of the Rizzolian Isles, I was never really clear on that. You know what I mean.
The moment is interrupted when Rhaenyra is informed that Seasmoke has found a rider. (“Join the club,” she does not reply; still another missed opportunity.) She assumes it must be a Team Green rider, and decides she’s had enough of being coddled and protected. She mounts her dragon Syrax, and takes to the sky.
Parting Thoughts
- Does it seem like too much of a coincidence that after years as a happy-go-lucky free-agent, Seasmoke should suddenly decide to bond with Addam at the precise moment Team Black starts recruiting dragonriders? If it bothers you, let me suggest that it’s not a case of coincidence at all, but of cause-and-effect. Rhaenyra tried to force a bond between Seasmoke and Ser Steffon, which Seasmoke rejected – but the very act of doing so gave ol’ Smokey a pang of nostalgia, and he decided to put himself back out there. He got back on the apps, and found Addam, and now those two crazy kids have a great story to tell about their first date.
- (NOTE: This does not explain what’s going on with the as-yet-unseen dragon in the Vale, who may or may not (but let’s face it, probably will) bond with Rhaena in an upcoming episode. Maybe dragons possess a hivemind, or at least a kind of reptilian-forebrain groupchat, and once Seasmoke started feeling the itch to bond with a human again, the rest of them suddenly began updating their Tinder profiles, too?)
- Oh good lord I think we’re finally done with Daemon’s extended pre-electric kool-aid acid test. As great as it was to see Milly Alcock and Paddy Considine again, hoo boy that whole interlude just went on and on. It did give us Alys Rivers, though, and Ser Simon Strong, about whose ultimate fate I’m starting to worry. It also gave Daemon the kind of emotional breakdown that Matt Smith had a lot of fun splashing around in.
- (Speaking of: What are we to make of the fact that Daemon’s (let’s all hope) final dream-vision showed him expressing something besides his default disdain/denial/arrogance/vindictiveness? In that last moment with Viserys, he showed sincere regret and compassion – two entirely un-Daemonic traits.)
- That moment when the dragonkeeper goes up in flames and immediately cuts his own throat? Badass. A while back, the producers hinted that those dragonglass daggers we see every dragonkeeper carrying at all times have a specific purpose. There it is: Dragonfire can’t melt dragonglass. How practical!
- Second mention of Daeron! He exists, and he’s already getting some characterization, even though he probably won’t show up this season!
- So you’re telling me those boats loaded down with food (so many cabbages!) made it all the way from Dragonstone to King’s Landing without seagulls gobbling them all up? Talk about a rich fantasy world: I once saw a seagull on Rehoboth Beach scarf down an entire tray of curly fries in the two seconds it took a dude to check his phone.
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