‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2, Episode 1 Plunges the Audience Back Into Bitter War
Not for the first time, HBO wants you to know that “House of the Dragon” is related to “Game of Thrones.”
Season 1 of the “Thrones” prequel began with the extremely clunky exposition and eventually the words “172 years before Daenerys Targaryen.” It was heavy-handed but justified; before introducing a whole host of new characters even with familiar silvery hair and medieval armor, “House of the Dragon” needed to build trust with the audience that loved and stuck with “Thrones” before it (even if the ending left a bad taste in their mouths).
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And then “House of the Dragon” went on to explode. It was HBO’s biggest series premiere to date, averaging 29 million viewers per episode in Season 1. Coming into Season 2, “HOTD” should be able to stand comfortably on its own, without needing to double down on the “Thrones” connection, yet Season 2, Episode 1 (written by Ryan Condal and directed by Alan Taylor) opens in the North of Westeros, with Cregan Stark (Tom Taylor) narrating to Jacaerys Velaryon (Harry Collett).
It feels like another forced “Thrones” connection in a show that no longer needs them. The Starks play a small part in the Dance of Dragons, but opening the season with a secondary, nay, tertiary character is a wild choice. If nothing else, the North is a respite — a reminder of kinder, simpler worlds within Westeros — and quickly snatched away when Jace receives a raven from Dragonstone, carrying news of his brother’s death.
In his review of the season, IndieWire’s Ben Travers noted that “House of the Dragon”s de facto leads, Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, are notably sidelined from the season’s action. Episode 1 is low on action, so the playing field is even; Alicent (Cooke) gets to strategize with her son the king, his council, her manipulative father — and even finds time for herself by carrying on an affair with Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). While their sexual relationship does continue to drive the contrast between Alicent and Rhaenyra (D’Arcy), it’s a little too heavyhanded in doing so. Yes these, women were once friends. Yes, they and their families war for the throne. Yes, they have now been intimate with the same man. And? The latest addition to their relationship doesn’t fortify it.
For as much as the emotional seeds of this war bloomed between Rhaenyra and Alicent, the question of who sits the throne is between half-siblings Rhaenyra and Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney). Carney joined “House of the Dragon” toward the end of Season 1, which covered decades including Aegon’s birth and childhood, and the Season 2 premiere lets him truly sink his teeth into the character. He’s still nasty and entitled, but also eager to prove himself, and unexpectedly funny. His palling around with other young men with wine in the throne room feels like something out of a teen movie or a sitcom, the kind of relatable note that’s rare in a show like this one but makes it all the more effective. “A Son for a Son” also deliberately underscores (again, perhaps too much so) Aegon’s love for his son Jaehaerys, whom he envisions inheriting the throne one day.
Even as it thrusts viewers back into the world of fire and blood, “A Son for a Son” starts out slow — admittedly for good reason, considering where it ends up. Revenge is set in motion at the same time grief must run its course, with battle strategies and covert meetings intercut with gut-wrenching scenes mourning Rhaenyra’s son. D’Arcy doesn’t speak for most of the episode, but wastes no time reminding viewers how potently they command Rhaenyra as she weeps over his clothes and the wing of his dead dragon.
D’Arcy and Collett’s scene of mother and son weeping and holding each other is one of the most heartfelt scenes in this series and “House of the Dragon” combined, the rare moment of mourning that often gets lost iamid endless death. The same goes for the subsequent funeral, intercut with Alicent lighting candles for the dead; in a show that promises anger and violence, the Season 2 premiere has a moment to breathe and to grieve, a moment that others may not. By the time Rhaenyra approaches her council tear streaked and disheveled, her vengeance is more than earned.
Which brings us to the final harrowing sequence, a catastrophic point of return in this war. Sidelined or not, Rhaenyra and Alicent also find themselves absolved of direct responsibility for the deaths of either son alluded to in the episode title. Matt Smith and Ewan Mitchell slide right back into the slimy boots of Daemon and Aemond, respectively, the ones bearing more direct responsibility for kinslaying and ostensibly unbothered by the prospect. Considering their shared blonde Targaryen disrepute, the actors manage to distinguish each character’s individual brand of odiousness, and make a case for either side in this war to fear the other’s wild and unpredictable right hand.
The death of Aegon’s son was foreshadowed earlier in the episode, when Helaena (Phia Saban) voiced her fear of the rats — by extension, the rat catcher who would be instrumental in this tragedy. It was even teased in Season 1, when Saban first took on the role and whispered about a “beast beneath the boards.” Beneath the boards and in the lowest circles of King’s Landing, Daemon Targaryen finds his assassins, commanding them to kill Aemond so that both Rhaenyra and Alicent have lost a child to the war — a son for a son.
That scene cuts after the men ask Daemon what they should do if they can’t find Aemond, the final shot lingering on Smith’s loaded expression. We know they were told to find a son, and they didn’t dare kill Aegon himself in the crowded throne room, so the target becomes young Jaehaerys. Helaena’s actions in the moment are difficult to read (Aegon does warn us earlier that “the Queen is an enduring mystery”); when asked which child is male, she points at Jaehaerys, but it’s not clear whether this was meant to misdirect the assassins to his twin sister or to spare the girl due to her mother’s fondness — but this is the kind of mystery an audience isn’t meant to answer. Though the boy’s murder occurs offscreen, there’s little left to the imagination, thanks in no small part to some truly shocking sound mixing. Mercifully, Helaena, her daughter, and the camera exit the room quickly, but not without imparting the horror of what happened.
Grade: B-
“House of the Dragon” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
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