House of the Dragon: S2 E2
Fault lines begin to show on both sides of the pending war between the Targaryens in its second outing of the season.
For last week’s episode review, click here.
If there’s a readily apparent theme in the second outing of season 2 of Max’s “House of the Dragon,” it’s one of fault lines — on both sides of the civil war brewing between Targaryen factions competing for the Iron Throne.
For now, hostilities are more inner-directed than toward the other side, with diplomacy and skullduggery taking center stage over battles. Without giving anything away, expect disagreements about how to conduct the war to escalate into full-on shouting matches and threats, power bases to shift dramatically and subterfuge to be the weapon of choice.
Big spoiler ahead if you’ve not watched episode 1 — though in retrospect the title was perhaps a bit too on the nose to fully safeguard surprises.
In “A Son for a Son,” a revenge plot against Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) for killing a rival clan son at the end of season 1 went horribly awry, leading to the grisly decapitation (thankfully not depicted) of an innocent toddler. So now both factions are mourning dead sons and deeply enraged at the other’s tactics.
Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), headstrong husband of would-be Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy), faces blowback from commissioning a disgruntled guard and ratcatcher at King’s Landing to assassinate Aemond, a fierce warrior. Instead they settled for killing young Jaehaerys, the son of King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney).
Aegon immediately wants to launch a war, but Hand of the King Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), despite mourning his own grandson, urges them to use the horrific murder of an innocent to sway public opinion against Rhaenyra and Daemon. He’s practically the personification of Machiavellian, using even his own flesh and blood as chess pieces.
It’s noticeable that Rhaenyra and her counterpart, Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), are rather pushed to the background so far in season 2, after being the central focus of the first season. Alicent, as the daughter of Otto and mother of King Aegon, is caught in the middle, trying to steer the best outcome from worst impulses of the schemer and the warmongerer.
Mostly she preoccupies herself with her long-running affair with Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), a commoner she helped elevate to commander of the Kingsguard. After largely being a background player of few words in the first season, Ser Criston begins to make consequential moves of his own.
Interestingly, the titles of episodes 2 and 3 have not yet been released, and I could find nothing in the credits to indicate what it is. Suffice it to say, escalation and counter-strikes are the name of the game.
The highlight of the episode is a confrontation between two principle characters (who I’m compelled not to name) in which each lays out their own ambitions, and suspicions about the other’s motives, in stark terms we’ve not encountered before. It’s a crack that could become a chasm later in the season, and I’m eager to see what happens.
This episode clocks in at almost 70 minutes long, though I didn’t find it draggy in the least. I will repeat again my admonition from last week’s review: if we don’t see these smouldering fires turn into full conflagrations soon, the sense of anticipation the show has carefully stoked could turn to frustration.