House of the Dragon: S2 E3
The season's best outing so far brings the boom, with both our first taste of battle and some unexpected -- and riveting -- chess moves between the sides.
For last week’s episode review, click here.
“There's no war so hateful to the gods as a war between kin.”
That line, spoken at the start of episode three of Max’s “House of the Dragon,” pretty much encapsulates the tone of the second season. Despite most of the principles on each side recognizing how utterly destructive a war over the Iron Throne would be, other forces keep pulling them toward an eruption.
Picking up from episode 2 — which, like this one, was given no title for advance press viewings — the biggest development was the split but Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and her husband/uncle, Daemon (Matt Smith), over the conduct of the brewing war against their enemies, known to them as the Greens. Daemon wound up climbing aboard his dragon and taking off on his own to sulk, after his disastrous machinations that led to the pointless beheading of a toddler prince.
Now Rhaenyra feels very much alone at her fortress at Dragonstone, with her all-male coterie of advisors braying at her to launch the first strike. Only her cousin Rhaenys (Eve Best) —herself once an aspirant to the throne — sees the wisdom in an approach that values brains over beating hearts.
Over in the Red Keep, her former friend and now antagonist Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) is dealing with her own chaotic internal feud. Her son, Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), installed as the king, is turning out to be a Joffrey-level villain, combining a cruel sense of humor with a staggering inferiority complex.
Aegon has dispatched Alicent’s level-headed father, Otto (Rhys Ifans), as Hand of the King in a fit of pique, and instead installed her secret lover, Ser Cristan Cole (Fabien Frankel), in his place.
Cole made his own lunk-headed assassination move to match Daemon’s, sending a twin of the King’s Guard to impersonate his sibling and kill Rhaenyra. Instead, both brothers wound up dead.
For the third episode, we get our first taste of grisly battle, as all eyes turn to the Riverlands as the place where the war’s first and most important strokes will take place. With generations-long enmities already brewing between clans, the two sides of the Targaryens vying for their loyalty makes for a very touchy trap that could snap at any time.
Harrenhal, the massive castle in the Riverlands that has mentioned before as a critical prize in the war, becomes the focus of both factions. Ser Cole and Daemon again find themselves in opposition, though not (yet) directly against each other. Turns out the fortress is a dripping, ruined mess — though some spritely interactions are to be found there.
So far this season the show has largely stayed away from the fleshy “sexposition” technique of its forbear, “Game of Thrones,” though in this episode they seem determined to catch up in one swoop.
Some new or revisited supporting characters also enter the fray. Princess Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), the teen daughter of Rhaenys, finds herself unexpectedly tapped by the queen for some important duty, though not one she initially takes to with gratitude.
Ulf, a timpsy bumpkin played by Tom Bennett, turns up in the brothels of King’s Landing — as it happens, the same one frequented by Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), the ultra-creepy one-eyed younger brother of the king. Though Ulf’s is an inauspicious introduction, I sense he will become more important as things go along.
Lord Larys (Matthew Needham), a skulking schemer known as the Clubfoot, had previously ingratiated himself with Alicent and now seems to be turning his machinations in service of King Aegon. We will also note that he is a son of Harrenhal.
There is a very major development for the last part of the 68-minute episode 3, about which I’ll not reveal more, other than to say it’s as unexpected as it is riveting. People are finally forced to face some hard truths, and we’ll just have to see how it’s accepted — or not.
So far “House of the Dragon” Season 2 is gaining momentum with each episode, like a dragon beginning to swoop in for the attack.