House of the Dragon: S2 E8
It ends as it began. The queens who were friends as children, then grew to matriarchs of rival factions, hold the fate of the Seven Kingdoms in their hands as season 2 wraps up.
For last week’s episode review, click here.
As much as I’ve enjoyed this second season of Max’s “House of the Dragon” — a dramatic improvement on the decent but not standout first — one thing I have lamented is that the womenfolk who dominated last time have been shunted somewhat in the background this go-round.
Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), as one of the would-be monarchs vying for the throne of the Seven Kingdoms, has by necessity stayed in the picture. But we’ve watched her spend much of the season sidelined by her all-male Small Council of advisors, many of them working to their own ends, and even her husband/king consort Daemon (Matt Smith) decamping to the north to muster up his own army in the Riverlands.
Her childhood friend, Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), on the other hand, has pretty much been shunted to background player for most of the season as male characters, such as her lover Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), supplanted her in the narrative hierarchy. Cut out of power by her younger son, malevolent prince regent Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), she literally spent the previous episode wandering in a forest of self-pity.
To wrap up season two, episode 8 finds the two queens returned to the center of the story. It ends as it began, with them the matriarchs of rival factions in an escalating civil war. Their secret back-channel diplomacy with each other may yet bear fruit, or continue their alienation.
Dragons, and dragonriders, continue to be in the spotlight. Having successfully recruited three common-born bastards of Targaryen progeny to join her ranks — that’s Addam Hull (Clinton Liberty), Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) Ulf White (Tom Bennett) — Rhaenyra now clearly holds the upper hand in the war, with any one dragon outweighing an entire army of human soldiers. And she has six.
Her big decision point to end the season is how she deploys them: as deterrence, or a weapon of mass destruction.
“The dragons dance, and the men are like dust under their feet,” as one character aptly puts it.
Power-hungry Aemond, clearly unnerved by no longer being viewed as the ultimate power in the kingdoms with his massive dragon Vhagar, grows increasingly desperate and dangerous. He’s also worried that his brother, King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), will recover enough from his attempted assassination by Aemond’s dragonfire to order him deposed.
Aegon, for his part, is forced to balance his former cocksure self with the new reality of a broken body and spirit.
There’s no big violent confrontation to end season 2, though it looks like we’re setting up some big moves for next season, the third of four planned. Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall), another minor figure on the chessboard, grows in importance as he seeks allies to counterbalance the naval armada of the Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint).
Daemon, after spending most of the season dithering with visions and witches, finally reaches his own big moment of choice. It’s been an interesting story arc for him, though one I think could have been covered with far less screen time.
That’s the problem with a big show like this with dozens of characters and overlapping narratives: there will be times not much is going on with some of them, and their scenes wind up feeling like “check ins” just so fans don’t forget about them. Smith’s is the first name in the credits, so they stretched things out rather than cutting him out of episodes.
Quibbles about pacing aside, season 2 of “House of the Dragon” has been a terrific piece of fantasy storytelling. With the watershed episode 4, I truly feel like the show has grown out of the shadow of its “Game of Thrones” roots and established a claim as its own identity.
Now comes the hard part: waiting until next year for season 3.