House of the Dragon Season 1, Episode 2
Writer: Ryan Condal
Director: Greg Yaitanes
Runtime: 54 min.
Content Warnings: TV-MA: Adult Content, Adult Language, Brief Nudity, Violence
Video Preview: Weeks Ahead trailer
Episode description: Princess Rhaenyra dives deep into the prophecies about House Targaryen while confronting a realm that resists the idea of a woman on the Iron Throne, and Prince Daemon, embittered over being passed over as the heir to Westeros, prepares to go to war.
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Uh oh. More prophesies. I don’t mind them, but spent an hour over breakfast this morning trying to update my in-laws on who Aegon even was. I can see why GoT downplayed the prophesies bc it’s hard to absorb and follow with dialogue alone. They were unimpressed with HotD until I gave them the backstory. They kept asking where the Lanisters are. They’re watching with us tonight and I’m wondering if I’m going to have to keep hitting pause so I can fill them in. 🤦♀️
And I’m realizing that in GoT, you could still follow the story easily even if you didn’t really catch the prophetic elements. Wasn’t really central. Looks like HotD will lean in and maybe lose some non-book readers who get confused.
I’m hyped about all of it! (I’ve caught up my mom during the week with YouTube HBO vids, a few of our favorite YouTube Commenters, too.) Mom read all the GoT Books, and watched the GoT Shows, (often more than once because I did), and I think – hope – she’s following. No worries, we’ll watch a few times, I’m sure!
JenStar Runner,
We didn’t read HotD on purpose, so that we could experience it all through unsullied eyes. So far, we’ve been able to keep up. We’ll see how it goes. 😏
Decent episode. I would like to see the world open up a bit more in the next episodes. The “who will or won’t be heir” stuff only keeps my interest for so long.
P.S. every comment going into moderation purgatory is getting annoying. Is that why no one is commenting here tonight?
Where is everyone…?
I think this could be a show you either really like or don’t. No real in between. It’s definitely more geared towards the book readers. While they have made some changes it’s nothing overly dramatic. No changes that drastically alter any plots.
Based on a quick observation from twitter and other places it seems many of the hardcore ASOIAF fans are liking this more than they did Game of Thrones and vice versa for the non-book readers who seem more “meh” to it.
So I am interested to follow that in the weeks to come.
Otto has no shame. He knows how to play the Game of Thrones too well. There’s some major creep vibes coming off him every time he gets close to his daughter. Otto asking if she’ll see the King tonight (in the king’s chambers we assume) while seeing Alicen’s anxiety shoot through the roof (see her bleeding cuticles) was yuck at the n-th degree.
Corlys’ marriage proposal was pure business affair at least and he wasn’t hiding behind his daughter. Not that I approve offering arranged marriage to a 12 yrs old.
Loved Rhaenyra’s entrance on the Dragonstone’s walkways and her calling Daemon’s bluff. This is definitely a very weird and complicated relationship. Why the hell though it doesn’t feel creepy to me in the vein of Viserys/ Alicent, no idea. Maybe later on.
I wish I knew how old Alicent is. She’s older than Rhaenyra in the book and definitely looks older in the show than 15, but even if she were 25 it would still feel horribly wrong to me. She’s 18 in the book btw when she married the King.
I enjoyed it. There was lots of scheming and I loved that, but there was also some pretty awesome emotional scenes between Viserys and Rhaenyra who were trying to connect. The hurt on her face when she realizes who was this new queen her dad chose 🙁
Good to see the episode opening with the GoT theme music we all love and and the moving wheels and cogs. This time controlling what looks like a river of blood moving through various passages! No where near as good as GoT when we were taken over a ´mechanical´ version/map of Westeros, but perhaps as all the action so far is mainly in King´s Landing this may change as the series progresses.
My favourite line from the episode:
“I will speak about my brother as I wish. You will not.” – Daemon
Black Raven,
I was kinda disappointed that they reused the GoT theme music. Felt similarly last week when the song over the end-credits was directly out of the original show. Reusing motifs is nice, but reusing entire tracks, especially for something as central as the opening credits, feels lazy.
Good episode! I really really really love Milly Alcock as Rhaenyra.
Like Peeptort, I was also disappointed they reused GoT’s theme music. I would want for this show to have its own identity apart from GoT….
Totally agree.
Overall really liked.
My main quibbles are the crap CGI and the reuse of the theme music. The dragons are excellent, but I feel like either they cheaped out on all the CGI background/ landscape work or else made a really dubious choice to make everything really soft and glowy and fantasy-like. You could see it last week too in flying over King’s Landing – dragon awesome, city weirdly unfocused, sky just wrong somehow. I also feel they missed a glorious opportunity for a totally new opening sequence and theme music that would announce this show as opposed to making us sad it’s not GOT.
On to the good stuff. Loved Rheanyra flying in to save the day. Also loved Mysaria being pissed with Daemon. Think they’ve set up the war in the stepstones really well. Love Paddy Considine as Viserys – he’s an irritatingly ineffectual king, but Paddy makes him very sympathetic. Actually, I love all the actors so far. Viserys announcing his engagement to Alicent was a strong way to wrap up the episode, but you’d like to think that even Viserys wouldn’t be so clueless as to blindside Rheanyra like that. I’m looking forward to the next one.
If they wanted to reuse the theme because they felt it iconic or something, they could and maybe should have done a remix of it.
Then it’s the best of both worlds. New…but old.
The opening credits are apparently supposed to be the family tree. I only know this because I read it. I bet 95% of the people will not realize this because A – it flew by like 100 mph and B – it’s not even close to obvious.
Me too. She is my hook for the show so far. She has everything: spunk, subtlety, regal when necessary, crude when it suits her, and vulnerable without being weak. Really great performance.
I also think that for the intro they should have used a remix with Targaryen motives or something like that. And I didn’t notice it either that it was the Targaryen family tree, have to watch it again to check.
Still have trouble recognising all the different people from the Small Council. I do recognise the main characters or the very distinct characters like Viserys, Corlys Velaryon, Daemon, Rhaenyra, Rhainys, Otto Hightower, Alicent Hightower, Ser Criston Cole, Mysaria, Laena Velaryon, … But I had that same problem with the first episodes of Game of Thrones.
I have read the books long time ago, so I do know vaguely what happens, but not in detail.
But the episode and the preview for the next episode made me long for more. I am not going to reread the books until the show is over, because I like to be surprised.
I wish you good fortune in the weeks to come.
Adrianacandle,
”Good episode! I really really really love Milly Alcock as Rhaenyra.”
Yeah, I figured Milly would be most likely to be the “breakout star” – and lots of the promotional media seemed focused on her.
However… once the Rhaenyra and Alicent “age up” into Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, doesn’t that mean no more Milly and Emily on HotD?
Just watched the first 15 minutes in my coffee break and already stunned by the beauty of the sets and music, and touched by the scenes with Rhaenyra and Alicent, feeling some kind of tragic dread looming in the background everytime I see Viserys. What a pleasure to be in this world!
Is it just me, or does Daemon Targaryen sound just like Ramsey Bolton?
Yes, this is my worry too! It’s so rare that I just immediately warm up to a character like I did to Milly’s Rhaenyra but of course it had to be with an actress who will only be on screen for such a limited time of the story 😭😭😭
Yes! All this!
This show seems to be racing to the coming time jump as fast as it can – without trying to actually looking like it’s racing.
It’s ticking the key Fire and Blood plot points as gorgeously as it can and giving them space to ‘breath’ but not really fleshing things out. An obvious one is not developing the minor characters like half the Small Council because they’re about to vanish. But that means there’s no-one for Otto Hightower to “lock horns with” in the manner of Tyrion, Tywin, Varys, Littlefinger and the Queen of Thorns. Ser Criston Cole seems to be more a Chekov’s gun hanging on the wall rather than a character because they’re not willing to create material for him like maybe some interaction with his new colleagues on the Kingsguard.
I’d have loved a much better “gotcha” moment when the penny dropped that Otto had out manouvered everyone else at court.
I’m really curious if this show will “course correct” and do some fleshing out of the wider world and characters after the time jump.
He sure does. When he raised his voice talking to Rhaenyra at Dragonstone, I didn’t realize it was him for a moment. He’s got that propensity to get kinda nasal-y.