“House of the Dragon” sets the tone for its second season by closing its first episode with an assassination. “A son for a son,” as the terms are described and the premiere is titled. Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) orders a golden cloak to King’s Landing who remains loyal to him and Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) – but especially to Daemon, who is a man of action and not a thinker.
Daemon tells the soldier to kill his nephew Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) as revenge for Aemond’s murder of Rhaenyra’s son Luke. But for the bully and rat catcher he employs to guide him through the palace to the royal quarters, any prince will do – and so the two murder and decapitate the young heir to the throne in his small bed. We don’t see the horrible act, we only hear a small scream and the horrible, horrible sound of a blade sawing through flesh. The idea is horrible enough.
But this approach only works up to a certain point. The second episode begins with Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) angry at the murder of his son and his mother Alicent (Olivia Cooke) suppressing the urge to cry ugly at the loss of “the child”.
This is what the decapitated boy is called by those who discuss his fate, except when Aegon calls him his son, his heir. “My son is my legacy!” » Aegon shouts, and it’s true. But the child had a name. Is not it ?
Nine minutes and 45 seconds pass, accompanied by lengthy discussions about what should be done about the murder of “the child,” before the Hand of the King, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) finally says, “Jaehaerys was my grandson. I liked it. I won’t let him die in vain.
Oh yes. Jaehaerys. That’s what he was called.
Some of you may read a bit of grumpiness into any complaint about an inability to remember whose name is what in this series. Any unsteady grip on the who’s who of the Targaryen era didn’t stop 7.8 million viewers from watching the second season’s debut — a drop from the series premiere, but still impressive.
As I pointed out previously, if you’re still with “House of the Dragon”, then you’re here for the dragons. Otherwise, just identify with the characters of D’Arcy, Cooke and Smith. Eve Best’s The Queen Who Never Was, Rhaenys, never fails to make an impression, it’s true. And maybe we noticed Fabian Frankel’s DTF Ser Criston Cole and Mitchell’s Aemond, who is basically Daemon except younger and more bitter.
Death guarantees that something will happen every hour without us having a dragon battle.
From this point of view, everyone is replaceable. We already know how this ends, especially if you’ve read George RR Martin’s “Fire & Blood,” which, based on a level of character development we’ll generously call coststhe writers have to assume the audience did.
But when a dead boy king who will never be named is not named even by those closest to him, it explains what death is in this story – a propulsive device, and nothing else. We didn’t know Luke either. But Luke’s death begets Jaehaerys’, which leads to two more at the end of the second episode that were senseless and designed to make no sense.
Death guarantees something will happen every hour without dragon battles, although a more thoughtful exposition devoted to political engineering would be preferable. It worked wonders in “Game of Thrones,” ensuring we remembered so many names. Valar Morghulis means “All men must die” in High Valyrian, the language of the Targaryens. That’s true, but can’t writers share a few? of their distinct traits and behaviors before this happened?
In King’s Landing, the traitor Gold Cloak who murdered the royal boy was caught and confessed but could not identify the rat catcher who helped him. Then Aegon, in his rashness, hangs all the rat catchers in the castle and exposes their bodies on the walls near the door. This horrible sight causes a woman to look at one of the unfortunate people and say in a pale tone: “Oh no. My son.”
Olivia Cooke as Alicent Targaryen and Phia Saban as Helaena Targaryen in ‘House of the Dragon’ (HBO) (HBO)The war gets closer in the second episode thanks to Daemon’s mistake. Otto Hightower persuades Aegon to allow his child’s body to be paraded through the streets with his head sewn back on, and Alicent and his mother Helaena (Phia Saban) sitting quietly behind him. A crier accompanies them, announcing the boy’s death as Rhaenyra’s work, which gains the sympathy of the Green people. . .
. . . until Aegon hanged many of the innocent sons of other mothers. Death can be a powerful display of political power. Until it doesn’t.
On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra and her small council are desperate to find a way to recover from this public relations nightmare. With support from the big houses faltering, being labeled a child murderer is the last thing she needs. But the campaign to restore her image stalls when she realizes that Daemon ordered the hit.
This finally reveals what is eaten in Rhaenyra. She accuses Daemon, rightly, of marrying her not for love but to get closer to the throne. Daemon barely denies it, but admits that he never respected his father. Then, before heading out to parts unknown, Daemon spitefully told him that Viserys’ appointment of Rhaenyra as his heir was not a testament to her abilities but a means of getting revenge on him. That’s not what a girl wants her beloved uncle-husband to tell her in her darkest hours!
The warpath cannot become a funeral tank stuck in a pothole before the mass destruction begins. Action must move the story forward, and that’s where the tragedy of Ser Erryk Cargyll (Elliott Tittensor) and Ser Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor) comes into play.
The Tittensors aren’t the only twins on the field; the Lannisters have a pair in Jason and Ser Tyland (both played by Jefferson Hall). But the Cargylls were written to be doomed characters whose purpose is primarily metaphorical: two knights not only from the same family but sharing a womb divided by the fracturing of the royal family. For this you need two actors who probably should have been used more widely before.
“All men must die,” but can’t the writers share some of their distinct traits and behaviors before that happens?
Erryk and Arryk each took an oath to serve King Viserys, but could not agree on the politically suspect interpretation of his will after his death, so Erryk swore his loyalty to Rhaenyra, as Viserys did. decreed.
Woe betide Arryk, then, for being a convenient scapegoat when Aegon tears into Criston Cole for his failure to prevent his son’s death. Criston was boning Aegon’s mother, so it’s not a good look. It’s also shameful – and in his guilt, he turns on Arryk, blaming him for allowing a killer to overtake him even though Arryk was with Aegon, under his command.
To restore the honor of the Royal Guard, Criston orders Arryk to infiltrate Dragonstone and, posing as Erryk, kill Rhaenyra.
He would have gotten away with it too if Rhaenyra hadn’t agreed to free Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), Daemon’s abandoned and imprisoned lover, who recognizes Arryk approaching the castle from a boat. She warns Erryk, who confronts his twin in time to prevent him from opening Rhaenyra in his room.
It culminates in a battle where no one can tell who is who – not Rhaenyra, not the captain of the guard who comes to help and probably not the audience. (Except perhaps for mothers of twins?) As in the kingdom itself, brother attacks brother with blades until Erryk kills Arryk and then, in his grief, falls on his own sword.
I think that’s how it happened.
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A heartbreaking scene which would have been doubly so if the Tittensors had benefited from any hint of interiority to individualize them beyond their functions. When the differentiation between two knights is reduced to a vowel, not much can be learned from their disappearance.
The fall of the Targaryens, according to “House of the Dragon,” arises as a matter of confusion. In season 1, Viserys shares with a young Rhaenyra the secret of the blade that the king carries by telling him Aegon I’s prophecy about the song of ice and fire and the promised prince. This secret handshake equivalent was never passed down to his son Aegon II, who is named after the greater Aegon. But since Viserys dropped that name in his last words and did not specify who he was talking about, Alicent interprets the deathbed reference to mean that he chose their son.
The petulant Aegon attempts to remind Otto Hightower of this when the elder berates him for hanging innocent men by growling that Viserys was right about him.
“He made me king,” Aegon says, causing Otto to laugh and respond, “Is that what you think?”
The old man knows better. And that’s probably why his grandson fires him as a hand and gives those duties to the totally unsuitable Criston Cole. The king’s new advisor celebrates by waiting for Alicent in his room and allowing her to slap him before having painful sex. We know that’s how these two relate, which doesn’t necessarily make them more likeable. Instead, it makes them more real, giving us something to miss when the inevitable happens for one or both of them. A day.
New episodes of “House of the Dragon” premieres at 9 p.m. Sunday on HBO and Max.
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