‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Finale Recap, Episode 8

We just watched 70 minutes of very good TV. It was galvanizing. In the episode’s final moments, long-gestating storylines threatened to clash with a sense of inevitability and, still, the frisson of surprise. It was all always heading right here — to this place — and yet the path House of the Dragon took made me doubt that we would ever find our way. An emotional coda boomeranged an important character back from season two’s margins, forcing her to make a hard choice between her children — a choice I don’t imagine is simple for Alicent just because some of her kids are monsters.

And it was a terrible season finale, evasive and deflating. In its final moments, I couldn’t help but obsessively check how many minutes were left. (Could they fit a battle into 15 minutes? Into nine minutes? Into two?) It was always heading right here to this place, yet the series denied its audience and its characters catharsis. War is like the horizon on House of the Dragon, receding no matter how (and how many times) you approach it. I’m so primed for battle at this point that I’m rooting against Alicent’s last-gasp plea for peace. Burn the innocents! Sink the recently rechristened Queen Who Never Was! This series’ most persistent flaw is that it is forever pulling back when it should run headlong, saving “story” for some imaginary later, taking for granted that we’ll keep tuning in. It’s so afraid of running out of gas that it never dares to floor it, which is especially damning for a show that insists its protagonists are reckless, twitchy, dangerous. We already know that the Targaryen tapestry being woven by an invisible hand in the opening credits will end up torn and tattered, the family and its dragons needlessly circling the drain of extinction. At some point, you have to show us.

It’s particularly disappointing to me because the season two finale starts with charm enough to evoke Game of Thrones. Tyland Lannister sits uncomfortably — criss-cross applesauce — before the heads of the Triarchy. Pack your bags; we’re not in Westeros anymore. The desert paradise is sunnier, looser, and more fun. Tyland proves an unformidable negotiator, trading away the Stepstones for ships to break Rhaenyra’s blockade — a deal that promises to expose King’s Landing to extortionate tariffs for years to come. But never mind, that’s a problem for future-Tyland. To hire the ships of Essos, present-day Tyland must first figure out how to win over their captain, Lohar, played with whimsy by Abigail Thorn. Lohar won’t sail with a skinny man who can’t best him at mud wrestling. Why mud wrestling? Why the hell not. Tyland falls in the bog and rises to the occasion. (Is it possible that what every Game of Thrones show needs is a nested buddy comedy co-starring an obtuse Lannister and his unlikely spirit guide?)

Tyland worries that he’s paid too much for Lohar’s fleet, but if he was in the Red Keep right now, he’d know that the Greens are in existential crisis and unlikely to quibble over tax hikes. With Aegon’s dragon dead, fragile Helaena refusing to ride Dreamfyre into battle, and Dareon’s dragon hardly bigger than a hatchling, the Green Team dragon count stands at approximately one. Vhagar’s a big gal, yes, but an overstretched one.

Meanwhile, Black has six dragons — maybe seven if Daemon quits eating Alys’s poison pies long enough to extricate himself from the labyrinth of bad dreams. Plus, unbeknownst to all, Rhaena’s still scurrying the Eyrie to find a dragon to love her back.

Alicent’s children respond to the news of Rhaenyra’s surging dragon power exactly as you might predict. Aemond is so furious he rains fire on the heretofore unmentioned village of Sharp Point, then goes home to physically assault his sister. He’s in full-blown panic mode. Helaena, for her part, refuses to join the war effort with an indifference to her and her family’s survival that verges on nihilism.

And Aegon, bedridden and cockless, still holds onto the flimsy dream of power. Larys persuades him to take an all-expenses paid trip to Essos, where the pair can wait out the war, returning to Westeros once everyone with a stronger claim on the crown is dead. Incontinent Aegon expresses some concern that the realm might not accept a dragonless dragon lord as King of the Seven Kingdoms, especially in a world yet to invent the urine catheter, but it’s equally true that Aegon has zero other allies, even among his kin.

On Dragonstone, too, they’re realizing that family isn’t to be depended upon. Instead of finding common ground in the dragonblood Jace shares with Ulf, Hugh, and Addam, he runs around the castle pouting, actually making sure the guests don’t dirty the furniture. Oafishly lovable Ulf emerges as the gang’s black sheep, lacking the skill or will to fit in with his adopted family. Which I suppose makes Hugh the peacekeeper, the one who can’t stop trying to smooth things over. Narcissistic Jace is the family’s golden boy, insisting no one is good enough to sit at his mother’s table (including himself, he fears in his heart of hearts). And then there’s Addam in the all-too-familiar role of lost child; he bites his lip at the dinner table and hangs in the background, hoping not to be noticed. They play classic roles, complicated by the fact that they need each other’s dragons more than they need each other. “All happy families are alike,” as Tolstoy wrote. “Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” And that’s without adding dragons.

You know what would help whip this ragtag team into shape? Having something to do besides roam the halls, getting on each other’s nerves. And yet Rhaenyra needs to be convinced by the Hand of the Queen that the threat of facing seven dragons is no more powerful a deterrent to Aemond than when she only had three dragons. And you know how we know for sure that Corlys is right? Because before the episode even begins, Aemond’s already laid waste to the Crownlands seat of House Bar Emmon. He is literally undeterred. I appreciate the desire to consider all peaceful paths to victory, but at some point, if you want to sit the Iron Throne, m’lady, you’ll have to give war a chance.

In better news, things in Harrenhal are positively up-tempo. It turns out that all that was needed to shake Daemon free from his doldrums was a humongous host. Now, the king consort is running around making plans; he’s walking-and-talking like he’s in an episode of The West(eros) Wing. When Ser Alred Broome, who recently arrived from Dragonstone on Rhaenyra’s orders, offers to betray their would-be queen to support his claim, Daemon is all smiles. Matt Smith is such a treat to watch when he’s operating in this gear, his mouth a half-smirk, his eyes a-twinkle. Finally, everything is coming up Daemon.

At least for a few minutes. Soon, though, Alys returns from wherever Alys goes for episodes at a time, and deems Daemon ready to see his own fate. She leads him to the godswood, where he has visions that will feel meaningful to any Game of Thrones viewer: dead dragons, white walkers, the certainty of demise and yet the whisper of a future. A glimpse of a clutch of dragon eggs. A naked figure bathed in golden light, surrounded by a trio of hatchlings. Life after death. Daemon sees Rhaenyra on the throne. A woman. A queen. In fact, in this vision of annihilation and redemption, Daemon hardly features at all.

The man has spent the entire season walking up to the edge of mutiny only to retreat. When Rhaenyra finally flies to Harrenhal to investigate rumors of her husband’s betrayal, Daemon makes the loudest and most heartfelt pledge to her he’s made to date. After a season of estrangement, he rousingly declares his fealty for all the Riverlords to hear, albeit in High Valyrian, a language they cannot speak or understand.

There’s a sense that it’s all finally about to pop off, though Rhaenyra’s game plan strikes me as tentative. The Blacks have seven dragons and two armies, and the strategic targets she’s identified, presumably with the help of Mysaria and the small council, are the Hightower seat of Oldtown and Lannisport, both on the opposite coast from King’s Landing. Not even loyal Baela can contain her befuddlement. What was the point of weakening the capital so terribly if you weren’t going in for the kill? Because victory will only come in one of two ways for Rhaenyra. She could fight a series of small skirmishes that end in a big battle for King’s Landing, or she could just go to King’s Landing now. Because Aemond isn’t the kind of guy to resign in the face of gradual losses. It will have to be catastrophic.

Or maybe it doesn’t have to be war at all. It’s an episode of reunions and reconciliations for Rhaenyra: first her uncle-husband, then her stepmother-friend. Alicent comes to Dragonstone with a plan for peace, one I suppose she started cooking up whilst camping. She tells Rhaenyra that Aemond is planning to fly to battle in three days. If Rhaenyra comes to the Red Keep, then Queen Helaena, who cannot bear to burn a soul, will let her in. History will call Alicent a villain, but that’s a price the dowager queen’s willing to pay for a life free from plotting. It will cost her the lives of her eldest sons, but she’s willing to pay that, too. The scene between the matriarchs is taut and tense — a real testament to only handing out speaking parts to talented actors. Alicent wants peace, for herself more than for the kingdom, but the two turn out to be inextricable.

The scene between them crescendoes into a stirring montage. The pieces aren’t just all on the board; they’re careening toward each other. Hugh, Ulf, and Addam are fitted with armor and cloaks, seduced into battle by Rhaenyra’s promise of knighthood if death doesn’t come for them first.

Corlys and Alyn, the son who hangs onto his hatred for his long-absent father, set sail side-by-side. They anticipate meeting the Greyjoy navy in the Gullet, but Tyland and Lohar are navigating to the same churning stretch of the dark sea.

A downtrodden Criston, who invites his own death as a freedom from the tyranny of dragons, marches alongside Gwayne to Harrenhal, his entire life’s work rendered meaningless: “The dragons dance, and men are like dust under their feet.” Jason Lannister puts his pet lions back in their show cages and he, too, makes for Harrenhal, not not looking like a traveling circus. There they might meet Daemon, unless he’s already set out for King’s Landing. Maybe they’ll be intercepted by Stark’s graybeards, who we finally see crossing the Green Fork into the Riverlands.

Aegon and Larys are bound for the Free Cities, where, if Tyland’s experience is any indication, they’ll have a lot of fun and make new friends along the way.

Otto is revealed to be imprisoned somewhere, though, in truth, I kinda forgot he was missing.

And Rhaena, bless her heart, finally corners a dragon.

It’s a masterful collage that makes this vast and fantastical world feel small and combustible. One wrong move and it will all go wrong. And maybe, in a year or two, when they finally release season three, it will, but that expertly crafted tension will have dissipated. It’s not a cliffhanger. The show never gets us close enough to peer over the edge of the cliff.

There is, though, buried in the middle of the finale a compelling twist — proof that the series can be electric when it gets the pacing right. When Daemon plugs into the godswood’s answer to Hometree, it’s Helaena who narrates his dreamscape, letting him know the role he’s to play in things to come. Later, she’ll tell Aemond that she knows he shot their brother from the sky because she “saw” it.

Is Helaena a dreamwalker? Has she been warging this whole time? When she tells the prince regent that he’ll die at the lake at God’s Eye and that her husband will be king again, should we believe her? Because damn, Helaena, spoiler alert! The revelation that the grieving queen is more complicated and powerful than meets the eye is made slowly and all at once. I now remember, from another episode, her peering at insects in jars — peculiar but maybe prescient, too, if I had been paying her more attention. She was the first to worry about the rats. She’s frail but decisive. Earlier in the season, posed a choice between her children similar to the one Rhaenyra presents Alicent, she was quick to sacrifice the life of her son for that of her daughter. So is Helaena weak, or is she simply the only member of her family who is not obsessed with projecting strength? The show answered a question and embedded a mystery in a few deft moments.

I’d like to see Heleana’s visions happen — at least some of them. I’d like to know what it looks like for a dragon to be swallowed by a lake. Then again, at the pace this series is moving, I might just take her word for it.

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