'House of the Dragon' Season 2, Episode 2 Reactions | Talk the Thrones
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Insolent pup.

We are here to talk about House of the Dragon, episode two from the second season. Guys, before we jump into the episode, I would just like to let everybody know that we have a live show coming up on Tuesday, June 25th at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles. People can get tickets through theringer.com slash events. That's right. Or they can go to the El Rey website. Or maybe they could just show up the day of. Yeah. And see if they can get a bargain. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how the free market works.

- Joe, last episode, the first episode, Sun First Sun, we ended and it had a very clear, tragic, climactic moment. - Yeah.

This episode does also end with a, I guess, tragic climactic moment, but was it the most important moment? I don't know why I just sound like Jiminy Glick when I asked you that. But was it the most important moment of the episode? The Eric-Eric fight? Oh, okay. I thought you were going to talk about when Aegon destroyed the Lego model that Viserys spent his entire life learning. He worked so hard. That was like the most tragic death. He poured over the plans.

For old Valeria. For most importantly, sort of unifying theme, I sort of, I think it's Otto getting kicked out of the Green Council and Damon leaving the Black Council. And these two guys who are sort of, if you go back to episode one, their hatred for each other kind of kicked off

kicked all of this off. So for them to be kicked out of the game was kind of interesting. Was that your takeaway as well? Sorry, that took me back to remembering when Damon talked about Otto's withered cock. Season one, what a time that was for all of us to share together. That was a lesson you shattered the overrun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every week, that's my goal. Earlier and earlier every time.

Yeah, I think like broadly shattered trust and then more specifically shattered trust inside of each faction. Like this question of can you rely on in the greens, in the blacks, and then even further inside of that, this trust.

generational divide that is emerging. Like, a lot of mentions in the episode about age, about youth, and how that is either bringing people together or teaching a certain character a lesson. Like, Rhaenyra was willing to accept something when she was young about Daemon that she now has the wisdom to maybe no longer tolerate. She's like, I have enough items on my agenda. Too many challenges already. Too many challenges already. Should we recap the episode? Let's do it. Let's do it. ♪

Okay, we join Law and Order King's landing already in progress. A lot of action. Just running around some detectives. In the aftermath of Jaehaerys' beheading, frankly, everyone is grieving in their own way. Alicent blames herself. Otto tries to leverage the tragedy as a political victory. And Aegon wants revenge.

The difference of opinion between the latter two will eventually lead to their split, but before all that, we have to have a funeral. Helena has a panic attack when the procession stalls. So did all of us. Yeah. Well, I had a panic attack because they kept lingering on that kid's wobble.

Yeah, it just kept jiggling. And the stitching, it just looked like the seams on a baseball. It was not great, but like a 1942 baseball. Not like a tight one. Yeah, not a juiced ball. I was just nervous because King's Landing apparently has more potholes than Philadelphia. It takes Laris all of 10 minutes to find either blood or cheese. I never really got that straight, to be honest.

And one of those guys flips on his boy as soon as he sees the advanced interrogation techniques waiting for him. Vagus was not taking bets on whether Aegon was going to eventually kill that guy. And lucky for us, Aegon did eventually kill that guy. Good swing. Yeah. Just one and done. On Dragonstone, the fallout is nearly as bad as it is in King's Landing. The kid killing has sent a tremor through Rhaenyra's council. And it doesn't take her long to realize that all this secret shit is leading back to Daemon.

They play Who's Afraid of Virginia Dragon in an emotional knockdown, drag out, China shattering fight that ends with Damon taking his bird and going somewhere, I assume, Harrenhal. Do you think the 19 mentions of Damon intending to head to Harrenhal might be pointing toward Harrenhal? It just seemed like he was just like...

breaking out. He needed some air. Point north. What do you think tipped Rhaenyra off that Daemon might be in charge? Was it the huge shit-eating smirk on his face while they were talking about the dead? Daemon not speaking at a meeting for the first time ever was a big red flag. In his absence, Rhaenyra enlists his daughter, Bela, to patrol the skies at the expense of her own son. I have a note on this. You think it's too dangerous for Jace,

He's the heir. He's the heir. It's tough. We get a fair amount of Kristen in this episode, and I loved it. He's dealing with someone. You're gone.

What people need to know is that Chris Ryan has come out vehemently pro-Kristen Cole. Not in his behavior, but just as like, it's a character I'm watching. He's dealing with some kind of original sin, but this is Chrissy Cole we're talking about. So which sin is a lingering question. I think he's ultimately broken up about defiling his cloak with sexual exploits. So he takes it out on his Kingsguard subordinate, Eric Cargill.

Kristen gives Eric a mission impossible. Pretend to be her twin brother, Eric. Yep. Sneak into Dragonstone. Yeah. Kill Rhaenyra. That's right. And if you can, escape with your life, but that is not her goal. Not much emphasis put on the last part of that. So you're not making any attempt to distinguish between...

Eric and Eric. You're just like... Should I? No, I mean... I think you're doing great. I think you are crushing it. Both wind up in the same place. You're right. You're right. Bayla and Jace seem to get a little something something going before Jace kills the Buzz by talking about his dead brother. Speaking of Buzz, and this will come up several times during this episode, Eamon is gone off that milk of the poppy, at least according to me, not to these two snowflakes. We'll discuss. Uh...

Hanging out with a lady of the night who is both his lover and his surrogate mother. That is cool. She reminds Eamon of the little people, the small folk affected by these warring families. To further illustrate the point, we get a scene of a smithy trying to make ends meet and another one of Adam and Alan. A smithy?

The smithy. Your guy, Hugh. My guy, Hugh Hammer. From the Petitions of Episode 1. Trying to make ends meet, and another one of Adam and Alan dreaming of making their fortune in the war to come. You spelled Adam and Alan correctly in the outline. I'm so proud of you. I spellcheck. And finally, Misaria coming face-to-face with Rhaenyra, asking her to come through with the absent daemon's end of their bargain, which was essentially, I give you a way into King's Landing to kill these kids. You let me go. Rhaenyra does so, and that winds up being a big deal when Misaria spots Aric...

pretending to be Eric. Yeah! On his way to kill Rhaenyra, the episode peaks with another grisly set piece, the twins killing one another, after which we get a combo of politics, tears,

and sex. Great show. God bless this show. Yeah. That was the recap. You know what? Incredible, iconic recap. Wonderful. I'm a little sad that the fact that Corliss likes to get domed in bed did not make the recap. I'm sorry. I would try to condense it down to the main points, but that's why we have this entire Talk the Thrones is that you guys can illuminate me about people's sexual preferences in House of the Dragon.

Mal. Chris. I thought actually my favorite scene was the Rhaenyra-Daemon fight. It also mirrors the Otto-Aegon fight really well. He's obviously undermining her here, but one of the things that jumped out to me about the first season was they just had something. Just an undeniable attraction. That uncle-niece. That room with those crazy kids. That undeniable, insensual attraction. But I feel like maybe the air's gone out of that balloon. Is love dead?

As Joanna mentioned, not if you're Corliss and Renise and you're still fucking up a storm in your 50s and 70s. I'm in my 30s. I can barely stand up at the end of the day. Unbelievable. You're really going off menu today. Is love dead? I think you're...

- Your view of incest in Game of Thrones has always been something that I think has inspired and touched the masses. You obviously really shipped Jaime and Cersei hard in Game of Thrones. I think the question of whether this was ever like purely truly love or more like a potent combination of undeniable attraction.

Sure. Right? But also need and infatuation is like worth parsing because some of the real moments of breakthrough in season one come, let's never miss the opportunity to remind everyone, at Damon's wife's funeral. Oh, that's right. Right? That's when Rhaenyra and Damon finally fuck for the first time. Listen, they're busy people. You find time in your schedule where you can find it. They basically only go to funerals and weddings. Well, no. And to the bowels.

of a pleasure den. So in that episode, Driftmark Raniero said, I need you, uncle. I cannot face the greens alone. That's on the heels of each of us is capable of depravity and more than you would believe. Their bond has always actually been acknowledging the depths of what they are capable of doing to each other, it's implied, right? But certainly to other people. So is love dead? I guess it can only die if it lived in the first place, you know? That's what I was at, yeah. Like, what was the nature of their attraction, I suppose? I love the love.

line in this fight, I mean, this fight, I agree, is... Harrowing. Oh, I was going to say the best. Um...

But when she says to indulge the darkness you keep sheathed in you like a blade is something that she says to him. And something that Emma Darcy has said in interviews is that a connection that Rhaenyra and Daemon share is their shared darkness. So the anger that she feels towards him, and I love this because in the book we don't get Rhaenyra's response to blood and cheese at all. So the fact that we got to see how Rhaenyra feels about blood and cheese is something the show gifted us that the book decided was not important. But

Her anger towards him almost then is her anger towards her own darkness? Question mark? I did like the fact that Matt Smith essentially played, to me at least, the...

the council meeting and then the fight afterwards with Rhaenyra as a coward. Like, you know, he's essentially like shirking from taking responsibility for sending blood and cheese in the first place. He says multiple times that it was a mistake. But I'm not responsible. But he kind of does it the way a 13-year-old would do it where he was just like, I said it was, I apologize. Like, can we move off of this now? Like, and,

also is kind of happy about the result. You know, like he's not sad about the fact that another green went down, right? Like, so I think that the way that he, kind of even though he has this reputation as this great warrior, I really enjoy the fact that he's kind of this damaged young man at the same time.

And I think I completely agree on what Mallory said earlier about that age divide, old and young. It's this idea that, because Massaria says the same thing, that she was chasing Damon's approval when she was younger. She's like, I've grown out of that. Rhaenyra's like, I've kind of grown out of that.

we'll get to your favorite Kristen Cole and Allison, but, you know, Olivia Cooke has been saying in interviews this is like a juvenile infatuation for her because she never got to do that. Right? So Damon's in this arrested development spot, has never, like, left that ever. Allison's experiencing her teenage years for the first time ever. And

Rhaenyra and Viserys are like, guess what? We're grown-ass adults. We don't need to do this anymore. What I love about that so much is that it entwines perfectly with this idea of how present Viserys is, like, in this fight, certainly, but really how he hangs over all of this. Brother, father, whatever that, like, even they argue, that's part of their argument. Daemon's like, you think you know him better than me? Like, I was raised by his side. And they're arguing over some sort of right to claim something that they...

and reject and resent so deeply, right? It's such a tormented relationship in all respects. And so I loved how, you know, this basically opens with Rhaenyra doing a podcast. She's just talking about what we were all talking about last week. What did you say exactly, right? Like, I need to parse everywhere. We're going to go beat by beat, frame by frame. I felt the same way when Aegon's like, who was all...

was on guard duty outside of the Queen's chamber. I texted that. When I texted you guys, I was like, can Tom win an Emmy just for the way he shouted, Obed? That was also an incredible scene. But it's building toward Rhaenyra saying, do you accept me as your queen and ruler? Now, this was a trailer line, so we had already heard it. But it was one of those moments that pops so much more when you have the full context of how it rears its head.

It's a little thing, but she's not saying do you accept me as the queen and ruler? It's do you accept me as your queen and ruler? Are you ready to finally concede the one thing that you never could with Viserys? Because that was the thing we loved talking about so much in season one with Daemon and Viserys. On the one hand, we talked about last week the comp to the did you say it air for a day.

When Viserys kicks Daemon out of the city in the series premiere, part of what Daemon says to him is like, you've only ever tried to send me away. Why didn't you ask me to be by your side? To be your hand. And he says, he, meaning Otto, doesn't protect you. I would. This is actually part of what Daemon wants, genuinely, to protect and serve, but...

He thinks he'd be better at the core thing than the person he is protecting. Something that Mallory and I talked about preseason on A House of Art podcast was what is Damon Targaryen's love language? And it's...

acts of service. It's taking people to brothels. Yeah. I mean, that too, but acts of service. Act of service. Sure. He wants to feel useful. Yeah. So he's like, in this episode, he's like a cat that brings you a dead bird and is like, is this what you wanted? And why are you praising me? I got you a Targaryen head. Yeah.

maybe not exactly the one you wanted. I don't get praised for this. I get censured. And that was similar with his division with Viserys. He's like, I'm doing this for you to support you. You may not like my methods, but you have to respect this. Why don't you value this? And you're not capable of it, right? And that's part of what he says to Rhaenyra here. Like, I see you will suffer the same fate. Yeah. He...

and lamented the fact that Viserys was not capable of what Daemon knew that he could do. Now, would that have made Daemon a good king? I think we can agree, certainly not. Entertaining. An entertaining character on a television show, no doubt. But like, when he said to Viserys, Headlines,

Oh, good for comedy. Good for SNL. That's right. You are the dragon and your word is truth. That was one of the things that he said to Viserys in season one. And he believes that in his soul and in his bones. And Rhaenyra is carrying all sorts of other preoccupations, the burden of the prophecy, considerations. Duty, would you say? Duty. I think we're definitely supposed to be, you know, Mal and I both went to that Viserys conversation immediately in our heads because it ends with,

Daemon sulking off on Caraxes to Dragonstone and this ends with a similar, you know, like just being like, fine, I'll leave. I'll take my dragon and leave. So one of the reasons why I really liked this episode was I felt like the argument between Rhaenyra and Daemon and the argument between Aegon and Otto really mirrored each other to bookend the episode. And you've also got, like you said, Viserys looming over all of it. What does he tell people? How is it interpreted? The sort of legacy he left. Jo, what do you think?

Otto and Aegon, it seems to be technically about legitimacy, but I think for people who maybe don't know a ton about the backstory or read the books or whatever, how much does Otto know about what

And Viserys told Alicent and what was supposed to happen in the transfer of power. And what's he alluding to when he says, you know, Aegon's like, he made me king. And Otto's just like, ha, ha, ha. Is that what you think? He actually legitimately laughed. I was hoping that you would do an impression. Wonderful stuff. He does it, but it's more like this.

Is that what you think? I know. Some borderline Palpatine-esque head turns from Otto in this episode. Very dramatic. Risa Fonz was like really letting the Welsh shine through in this particular scene. So, right. Damon says to Rhaenyra, wisdom, virtue. Like, is that why you think he put you on the, you were a tool. Yeah.

Otto, what's so interesting about this episode is that last season, when there was a terrible murder in the castle and we needed to act, or death in the castle, and we needed to act quickly, Viserys dies. And in episode nine, The Green Council, which was written and directed by Sarah Hess and Claire Kilner, who wrote and directed this episode, minutes in, Otto's like,

to hear this from you, Allison, that he said that to you. I totally believe you. And guess what was also really convenient? We have a plan already in place. We were ready to do it, Kim, already. I got it big on right here.

We are ready. So we grieve for Viserys the Peaceful, but we got a plan. And then this episode, he's like, okay, Jaehaerys is dead and that's a bummer. But also we could have a grief parade and it would be really good for us. So Otto on the PR spin of how do I turn this tragedy into advancing my personal career in King's Landing or getting what I want, which is Aegon on the throne and legitimized.

This is just classic Otto. So no, I don't think he ever believed that Viserys actually told Alicent. That Aegon would save the world. Right. Like Alicent misunderstood what Viserys is talking about. He's talking about Aegon the Conqueror, not her fucked up son. But... Happy accident for Otto. Otto's like, this works out really well for me. So I'll pretend to my daughter that I believe her. Yeah. But guess what?

And Tylan Lannister has already figured out how to divvy the gold and we're off to the races. And it's only the hero Lyman Beesbury standing between us and all of us. It's a seizure. Okay. Yeah, it's like both of them. You mentioned the Jaehaerys comp. Like these are kind of Otto's...

is a ladder for the moment. But I think, unlike Littlefinger, he's pretty bad at it. But did he lose his temper by undermining... Like, are we supposed to read that? Did you read that scene as Aegon's pushing this guy away and I can't remember if he says the legitimacy thing before or after he's like, you're no longer the Hand. I think it's before. Before, before. So he says that and then Otto kind of... But throughout, throughout,

the episode he calls him an imbecile an idiot in a very Welsh accent all of that like he's like I'm

I'm like, okay, what's the moment where Otto lost the job? Was it when he was yelling at the grieving father? I mean, he's just mistakes were made by Otto across his episode. Making him look bad when people are coming up and asking for goat security or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, there was the Larius, like, you don't want to be a pliable king exchange last week. So Aegon is already primed for this. Like, I don't want to just be another version of my father. I don't want to be controlled. We, of course, then have

the Alice and Otto conversation from last week about not their intent, their certainty that they can control them. And on the generation gap thing too, I was really struck by we're a one episode removed, one, from Otto, like the caprice of youth. Yeah. You know, just kids being kids who kill each other on dragons. Unfortunate, but let's all move on. And now he realizes that he can't control them.

any of them. And I was particularly struck not only by, I think when he says the is that what you think thing to Aegon. Of course, he still seems like he's like, are you joking? When he tells him to remove his badge. I don't think he's actually playing out the string, much like he didn't. Let's not forget this is not the first time we've seen Otto Hightower ousted his hand. Get fired. Yeah, like Viserys stripped him of the badge in season one for something similar. Claire Kilner also directed that episode.

Yeah, like how many episodes do I get to direct where Rhys Dupont gets fired? How long did it take you to choose yourself over your king? That was what Vissera said to him in season one. Now Rhaenyra was like, I need you to get rid of this guy if we're going to work together. But Otto has just never been quite deft enough at navigating that aspect of

of the political game, the great game. You're in the great game now. He has the move that he wants to make. He knows what it is, but he doesn't quite know how to shield, obscure other people from seeing it. And so when he says to Aegon, like, is that what you think? Or even when he says earlier the legitimacy thing, like...

It was a fascinating inversion of all the signs of legitimacy belonging to him, like propping up of his campaign in season one. It's like the people look at the dragon exploding through the pit of the dragon pit and they see an omen. Like nobody thinks that you're supposed to be here. So we have to send a herald out in front of your son's dead body and have them call her renunciation.

Rhaenyra the cruel and Rhaenyra the monstrous, right? We need to work the game. But then Aegon feels how he's being manipulated and deployed. He doesn't want to be a pawn on Otto's board, right? And I have to wonder if he would have noticed that as much if Laerys hadn't planted that seed. Yeah, well, and the other question I had, and I didn't actually prepare you guys for this. Yes, yes.

One of the things I think Otto seems most surprised by is that he's probably thinking to himself, well, who's going to take my job? Right. I mean, you can't fire me. There's no one who can do what I do. And immediately it's Kristen, right? Much to even Kristen's surprise. Yeah. He's flummoxed. My question is this. Yeah. Is...

Basically, the head of the king's landing secret service, typically a spot where you then get promoted up to hand of the king, like historically. And even in the future, do these militaristic or like law enforcement guys, I guess, necessarily get promoted to such a strategic role ever? There have been hands drafted out of the night's watch, the king's guard. That has definitely happened. I wouldn't say it's the most common thing to do.

Any number of different personality types, people with certain skills and abilities, people from different walks of life, anybody can be Han, ultimately, right? It's like, who do you trust? It gets back to that key trust issue. But the thing that is crucial, I think, for us to clock about the Kristen pick is like the line in, we get actually, my new hand is a steel fist. We get it in the show. That's right from the book. The continuation of that line in Fire and Blood is we are done with writing letters.

Like this is about that young blood wanting to fight. Enough of the diplomacy, like enough of the campaigning to bring people to our side.

I don't want to win people to my side. I want to win. And he's not taking a beat. Yeah, to the point where Otto has to say to Allison later, like, they're peacocks, right? It's like all brashness. It's feathers. And he's not actually wrong about this. I think that's one of the interesting things is I often find a lot of flaws in Otto's logic or the way that he conducts himself. And certainly he just walks into those potholes that are waiting for young Jaehaerys out in the streets and many times in this episode. But...

he is seeing things more clearly than a lot of the people around him, and it doesn't matter. All of these, they can't get out of their own way. The other line that they lift out of the book, you know, into Aegon's mouth in this scene is,

He says, spill blood, not ink, right? Thrones are one with swords, not quills. Spill blood, not ink. Okay. So this is just very much like... This is book Aegon, who's like, we're done with your way of doing this. We have dragons for a reason. Yes. Like, let's use our dragons. We've got the biggest dragon. Let's use our big dragon. And what does that equate to? Like, might, strength. What do we keep hearing from him across this episode? Like...

I will not be seen as weak. When we first see him smashing Viserys's Lego, what a symbol, right? Literally crumbling and disintegrating the legacy of old Valyria. Think of how we responded and did 18 hours of podcasts on Viserys dropping one stone dragon in season one. Some of us. Some.

How about the entire royal chamber-sized Lego set of Old Valeria? I think me and Andy were still trying to figure out if John Krasinski was going to show up.

There's definitely actual despair for Aegon, for sure. He's in mourning. Alicent walks in and finds him weeping at the fire later and doesn't go to comfort him. One of the really heartbreaking moments is he says, like, my little son's body. But the bulk of what we hear from him at the beginning when we first see him in the wake of this tragedy-

There she sits across the bay on her rock laughing at me. Like, it's insecurity. He's like, I don't want to do the grief parade, which actually masterful PR move from Otto. I don't want to do it because it makes me look weak. Like, I don't want anyone to know that this happened. Which...

But also, I just want to say, I mean, I hate Otto. I'm not on Team Otto except for when he says wearily, and what has Sir Christian Cole done? Great moment. Fantastic. We're going to talk about what Sir Christian Cole does. But Otto's PR moves...

are so superior to Dragonstone where Aemon and his dragon fully chomped a small child and they took no advantage of it politically or messaging-wise. They had a quiet, private funeral where they burnt some things. This one, Otto is like, we're going to have the entire city come out and throw flowers for this. All right, let's talk a little bit about The New Hand of the King. Okay.

Your favorite. Your guy. Your guy, Chrissy. Is it a Chris thing? It's not. It's that he is a scumbag. And I find those guys interesting in the realm of a show that is about a lot of very morally complicated people. And Kristen, I think, is just one of those characters that because we have seen him evolve, I guess, over the course of the two seasons, I want to know what you think is his...

What's the motivating moment for him that makes him feel at once so ashamed of himself but also so ambitious, Mal? Because here's a guy, he was rejected by Rhaenyra on a romantic level. He's had this essentially secret affair with Alicent for a really long time.

and is quite violent and quite aggressive with pretty much everybody he comes into contact with. Which violent moment are you talking about? Long list. When he beat a man to death at a wedding banquet? Yes, that was the one I was thinking of. Punched Jeffrey Lonmouth's face clean off at a pre-wedding feast. Or when he told an old man to sit down so forcefully. Small ball right through the temple. A small ball right through his head. I thought that the moment where she's like,

I can't remember the exact exchange, but Alicent comes out the door, Kristen is standing at watch, and he's like, you know, it's basically... Have you told anyone what do you take me for? One who seeks absolution. There is none for what I've done. What did he do? I think it's, at this point, given how many years of the canon we've gone through, like Joe was alluding to, it's quite a long list. And I think, like, you know, okay, go back to season one and the origin of his selection to the Kingsguard, right? Think of him and Rhaenyra out in the Kingswood on the hunt and her asking him...

do you think they'll accept me as their queen? They'll have no choice, right? It's never really about truly for Kristen Merritt. It's always about might and power and how those things relate to each other. And so it's interesting to hear you frame it as like,

He was rejected romantically by Raniere. Well, not romantically, but wasn't he like, we could run away, right? But... Oranges. Yes. Cinnamon. Let me tell you about the cinnamon and the oranges and our life that we could live across the Narrow Sea. But he was saying, like, leave your life behind, and then that will be the absolution for how I have sullied my cloak, right? I've sullied my white cloak. It is the only thing I have to my fucking name. He sullied the cloak by just even being interested in Raniere? By breaking his vow. Yeah.

Yeah, he broke the vow. You're supposed to be, you know, take a vow of chastity. That's why the cloak is white. And that's why he goes to Eric, to Eric in this episode, and he's like, Eric's cloak is dirty because he was walking through the streets trying to protect the royal family. The white cloak is a symbol of our purity, our fidelity. Kingsguard, our sacred trust, will you so easily sell our ancient honor? Christian's a really big projection guy. Like, he needs to work through some things in therapy. I think, like, literally he could just get, like, an app

and that could probably figure out a lot of his trauma. In terms of what the origin of this is, but then how it traces across time and where he is now, I think it's interesting to identify how entwined what he views as his lapses and his sins and his sullying of the cloak and what the cloak represents to him are with...

Alicent, because after Rhaenyra rejects him, what does he do? Now he is like misunderstanding the conversation that he and Alicent are having, but ultimately he confesses to Alicent. Yeah. He does. Then when he goes into the Godswood to kill himself after what happens with Joffrey at the pre-wedding feast, Alicent is the one who stops him, who gives him whatever version of absolution that is possible to attain when you have done the things that he's done. When he kills Beesbury...

Sir Harold, who at that point is still Lord Commander, says to take, put down your sword. Take off your cloak. You're done. You're out of here. But Alicent's not saying goodbye to Kristen, her sworn shield, like her one true defender. And so Alicent has, I would say, a palpable,

unceasing level of guilt and shame in this episode, too, to the point that she actually tries to confess to her father, right? I don't want to hear it. Don't want to know. Don't want to know. Let me tell you something. Once I went into Viserys's chambers and I told him that his daughter had been caught coupling with her uncle in the bowels of a pleasure den. I got fired just in that same episode, and I don't really want to talk about daughters and sex lives ever again, so keep it to yourself. Same. Is your interpretation when he says, I don't care to hear it, he knows, though...

Right? Don't we believe that Otto knows what she's been doing with Kristen? I gotta say, my favorite version of what you're talking about is when Allison's like, hey, Helena, by the way, did you say anything crazy last night? Because I know Helena be saying things. And Helena's like... Did you have one of your dreams? Not in the top ten things I'm thinking about right this moment. Poor Helena. But I loved the Eric...

Kristen scene, which is like in the book, it's so sparse. Like what we know about how Eric wound up over there is so sparse. But we know that it was Kristen's idea. But this idea that it was like Kristen bullying him by using just like blatant hypocrisy and projection and backing him into this corner, I

My maybe favorite two characters in this episode are the two other members of the Kingsguard who just take their stuff and leave in the middle of this fight. Those guys were absolutely incredible. They're like, this has nothing to do with me. I also genuinely loved when Eric was like, listen, some of us actually work at night. I just want to eat my breakfast and be a dickhead to me in like six minutes. Also, why doesn't the queen have someone guarding her room, Kristen?

I loved that. Yeah. I love that. She's the queen now. Yeah, when she ascended. You guard Allison. Why aren't you guarding Helena? And so to your auto point, in that sense, you kind of start to wonder how would it be possible for people to not clock this at a certain point? Right. Like that Kristen is still her sworn defender, et cetera. So let me ask you about the Allison thing. So Kristen takes Allison's dad's job and she still can't say no to this guy. The episode ends with her, like she cannot resist this dude. Yeah.

Is it because literally this is the only person that she can have a romantic, physical, emotional connection with in the entire realm? Or is there something about what Kristen has done and where he has wound up and now he's Aegon's hand that Alicent to like maintain that sort of

that she might have power over Aegon needs to continue to be like intimate with this guy. Like what was the, what was so irresistible about him? I mean, you've seen, you've seen him, right? Fabian Frankl. I mean, you,

You have to see him. You have eyes, right? That moment when she... He's an attractive guy. When she walks in and he's sitting on her bed that used to be Rhaenyra's bed and he's just like... Sad boys. Ready for round... Armory off. Very presumptuous. It's like a I hate myself, hate fuck sort of moment, right? Just like I'm so angry and wound up. And we had a previous scene where she takes a bath

and he's on the other side of the door. She does not seem happy in that bath, yeah. They didn't do anything. You're concerned about the bathing routine right now for Allison. Well, I was going to bring up Laris because Laris would be the obvious clubhouse favorite to be the king. But remember that we are done writing letters. Like, Laris isn't what Aegon is gravitating toward right now. No, he wants a general. But, like, on the one hand...

Do we think Laris is angling directly for Otto's job? Perhaps. But on the other hand, we hear out of Aegon's own mouth the very words,

that Laris said to him last week. Yeah, he's angling for influence and that can take many forms and he's smart enough to know that. But like, I think it's almost smarter to not be so in the spotlight, hand of the king, but influencing from the shadows. And I actually think Laris comes out ahead in this whole exchange. He gets rid of Otto who is a like stronger, more influential force for him to bump up against and now it's just dumb, dumb Kristen Cole. I'm sorry, your guy. Your guy. On the Allison front. Street smart, you know? It's true. It's true.

On the Allison front, like, when we're talking about shame and guilt, we also have to talk about hypocrisy. We chatted about this a lot on House of R. I shudder to think how long this week's House of R. I actually shudder, too. I mean, Spotify's typically, like, it has to have, like, a limit, right? We'll find out. Tune in on Tuesday night. We'll find out. We have a lot of Chris and Cole takes to get off. Yeah.

Remember how Alicent, and she was much younger at the time, but remember how she greeted these rumors, these whispers about Rhaenyra's dalliances, right? And so part of what, like even the fact that by the end of this episode, Alicent doesn't appear to be wearing her signature at this point, seven-pointed star necklace anymore, like the way that we associate her with her piety and like when she is identifying some sort of like

Holding somebody else in judgment for a thing that she has done. Are you saying she's going into her brat era? No, but I think she's tormented, right? And this has always been central to her character because she finds herself in a position of responsibility and duty. Then she grows to resent it. This is actually part of what like...

while some members of this table are not the biggest fans of Kristen Cole in terms of his moral compass, obviously, there was something thrilling about seeing... To have a sex life. Sure. Yeah, Alison finally take her pleasure. Good for her. That's great. It's weird. I think she gets referred to as the Queen Dowager. Dowager. And I'm like, that's not a dowager. Is this a lady in the... I know. She said in her life. It's just a title. So,

So there's the fact that so many vows, they make you swear and swear of it all, right? For Kristen, there's the question of this fidelity, this purity, this thing that he told Rhaenyra, like, you raised me higher than any coal in the history of the realm. And am I compromising that? But there's like the question of just the inherent act and then what happened in tandem with that.

Yes. Right? So it makes me think back to Cersei saying to Tyrion in season two of Game of Thrones, sometimes I wonder if this is the price for what we've done, for our sins.

J. Harris was murdered in his bed while Allison and Kristen were fucking down the hall. Like, it would actually be bizarre if they didn't feel that they were in some way culpable for that. I guess that also could be the other thing that he feels like he can never get absolution from. The way that he looked at the bloody mattress when they picked it up and the guy's like, can you move that back?

Heavy and disgusting. Can you move out of the doorway so that I can get rid of this, please? We are going to replace one mattress and just keep at some point. Unair-conditioned King's Landing bedroom for like three days. But I think that, I do think it's worth shouting out Olivia Cooke's performance in that regard because when she's like, you know, what they did to my girl, that whole thing, but also she's just marinating in her own guilt in that scene. How about that moment with, I know we're on Alison and Christian, but because you mentioned Helena,

Aegon and Helaena passing each other on the stairs. By the way, he has two Kingsguard with him. She has still just handmaids. Still there's no one guarding Helaena, even still. I just wanted to ask very quickly, Jo, about Otto, who, and this is going to be one of those questions where you're probably going to be like, I can't quite answer this.

Otto, is he A, a free agent? Yeah. Is he B, still working on behalf of the Greens and walking the earth like Kung Fu and trying to just garner more support for them? Yeah. Or three something else? So...

There are things that I can't talk about necessarily, but... Because it's a book reader thing. Right. But Allison does send him to Highgarden. Yes. He declares that he's going to go to Old Town. And she's like, no, no. She says, go to Highgarden. You're going to go to Highgarden. Tyrell Bannerman. So the Tyrells are getting a little nervous because all the Bannermen are like,

So House Tyrell, Margaery, Olenna, you remember them. Highgarden, we love them. They have a ton of money and they're a very important ally. But all of their bannermen are like, we don't know that we're on board with this king. We don't really like it. And House Tyrell at this moment, the Lord is a small boy. So his mom was like, sure, sure. Okay, yeah, yeah. Aegon, sure. Actually, I don't know. All my bannermen seem to think that Rhaenyra is the better choice.

Maybe we'll just not do anything at all. Maybe we'll... So Highgarden is wanting to be Switzerland in all of this. Yeah, okay. So what can sending consummate diplomat Otto to handle the Highgarden problem? What will that do? I'm just excited that we're talking about the reach. Yeah. Like this gets back to what we talked about last week with widening of the map. We have to beg you just for a second because we're talking about this moment where Otto's like, I'm going to go to a whole town. No, please, please go. Please go to Highgarden instead. Okay.

Chris. Yeah. They mentioned Darren. The Hightower still have strength and you have a son there who will take more kindly to instruction. Darren may yet help us in the weeks to come. I got up from my couch and screamed and fist pumped like I had just watched the Ravens win the Super Bowl. Because Wilson and Viserys' fourth child, Darren, their third son. Who has a dragon. A dragon. He does? Yes. And they're like.

I don't know. You haven't mentioned him on the show. Okay. Sarian the Blue Queen, Kobold and Copper, Daring the Daring. Like, they haven't mentioned him and we're just like, they're counting up their dragons. Who has how many dragons? Who has the bigger dragons? This has just been an absolutely confounding exclusion from the show. Is this a problem with the show or is this just like, was this supposed to be a surprise? Like, why not see this before? I think they just didn't have room in the first season. But for an hour and five minutes, I'm like, yeah, we had to cover a decade.

decade. The fact that they didn't even mention him in season one was wild. So now we have confirmation that he exists. Yes. Some children don't exist on this show, but Darren does. I'm thrilled. Will we get him? Does this mean we'll meet him this season? Is it just kind of a wink and a promise to us that he'll be entering the story in season three? I know now a level of peace that I was not sure we would reach in season two because Darren has been mentioned. I am so elated. Just going to let you know because we're going to be talking about milk in a few minutes. Knock,

quite yet, but soon, that Darren and Jace, milk brothers. Viserys was like, I want you two to have, yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. I mean, it might mean different things for some of the characters on the show, but Viserys was just a classic Viserys. Same wet nurse. I want them to have the same wet nurse. Yeah. It was said that the king hoped to prevent any enmity between the two boys by raising them as milk brothers. Viserys was into building models of the place he already lived. Yes.

and overseeing milk. Well, he never, he didn't. It was Valeria, but that's okay. But yes, he's very into milk. Honestly, blinded by this. Let's talk about milk. I just want to talk about the Aemon scene for really Aemon. The Aemon scene. Jo told me recently that her Google Docs autocorrect to almond Targaryen. It's very funny. Difficult to shame now that I know that. I don't think it was almond milk. How about that? Oh, okay. So let's get into this scene where Aemon is with, I would probably guess the Lady of the Night. It seems like he's in a pleasure room. We know, we know, we know.

We've met her before. We have met her before. The matron of the brothel where Kristen and his dumb hat and Aemon and his eye patch went in season one. I'm so excited to tell you that she appears to be the person who took Aemon's virginity at what age? 13. Thank you. Aegon took him out into the streets and he said to him, what? Time to get it wet. Time to get it wet.

You don't remember this from season one? This is a core House of Dragon memory. I don't love that I just said that, but that is a line from the show. It is a line from the show. Anyway, when she showed up last season, her character name was Brothel Madam. As far as I know, that's still her character name, and I would like her to have a real name. She looked at him through the door and was like, how you've grown. Yeah, she did say that.

Well, my point here is... No, no, no. That you think... No, no, but the point is whatever... And she hadn't seen him in a while then. So Eamon, since then, since seeing her, he saw her when he was like searching for Aegon to put him on the throne. He was like... That moment in the door. She like is making a move on him and he just goes, hmm.

and turns away. And I guess he's like, guess what? Let's go back in time and rekindle this romance that we had together. I'm going to play little boy. You play mommy. But I think part of, it was, this is a little bit behind the scenes.

When I wrote the document to sort of recap the episode, I was just like, this dude is on opium. Like, this guy's high out of his mind, curled up on a lady's lap, naked, got the eye patch off, feeling comfortable, you know? Just letting that sapphire gleam. Let's just have an honest moment with each other. It's just the three of us. If you were missing an eye...

and you had a sapphire in your empty eye socket, would you take it out during sex? Would you keep the eye patch on during sex? I think no, you take that off, too sweaty, right? So the eye patch is off.

Sapphire in, sapphire out. And the weather, I was blasted out of my mind on Milk of the Poppy. Are they post-coital, though? Because there's that odd moment where he's like, not here. Yes, not here. So then where? That's because I think he's high. He's like, I'm all in my opium vibes. And now I'm going to curl up on you. It's not.

It's definitely possible not only that you're right, but that by the time people are watching us talk about this, it has been confirmed on the inside of the episode that you are right. It's possible. That is a large goblet of Milk of the Poppy. You can't fly a dragon. You can't Mount Vhagar if you're on that much Milk of the Poppy. Our interpretation was a little bit more that like,

It's an infantilizing thing. He's in the fetal position curled up. There's a history of this in Game of Thrones with Robin, Robin Aaron, like suckling from Lysa. Thanks for making that face. Ever, ever, ever. This is just so, oh my God. This is just so Homelander coded, right? For all the boys heads out there.

Like, I'm a little baby. My mommy doesn't love me. I walk into the small council meeting. She asks why I'm there. When I was a kid and everyone was mean to me and they picked on me, which they did. They were the pink dread because I was different. That was actually, I thought, very touching and sad to see him be that vulnerable and admit that. And when I went to my mother, what did she say? Like, your obsession with these beasts goes beyond understanding. He's not getting from his mother what he needs. And so he's going here.

to drink milk and be cradled in the bosom of a matronly figure. Why can't it be both? It can. Why can't it be? It can. Maybe it is. Uncut, king's landing, black tar. But the thing about Eamon is I feel like he's, other than the vulnerability of like,

I do regret that business with Luke. I lost my temper that day. Other than that, that sort of odd way that he's talking is how Amon is always talking. So if you want to make the argument that he is always blasted out of his mind, I'm not against it. I'm not against it. Built up a tolerance? Like wags and body sushi on billions? I'm keeping my Sapphire eye on it. Let's just put it that way. Okay. So what I loved about it regardless is just like Amon's, what did we talk about all of last week?

the foil for Daemon, these figures of strength, all the talk about Vhagar and Aemond is the greatest power in the realm, Aegon propping him up as like my best sword. And he's just like, people were mean to me. It made me think of the cruelty of children as known to all that great line from Fire and Blood that we love, which of course is in Aemond's passage. The fact that he was able to express remorse. Now, is he sitting down at the small council chamber in episode one? No, no, no, no, no. But I considered that a

especially in this episode, notable contrast. It's not my fault. Yes, exactly. What did I do, really? We spent a lot of our time on these shows comparing Amon to Damon. Yeah. That is a point of distinction, which I think warrants mentioning. Okay. Now, he's not saying that to his family members. He's not sitting down at the Green Council last week and saying...

I kind of got this whole thing started all at once. I do actually feel bad about Luke. They were mean to me, but I did not mean for it to go that way. I'm sorry. It turns out I can't control my dragon. We should all probably talk about how we think we can control all of these things that we can't. But we talked on House of R this week about comparing Aemond

with Jaime Lannister, where Jaime Lannister did something, gained this reputation, and then just kind of leaned into that reputation. So if Aemon is swaggering around the castle being like, well, if you think I killed a small kid with my dragon, guess what? Don't mess with me. You're never going to bully me again, et cetera. And he goes screwing off to an opium den to get high and have some motherly sex. Think of how many of our early season one scenes were with Daemon in a brothel as well, seeking some sort of affirmation. Yes.

Right? You are the wielder of Dark Sister and rider of Caraxes. A slightly more noble depiction of mourning was Jason Bela. Dude, this scene was great. It was so good. It almost like stands out from the entire episode of like two good... It's like, what's the Bechdel test for decent people on the show? Two decent people talking about another decent person? And I had a couple of questions about it. For one...

Was Bela just doing crossbow stuff just to keep her eyesight sharp, or what was that about? Was there any reason to note that she was doing that? No, other than this description from the book, which is, Bela was a wild and willful young maiden, more boyish than ladylike, and very much her father's daughter. So she just likes doing stabby stuff. She is, as we alluded to earlier, about to

enter the fray though. Like, Rhaenyra is sending her up to monitor, to fly Moondancer, to be on patrol, to be on guard. And so in general, being prepared and ready for what awaits is, I think, wise.

That was interesting, but I don't think it was nearly as interesting as the emotional substance of this conversation where they're talking about fathers. Bela, who passed Damon in the hallway as he's making his way to dramatically exits. Barely looked at her. Pouting, right, doesn't acknowledge his own child, who of course in season one was the kid that he bonded with because she, unlike Reyna, was a dragon, right?

So he would sit with her on pentos and teach like she'd learn at his knee, right? You want to look at these books with me? You want to learn about how special we are? And Reyna's like, dad doesn't really talk to me. And so to hear Bela say here, sometimes I think I hate him was really interesting. Is it because of how he treats her sister? Is it because...

47 seconds, rough count, after her mother's funeral, he married his niece. Yeah, right. Who's to say? Because she walked into a room where Rhaenyra looked very upset and there was crockery on the ground. Looking around and seeing the wreckage everywhere. But that was so good. What is even better? The Jace side of it. Is the Jace side of it. Because when she asks him about Laenor, she doesn't say your dad, she says my uncle. Yeah. And then she says, she doesn't say your dad, but she says Anharwen Strong. And he doesn't run from it. And it makes...

And it makes us think about the drift mark, episode seven last season, when they're at the funeral for her mom, for Lena. And Jace says to his mom, we should be at Harrenhal mourning Harwin Strong. I have as much of a claim to sympathy as they do. And she says, Rhaenyra said it would not be appropriate. The Velaryons are our kin. The Strongs are not. Look at me. Do you understand? Right. Because it was dangerous. Yes.

for any of them to acknowledge that Harwin was his dad. So for Bela to not say quite the words, but to say the words to him and give him space to talk about his dad, Harwin Strong, who died last season, and they're never allowed to talk about, it's so beautiful. Clearly in a way that indicated they have spoken of this before. So that tells us something about the nature of their relationship. Now, stop me if you've heard this before in a Game of Thrones story.

who are betrothed. They're betrothed. Yeah. But this tells us that beyond the political arrangement that other people struck for them, they have an affection for each other and a trust in each other and a comfort with each other. For Jace to, like, anybody saying that out loud and then for Jace to acknowledge that means the end of the claim to the Iron Throne in almost any circumstance. They gave the episode a humanity that maybe it would lack otherwise.

I love that. Yeah, and then even just the way he said, like, I miss Luke. It's those little moments of vulnerability that so few characters are able to share with each other. It was lovely. You know who talked about Luke? Two characters that were able to share something with each other? Eric and Eric.

Oh, nice. Okay. Your transitions today are off the charts. You're on fire, man. Thanks. That was a bummer for those guys. You know, you could say... You could make a devil's advocate argument, let's just say if you were criticizing the show, that that was like...

Two redshirts killing one another? Redshirts being like a term of like disposable characters who you'll find in like a Star Trek or whatever that just get blown up and then they have to come get them. Yeah. So I was not like deeply moved by it beyond the oft-used adage about Civil Wars being brother versus brother. Right.

And if this tears apart these two guys who literally think of themselves as like two bodies with one soul, what's going to happen to the rest of this? Real acolyte vibes there, by the way. But is that how you and Andy talk about each other? Two bodies, one soul? No. You pawned it! But what did you think of that scene? Because it was obviously presented as like the set piece of the episode. I was a little, like, I was a little underwhelmed, uh...

It was well done, and I think they did a lot of work in this episode and the one before to get us to try to care about Eric and Arik. Masaria is when last we met, there were two of you, reminder, last week for everyone. And like twin, there's a twin, you have a twin, your brother, your brother. We had a lot of like dropped mentions leading up to this.

We met them briefly last season. I think if they really wanted us to care about this, Eric and Arik should have been characters all last season. And something that I'm observing, like we won't talk about specifics. But they ultimately couldn't have been because of the time jumps, right? True, but we could have gotten... This was part of ultimately still the structural challenge of season one that they are going to be chipping away against for a while. It's just tough because, yeah, Fire and Blood, a lot of these things are just sort of...

Three sentences, you know? And so what do they flesh out and what do they not? What I will say, you're right about the time jump, what I will say, without getting into specifics because that's getting into spoilers, we can already see them doing so much forward thinking in terms of when they're introducing characters, how much emphasis they're putting on certain people to build up our emotional attachment to people who will be taken away from us. Like they're doing...

They didn't, I think, do a great job with maybe Baby Jaharis, who we met in kind of Wednesday. Yeah, we didn't get a lot of speaking from him. Or the Cargill twins, who we could never really tell apart, even though that's a plot point, obviously. Like, I...

So, yes. There was a moment where I thought that this scene could go really crazy to Palma, where the guy who was sent to kill Rhaenyra... Oh, yeah, yeah. Kills the wrong twin? Well, he kills the twin, but pretends basically like he killed the intruder and is like, I'm just going to take my brother. Oh, yeah, yeah. And he almost does. I guess maybe now I'm realizing this is a hot take in real time.

That's why I thought this ruled. I think it was not prepared to care about this, honestly, for all the reasons Joe is identifying. I think the Cargill twins have been here and they've been present and we have acknowledged them and made a lot of jokes about how their names are Arik and Arik. And we were, I think it is fair to say-

quite perplexed by the volume of the penultimate episode of season one that was devoted to them chasing through the city to try to find Aegon before Criston and his dumb hat and Aemon and his best Daemon-esque cloak. So that...

prior limitation and weakness. We were watching season one, episode nine, and we literally can't tell who they are because we hadn't spent time with them. We don't know who they are. They've done nothing to try to give us any ability other than the piping on a cloak to tell them apart.

the bug became a feature here, right? It became not only in terms of the plot, right? And there's a line from Fireblood, and Sir Eric and his brother Sir Eric were twins identical in all respects. Not even their fellows of the Kingsguard could tell the two apart. So Sir Laurent charges into the room and he's like, what?

Which? Yeah. Which is Eric? No one can tell, including us. And so we're watching it, and the action is interesting and fun and compelling. You can track them. You have to, when you're prepping for a podcast, but when you're watching it in real time, Chris, to your point. I did not know. You have to.

have a moment when the fight concludes and you're like, is Rhaenyra about to die? Well, not because you don't know who won, and then he charges forward. I was like, that would be sick if this dude was like, no, I'm the good twin. But wasn't the way it ended also kind of surprisingly thrilling? Again, I wore my Clegane Bowl shirt today to honor Cargobull, which I was not prepared to give a shit about. Here's what I mean. I was like, when Eric stumbles forward,

Yeah, having killed his twin, his brother. All of the thematic symbolic resonance for killing the mirror of you, the other part of you, the family torn apart from within, the Civil War cops that you noted. And he stumbles forward for that moment.

We don't know what's going to happen. And then when he says, your grace. Okay, Eric wouldn't do that. So it's Eric, right? Unless. Unless, and then you're like, what if it's a plot? Will someone ask him a question? Did you come to the funeral that became a coronation? I was just like, you could just step in and take his job like Dave. You could just get like the Kevin Kline movie. I love that. Just get promoted. And then he says, forgive me and impeach me.

impales himself because he, because I think, two things. The shame. Yeah. The shame that this happened. I do think much like they should all stop leaving their kids egg on. Change up the armor for one side. Right. Right. The shame that this happened that he put his queen who he has sworn to protect in harm's way. The guilt and turmoil over what he has been forced to do to his brother but also I think to your point of like could there have been a, a,

They'll never trust me. They'll never know. It's done. It's a wrap. He could never move forward in his life again unless again they were like, what happened like this morning? Literally this morning. I thought this worked so well for- I thought-

I like this scene, which I, again, did not really think I would. What did get me, though, is that happens in a random hallway in the book. The fact that it happens in Rhaenyra's chamber and we get Rhaenyra's reaction, that did get to me. Sure. And then it's the comp to blood and cheese. It's like they've both had this breach to that extent, the intimacy of your own bedchamber. How could you feel safe after that? Probably not. And she'll probably behave accordingly. Okay.

Okay, so that pretty much brings us to the end of the episode, more or less. We have some Aegon crying, Alicent not really, you know, nurturing him very much instead tending to her own needs. You know, you've got these replacement hands. Are we missing anything? Did I forget anything? Did you clock Seasmoke? Seasmoke circling Alan of Hall. Seasmoke flying above Alan and Adam of Hall. That's what I just thought was like, this dude wants to be a part of what's going on here. Well, it's good for

us to remember, you know, Seasmoke is one of the dragons who Daemon lists specifically in the season one finale when he's doing his dragon math. And he says that Seasmoke resides on Driftmark. So like we see, we're with Adam as he's working his way through the sand on Driftmark and we see, oh yeah, Seasmoke, here he is on Driftmark. So always nice for us to remember which dragons are in the story, where they are. So lovely to see Seasmoke. Love Seasmoke. Alan and Adam having a

important conversation that we still... Oh, you're going to make me a stew? Yeah. Goat stew with carrots. Brother, he owes us. He owes you. He owes us. Right, so we're getting a little bit more of an illusion of what's going on between the four of us. And then Hugh Hammer, they dedicate a whole... We went home with you! I was like, I can't believe this. We went home with you, and I think what's important, there's...

Hugh's wife is also in the grief parade. We see her in the crowd. And I think what's important to note, the way the crowds can be swayed one way or another and the way that the blockade is impacting King's Landing in terms of getting medicine and food for your children. How hard was it to find the chicken? Yeah, no other reason to go home with Hugh Hammer, I think, than to get us primed for...

Again, to the brothel madam, I hope she has a character name by the end. By the time this episode comes out, to the brothel madam's point, when princes lose their temper, who suffers? The small folk. Small folk like me. Yeah, exactly. What else? Quickly, Dragonstone Library. Gorgeous.

If I could go to one fictional location that's shooting up my list, that was incredible. And inside of that library before, I'm surprised the whole episode today wasn't about the conversation between Mysaria and Rhaenyra, Chris, given that Mysaria- I thought it was really nice. I mean, I thought she basically was like spurred by Daemon's cowardice to be like, I'm not going to be like this guy. I'm going to like keep my word about this. And Mysaria's like, you want to hug out these scars? Yeah. Yeah.

She does not want to share that. She is definitely not ready to share that information. But yeah, there was the comp of Rhaenyra, you know, Mysaria having her, once I was in your thrall, but no longer moment last week, and that's sort of where Rhaenyra gets in this episode, but also...

Because Rhaenyra doesn't recognize her at first. She's literally circling her like an inch away. But that moment, what ultimately leads Rhaenyra to honor the word of her house and let Mysaria go so that Mysaria can eventually clock Aeric and go and set sound the alarm.

I think it's the Daemon, Otto Hightower makes no difference. They will never accept me. I might as well have remained a whore line. So that feels like that's the thing that where Miss Haria was able to break through to Rhaenyra and that's something that is pinging true for Rhaenyra on a deep, deep level. And I think the third...

point on that triangle is Rhaenys in this episode. Rhaenys talking about, Rhaenys being Rhaenyra's sort of most stalwart supporter. We see the Black Council sort of, Rhaenyra's Council sort of talking over her. Rhaenys in Corlys in bed before they talk about their preferences. But neither can he allow her to command him. Pity.

I have on occasion found that to be quite enjoyable. She's like, I've been passed over for the crown. I know what this feels like. We got to keep our eye on Daemon and we have to support Rhaenyra in this. And so that idea of like, Mysaria, Rhaenyra, Rhaenys, also Alicent, like these women in various stages of power being ignored, tucked over, et cetera, is a constant.

Rhaenyra, the book that she opened, we see Aegon, Visenya, the Conquest. She's really grinding out. Visenya and Vhagar. She turns the page and it's Visenya and Vhagar. Visenya is holding Dark Sister. So she has in her hand Dark Sister, one of the fabled Valyrian steel swords of House Targaryen. That is the sword that Aemond wields, of course. Never forget when it was coated in your guy the crab feeder's greyscale laced blood. But on Vhagar, of course...

So the idea of Daemon and Aemond being present and connected to this one crucial figure in Targaryen history. And you feel like that is on Rhaenyra's mind as she's looking at that page. You love an illuminated manuscript, right?

I do. Yeah. Beautiful. Let's wrap it up there. That was episode two of House of the Dragon. That's episode two of Talk the Thrones. We'll be back next Sunday right after House of the Dragon ends. You can watch us on, you're probably watching us on the Ringerverse YouTube channel, but you should hit subscribe if you haven't already. You can listen to us on the Ringer's House of R feed. So that's on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch us on Spotify.

And you can watch us on Spotify as well. Thanks to Joe. Thanks to Mal. Thanks to everybody who worked on the show. We'll see you next week.