'House of the Dragon' Season 2, Episode 5 Reactions | Talk the Thrones
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Hello, and welcome to Talk the Thrones. We are here to talk about Season 2, Episode 5 of House of the Dragon. My name is Chris Ryan. This is Ringer Senior Staff Writer Joanna Robinson. And joining us, as always, is Harrenhal's guano expert, Mallory Rubin! Hi!

Before we get started, I hear tell that you two will be appearing at the Ringerverse Live on Wednesday at the El Rey Theater along with Midnight Boys and the whole gang from Ringerverse. If you can hear my voice, if you're in Los Angeles, if you want to make an incredibly expensive trip across the globe to come...

Go to TheRinger.com slash events or the El Rey's website to get tickets. Yeah, come hang. Hi. Hello. How's it going? A bit of a chatty Cathy episode. Not a lot of dragon fights. You love conversations. Zero, but I love the intimacy. But nothing wild.

happened in this episode, right? Nothing strange and unusual? What's the headline? Is it sex with mom or there are secret dragon riders? Why not both? It's definitely sex with mom. I did not have Damon dreams he's eating out his own mom on my 2024 bingo card and yet here we are.

I didn't have you saying the phrase eating out in the first two minutes. You did. Yes, you did. You knew. Why don't we get straight into the recap because there's actually a lot to churn through here, but I really want to talk about this episode with you guys. How about that? Let's do it, man. All right, let's get to the recap.

From the people who brought you the summer blockbuster, let's parade a child's dead body through the city center while his mom and grandmother ride shotgun comes the award season contender. Check out this big dead dragon that our incinerated king killed. Sequels are tough. We are back in King's Landing, and is there a doctor in the house?

because the ruler has somehow survived being on fire and falling from the sky, but, more received voice, Aegon's in a coma. I know, I know. It's serious. Real quick. Oh my God. What's Aegon's favorite Smith's record? That's right, it's The Queen is Dead. Wow.

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. His armor is fused to his body and he broke his leg. At least broke his leg. That was gruesome. As we all know, because we get a really close-up shot of it. Yes. Allison is sad. Eamon is Eamon. And Kristen has a hack for getting flesh off of his sword. And it's lemon juice and salt. And I thought that was really helpful. I would be trying this at home. I have a vast sword collection. Between the damp cabbage leaves that went on Aegon and the lemon and the salt, were you ready for a salad of some kind?

I am hungry. It's lunchtime. Yeah, sure. The official story being trotted out is that Aegon fought valiantly and brought down Rhaenys, but Alicent has a feeling Aemon did some unbrotherly shit up there. Back on Dragonstone, Rhaenyra and her war council are still fighting about how to even fight, much less win the war. Jace is doing his own research, telling Bela he's going to go talk to the Freys at the Twins instead of doing his assigned task of getting Daemon back on planet Blacks.

Speaking of Daemon, he's really feeling himself in exile. Rather than acting as Rhaenyra's emissary, he is positioning himself as the actual king equal to her on the Blacks' org chart. He finds himself presiding over the Black...

Blackwood and Bracken beef. You got it, man. You crushed it. And makes the helpful suggestion that maybe the Blackwoods should do some extra judicial shit to the Brackens in order to persuade them to join the team. Rhaenyra is looking into some unorthodox practices as well, engaging Mysaria to open a new front in the War I of espionage.

and the espionage involves sending a chambermaid dressed as Red Riding Hood back to the gates of Ken Glandy. - Great luck for Elinda. - Don't know who she, is it Elinda? - Elinda. - Elinda Massey. - Elinda visiting Diana? - She should wear a name tag, didn't know who that was. We get a bunch of new faces in some familiar locales. Reyna is at the Eyrie to cash in on Lady Jane's offer of 15,000 soldiers for some dragon protection.

Your favorite. That's my favorite Smith album.

If you've ever lived a summer in Philadelphia. Its current occupant, Damon, is having wet dreams about his mother. Quite wet. Although I was wondering if it was his sister. I couldn't tell. Or both. I'm going to email Joe and or Sigmund Freud to explain that dream to me. When he is quote unquote awake, Damon is doing statecraft like only he can, getting lost in the semantics of his title and undermining Rhaenyra in the process.

while we're talking titles. The Greens need someone to step in for the semi-permanently recovering Aegon, so Alyson throws her name in the ring, but she is shut down by the sausage fest that is her Green Council, including Larys and Criston, the little double-cross, who award Aemon the title of Prince's Regent,

Prince Regent. Prince Regent. Yeah. And finally gets what he always wanted. Lord Protector. When Alicent follows up with Kristen, her paramour sounds like a changed man. Watching your army get turned into a pile of cigarettes will do that to you. I, for one, love PTSD Chrissy. We

We get some small folk stuff and find out that things continue to go south for Hugh, our smithy with the sick kid. The misery heaped on the people is echoed when Alice Rivers confronts Damon over what the war crimes, you know, over the war crimes that the Blackwoods visited on the Brackens. Rhaenyra has her third or fourth dark and stormy chat of the episode when she and Jace realize they've got plenty of dragons, but not enough riders.

So they decide to go looking for bastards complete with an all the president's men library shot, Claire Kilner. I see you.

Much of the rest of the episode is Chespie's moving. Bela gets a Grieving Corvus to accept Rhaenyra's hand position. Rhaenyra gets Lord Broome to go to Harrenhal and see what's up with Daemon. And Missaria's spy arrives at the gates of King's Landing. Mission unknown. How excited are you that you have stable espionage and all the president's men? I really do. Look, I like what I like. And here's what I also like. I'd like to make a little announcement to our viewers, Talk of the Thrones viewers. A bit of news. Wow, he's looking right into the camera. I have moved from...

From Green Curious to Green Super Pack Bundler. Oh, ragingly green. Whoa. Ragingly green. Partially because on House of R, you and Mitchell joined you and spoke glowingly about the influence of Michael Mann's heat on his performance in this show. That was a big moment for you. Got you. But there were a couple of scenes here all green related where I was like,

Ride or die. I love these guys. Is it because Aegon is no longer in charge and you're like, Aemon's a guy I could follow into battle? I mean, I wouldn't really have much of a choice. I mean, is it just because you think those characters are more interesting than what's going on over in Dragonstone? There's just something about the crackle of the energy of the council meetings of everything that's happening over there that is just much more interesting TV to me. Yeah.

But look, I remain... We support you, man. I'm not an undecided voter, but I am persuadable. We support you. Ride or die, you know, it's a good philosophy. It's a necessary one. The or die. If you're following Eamon. Mal, can we talk about my favorite scene of the episode? Yeah, we would love to. Which was your favorite scene of the episode, Christopher? It was the one of Kristen and Alyssa in the yard after she's been more or less deposed from...

not deposed, but she doesn't get the promotion that she was looking for to become sort of the regent. And Kristen...

You know, they talk about the idea that the war has gotten away from them and that Kristen is somehow protecting Allison from the horror that's about to unfold. How about Chrissy's little voice crack? Oh, man, when he said terrible? Yeah. The show does an incredible job of making us feel empathy for the monsters. Like I felt when Allison said, I did not give you leave to say my name to a guy who spent many a night inside of her.

I felt for him. I did. I did. Genuinely. So we'll circle back to talk about the council meeting in more detail that led to this great courtyard scene. I agree. This was riveting. Let's hit Kristen first and then we'll hit Allison. So from the Kristen perspective, I mean, our guy is shook.

Yeah. Well, sorry. Your guy is shook. Yeah. I mean, he had a really tough Dance of the Dragons out there, you know? Yes. There are a few things that I loved about this. So one, and he says this, right? When I saw at Rook's Rest, their armor melted. There were men walking that were on fire. We have given the war to the dragons. Kristen has PTSD. And we talked about this last week, waking up to a new world. But I think the really effective part of that is...

of that is that it's not just PTSD from the horror of Dragon Battle, it's the very personal guilt and culpability that he is carrying because he plotted this with Aemond. Now, I think it's worth saying out loud that

I think Aemond would have done what he was going to do no matter what. He didn't need Kristen's sanctioning, right? But from Kristen's perspective, he now has to carry the fact that he helped plot this with Aemond. They were in cahoots. He enabled Aemond to go do this horrible thing and unleash this viciousness on the world, this fire and blood on the world. And...

I think that like the way that Kristen couldn't make eye contact with anybody in the council meeting elsewhere and the sword cleaning meeting, can't make eye contact with Amand, can't make eye contact with Allison. Like he knows that Amand waited too long to arrive. He,

He walks up on him with his sword out at the end. And I think in between that, we should assume that he saw what Aemon did in the sky. Because we get a shot of Kristen watching Aemon fly in and looking up. I think we should assume that he watched him burn his brother and is, like, carrying that with him. This is the guy that I've chosen to align with. Yeah, he says, I could not say, but, like, absolutely he could. You choose not to. I love...

Like, Fabian Frankel is so good in this episode. Great performance. And you know I'm, like, the number one Kristen Cole hater, but, like, I love a character on an arc as well. And so, like, the fact that he's moving through something is really compelling. And that decision to not make eye contact with people is something that he's done before when he had his, like, first small council meeting as Hand. And I just love it. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah.

The discomfort that you feel. Yeah. The character, speaking of his arc, he carries shame with him in so many different arenas of his life, like in his personal life, in his professional life. Like he is kind of...

I think being a warrior was the one place where he felt like everything made sense and now it doesn't anymore. Yeah. Right? So now he's like, I'm ashamed of what happened in the one place that I thought I knew what was going on. Exactly. This is my arena. I feel like we've seen him have shame but then have this outward sort of bravura or nastiness. Yeah. And this is the first time that shame has just like permeated everything. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like heavier than the armor now. That's what I loved about the lemon and salt, right? Because we've heard him talk so much about the fidelity of being in the Kingsguard, the purity of the white cloak. This is a thing you can't wash out. What has happened here? You can't. And like sort of the sparing point...

That was a great line. Holy shit. Like in both directions for both of them. Because from his perspective, I think he believes that that's true. Right? I'm the sworn sword and the way that I justify my behavior to myself is that I say I'm protecting someone. It's the righteousness, right? It's that divine protection. Well, Alicent doesn't want to be spared as she says out loud, right? And this was the great, one of the things that the show across its episodes has done so well since the rupture between Alicent and Rhaenyra is like show us how

similar their experiences are, right? And so neither of them want to be spared. Neither of them want to be sidelined, but the men around them are telling them that that's the appropriate thing. That's the necessary thing. I think also like very crucially in this specific scene, like again, we'll get to that council scene, but in this specific scene, he's trying to explain to her something we already knew she didn't understand. You love this line from season one when she's talking to Eamon about his inability to claim a dragon. And she says, your obsession with those beasts is

goes beyond understanding because she doesn't get it. She's like, dragons was a big deal. And Kristen's like, maybe yesterday I might have slightly agreed with you, but I've seen some shit now. And dragons, it's a whole different world. I love her self-delusion in that scene because she's still talking about temperance and justice. And he's like, what are you talking about, man? We left that...

five miles back on the road, there's temperance and justice. Or how about like on the self-delusion front when she says of Eamon, do you know what he is, what he has somehow become? Yeah, what's up with that? Somehow Palpatine returned and somehow I raised a psychopath.

Wow, I wasn't expecting some rise of Skywalker in my heart. Let's go back to Allison. Let's go to that Green Council meeting because I thought that the way it was sort of depicted was great with the sound fading away from Allison when she realizes what's happening. There is a lot of like I am realizing what's about to happen. If you didn't think that this story was a tragedy, you probably do now. And she's sitting there and.

I thought that the most effective part of that scene, Joe, was Amon's quiet the entire time. He just sits there, stock still. He knows exactly what's going to happen. He knows these guys are going to go for him. And he's like, are we done with the pop circumstance? Can I get up now? And then he's just like, here's everything. Here's the five-point plan. Cut down the rat catchers. Yeah.

That was amazing. As Mal mentioned, like we have been tracking Alison walking through Rhaenyra's footsteps, having an affair with Kristen, the moon tea scene that we got before. And then here she is getting passed over. In this very episode, we hear Rhaenyra say of her counsel, they speak around me, but not to me. And that was so perfectly depicted in that sound design and Alison scene.

I was reminded, I think this is so good on the heels of everyone's thinking about Renise, that scene between Renise and Alicent that we love in season one. Yes. When she says, this is what the bars that Renise dropped on Alicent. She says, and yet you toil still in service to men, your father, your husband, your son. You desire not to be free, but to make a window in the wall of your prison. Yeah.

How you never imagine yourself on the Iron Throne. There's this... So good. I did not have quoting feminist theory on Top of the Throne on my bingo card necessarily, but there's this popular Bonnie Burstow quote that's going around this current wave of feminism, but it's an old quote and it's about this idea of like,

The daughter and the father will make fun of the mother together, but it will not spare the daughter of her future being made fun of by other men. If you ally yourself with the patriarchy now, it's not going to spare you down the road. And that's what Alison did. She's like, you know, Rhaenyra, you're lactating at the small council table. How embarrassing for you. She like betrayed Rhaenyra over and over and over again. Then she's like, but.

I didn't think it would happen to me. She's basically sending foot pics to Larys. She's with Cristin. She's tried to raise these truly disturbed sons of hers and keep this council together. The rest of these guys are kind of nincompoops, you know, with the exception of the Maester. And she's shocked when Larys and all these guys turn on her. So this was like such a brilliant touch.

touch because if we think back to one of those really formative Alison Lara scenes from season one after one of Otto's many firings right in the same room

And she's like, all those feet pics for nothing, right?

for nothing. For nothing. And like, it's not just, right, that they don't choose her, that they don't side with her. Yeah. Like, there are two other elements. There's, who are they siding with instead? She didn't even want Eamon at the fucking council meeting at the beginning of the season. She's like, you don't have a ball, what are you doing here? She's afraid of him. The look of

horror on her face when he says to close the gates. When they're watching over the wall as Aegon's body is being brought in. He clocks the dagger on his belt. How about the fact that we see him from just the eyepatch side there, so we can't totally read his expression. That was incredible. The silent moments from you and Mitchell as Aemond in this episode, looking down from the ramparts, looking at Aegon's body, the way, like you said, he sits in silence here at the council, the way that he's looking at the throne at the end when Helena walks in. We have to assume from that that she

she saw this and Helena has seen this in one of her dreams and also that like price, the usage of price there felt so deliberate because it calls back to Otto saying, you know, worth a thousand times the price he paid, one of my other favorite lines for Vhagar. But the other thing on Alicent was like the moment when Laris says...

I agree, Your Grace. It must be Prince Aemon. What would it say if in response to Rhaenyra's crowning we raised up a woman of our own? A woman of our own? Foul, obviously. But she has to contend with what Jo was saying. We had a similar conversation. We were like, should we do Talk to Thrones with Kris? Should we...

align ourselves with the patriarchy. And like now we will live in the bed that we have climbed into. Can I just say though? She propped up Aegon. What if Flaris kind of has a point there? Like politically speaking from the man's perspective. I'm just joking. Great question.

But seriously, as a father of cats, I have to say. Show me the lie. Show me the lie. Like, Laris is not like, he's not like, eh, yeah, he's like, look, like, we just made the whole point that part of Rhaenyra's illegitimacy is based on her. That's what she has to reckon with. But the point is. The reason that this is the case is the case. I hear you. We all understand that you don't think women can rule. But like, no, the point is.

She would be queen regent. She wouldn't be queen. And there have been queen regents before in the history of Westeros in the Targaryen line. So she's not saying, put the crown on my head, I will rule. She's saying, I will rule the regency while Aegon is a puddle of goo in the dark.

his bed. And that was another time in the era, though, because like, Iron Rod's like, peace time, sure, but war time? And then Alfred is like, well, the pharaoh, gentlest sex, I never doubted your intellect and your humor and your charm, but like, during war? Upsetting. I would kill him. Upsetting. Weren't me, I would kill Sir Alfred. This is a very much like a second son episode, for Amon's a second son, Daemon's a second son, Corlys' second son, etc.,

But to paraphrase Tyrion, all women are second sons in their father's eyes, essentially, right? Like that they are all treated the same, which is that you don't have inherent worth. You have to prove yourself. And for women, as Rhaenyra points out, when she's like, I was never, they never put a sword in my hand. I mean, Rhaenyra did a bunch of stuff when she was, she killed a boar and smeared herself in blood. We all saw it. She read a lot too, so that's good. Yeah, also good. She did. Sort of. Alicent was like, pay attention.

Pay attention to the text on the printed page. And she's like, I want to go like fly and I never jest about cake. Yeah. Well, now all the time with microfiche will come in. Now, I want to talk a little bit about unconventional warfare because obviously this gets brought up. Let's do it. Kristen talks about it with Allison, but you've also got Damon sanctioning the Blackwoods. Yeah. Kidnapping children is the implication there? Oh.

Among other things. A more intimate form of warfare and vengeance and persuasion. Okay. Persuasion. And Massaria talks about using disinformation and basically getting the small folk to turn against the greens in King's Landing as an act of war in and of itself. We're actually getting a pretty broad scope of the conflict here, right? Oh, yeah. It's an interesting...

I mean, for the lack of set pieces or action in this episode, a lot of... Yes, we had action. Yeah. It was, again, Damon going down on his own mother and his dreams. Sure, but what did you think of the sort of the non-dragon styles of combat in this?

I love the comp that you're drawing there, too, between the two sides. And there were a lot of similarities, like Daemon telling Willem Blackwood, there are things that the Crown can't be seen doing. And Massaria, in essence, makes the same pitch. And Willem Blackwood's like, okay, should we raise your banner while we're doing it? Should we fly your flag? Is that subtly? This is...

I mean, it's a great Damon episode. There's lots of parts. But this is just classic Damon to me. Like, doesn't... He did nothing. Learned nothing from the blood and cheese mistake. Yeah. Right? And we see how the aftermath of blood and cheese is informing a lot of things in this episode. Like, we'll talk about parading my beloved sweet Maile's through the streets and how that went very differently from what Kristen was intending. But...

Daemon, the impact of what happened with Blood and Cheese on Rhaenyra's claim is clear. Like one of the river lords at the end, right, when Daemon's like, "I'll have the man who said that brought before me," he's like, "It's half the kingdom." That's what people think. And so now these atrocities in the Riverlands, the area he needs to win to their side,

They once again are like, look at the atrocities that you have ordered, that you have sanctioned because he's too careless to lock in the details. Meanwhile, Jace can have a cheeky little cup of wine and like, you know, Jace's diplomacy is just astonishing. Top tier. I have a quick question for you while we're talking about the River Lords and Damon. Yeah. Chris, if you had to guess, what time do you think they got Damon out of bed for that meeting? The Hour of the Wolf. What time do you think that is?

2 a.m. Yeah, 4 a.m. Pretty close. Like, 4 a.m. meeting. It's gray, right? Do you take a 4 a.m. meeting if you want to, like, you know, exert your authority on a region? Do you show up for that 4 a.m. meeting? No, I don't. I think that that was sort of the breaking point of... I mean, here's my big Damon question, and we can kind of get into this now if you want to with...

with what he's up to at Harrenhal is how much of his decision-making and his attitude, Joe, do you think is rooted in the sleepless fugue state that he finds himself in for the majority of his screen time? So we don't know. I mean, yeah, like he's doing some chores, but for the most part, he's rolling around in bed, not eating.

Kind of not sleeping. Alice is in his mind showing him things. He's having sex with his mother. Yeah. What's up? What's going on? Great question. Incredible rundown. Here's a key part of it all, which is that no matter what is happening...

Daemon is never going to tell anyone what happened because a line that is so funny now in Fire and Blood is about Alice. Whatever her powers, it would seem Daemon Targaryen was immune to them for little is heard of this supposed sorceress whilst the prince is held at Harrenhal. Because Daemon was like, I was fine. Oh, I was fine. He kept this one close. I had a great time. Took some cool meetings with some river lords. Definitely ate that goose. It was fine. I think it's,

her just cooking his noodle. I mean, I'm curious how much time you spend on the Damon fan sites because I think this episode is going to be very... I'm too deep in the Chrissy Cole fan sites. Oh, yeah, you're just like, is the Tumblr like lemonandsalt.tumblr.com? Ever since Baby and Frankel did the Philly cheesesteak thing with the cast on Instagram, I was like, this is my home here. But he did say it was on a baguette. Yeah. Baby steps. Well,

We'll get there. Great video. Genuinely great video. But the Damon fans who have taken some exception to some of the things that people who work on this show have said about Damon, I think are not going to enjoy this episode. What do you mean Damon fans? Like people who are like, Damon's the goat? Like what's going on? Well, I don't necessarily need to claim this fandom, but here's what I will say I think is most compelling about Damon. He is ever a walking – like –

You can say that, yeah. Right? And so when you think back to season one and his interactions with Viserys, his brother, there was intense loyalty and this idea of I should sit on the throne. So what we saw from him in this episode where he was just like, it should be me, I should be king, Rhaenyra can't hack it, all this stuff, like the lack of loyalty to Rhaenyra here is,

I think is out of character for Damon and I am willing to let the season play out and see how it goes and see how much he can either break out of that from Alice or how much it consumes him or how much they're changing his character entirely. I don't know. But do you agree that it felt like slightly out of whack? I mean, Damon's not a good guy. Yeah.

And Damon does think he would make probably a better ruler than everyone around him, but I don't think he would be that overtly disloyal. Yeah, I did have a similar reaction. And I think actually because it felt so extreme, maybe this will not be the case. But it makes me feel like more certain that this is a midlife crisis, little like I'm feeling it out thing that he's working through. He's moved out of the house. Yeah. But like, you know, the new place isn't as nice. He still hasn't been. Sometimes you try living in a house

Exactly. And you see how it goes, you know? But, like, I was, like, really, I was really struck by it. He's, like, putting together the IKEA furniture in there and all. Like, way too many, like, bolts. Yeah. So, okay. No, no, no, it's a really cool spot. It's getting into shape, but I'll have you guys over soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just gotta get the bat shit out of here. Gotta get the Apple TV to work. Yeah. So, okay, this was, like, a little moment, but I loved it. When...

When the Brackens say fuck off, we get the great shot of Caraxes lowering. It reminded me of Drogon coming down behind Dany with Varys. And you just are prepared for a burning, and it doesn't happen. And you cut to Daemon, and he's like, I did not think they would be so eager to die. If he had actually burned them, it would have been the funniest moment in TV history if he was just like, huh. I didn't think they'd be so quick to die. Yeah.

But like, I love this because when he says to, because, you know, Will Blackwood goes on his great, like, you know, he's like, the brackets are hatched from the deepest of the seven hells. Wonderful stuff from Willem until the horrible things that he does. Very, Which you endorse. No, I do not. Very, like, reminiscent of the mountain under Tywin's orders in season one of Game of Thrones. The Riverlands is always getting hit. I would not,

I would not drink the potion from the witch, nor let her salve my opened wounds, and I would not live in the Riverlands. We're all going to Dorne. Yes, exactly. When war starts, we all are going to Dorne. I personally still, I think, want to go to the Reach. But when they reject him,

It makes him want them even more. This just felt like the true, the true Damon. Classic Damon. The real insight into him. He says like, they would rather burn than succumb exactly the kind of man I need. Of course Damon likes the rebel. Oh yeah. Of course Damon likes the one who's not going to listen, not going to do the thing that they're told. He's the bold rogue. He's basically the Javier Bardemian from Dune 2. It's like, that just means he's more of the body. Of course.

Of course the Brackets are too humble to say that they're the... Chris, can I answer all your burning questions about Damon Targaryen's mom? Because I know you have. Oh, yeah. So what the hell? Okay, Alyssa Targaryen. So basically, just so it doesn't reset. Do we have Sigmund F coming in on Zoom? Is he here? Sigmund F. It's not like the Zoom names are, right? We've had a couple of these sort of like dreamy reveries from him. Some have involved Alice. Some have involved Amon. But now we had...

I thought blonde unknown. I had to Google, like, what did Damon's mom look like, but also was his mom his sister? This is definitely his mom. Definitely his mom. He says my son. She says my son. She says my son. And then Alice later is like, what a shame you never got to know your mom. And we cut right to this very vivid sequence after Bela and Rhaenyra are talking about Alyssa Targaryen, former writer of the series. To ride Maileys, yeah. So we were...

Alyssa had to be on his mind, 'cause Maelys just died. His mom's dragon just died. So she's on his mind for that, and I guess a number of other Freudian reasons. But let's talk about Alyssa Targaryen.

What does his mom look like question I think is interesting because actually this is not what his mom really looks like. She has dirty blonde hair, mismatched eyes and a broken nose. Hell yeah. I'm with you, man. She's extremely rad. She's just really tough. Her nose got broken because a sword hit it when she was sparring when she was a kid. So she's very much like a little Arya, a little Rhaenyra essentially which makes that extra creepy and fun. But I

But I like this idea because he was three when she died. So he didn't ever know her. So he's like, maybe this is what my mom looked like. She took him and Viserys when they were babies for a flight on Maelys. But let's talk about Alyssa Targaryen and writing. Sex lover? Yeah. I also pulled these exact passages. Unsurprisingly, we're on the same page here. I had no idea I'd open this door. Okay.

So Alyssa Targaryen, when she got married at 15, cool age, to her brother, cool, Balon. Balon, who has come up before. Yeah. A lot of mentions of the parents. He burned Garen Hall? No. That's it. Wow. Stunning silence.

But Ulf the White, the drunken guy, when he was like, I'm a bastard of someone, it's Balon is what he said. So here's, we just have to read this verbatim because George is really on one here, right? He says, the bride's sounds of pleasure could be heard all the way to Duskendale. Yeah. With her brother. Okay.

A body, a wench as any barmaid in King's Landing. And she says, I mounted him and took him for a ride and I mean to do the same tonight. I love to ride, she says. I would like to share one more. Yeah. Flying was the second sweetest thing in the world, she would oft say. And the very sweetest thing cannot be mentioned in the company of ladies. Oh, listen!

You just read this stuff. And yeah, we have a great time. Join us. And the water's warm. I think even better. And relatives are fucking in it. When she claimed Maelys, her brothers claimed their dragons when they were 17 and 16. She's like, I'm going to do it at 15. Fuck you. I'm already married, so whatever. I get a dragon. She claims Maelys. Rest in peace. And she says, quote, red maidens, the two of us, but now we've both been mounted. This chick...

She's the best. Then she shows up in Damon's dreams. Yeah. So any guesses to your point about Damon maybe deviating from book characterizations or maybe Damon's stand-up preferences? How much of Damon's behavior is related to starving sleepless? You're like back to my question. No, I know. I'm glad we got there. I'm not stupid.

Full digression. I honestly have no idea what to say to it. Well, I do think essentially we did have a season one exchange. I am going to answer your question. But we did have a season one exchange between Viserys and Daemon where Viserys says, I will not revisit this debate. You were always mother's favorite. It's no great mystery. You were our mother. She had no regard for custom or tradition rules. And I sadly was no great warrior. So it is important to Daemon, this idea that like his roguish nature

you know, impish, I don't follow the rules. Yeah. I tell a bunch of Riverlanders to kidnap each other's children. Right. But don't tell me about it is what mother always loved best about me. Like, you have to stand there and have a harrowing fight with your wife who whispers, you're pathetic. Pathetic, yeah. Great stuff when we're in here. Alfred's like, any message for Damon? He's like, I'd like to continue our relationship.

in your last conversation which concluded with me whispering your pathetic name. But what would you rather hear? Your beloved brother who never asked you to be his hand say, cast you out from his kingdom time and again? Your wife and niece say, it was because he never trusted you and I can't trust you either? Or have your mother whisper to you in your dreams? You were always the strong one. You were always the strong one.

The finest swordsman. Yeah, yeah. The fearless dragon rider. Yeah. You were made to wear it. Yeah. The crown he put on Viserys's head, the crown he put on Rhaenyra's head. Complex guy. I like to, because I prefer my daemon to be not fucking his mom, but also I prefer him to be. Thank you. Thank you. You're having the courage today to share that with us.

but like because I prefer him to be NYT op-ed colon I love you Damon Targaryen but stop fucking your mom Riverlands exactly the Chiron but to your question about like how much of this is Alice is witchcraft messing with his head or sleeplessness I'm hoping it's a lot because this does feel out of character for him I prefer him to be yes

The worst, but a complicated worst that makes him fascinating. And this is just like, he's just like, because they made Kristen complicated in this episode, it's like they had to make Damon uncomplicated and terrible. I'll tell you what almost interested me more than Damon's sex life with his mother. Wow. Impossible. Tell me. I wondered whether Sir Simon. Yeah.

Was using the war as an excuse to do some long-needed moves. Oh, definitely. Yeah. He was like, oh, by the way, we need to get this done, and then there's some spackling work that we wanted to get done. I got the water in the kitchen, and I've activated the forge. Can you ask the queen to foot the bill? No, I will guarantee the payment. Harrenhal is under my command. When he mentioned the guano and all the other strong dudes who were in the background of all of those scenes, just like, look up. Sensational stuff. Great stuff. Fantastic. It's an active...

vast repair undertaking? Yeah. Like, I don't know. Do you even bother to repair Harrenhal? I wouldn't. I would simply not bother to repair Harrenhal. But Harrenhal comes up as an object of desire for the phrase. So maybe we should talk about that. Did you like being back at the twins? I wanted to ask about this. First of all, why...

Do you have... Like, if you're running Westeros, right? Yeah. Why would you do it from King's Landing or wherever, Dragonstone, when you could just be in the area and be like, no one can get here except for a dragon? Give me 10...

Good men and climbing spikes and I'll impregnate the bitch, as the poet of our time, Bronn, once said. And we hear Lady Jane. So we're going to the Eyrie first. Yeah, let's just talk about the Eyrie first. Lady Jane, we hear it, right? Bela, right? Reyna. Reyna. Lady Jane, Arryn. Yes, and so of course we saw the kids went up. So Joff is there, Tyraxes is there, Stormclaw is there, Aegon and Viserys. Oh, that is a name for a king. I can't help it, I'm sorry. Do you think Jane served up any lemon cakes?

It's a great question. This is part of what was great about going back to the Eerie and to the Twins is, like, so many... You mentioned Lemon King. It's just so many Game of Thrones associations for us. But I think the show can rely on us porting into the future of the timeline with our Thrones associations, and then we get some nuggets here about the past. So, like, when Jane Arryn says to Reyna, like...

you know, I mislike feeling this way, which of course Rhaena agrees with. She's there to try to get those 15,000 men. She's following through on what Rhaenyra asked her to do. Nobody feels good about this. And I thought it was really effective to show us how the fear, we're going to talk about the procession again with the head and the small folks soon, but like the fear is seeping through the realm. And so you have a moment like, yeah, it's impregnable. By the way, the redesign of the Eyrie and the bloody gate looks incredible. Like this is what the Eyrie should look like. The,

Yeah, sure, it's impregnable unless you're on dragonback. Reality is something that everybody has to consider. Visenya, who once again comes up numerous times, right? Visenya is mentioned at the end between Rhaenyra and Jace. A lot of Visenya mentions. And Jace is like,

what Visenya did, it would get you canceled now. That was a long time ago, Mom. I wouldn't. Oh, man. Great stuff. So, yeah, Visenya, during the conquest, flew Vhagar down into the Eyrie and took little sweet little Ron Alaren just, like, sitting there on her knee. I got in. I have the air to the veil here bouncing him on my lap and, like, you will bend the knee. So dragon power is just a different thing.

And that would be the case for everybody. Like, when they get to the phrase, like, I'm afraid of Vhagar, I love that moment when Jace is like, what about my dragon? Vermax is right here. What about my dragon? Yeah, but Vermax is so cute. I love seeing Vermax. Wonderful. I do think it's really fun to go back to the Aerie and be reminded of Bloody Gate, the Moon Door, the Sky Cells, like, all this cool shit that happened at the Aerie. Do you even see any, like,

fully grown children nursing on their mother's teats. I would say that Jane Aaron did not make as much of an early impression as Lysa Aaron did, but there's still time. There's still time for her. And Jane Aaron is a character who several times her male relatives tried to take control of her.

The Aerie from her. She's like, I've been through it. I am an Aaron, so I'm related. They're related. You know, so I support Rhaenyra in this way, but I did ask for a real dragon and not, what did she say? Still wet from the egg. This is horseshit. I'm sorry. The way that the people are talking about dragons in this episode, as Rhaena rightly points out, you got two. Tyraxes and Stormclaw are there. They're babies. There were five dragons.

Dragon keepers. They're carrying Tyraxes great. They go pretty fast though, right? Show some patience. Yeah. Yeah. Show some patience. Dude, sure. I saw Drogon when he was the size of a lap dog burn Krasnys a lot. That's true. It's still a dragon. But if any adult dragon shows up, we saw what happened to Arax at the end of last season.

So we don't want that happening. The reason I liked that Jane scene was because throughout the episode, you've got all these interactions, all these sort of negotiations of, hey, right, so in a non-Game of Thrones, George Martin style story, it would just be blind allegiance to this flag or the other flag, right? And that's what, we would have this kind of fairy tale version of

of loyalty. - Right. - And every interaction in this show, and usually in Game of Thrones, is yeah, I'm loyal, but I'm gonna need this. - Well, what's in it for me? - For the loyalty.

I'm loyal, but I'm going to need you to wipe out a decades-long beef with another family. Or I'm loyal, but I need an Air Force. Or I'm loyal, but you have to pay for it. Or I'm supposed to be loyal to more than one person. Exactly, yeah. They make you swear and swear? They do make you swear and swear. On the warfare front and the Freys and the Ares and the Eri and all the things we got, can we just quickly say that we got...

Two mentions of Jace and Lannister's forces amassing from the west. And we were reminded that your best friend, Craig Stark, promised a bunch of gray beards to come down. So they keep reminding us of these armies that are headed towards the center of the map. Once again, I do think it bears repeating that Jace secured the north. Sure, they've got to figure out how to get him down. He secured the north.

The veil. He secured the veil, and he just secured the crossing. Like, put that up against anything anybody else has done to this point in the story. Seriously. I saw Damon chop five pieces of wood. That's a real Tony Stark, like, don't take from my pile. Jace goes to this incredibly photogenic bridge at the twins, right? Talks to the Tullys. The Freys. The Freys. And says...

I need you to basically bend the knee. And they're like, well, how about Harrenhal? Yeah. Why Harrenhal?

Because it's a big castle and they want it. That's haunted and full of batshit. But it is important. Yeah, but it's big. Okay. Well, the Freys are like upstarts and strivers and that's their reputation. Like this is why all the way in the future in Game of Thrones, what do the Freys want to do? They can't wait to get the Tullys, like they can't wait to get Riverrun, right? They always want to collect and improve their standing and improve their worth. I think, again, the show is banking on us bringing those associations, like the terrible things that we have seen happen there. It's going to make us nervous for Jace.

There's a plate of food on the table, like guess right. Bread and salt. Yeah, like how can it not make us think of everything horrible that we've witnessed there? As soon as you say- And so you wonder, will it go a better way? Will it go, uh-uh? Yeah. As soon as you say a phrase, I think people are like- They get anxious. No thanks. Yeah. And even like when they were like, okay, you're asking us to do something that our, the Lord Paramount and the Tullys have not given us leave to do, right? Yeah.

And there's that great exchange about like, well, Jace reprised that with like, what about the queen, right? And it reminded me so palpably of the Walder cat exchange from season one, right? Because he basically says that, yeah, the little television program you might've heard called Game of Thrones. It's like, it's the exact same exchange and it builds toward that great Stark, Tully, Lannister, Baratheon, give me one good reason. Well, I should waste a single thought on any of you. So I think to your point, like,

People do have to have a reason to opt in sometimes. But the thing about the dance is like we're watching it spread. The Lannister call out is a great one. The map is widening. We've had mentions of the Reach, the Hightower forces. Like nobody feels safe, whether you're inside the locked gates of King's Landing or further away. You do ultimately like

You probably are going to have a moment where you have to make a choice. Will it be the same choice as everybody else in your region, though? Well, that's why the Blackwoods and the Brackens have been such an effective way into that question for us. Because it's like, this is happening. You can probably imagine this being duplicated. They're just using the war for the crown as a convenient excuse to work through the stuff they've been fighting about for centuries. To kidnap babies and abduct women. So maybe people use this to just further their own agenda. Maybe it has nothing to do with whether they're Team Green or Team Black. Speaking of making a choice...

Corlys has to choose whether to become Hand of the Queen or not. By the end of this episode, he spends most of it grieving and moping, kind of being a little crazy. Moping?

Grieving and moping. His wife just thought, give him a minute. But before, when Renise was about to fly off, he was just like, I gotta go get these barnacles off the boat. Time was then. What did you think of Corliss in this episode? Bela talks him into taking the hand of the queen, or at least accepting that gesture. What did you make of his...

his episode. I really liked, I loved when Bela was like, she wasn't just your wife to lose. Like she was bigger than that. She was a Targaryen princess. That was great. I loved when Bela gave us a free ad for the young Corley spinoff show when she like recapped all of his adventures. I thought this was a really interesting depiction of Corley's here. We were wondering as book readers, we were wondering how this would play out because in the book,

It's not that Rhaenyra offers to go and they talk her down and then Rhaenys goes. It's that Rhaenyra is, again, off the table, not playing the game right now. And Rhaenys goes and Corlys blames Rhaenyra for that. And he's like, it should have been you. Like, why was it my wife? It should have been you. You're the queen. You should have gone. So absent that, then we're left, instead of the rage, I mean, he does say, has she not asked enough of my family, right? But we're left with the sorrow. And that's...

much more interesting note for a character like Corlys who has lost a son has lost a daughter has now lost his wife but I still I think this is the most broken we've seen him absolutely and I think it's worth keeping in mind that if you look at every other character on this show one interaction does affect the next so he might be returning to Rhaenyra

with a slightly different opinion of Raniere. I mean, just because he's taking this job does not mean it's like... Totally. But it's a smart call of Raniere's to... Because when he walked into the Black Council last week... To the rivals, baby. They...

But they hopped too because they were like, we need masculine energy. And she's like, I will be the queen, but I understand that I need at least one dude in this room who's on my side. And maybe Corliss can be that person. Yeah, it felt really important when she said in handing over. Now, I probably would have gone myself to ask him to give me my hand rather than having to.

She has reading to do. But I did think that I do not wish to stand alone line was really striking. It's like very Jorah to Dany, no one can survive in this world without help coded. But also like we've talked a lot over the last couple episodes about how lonely and isolated everybody feels. We had that mirror shot, right? Cutting from Damon leaning against the fireplace mantle into Rhaenyra leaning against the fireplace mantle. Like,

Did you want a split screen? You're like, give me the fall guy split screen. I have a split screen in my heart and my mind. So like Rhaenyra can carry more than one truth in her mind at once, right? She can say like to Jace, I'm proud of you. And also I resent the fact that you can go do the thing. You can like thwart and ignore my order and do the thing that I am not being allowed to do. That I understand on some level I shouldn't do. Look what just happened to Aegon. Aegon is like, right? Yeah.

But what are we as Game of Thrones fans programmed to expect from our heroes and our rulers? Like Jon on the front line, Rob on the front line, Dany on the front line, Tyrion there leading at the Blackwater, right? Sometimes against his own will, yes. Like who doesn't? Yes. But...

I love that, like, if we think back to Young Rhaenyra, it was another moment where I thought our time with, like, the younger versions of the characters felt really fruitful here. You know, Viserys saying, like, I didn't give you leave to go to Dragonstone, but she didn't, right? Or, like, you should not deprive yourself. And that's why Daemon's, like, current crisis, as much as I am not on his side in any of this that he is experiencing over in Harrenhal...

On the, like, who's more interesting, I kind of understand where you're coming from. I do want to shout out Harry Collette as Jace because I really like his, like, really pleased with himself smiles. He's like, I did a thing. Guess what? I got you the phrase. He did do a thing. I did a thing. But I'm not, okay, so I'm not on Damon's side, but, like, if he thought he was marrying the teenager that he was grooming and instead he got...

He got this woman who is taking, you know, is following her father's model more than his model. Then he's like, this isn't the marriage I thought I was signing up for, perhaps. The episode ends with, we get a Linda. Yeah. Who's Misaria's emissary, her spy, I guess. Now, was she always a spy or did she graduate from chambermaid to spy? I kind of got the sense that she was always a spy. She's, you know, Rhaenyra's

personal handmaiden, right? But Massaria had all these agents in the castle and Larius killed them all, but Elinda had already left for Dragonstone when that happened. So this idea that like... Everybody's like, oh, hey, it's Elinda, right? Like Elinda and Diana, perhaps they were always working for Massaria. That's what it seems like. It's too bad Talia couldn't get in on this. I'll miss her. Tough stuff to get in for Talia. In the beginning of the episode when they're dragging Maelius' body through the city center...

I think they're expecting more of a Philly Mummer's Day parade vibe. Yeah, like the one that created Little Baseball there. They thought they were doing an Otto and they were not doing an Otto. Exactly. Otto never would have done this because Otto, unlike Allison, does understand the value of a dragon, right? We've talked about that many times. Serious PR miscalculations, right? They really thought they were doing something. Abomination. Rhaenyra will answer this. Rhaenyra's going to take vengeance for this on us. This is a black omen, right?

I thought the dragons was gods. This idea that a dragon is, the dragon is a Targaryen power. Yes. Dragons are godlike, infallible, cannot be killed, all this sort of stuff. And then they're like, oh, guess what? You can kill one. It's just meat, is what Hugh Tamar says. That was upsetting and disturbing. Yeah. Sweet little Maile's still smoking as they, man, the procession. The CGI?

flies that horrible? Can I just ask a question? What's more upsetting or disturbing? Oh, God. Is it a CGI dragon being dragged through the streets? The answer's that. Whatever comes next. Or Aegon being a pile of goo with metal fused to his body that they have to, like, slowly remove. Let me say this. Or Daemon Targaryen. That was just, that's like, you're like, yeah, you're watching Game of Thrones, you know? Fucking his mom. Not since Raz's turnip cart have my eyes been so drawn to

A carrier. Do you think Chris remembers what happened on Roz's turnip cart? You don't remember Roz's turnip cart? No. It was Roz's turnip cart. Exactly. The last piece for Thea and Ash left the North? No? I do. You know what I'm talking about. I do. A different Red Queen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brought Aegon back in this little litter covered with rags. Brutal stuff for him. Really, really tough. And Aegon's just looking at him being like,

Yeah, wild. Couldn't be me. But like the way that, oh man. So, and Massaria, it was interesting to like, she had the measure of this, right? Kristen Cole made a mistake. Yeah. And it's the combination of like that God's point, right? Well, if this can happen to a God,

what could happen to us? We're just mortals. But also the blockade and like the crush of the blockade. The juxtaposition with like, you guys are doing this. The moldy citrus. Yeah. The moldy citrus was distressing to see. We're hungry. Also, very significantly, Forrest Frey, one of the Freys says, the wind's rising, winter's nigh upon us. Yeah. A.K.A. winter is coming. Yes. The blockade is starving everyone. Yeah. They try to leave. They lock down.

the gates. Right, or while it's like, we should start paying attention to the small folk and having a suggestion is to pin them in. Lock the gates. I thought that the way that Mosaria said to the discontented rumors or feed and was just encouraging Rhaenyra to not underestimate, because Rhaenyra's like, well, are they going to be able to break shields and tear down stone? It's like, yes, right? Thousands of thousands. Yeah, it reminded me of the High Sparrow saying to Olenna, you are the few, we are the many.

Well, and I think this is what we were thinking about this, this idea of the... It worked out well for him. What? It worked out well for the High Sparrow. Well, but he did gain power through the masses. He's a few kids had to come back. It didn't work for anyone in that conversation, ultimately. But, like, this idea of...

When we watched that procession with good old baseball head J. Harris, we were watching it knowing something like this was coming because this happens in the book that they parade May Elise's head through the street. And we're like, you're playing with fire. You think you can take advantage, use to your advantage,

the fear and the anguish and the high emotions of the people, but that can turn on you so quickly. Yeah, because if you're starving and they're like, hey, check this out. Like, do you guys even know what you're doing? Because not only can you not feed us, but it seems like you're now tempting fate with like bringing down dragons. All right, speaking of dragons, let's do the dragon math before we get out of here. So,

First of all. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. Should we ask Chris if he can name any? Let me just see if I can do this, okay? Yes. King's Landing. Okay. Right? Yeah. Yeah, so you're going, okay. There's Vhagar and Dreamfire, right? Right? Wow. And then... Well... Tresorian? Yes. Are you... Chris, what's happening? Oh my god! Darren's Dragon? That's Darren's Dragon. Okay. Yeah. Then on Dragonstone... Well, hold on. Quickly. Yeah. So you didn't list Sunfire, which like...

Long in the dying is what Kristen says. And then Rhaenyra says that one of the dragons that Maelys of the two was slain. I'm going to hold off until we see a... Hashtag Sunfire. Until we see it and know for sure. And the dragon said there's Syrax. And is there Virmax?

Yes. Yeah, that's Jace's dragon. And then Caraxes is at Harrenhal. That's right. That's Daemon's. Tyraxes and Stormcloud are at the Vale. What is happening right now? I don't know. Am I in an Alice Rivers tree? There's a bunch of free agents, right? Yeah. Well, you forgot Moondancer. You forgot Moondancer and Bela. Vermithor, Silverwing, Sheepstealer, the Cannibal, the Grey, Ghost, and Seasmoke, right? What the fuck just happened? She gave me all the dragons before you sat down. I was like, this is insane. I was like,

I was like, do you want to watch Mallory's head explode? I was like, did I eat the werewolf? I tried to do my best to pretend like it was just a curtain. You did a pretty good job. Incredible stuff. So, of course, we have seen Vermithor very briefly, right? That's the dragon Vermithor, the former mount of your guy, Jaehaerys. Let's just actually keep it math, math. Who's got more dragons? You just listed them. Who did it?

Who did it sound like had more dragons? The blacks. The blacks. But they don't have enough rhymes. But greens have Vhagar. Vhagar, right, exactly. So the math is kind of skewed. And like Dreamfire is on the green team, but that's Helena's dragon. We've literally never like...

her ride it. And they do say of Tessarian, I mean, Darren and Tessarian are not in the show yet, and Ironrod said earlier in the season, your brother Darren's dragon nears fighting age. So like not all of the dragons. And Ryan Condal says that Darren is not a dragon rider yet. So they've got Vhagar, a warrior,

roasted toasted sunfire and I'm not really sure it exists dream fire. And probably coming in season three to Saria. To Saria. Right. And like, you know, we thought we saw little dragon egg kilns under the twins' beds. Like, you know, you can think about eggs in the future, but in terms of like...

The immediate presence. It's the Big East. They got UConn. That's all that matters. This is like real like hard knocks Dragonstone. You know, we're looking at the roster. We see what positions we've got locked in. But let's scout the talent. Can I ask you of the free agent dragons of Vermithor, Silverwing, Sheepstealer, the Cannibal, the Gray Ghost and Seasmoke, which do you think has the sickest name?

Well, Sickus' name, but I think Sheepstealer's an awesome name, but that's not... I got to dream bigger if I'm a dragon guy. You know, like, so Vermithor. Vermithor is incredible. Like, the bronze, the fury, the former dragon of old King Jairus. But you don't want the cannibal, a dragon that eats other dragons? Well, so, like, this is an important distinction to draw, right? The wild dragons have never been paired. They've never bonded with a rider. So that's, like, you're talking the ultimate Hail Mary.

The reason that Jace is emphasizing Vermithor and Silverwing is because they've had writers before. Jaehaerys and the Good Queen Alysane. There's a reason to believe that they would accept a writer. That's a different calculus. We have a lot of questions about Seasmoke. We don't really know what to tell you about Seasmoke because we don't know ourselves. Because in the book, Laenor's dead. And in the show, he's not dead. And so that's just a big question we have. What's going on with Seasmoke? But yeah, Vermithor and Silverwing...

should not be too hard to claim if you're a dirty blonde or a strawberry blonde or have a blonde streak. Do you remember seeing Vermithor? Do you remember Damon? That's who Damon sang the lullaby to at the end of season one. I was like, fuck yeah, let's go Dragon Math. Let's do it. Jason and Rhaenyra are talking about on Pair of Dragons, this is the best moment of my life. And then I was like, why are they acting like Damon can make this happen?

- The exact pitch in the season one finale? - She was like, "What, you got all these dragons in the basement?" So that was a little bit odd. - Daemon made this exact pitch in the season one finale. Now two of their dragons have died since then, Aerax and Maelys. - And the free agent dragons are free agents like they're elsewhere or they're just-- - They're hanging around Dragonstone. - They're around Dragonstone. We've seen Seasmoke flying, like so Rhaenyra and Mysaria were watching from Dragonstone and saw Seasmoke, that was when he was kind of like restless and lonely, very sad.

Also, Adam of Hull looked up and saw him flying over Driftmark. Daemon said in the season one finale that he was on Driftmark. But Driftmark and Dragon's Thunder are right next to each other. So that's where Sea Smoke is. And then the rest of them are in the Dragon Mount or around the Dragon Mount. Sheepstealer is just stealing sheep. This is another huge edge. Not only the volume. Cannibals just eating other dragons.

Dragonstone has an edge here. By the way, this is like, we didn't actually answer your question, like, why would you pick to live here? Various answers to the question, but one of them is like, Dragonstone has a volcanic mountain where the dragons love to be. Like, this is a natural habitat for them. Well, if you're a dragon, I'm sure that's great. The dragon pit in King's Landing is an unnatural place for them to be. Okay. So this is like another edge.

for team Black. Except they got Vhagar. I said we should go to the Dorne. Where are you going when the war comes? You love Dorne. The air. Oh, the air. Okay. Really? You're a mountain guy. You're like, lock the bloody gate. Okay. You're not worried about the moon door? No. I mean, I think I get along with everyone. So no one's going to push you through? Yeah. Fair enough. You're probably right. Anything else from this episode that we should hit before we take off? You think we talked enough about the Visenya comp? There's kind of like an interesting good and bad part to that, right? The bad, like, uh,

Mother of Maegor the Cruel and suspected sorceress, the good, fabled warrior. You remember Arya talking to Tywin at Harrenhal about what a great warrior Visenya was. Remember in the beginning of House of the Dragon, this Visenya, that's what Rhaenyra wanted to name her young sibling. This is a hero, right, for characters like Rhaenyra. We already have a Visenya. Yeah, and Arya. Exactly. I do want to call out Aegon muttering mummy as Alicent left the room. That was chill. It was agonizing. And then also, Alicent- Did it make you think of Robb?

Rob at the red wedding going, mother, mother. Yeah. And, and, but like almost more striking was Alison sitting by his roasting flesh, calling him my son. And looking genuinely upset. Well, I would be upset too if my last conversation with my son before he was roasted on his dragon was, yeah, do nothing. And he's like, I got,

it. I will do nothing for a while. What else? Cheese's dog. When we saw the rat catchers cut down, the sweet little pup was still there. It's heartbreaking. I really hope that he finds a good home soon. Yeah, I'm sure animal adoption is number one. What did you make of Alice Rivers just vanishing literally into thin air behind Simon Strong? I rewatched that a couple times after you said that. I think there's

plausible deniability that she did. You think maybe she just goes into a hallway that's really in the shadows? If you rewatch it, she does walk behind him, but then the camera cuts away from him. But I think that it was shot in a way that suggests that perhaps he is the only one seeing Alice. Simon looks at her when he walks in. Does he just see a barn owl? Could he be seeing somebody else? A barn owl. What do you think of Goose and Duck coming back as stand-ins for body parts during sex?

Did you like that connection to the season one canon? I'm not a big game person. I mean, I'll eat anything, but usually... So will Damon. Wow. Can we end there, please? Yeah, please. For Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson, I'm Chris Ryan. Join us next Sunday for episode six of House of the Dragon. Talk of Thrones will be here on the YouTube channel of The Ringerverse and on the Spotify feed of The House of R. It's been a pleasure. It has been. What a joy. And I don't mean it the way you think it does.

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