'House of the Dragon' Season 2 Teaser Trailer Breakdown
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I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And together we host The Big Picture, the Ringer's film podcast for new releases, career retrospectives, director interviews, movie drafts, top fives, and so much more. Twice a week, we break down the latest releases, argue about whether movies are doomed, and debate our modern film canon. Listen to The Big Picture on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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This episode is brought to you by Alien Romulus, the scariest movie of the summer. Alien Romulus is now playing in theaters everywhere, including IMAX. This movie looks terrifying, and I cannot wait to see it. Alien Romulus comes from Fede Alvarez, the director of intense horror movies like Evil Dead and Don't Breathe, and it is produced by Alien Romulus.

by the legendary Ridley Scott, the mastermind behind iconic films like Blade Runner and the original Alien. Can't wait for this one. Alien Romulus, rated R, now playing only in theaters. Get your tickets now. Errors were made in the hours following King Viserys's death. The war befalled, many will die, and the victor will eventually ascend the throne. There is no war so hateful to the gods as it is.

There's a war between kin. And no war so bloody as a war between dragons. Greetings and welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to Dragonstone, but also to our newish House of R podcast feed. Joining me today...

to remind us that errors were made in the hours following King Viserys's death. It's my house of our permanent title. Go host, New York Times bestselling author of MCU, The Reign of Marvel Studios, Joanna Robinson. Guess what, Mellie? First of her name. We're back. And you know how I know we're back?

Because Alison Hightower put her dumb little small ball into its holder and the small council is back. We got a small ball shot. We're back. You love the small ball. Did it make you think of bees? How could it not? I'm always thinking of my guy Lyman. Joe. Rest in pieces. We are here to honor bees, as always, of course. But we are also here to break down the highlights from the first House of the Dragons Season 2 teaser episode.

But before we mount Caraxes, some quick programming reminders. It's a two-pod Monday here at the House of R. Earlier today, we dove deep into Wild Blue Yonder, the second Doctor Who 60th anniversary special. We had a wonderful time. We laughed, we cried, we reminisced. Literally. We talked about the meaning of life. Yeah, we did. Yeah.

So that is waiting for you on the feed already. Check it out if you haven't. And then, Jo, we will be back again on Friday. It's a three House of R pod week for us because Friday, we're talking a little Boy in the Heron and Miyazaki movies. A little celebration pod. I can't wait. I had a very magical weekend in the world of Miyazaki doing some rewatches of some of my favorites. It's going to be really fun to talk about that with you. Plenty cooking over on The Ring Reverse as well. Also today, Monday...

The Mint Edition crew handed out the animation awards for the year. So if you're like, it's December, where's the year end content? Guess what? There's the answer. Also, we did a year end House of Recommends last week with Friends of the Pod, and it was a joy. So check that out as well. Wednesday, the Midnight Boys. Dipping into Blue Eye Samurai and Godzilla Minus One. Pods aplenty, Joanna. How can the people follow along?

I'm thrilled and honored that you asked me that question. Let me be the first to answer you. Why aren't you already subscribing to both House of R and Ringiverse? There are two different feeds now. Subscribe to both. What a great idea. Also, follow us on social. Twitter, Instagram, blah, blah, blah. All these places. We've got the latest and the greatest of what's going on with us. Jomie is cooking up some great content for you there. Last but certainly not least, as Mallory mentioned on our Doctor Who podcast,

It's dragon season, baby! Sort of. Next summer. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Our email address is relevant again. It's always relevant in our hearts. In our hearts, yeah. In our souls. The very fibers of our being. In our vesicles? I don't know. Anyway, we will... Corpuscles and vesicles, perhaps. Ventricles, also. We'll be checking that email. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com.

Get your Miyazaki takes off for our episode on Friday. We'd love to hear all your thoughts. I know that those films are favorites of our listeners. So chime in. Back to you, Mallory. Okay, Joe, it is time for our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. And this is a little bit of a longer one than usual because we're going to explain the format of today's pod. Now,

We're here to hit the highlights. We're going to talk about our seven favorite things. You know, maybe a smuggler to it is a House of R pod. But broadly, our seven favorite things from the first teaser trailer for House of the Dragon Season 2, which released this weekend. It's going to be a quick one. Quick one, Bobby B voice style. It's all relative. Quick one. We'll have more Season 2 trailer breakdowns coming in the future. We'll have more preview pods coming in the future. This is just the beginning.

If you're listening to a trailer breakdown, you're probably like, tell me some things about what I might expect in season two. But we still always want to be cognizant of the spoiler appetite. Joanna and I, as we remind everyone at the beginning of every House of the Dragon or Thrones pod, are book readers. We have read A Song of Ice and Fire. We have read Fire and Blood, the fictional history of House Targaryen, on which this here television show, House of the Dragon, is based.

In terms of what is to come on the pod today, we always cite F&B for history, for context. But when we're looking ahead... Yeah.

I support F&B, by the way. I laughed. I don't think... But I like it. F&B. It makes me think of at our old ringer office when we worked at Sunset Gower. The little cafe on the lot was called Food and Bounty. F&B for short. So, yeah. It's a little way of talking about fire and blood and also thinking of all the cups of soup I used to have at Food and Bounty on the Sunset Gower lot back in the before times. F&B approved. Loader still verboten. Carry on.

I can't promise you that I'll never again say loader in your hearing, but I can promise you that I will try. And hopefully that is good enough. That's all we can do. That's something. That's all we can do. So here's how we're breaking up the pod today, Joe. First half.

not book spoiler territory. Again, we're going to talk about things that are going to happen in the season because that's the point of today's pod, but it's going to be stuff that is readily apparent in the trailer, signals and clues that we have here, some casting news. Where do we leave off in the season one finale? What plot threads were set up for us that we can assess more fully now that we have seen some footage, et cetera? Second half,

We will give you a warning at the time so that you know you're on the precipice of these topics. That's the book spoiler zone. That's where we will be talking about some of the things that we glimpsed in this trailer that made us gasp and say, insert thing X here. Holy shit, this is it. It's coming. We're going to talk about that in the back half of the pod. Oh my God, the blinking of the blink.

Exactly. Yep. Literally that. Yeah, I sure do. I sure do. Those are items five and six on the list. Okay, let's dive right in. The seven, you know, ish, most exciting things in the Hot D season two teaser trailer. Before we dive into number one, Jo, just a couple quick reminders. Season two, when is it airing? What do we know? How many episodes? Who's in charge? So glad you asked me.

None among us know when exactly this is coming out. But summer of 2024 is what we're being told. You think that's June, right? Is that what you said?

I was for a long time parsing what the word early meant in the Casey Bloys early summer comments from a few weeks ago. And my gut is that early summer means June and maybe it means before the calendar technically says it's summer. So maybe it's early June, but I have absolutely no idea. Could this be May? Could it be July? Are they just now saying summer 2024 to leave open the possibility that it's August? I have no clue.

The reason I'm saying may, which is a usual phrase,

Thrones time is May 31st is the cutoff for Emmy eligibility. And if you don't make that cutoff, then you're so far away from the following year when Emmys come around. So like if they can even just like debut at the last week of May, they make the cutoff, I believe. Would they not say spring then? Do people think, is the worry if you say spring that people are like expecting it to be March or April? Yeah. Yeah. Really? So I think I'm, I'm putting my chips on,

All my small balls on the last week of May. Okay. And if it's sometime in June, you win. There are no stakes, no prizes, just honor. Okay. The Emmy point is a great one. I have, yeah. I mean, I just want a date. I just want to know. I know. That's all we want. How many episodes? Eight.

Not as many episodes. This is a change from season one. Yeah. So this makes us wonder if perhaps some things that we had previously thought were going to be in the season might have been pushed into the following season. We've got a change in the creative team. Miguel Sapochnik has exited the stage. Enter Alan Taylor.

who I have mixed feelings about, but I'm very curious to see as a sort of season EP and director of multiple episodes, including the premiere. Alan also did direct a Cracker Jack episode of Blue Eye Samurai. So like, you know, I'm trying to use the most recent data to assess my feelings here. No more major time jumps. And this is a big thing. We have the huge...

Not only, like, the huge time jump in season one where we changed actors, but between episodes, years might pass. That's no longer going to be the case. The Dance of the Dragons only takes place over three years, depending on how you read the calendar. Two to three years. And so...

And we're expecting five seasons total, I believe. And so I think we're just going to go bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Because that's how the dance went. So that should hopefully be less confusing for viewers than some folks who were a little lost in season one. Mallory Rubin, let's talk about a couple queens, shall we? What did you make of the posters that we got of our soot-smeared royalty...

Rhaenyra and Alicent with a couple intriguing phrases on their posters. What did you think? Always love a character poster. Always love this part of the run-up to a new season of a show where we get our character posters and our slogans, our taglines. So we had a Rhaenyra poster and an Alicent poster, and the Rhaenyra poster said, fire to fire. And the Alicent poster said, blood for blood. Fire and blood, Jo.

Wow. Here it is. I'm not sure if you're aware, but the Dance of the Dragons is the Targaryen Civil War, the War of Succession. So the house words here are divided across the leadership of Team Black and Team Green. Everybody looks very intense. And I'm thinking that there might be some tension in season two of Hot D. Yeah. Yeah. Things are going to be a little tense. I like that they're kind of sooty. You know what I mean? Like that they're like

The dragon fire has been a flaming and we are feeling its heat. I guess this, by the way, is also implied, but we should say on the spoiler warning front that we will obviously be accounting for where season one of House of the Dragon left off. Spoilers for season one. If you had not watched season one, but we will be chatting about that. And so, yeah, you really feel that season one concluded with...

Vhagar murdering. Chomping. Chomping down on little Lucerys and Aerax. Very painful still. An ill-fated trip to Storm's End. Rhaenyra has one tear track through the soot on her face. And then Alyson's eyes are basically brimming with tears. So...

Uh, it's not a happy fun season or war, uh, that's upcoming here. And there's like cool sparks, um, flying one of my favorite parts of the, sorry, I know we don't have a ton of time. Um, but one of my favorite tiny details on, um, Alison's poster is there's like sparks everywhere. But one of the things that's like caught fire is like a little scrap of green fabric. I just love that. I'm like, yeah.

And I'm sure, you know, it's black fabric over on the other side, but that could be ash. But it's definitely green fabric on fire in Allison's poster. Can we talk about some casting news? Please. Are we going to run down the whole thing or do we want to like pull out some highlights? We can pull out some highlights here. We can hit them in context as we go. Whatever you prefer. Can I just shout out two? Please. Three. I lied. Three. Four. Okay. Max. Tom Taylor as Lord Cregan Stark. Huge. Massive.

Not physically massive as a person because his character is young, but like this is a big... We got a Stark. A Stark has entered the chat. We will be coming back to this today. Fun fact about Tom Taylor that must drive the hair and makeup department absolutely bananas. He's a natural blonde, unlike most of the Trigarians on the show. He's got beautiful, like glossy blonde hair, a beautiful blonde beard, and they have to, I guess, slap a brown wig on him. We'll see, but I'm assuming. Um...

Tom Bennett is a personal favorite of mine. I love this actor. If you've ever seen Love and Friendship, which is a phenomenal Jane Austen adaptation, he is so funny in that. I just adore him and he's been cast as Ulf. And I'm just like really, I'm excited. He's excited. If you go to his Twitter feed, he's just like, he's like, because it was, it was, my sense is he had to keep a lid on this for a very long time. And like, then it's officially announced and he's like, guess what? I'm

I'm doing. I'm in House of the Dragon. So I'm really excited about that. Our shared, one of our shared loves, Freddie Fox, Slow Horses, season three. Mallory and I are in it. The Great. On The Great.

Spider on slow horses? Of the Fox acting dynasty in the UK is Sir Gawain Hightower. This is fantastic news for us. I am thrilled. Thrilled about this. And this is the kind of role, we saw a lot of this in season one, where you could take a character who is like present in the story. They're so, I mean...

Honestly, to go back to the character posters for a second, one of my main thoughts, not that there was any doubt that Alicent and Rhaenyra would mainstream the stars and central figures of the story. Of course, they're the protagonists. But it is always such a surprise now that we are in the era of the adaptation and actually seeing House of the Dragon on our screens to revisit Fire and Blood and see how often the women and Alicent and Rhaenyra in particular, the characters, are...

Not there. Not nearly as central as the men. And so there's so much room to play in Gawain Hightower's In Fire and Blood. But there is ample opportunity here to let Freddie Fox cook and inject some levity into the proceedings, which I simply cannot wait for. He's so good at levity, but also like sinister at the same. Like it's just he's got a lot of layers. Great guy.

Last not least, another favorite of mine. Also great at quaking in terror if it comes to that. If he needs to. Shout out Spider. Uh,

Simon Russell Beale as Sir Simon Strong. Simon Russell Beale is just an acting legend, incredible in everything he does. This is the kind of character actor you could just absolutely fall in love with, like we did in so many of the supporting roles in Thrones. This is just who you want. I would say Simon Russell Beale is...

to like my excitement for lemon beesberry season one like this is this is where i am so we'll see babies know that that's a a real signifier mark of honor mark of honor

So anything else that we didn't get to that you want to point out in the casting list? Okay, great. I have a casting item that I'll come back to at the very end of like, oh, intriguing. We did see this. We'll talk about that later today. I know what you mean. I know what you mean. Yeah. A couple other casting things will come up as we go through some of our items. Let's get to it, Jo. Let's dive in. Let's talk about our number one item here. And these are not really like ranked in order. It's just a list of things we're excited about. No particular order. We're excited about all of it. Can I tell you, I'm just like,

I'm like fizzing. This is so fun to talk to you about this again. Back in Westeros together. Delightful. Truly thrilling. All right, here's number one today. Our first thing that we're going to chat about. The central theme of the trailer. Because this was a big thing if we like harken back to those preseason one days when the excitement was so high. What were we going to see? What was House of the Dragon going to feel like? And...

The trailers, once we actually got to the premiere and we're like learning about Aegon's dream, the prophecy, and then we see the role that that plays throughout season one, etched on the dagger, the Song of Ice and Fire. Now you go back and rewatch the trailers now, that is like...

really central as a note. Teaser one, Damon, dreams didn't make us kings. Dragons did. The official, the first official trailer, Corlys, what is this brief mortal life if not the pursuit of legacy? So the idea of legacy again. The second official trailer, Viserys, the dream, it was clearer than a memory.

on and on the list goes. And so it is certainly purposeful that we only get three total lines of dialogue in this trailer. It's about a minute total of footage, even though the full YouTube clip is longer. And we will be citing some timestamps as we go today. Those will be from the YouTube timestamps. When we hear Otto say, and here we are right back to the Otto pronunciation, and I will not ask the accent is what it is.

Errors were made in the hours following King Viserys's death. And we're thinking back to that horror that Aemond felt when he saw what Vhagar did and realized he did like the hubris of thinking you could control your dragon. Yeah.

Rhaenys, the hammer line at the end of the trailer, there is no war so hateful to the gods as a war between kin. Kinslaying is a central focus of this season. It's a central focus of the Dance of the Dragons. It's a central focus of Fire and Blood. All that Dance of the Dragons is, is like,

Blood v. Blood. No man or woman is as accursed as the Kinslayer. That's the quote from Fire and Blood that we returned to so often last season. And here it is, that note for us right at the beginning. Yep. Love it. I love it. It's going to be on people's minds. There's also Allison being like, I don't know, people are going to die. It's like, yep, yep. Good stuff. Good stuff. Can't wait to see what...

The mood is when Aemond returns and is confronted with this new legacy, right? Aemond the Kinslayer. And then the way that other characters have to navigate what it means to be at war with your own family, with a branch of your family, against a branch of your family. Like, this is a harrowing thing that sets the ground for so much of where we find our characters in Game of Thrones, right? And especially since there was that non-

faithful, but I liked it sort of near reconciliation for Alison and Rhaenyra. And this sense that unlike, you know, and given all the like,

show-invented backstory that they gave of their childhood and stuff like that. It's this added complication to this war wherein, you know, rereading this section of the book before we recorded, you know, and you hear that version of Queen Alison say is like, I hope the bitch dies in childbirth about Rhaenyra or whatever, you know, and you're just sort of like, these are not the characters. And with love and respect to the incredible world that George R.R. Martin put together here, always, of course, like,

This is so much juicier and more complicated when it's like, when Alicent doesn't... It's not just that poor little Luke dying is going to kick off a lot of things. It's like she doesn't want to cause that pain for Rhaenyra. You know what I mean? It's just so...

much more complicated. And I love that. Absolutely. And like we talked about this a lot in our season one pods, but one of the really delicious things about reading Fire and Blood is that aspect of the not only unreliable narrators, but the competing narrators, how many different accounts there are. And so like when, you know, we talk about something like from a few minutes ago, oh, Alice and Runear are often like not even really there in the foreground. And when they are, it's some recounting of a comment like the one, you know, the horrible one.

line that you just cited, we're always wondering, well, how faithful is that to the true history as it unfolded? So that's really part of the true joy of watching this story come to life on our screens is like seeing this definitive version of events. And especially since there's, as George intentionally writes it, this sort of sinister sexism in the description of what's going on in the book.

intentionally from George. It's not like I'm saying George is sexist. I'm saying like he has put this sexism in the mouth of the narrators. And so then we get to see this is what actually was true of these women. And it's much more complicated than someone saying they hope that bitch dies in childbirth, which is just not what we're doing here. All right. Number two. Number two. This is a thrill. Yeah. Truly. Winterfell is...

Coming. We will direct you to... It's pronounced... Sorry, it's pronounced Kuming. Kuming. I don't want it. Kuming. No, I do want it. I can't wait for this. So, surely you noticed the shot, but if you are revisiting, you're tracking along while you're listening to the pod here, go to the 34-second mark and you will see...

a procession moving through the snow. Now, as Joe mentioned earlier, we know that Tom Taylor has been cast as Craig and Stark. We know from where we left off in the season one finale that when sweet little Luke went off to Storm's End, Jace was on a mission of his own. He was going as an envoy as well to first the Erie and then to Winterfell, White Harbor, and

Your trip has been cut. Sorry, you have your pages on the book at least. It doesn't seem the White Harbor will be in the show. So we know that this is where Jace is heading. We know that this is something that we are going to see. But to get that glimpse of

heavy coats, a snowy road. It's just like such an instant bit of visual shorthand for Thrones fans right away without knowing what's going to happen there, why it will matter, how much time Jace will be spending there. We don't even see Jace's face here. It's just that signifier that we are back in

in the North. And it's fascinating, too, on the heels of season one of House of the Dragon, where, again, that prophecy, like, thinking back in the finale to that really deeply disturbing scene between Rhaenyra and Daemon when she realized that Daemon didn't know that Viserys had never told him. Like, we've spent a lot of time talking about who will Rhaenyra tell and when and in what way. And so, Jace spending time in the North...

is an important thing. And like, what will happen to him up there? What will he learn? And again, like this Agon's prophecy thing is a show. That's show reality. Like that was not present for us in Fire and Blood. We can now reassess the text and look for connections and clues. But to take what we know is coming from signs and portents, portents and signs? Yeah. Yeah.

Plots and schemes. Schemes and plots. Same thing. Wow. It's just thrilling. I can't wait for this trampid to be back up in the north. A quick question for you, Mallory. This could be Jason, some vassals bundled up for the winter. This could be Starks, blah, blah, blah. What do you make of the idea that this is the Night Watch, which is what a lot of people are saying about this scene? And something I will say really quickly, and you see it throughout this trailer,

There are so many shots at night in dark hallways that we can see crystal clear in this trailer. So it really looks like they took some notes, not just from the Battle of Winterfell, but...

season one where people are still like, I cannot see what I'm supposed to be seeing. And sort of bumped up the, you know, the nighttime lights or day for night or whatever. I have been relieved. I know. Huge sigh of relief. Anyway, is this the Night's Watch? We don't know, but like, what do you think? Yeah, so we have no idea. I will say these cloaks look

Pretty black. It is hard not to wonder.

And especially, again, you can show us any... You could just show us the werewood trees in the Godswood. You could show us the facade of Winterfell. There would be a lot of ways to signal Winterfell for us. So to give us the backs of fur-clad riders in dark, dark, seemingly black cloaks, I think it invites us to speculate about whether this is not just a group from...

the Winterfell Stark household, but perhaps the Night's Watch, which would be incredible. Thrilling. I like the idea, you know, just as they did with like, Alyson and Rhaenyra. I like the idea of us getting maybe a little bit more than the book gives us time in Winterfell, like maybe even before Jace gets there to like, meet these Starks and, you know, figure out the lay of the land there. Yeah.

Because allegedly, I mean, it's geographically not supposed to be Jace's first stop. So are we going to have to wait a while to get there? Or will they not be able to resist, like, showing us Winterfell, showing us Stark's right at the beginning? That's a good question. I really hope we go to the Eyrie and spend a little time with Lady Jane. I won't be shocked if they're like, I'm here. I just came from the Eyrie. I won't be, like, shocked. Right.

But I hope we get it. No, no, no, no. I'm not saying we're cutting the area. I'm just saying like,

If they showed us Winterfell before... Anyway, I'm excited to spend time in Winterfell. And I think to get folks who are maybe still not all the way in on House of the Dragon, but love Game of Thrones, to make it a more Stark-heavy, Winterfell-heavy season could be a choice. No, there's no way they're skipping the Aerie. Lady Jane, even in the book, Lady Jane says the best...

saltiest stuff about women in power. There's no way they could be able to resist that. Absolutely. I really hope that we get some time there. I like the idea, though, that we could glimpse the North before we're there. That would be really fun. And I like the idea, again, we have absolutely no clue if this is the Night's Watch how they might come into the story, but could riders come down to Winterfell, perhaps? I really like the idea of Jace, even though he, like, has his assignment, like,

deciding to go visit the wall and Castle Black and like that part of Jace's arc is

in season two and in these early episodes of season two is like learning about the realm. I think that would be like a really cool thing to see from him. Yeah. As like someone who is eager, we saw him like eager to learn in season one, um, as someone who is like really eager to be as complete a leader as he could possibly be. And, um, and it, it, it allies him with,

a character we love, which is Tyrion. Tyrion's curiosity about the wall, you know, all of that. And it would really position him well to, you know, as Rhaenyra's named heir now, to, for their bond and, like, their tutelage to hinge on this idea of, like, uniting the realm, which was such a central focus for Rhaenyra in the finale and throughout season one because of the burden that she has inherited from Viserys. Yeah.

Can't wait. Can't wait. All right. Our next item, number three. Call this one sneers and stares and scrambles. And I presented you with a series of timestamps of just like delicious expressions, side eye, glances across a room. You can pick one, two, whatever you'd like to highlight here. What was your favorite sneer or stare item?

Or a little scrambling moment from a character. And this is separate, we should say. We'll have a category coming on like dragons and battles. My favorite, my actual favorite, the one that like made me the most like, ah, or whatever, I'm going to save for the book spoiler section. So in a safer way, I'll pick two, which is Aemon walking, Aemon sauntering into the throne room. And it just reminded me a lot of like,

various characters we saw over the years, like staring at the iron and in season one, a Damon, certainly in season one. Um, but like your little fingers or whoever, like staring at the throne as this symbol of power, as this thing to be coveted, all this other stuff. So amen in the throne room, um,

is a big one. My favorite maniac. What an absolute delight to see him end again. All he can do just with the one eye. He can out-sneer, out-lear anyone just with the one eye. It's true. And then Allison in the white dress looking out at the lake because we...

And no one, neither we nor anyone we know on the internet has any idea what the heck this is. We don't know. This was intriguing. Very mysterious. Almost like ghostly. Like it was, it had a haunting tone and quality to it. Yeah. Is this a dream sequence? What is this? Why is she in all in white?

You know, it's just very, very intriguing. We know that with Allison, the dress selection is always purposeful. She knows her color codes. So, yeah. How about you? Okay. I am glad you picked Aemond walking toward the Iron Throne very high on my list. Since you picked that, I will go elsewhere. I'm going to select the opening footage here. This shot around the five-second mark of Rhaenyra

despondent, sooty, staring out at Storm's End, Shipbreaker Bay, where Luke died, where this horror unfolded. This is not in the book, Joe, this trip. So, like, right away, this excites me because, again, just as in season one, it reinforces how much room there is to play around and between the bullet points of history that are stitched together in Fire and Blood. And...

I love the idea and I'm not surprised by, but I'm glad to see reinforced immediately here in our first teaser of Rhaenyra just being out there in the field. There are shots elsewhere in the trailer of Rhaenyra on Cyrax, on Dragonback. So are they there to look for Luke's body? Is this a visit and a period of reflection later after other events have unfolded? We have no clue, but I liked giving us a confirmation immediately that Rhaenyra will be out there

On the map, in the world, in the thick of it, driven by this pain and sorrow. I have some book spoiler questions that I will save for later. I just made a note for myself to come back to this. But it's very intriguing, very beautiful. Soot and tears. Very sad. Fire and blood, soot and tears. Okay. Number four. No love for Aegon II. Sneers. Sad. He had a lot of them. On the throne. Yeah.

Or Otto just gazing into the fire. It made me miss Joffrey a little bit. But I have faith in Aegon to, you know, deliver when he's... He just needs to, like, slouch and sneer a bit harder to give me the full Joffrey vibe. So, yeah. The Joffrey thrown slouch is just... It's nearly untouchable. Unparalleled. All right. Okay. Number four. Number four. Here be dragons and sigils.

and sword swings and battles provided so many timestamps in this category that I have candidly violated the prompt and the exercise that we set out for today, which was a quick rundown of the highlights. But I think that's part of the point, which is,

There's a lot of bloodshed in this trailer. It's unsurprising, right? We're into it now. We're into the Dance of the Dragons. Some of what we glimpse here is more like of the up-close-and-personal variety. Some is at scale. Like, we're getting some old-school Thrones-caliber battles here, like, with love and respect to your guy, the crab feeder. I think we're going to see the battles level up in Season 2. Okay. Yeah.

Don't disrespect my husband, the crab feeder. I would never. Pick a favorite or two. Which of these many shots of helmet grabs and sword swings and flaming fields and dragon roars is your favorite? And why? I decide to stay entirely on brand and with my two choices. The first is at the nine second mark. Daemon Targaryen, clad in like full chunky battle armor.

grabbing the dragon helmet and he is off to war. Helmet watch TM with Joanna Robinson TM. No, this is secretly a wig watch TM with Joanna Robinson TM because his... Isn't it always? His hair length is longer than when we last left him in season one. So I know we're not getting massive time jumps, but is this like a little later in the season based on hair? I just thought it was interesting. Like, we haven't seen the Legolas hair in a while and it's a little Legolassy. And so like either...

they're going to ignore the chop that he had last season and put him back in the legal us right away. Or this is to note a little bit of passage of time. So I was excited for wig watch. I was, I mean, that was like the first thing I clocked was like that way. I guess a little longer than the last time we saw it. Okay. Speaking of hair watch at the 18 second Mark, this was huge. My biggest, most hated enemy of all time. Kristen Cole got a, got a haircut.

And there's no dumb hat upon his head, but he is chopping someone's head off with a closely cropped head of hair. He's got like a goatee, some facial hair. It's the darkest timeline, Kristen Cole. This is like, in case you were wondering if I'm evil as I behead this person.

I'm pretty sure I know who he's beheading. Anyway, Kristen Cole. It's wig and haircut watch, the 9 second and 18 second mark. Kristen Cole just luxuriating in an execution. It's like, yeah, we've been away for a while, but have we? This is the warm bath. Welcome home. Same as it ever was. This fucking freak is exactly where we left him. Great picks. Those are great ones. Okay, I will go with...

We're going to circle back in our book section to some other dragon shots that we got, so I'll be able to return to that later. I'm going to go with, at the 47-second mark, you heard it, it was the end of our opening clip today, Bela shrieking atop her dragon. Now...

This was not like a total shock to me because Moondancer is one of the dragons that Daemon lists in the season one finale when he's doing the dragon meth. But in the book at this point, Moondancer is like smaller, not yet really ready to be ridden. So it was just exciting to know that Bail is going to be airborne and in the thick of it, like maybe a little bit sooner than we expected. That is a thrill to me. Have no idea what this moment might be, but I cannot wait to find out.

We have some thoughts on what the moment might be. There are some possibilities on what the moment might be. But how exactly will this happen and when? Can't wait to find out. Very exciting. So that's one pick. And then...

A couple of my candidates here I think we'll circle back to when we get to our book section in a minute. I think it would be difficult to even talk about them here, so I won't try. I'll just say more broadly, there were a couple sections, like the 40 to 45 second mark and then the final 10 seconds of the trailer plus some other spots, where it's battle montage season. We are back in that vintage old school Thrones. Here are some processions. Here are riders. Here are shields and sigils. Here are...

The Burning Kings landing. Like, there's a lot going on. The bodies on fire. Like, yeah, we see, I mean, we see a lot of, across the trailer, a lot of sigils. We see House Hightower, this is earlier, this is the 12-second mark, calling its banners. A thrill. I mean, again, we already talked about Freddie Fox, but like, the sooner we're with our guy Gwyn, the better. Yeah.

We see there's a shot of the shield. Do you think he'll be a ginger in the show? Are they going to make him match? I'm curious to see what they do with the hair. You almost can't have coloring like Freddie Fox's natural hair color on a non-targ in this show. It would be confusing to people, I think.

Maybe. I don't know. The shields, we get some House Rossby and House Stokeworth battle shield spots. There's a moment a little later in the trailer where we see what appears to be the top of a red... You love to spot a sigil. Classic sigil smuggle here. You love to spot a sigil. Top of a red stallion on a golden tunic. These are the brackens, so that makes me think... 100% house bracken. Burning mill. And this is fun because...

We'll talk about some other battle stuff in book spoiler territory, but just broadly, I think this is very fair game here because like a large portion of the finale was dedicated to standing around the painted table at Dragonstone talking about

the Riverlands and Damon's stated intention that they needed a toehold large enough to house a sizable host. The fact that there is going to be action in the Riverlands is, I think, more premise than plot for heading into the season. So it's exciting to see glimpses of some of the action there, as well as some action elsewhere that we're not going to talk about right here, but we will in about 20 seconds. So here it is.

Your transitional spoiler warning. We are moving into more book spoiler talk. Mallory, can you do a quick impression of your dragon screech to mark the delineate? I've got zoom cut out so I didn't hear that, but I'm sure it was great. I've got somewhere between five to seven months to workshop it before we're really back. Okay. You have been warned. You are now entering book spoiler territory.

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Vitamin water injects a daily dose of vibrancy into a watered-down life. So grab some vitamin water today, NYC style. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of Glasso. Okay, Joe, before we get to our actual numbers five, six, and seven, let's hit a couple of the things on this list that we didn't want to talk about. I'll just say.

Rook's Rest, which I spent all of season one calling Rook's Roost and will probably call Rook's Roost again. I don't know why my brain like auto completes it to Rook's Roost. It happens. Forgive me. I ask your forgiveness now. Seeing, I mean, there are a lot of shots that appear to be Rook's Rest. I think this is, especially given some of the footage that's absent from the trailer, like we don't see Rook's

Battle of the Gullet? Anywhere? I feel like the Gullet, I think the Gullet has definitely been pushed to season three. That's what I think. They're going to give us this whole season and then the off season and then whatever to invest in Jace before the Gullet happens. Okay. So in that case, if Gullet, which I think we had both previously considered one of two main contenders for where season two could end before we saw this and got the, and frankly, before we got that eight episode info. Yeah.

Does that mean then that Rook's Rest is the end of the season? Is that the climactic battle? I don't think so. I had previously been thinking that would be episode five or six. I think it has to be mid-season because I think we get the burning of King's Landing, which is like a post... I think it ends with Rhaenyra taking King's Landing. But that's after Gullet. So, like... You think they're going to move that up? Yeah, I do. Interesting. I don't know if that would...

I feel like that decision... I guess if she's... I guess if she is more active... Well, that's my other question. That's my big question. Is, like, the whole thing about Rhaenyra...

being so torn up by childbirth that she can't ride a dragon. That's why all these people have to go out on her behalf. So if we see her in episode one, let's say at Shipwreckers Bay, crying over... Maybe that'll be a late season thing. Maybe she doesn't go there right away. Maybe she goes there later when she's thinking about Jace or something like that. Or Luke, sorry, when she's thinking about Luke. But if she goes there at the beginning...

Then there's no excuse for her to not have been at Rook's Rest or any of these other battles. You know what I mean? That's going to be an interesting one to navigate. I think when we talked at the end of Season 1 about where we thought Season 2 might end, the attack on King's Landing, even more than Gullet, was my main contender for

I'll be curious to see if it makes sense to move that up and if Vernira is more active and in the fold the whole time. The Rook's Rest question is a great one. Maybe they'd be operating in different areas at different times and spreading their strength. But what happens at the Battle of the Gullet is the tipping point that sends her back into action, among other things. But if she's always active, then there doesn't need to necessarily be that

okay, I receded and then this other thing pushed me back. If, as happens in the book, Rhaenys dies and Corlys blames Rhaenyra, if she's being pressured by the people around her to like, how dare you send your Nyriss and Dyriss out to battle and not do any yourself, then that could be what pushes her back.

It's not grief or revenge. It's like pressure from her lords or whatever. And then, sorry, I'm just, I guess I'm writing fan fiction at this point. I just like, maybe though, maybe I just, I don't think there, I think it would be unwise for them to end both seasons with another one of Rhaenyra's kids dying, um,

in an overwater battle. All that said, I won't be stunned if the second trailer just has footage where we're like, there it is. Oh, there's the gullet. It is in the ceiling. I won't be shocked. No. Could still happen. But like, King's Landing, I mean, there's no other reason for King's Landing to be burning and King's Landing is definitely burning in this trailer. Yeah, I think the shots of like, Alicent being pulled back

I think that's different. I think that's a different thing. During the processions. And yeah, that strikes me as setting the stage earlier for this roiling inferno of tension with the small folk and their resentment of the people in positions of power. So I don't know if we'll see the attack on King's Landing this season. That feels like if they went down to eight...

I'll be so curious to see how they pace this over a few seasons. There's stuff that they just have to want to save until a fourth season and characters that they want to keep around at least until then. There's a lot that they could do in between. It's going to be fascinating. I think the other things, the quick glimpses that I wanted to wait to circle back to for book territory here, when you mentioned Aemond walking toward

the throne in section number three. It has to be, right? I mean, it doesn't have to be. I guess we could see him walking longingly. He could be coming in at any time. Yeah, yearning tendrils before. But it could be...

You know, Prince Regent, Prince Regent Aemon. Yeah, absolutely. It's odd that he's doing it all alone in the dark. You know what I mean? But maybe that's not how he likes it. One or two people just hang out in that throne room set and stare at the thing they long for. The shot at the 52 second mark of a Cargill twin swinging a sword. Cargill ball, get hyped.

The astonishing run time for the Cargill twins in season one remains so baffling. For Eric v. Eric. I was shocked that this wasn't an entire Cargill trailer given the season one run time investment. Remember how we were supposed to distinguish them by their cloak trims in that one episode? I do. I do. I sure do. Just making sure. Give one of them a haircut. Maybe Kristen and all of his little pals can all get haircuts together and then one of the Erics will look different. You know?

Look, spoiler number five, Joe. Here it is. The sowing of the seeds.

They cast a bunch of dragon seeds. Yeah. Yeah. These are the dragon riders that they got a bunch of dragons. They need dragon riders to make sure their dragon math works out. And so they're scouring the countryside for Targaryen bastards who might have a drop or two of Targaryen blood in them. And so will not be roasted alive by a wild dragon that they try to mount or whatever. Yes. And many of them still will be. Yeah.

Adam of Hull has been cast. Clinton Liberty is playing Adam of Hull, which everyone had these complicated Lenore, you know, because we don't understand how Seasmoke, a dragon we see multiple times in this trailer, can be claimed by another writer when his...

Ryder is still alive. This makes no sense. I can't wait to see what the explanation to this is. But I guess they will just be making a new dragon. It's going to be yada, yada, yada. Don't worry about it. But at the 26 second mark, when we see, we think Adam of Hall looking up at Seasmoke teasing the sowing of the seeds, the red sowing. Yeah. You already mentioned a casting that you're excited about, which is your guy Tom Bennett is Ulf the White. Ulf the piece of shit. Also, Tom was like, on Twitter, Tom was like,

time for things to get less serious. Like, he's a comedic actor. So, like, you know, this is, like, Ulf does some, like, really nasty, shitty things, but, like, I also think this is an, he's the kind of character where it could just be, like, fun to watch him be terrible. Yeah, let's do it. No Nettles casting rumors, though. No Nettles casting. So we've got Adam of Hall, Alan of Hall. We have Hugh Hammer, Ulf. These are confirmed characters.

the actors have been revealed, they're in the season. Is Nettles just not in the story? Is that coming later? So I came up with a theory that I don't know if it holds any water, but might be more tragic than the already incredibly tragic story of Nettles, which is like, what if we slot, and only because we saw her riding a dragon, Bela into the Nettles role. Now it's important to remember that Rhaenyra's whole like,

unraveling around Nettles and Damon has to do with like

her, like, is Nettles his illegitimate daughter? Is Nettles his lover? Is she both? Blah, blah, blah. I could definitely see a very twisted story where, like, Damon is very close to Bela and Rhaenyra is jealous of her, like, sexually jealous of her because that's just how it is in that family. You know, it's not like her being Damon's daughter will not save her from a potential sexual jealousy plot or whatever. But anyway, I could just see them, like, trying to

streamlined characters, you know? Yeah. That's interesting. I thought you were going to make the same overall point, but with Reyna. It could be Reyna. It could be Reyna as well. Yeah, that shot, like re-watching the painted table scenes in the finale, like that lingering shot, the look on Reyna's face when they're talking about the line from Daemon that basically sets the stage for the sowing of the seeds when he's going through the unclaimed dragons. Yeah, yeah.

I wonder. And then if that's the case, is Bela... Do you think Bela is screaming because of Rhaenys? Like, is that a reaction to the death of Rhaenys? It could be a Rhaenys reaction. It also was one more moment where I thought maybe we will get Gullet in this season and maybe because Jace is Bela's betrothed. So maybe it's a response to that. They don't have time to, like, wait for...

egg nuzzling and stuff like that. And they can't... I don't think they can introduce Nettles in season three. I think it's much smarter. And Reyna is a daughter of Daemon who was so desperate for his attention and affection but didn't have a dragon. Right. And Daemon is invested in the sewing and went to sing to Vermithor so that could be something that

Yeah, brings them together. I don't know if I made this comparison before, but he just, like, reminds me of, like, a barbecue dad. Like, that's his, like, weekend hobby is the sowing of the seeds. Anyway, we're running out of time, and we got to talk about Helena. Let's do it. Number six. This is obviously, like...

At the 52 second mark and the 39 second mark, we get Helena looking up. She's got a black veil on. I feel like that's a funeral procession sort of thing. Allison also has a black veil on in that sequence where she's sort of being torn apart by the small folk. But it's Helena with a knife at her throat.

And not only the knife in her throat, but there are already two cuts on her throat. Like, you know, she's being tortured and tormented. This is blood and cheese, which is a horrific, horrific moment in the book in which Helena has to choose which one of her children is going to die. Debt collectors said cheese, an eye for an eye, a son for a son. Sent by Damon, probably. Almost...

Indubitably, Damon sends these people into the castle as revenge for Luke to kill a baby. Is this how the season starts, Jo? Like, is this episode one? Is it episode two? I mean, this is going to be one of the most horrific things they've ever done. No later than episode two. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No later than episode two. Yikes. It's going to be very grim.

I'm so interested to see. I mean, I'm sure plenty of people will be caught by surprise because they don't, most people don't live their lives online, but like, I've just been, I've just seen the like chant of blood and cheese, like everywhere online.

So much more so than the Red Wedding, you know what I mean? That it's just sort of like the book readers can't help themselves. They're like so excited for how messed up people are going to be about Blood and Cheese. And I'm just sort of like, be cool, man. And it's also like in a post-Red Wedding world when you say things like, Blood and Cheese is this season's Red Wedding. Then even absent any particulars about what is going to happen, people who hear that know that's like something crazy.

devastating and utterly foul awaits. It'll be, it'll be fascinating to see when they do this and what the response is. I, I feel like this might be the end of the first episode. What a, what a wild way to start. That would be, uh, what a fucked up season awaits. Number seven, Joe F and B. Yep. Some stuff we didn't see because we didn't see a lot. We already talked about the battle of the gullet as the kind of like big, there is no glimpse of eight.

battle at sea that we, at least that we could spot in this trailer. Doesn't mean it won't come later, but if that doesn't, if that is not in the season, it has a real bearing on how they're parceling out the plot. What else stood out to you as like things that weren't here that you may be expected to be? I think not seeing, I think as I already mentioned Nettles, um, and then I guess Alice Rivers though, like, I don't know. I don't know if that's effective, an effective trailer shot, um,

Because, you know, it'll get us, the book readers, excited. But like this, you know, an actress has been cast as Alice Rivers, Gail Rankin. But like just seeing a shot of her, we're going to be like, oh my God, it's Alice Rivers. But like your average viewer won't care, won't know, you know? Yeah. I think maybe even more than not glimpsing Alice Rivers, I was surprised to not see more of Harrenhal. Harrenhal, yeah. Because like...

Damon is going to set out for Harrenhal pretty quickly. I think that shot where Damon grabs his helmet is inside Harrenhal. Yeah. And I think also there's that later shot of him swinging a sword in front of a weirwood, which could be Isle of Faces. I definitely think, yeah. Riverlands probably has to be. So, yeah. I can't wait to get

the longer trailer like this is I mean the going back to the teaser trailer for season one there was like nothing in that nothing it was a drop so like this is just the beginning what they're showing us here um so much sea smoke in this yeah trailer yeah um and we get you know yeah a lot of

dragon content. I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm really excited. I'm really curious. The battle of the gullet is the most interesting and confounding thing of like, if they move it, how will that work to move it? Um, I still, I think they can make it work and I think it will just make it more, um,

I think to start with, to have blood and cheese, have Luke die in season one and have blood and cheese here and Rainey's die and Agen be severely wounded and stuff like that. To save Jace for season three just makes so much sense to me. Give the viewers more time to care about him.

before you take him off the board. I would like for Jace to be around longer, though there are just, you know, at the end of the day, just so many characters who are going to die before the story is over. So it's almost one of those things where it's like waiting. I mean, I don't know. They got more people they got to kill later. I think the other thing on the gullet front, I was struck by...

revisiting some scenes in the finale that it was invoked. Like, Corliss says, if we further seal the gullet, we can cut off all seaborne travel and trade to King's Landing. And then Rhaenys offers to take Maelys and patrol the gullet. There was a... Like, I was like, why talk about that area if it's not gonna... If the battle in that...

stretch of water is not going to happen in the ensuing season. That would be bizarre. But trade routes, triarchy set up, it's all relevant. I can't wait to talk to Chris about the triarchy. I know. What a time to be Chris and learn which dragons are rich and then run for the triarchy. But there's other stuff that I think they're just going to move... Like the Battle of the God's Eye, I could see a version where they...

leave that for the final season because they just don't want to do a season without Matt Smith in it. You know, like I think if it's a four season show, that's season four. If they're going five seasons, that's a hard stretch. But four seasons, season four, that feels right. Yeah. Can't wait to find out. House of the Dragon, F&B, baby. Wild times. We're back. We're back. All right. Thank you to our small council.

Carlos Chiraboga for producing this episode. Thank you, Carlos. Arjunaram Gopal for his additional production work on this episode. And Jomia Deneron for his work on the social for this episode. No word on whether anybody had a little ball in front of them while working on this episode, Joe. We can only hope. Remember...

Head back into the ringer verse on Wednesday for the midnight boys episode on blue eye samurai and Godzilla minus one. Joanna and I already have a doctor who 60th anniversary pod waiting for you in the feed. And we'll be back on Friday for our Miyazaki pod until next time. Remember the war will be fought. Many will pod and the victim will eventually ascend.