'House of the Dragon' Season 2 Primer: Where We Left Off in Season 1. Plus, Showrunner Ryan Condal Joins!
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Lads that learn together, train together, knock each other down, pick each other up. You'll certainly form a lifelong bond, wouldn't you agree? That is the hope, Your Grace. 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 the Dragon Pit, but also to House of R's new-ish podcast feed.

Joining me today, rolling her small ball and muttering, Dear me. Godspeed, good. It's Joanna Robinson. What? Babies. Oh my gosh. It's almost time. I know. House of Dragons. Almost here. So excited. Screech. Joanna. Yeah. Dragon screech goes here. Mm-hmm.

We have another loaded hot D primer show today. We are going to be doing a season one look back, which we'll explain more momentarily. We are going to be chatting with House of the Dragon showrunner, Ryan Condal, joining us for a wonderful interview. Wonderful. Before we get to any of that, though, quick programming reminders. Oh, so glad. We've got a bunch today. I'll run through them quickly. Over on the ringer verse loaded week Wednesday, Wednesday,

The Midnight Boys instant reaction to the Acolyte episode three. Thursday, The Midnight Boys instant reaction to The Boys season four premiere. Pew, pew, pew, pew. Friday, Mint Edition on Inside Out 2. Junior Mints, get ready.

Here on the House of R. Yes. We will be with you on Thursday. You don't have to wait until Friday this week. Thursday for our deep dive into the Acolyte episode three. And then, of course, on Sunday night, we and Chris Ryan will be with you. Yes. To react to the Hot D season two premiere on Talk the Thrones. And we have some related news to share. We're on video now. Oh, my gosh. Not just Talk the Thrones. All of it. All of it.

Full video pods for House of R, Talk to Thrones, Midnight Boys coming on Spotify. Mm-hmm.

And on the brand spanking new ringer verse YouTube channel, you can see our little trailer that we made on the ringer verse socials. And then you can just go to that YouTube channel and hit subscribe. It is very cinematic. Yeah. People got a real unvarnished look at your daily process where you're reading multiple books at once. And at my daily process where I was watching Oreo videos on YouTube, the same way, the same.

So check out the YouTube channel. Check out the videos on Spotify. We're very excited to be on video at long last. Can't wait. Please join us for this new journey that we are all sharing together during our very busy and exciting summer. Speaking of exciting things that are happening this summer and speaking of Talk the Thrones and speaking of getting to see our faces, if you're so inclined.

Talk the Thrones live at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles on Tuesday, June 25th. That's like just around the corner. Really soon. So soon. Tuesday.

Two episodes of House of the Dragon will have aired by then. So we'll like be in the throes of a new throne season. What better time for the two of us, for Chris Ryan to gather as the three heads of the Talk of Thrones dragon and spend a little time together in Westeros with some of our closest friends who will hopefully be buying tickets to the show to come hang out with us in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles. So go to the ringer.com slash events. If you have not gotten your tickets yet and join us, we really are excited for that show. It's going to be a blast. Joanna, how can everybody follow along? It's a lot going on. And if folks want to make sure that they don't miss a single thing, live shows, talk the thrones, midnight boys, house of our everything else falls on social, uh, on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook, on Tik TOK,

Follow the Ringerverse YouTube channel. Do it. All of it. It's all going to be there for you. Do it. Listen, it's House of the Dragon time. We love your emails all the time. We really love your emails during House of the Dragon time. So hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Please do give us a shout. Spoiler warning today. Yeah.

Yeah. Season one of House of the Dragon and intimate details. Yeah. A helpful little season one refresher. So anything that happened at any point in season one could come up today. That's it. Season two trailers, marketing material for season two, things like that could come up, but we're mostly looking back in the interview at season one. You know, we're most, yes, yes. When we get to the, we get to the chat with Ryan Condal, be looking ahead of course to, to season two, but, uh,

In our season one refresher. Season one, the wider Thrones universe. It's really it. Let's do it. If you haven't seen season one, you're like, I want to dive right into season two. Hopefully this helps you. If you've seen season one, thanks for coming here to refresh and to hang. Great to have you. Let's do it. Grab a goblet. Let's go for it. Grab a small ball. Okay, Joe.

Stop delaying. Let's do it. The rapid-ish fire refresher. We decided to do this for your genius idea as we are in the run-up to season two in the choose a side marketing campaign. Dueling recaps. This was your thought. And part of what's exciting about this is like discovering if, as we revisit each episode of season one, all 10 episodes,

Do the same things that stood out to us in real time stand out to us now? And do the same things that feel most important to one of us feel most consequential to the other? How many of these selections will be about feet or hats or small balls? Twins. And how many will be about...

deeply resonant thematic moments? We're about to find out because we are each going to share the three things from every episode. We're going to go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The three things that feel most important to us while revisiting season one. And, you know, when we say three things...

We're doing our best. We really want this to be rapid fire. So we're going to do our best. How many smuggles will there be? How many bundles? I mean, it's a house of our podcast. So that's sort of par for the course. All right, Joe, I don't know what's on your list. You don't know what's on mine. There are probably going to be some moments where we're like, I'm counting on the other person to have this. There are going to be plenty of moments where we have the same thing. I'm really looking forward to this. This is going to be a blast. Why don't you kick us off with the first most important

Thing from season one, episode one, the heirs of the dragon. To be clear, I'm not doing this in any order of importance. I'm doing it in like sort of rough-ish-ish chronological order in the episode. So...

I'm going to start here. I didn't really do chronological order or necessarily order of importance. I don't know if I had an organizing principle other than vibes. Doesn't much matter. Vibes only is works. Okay. In one drunken speech, King Viserys's brother, Prince Daemon, takes himself out of the running to sit on the Iron Throne by maybe or maybe not saying something very shitty and rude about Viserys's dead infant son whose birth killed his beloved wife and queen. And I mean, let's be honest, Daemon probably said it. Dare for a day. Dare for a day. Tough one. Daemon.

Heir to the throne, out of the running. That's point number one. Great day for an introduction to that episode. Just fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. My first selection for the series premiere is my first smuggle, fittingly, right from the jump. And it's the choosing of the heirs times two. The wounds of the great council of 101 AC.

selecting Jaehaerys' successor, this introduction to House Targaryen at the height of its strength, ten adult dragons, and then seeing Viserys selected over Rhaenys, and this very crucial opening note that we get in the prologue, the patriarchy could not be more real, and we build into Rhaenys

cementing and affirming that idea throughout the episode, Rhaenyra and Emma talking about the child bed is our battlefield. Rhaenyra at her mother and brother's funeral saying, I will never be a son. This crucial note is there from the jump as are the Harbingers in terms of Targaryen division, but,

the only thing that could tear down the House of the Dragon was itself. That is the note that opens the series as we make our way toward the Targaryen civil war of succession, the Dance of the Dragons. And then, of course, that builds toward the end of the episode when Viserys does choose, sorry to deem in the subject of your first pick, to name Rhaenyra heir. And we get to see...

The little looks and glances and delays and hesitations on given faces as it's time to swear obeisance. And that note from Viserys Turin era, a dragon saddle is one thing, but the Iron Throne is the most dangerous seat in the realm. It's like, I get a chill rewatching that. It's just fantastic. So this is like what the series is about. And when you revisit the first episode...

They established that focus quite effectively. I love you. I love you madly. I'm still excited for this program. This whole episode, you and I had very different interpretations of this prompt, and I'm excited to see this continue to roll out. Because here's my bullet point number two. Viserys announces his daughter will be his heir and all the dudes look very excited. Misogyny. We solved it.

That's it. We did it in episode one. Misogynist, it's over. Yeah, we solved it. All the guys look super excited that a woman is going to be heir to the throne. That's it. And no one will have a question or concern or comment on that matter in the future. Nope. That's it. That's my rapid fire bullet point. What's your next rapid fire bullet point, Mallory? You said the three most important things from each episode. That was the prompt.

I think that that's, I'm honoring the prompt. My second most important thing from episode one.

Dragon dreams and dragon warnings. We get this very daunting, harrowing glimpse of this dream that has driven and guided a huge stretch of Viserys's life as he is recounting it for Emma in her bath and, of course, for our benefit as well. Our son was born wearing Aegon's iron crown. And we love, here at the House of Arr, a misread, self-fulfilling prophecy. And...

Viserys' obsession with having a son is on our minds throughout the entire season, building toward a different son from a different marriage, Aegon putting on that iron crown. And on the prophecy front, Viserys sharing Aegon's Song of Ice and Fire with Rhaenyra? This was a huge moment for book readers because this is new, new to the show. We did not know this was coming.

And the way that this shapes not only our sense of the connected wider Thrones universe, but Rhaenyra's view on responsibility. And then, of course, in that same conversation, he shares what is ultimately like a

central thesis for the first season of the show, which is the hubris of dragon control. They're a power men should never have trifled with. One that brought Valeria its doom. If we don't mind our histories, it will do the same to us. So that's poising us for everything we're building toward in the finale and this broader portent that will be on our minds as we watch the entire dance. Wonderful.

The dagger reveal as it pertains to the prophecy does come later, but this is still how I encapsulated this. Viserys reveals that a moderately important prop from season one of Game of Thrones is actually the most important prop in all of Westeros, and that a prophecy is song of ice and fire about the prince who has promised a long winter to come. So, yes. Moderately important prompt. Prop? Prop. I almost had it ratcheted down. Moderately.

I think the cat's paw dagger is not the most important prop of season one of Game of Thrones. You know, the Night King might have some thoughts. When, yeah, no, that's what I mean in season, when they, the point is, when they first designed the cat's paw dagger, they weren't like, A, this is definitely going to be the thing that kills the Night King. We don't even really know what that is, like much later down the road. And B, it's going to be a huge part of House of the Dragon as well. I feel like if they had known that, they would have designed it

a little bit differently than they did. Yeah. Fair. My third is just establishing the Allison and Raniro bond because this is another quite substantial page to screen evolution and seeing not only what this relationship looks like and how central it is and foundational it is for their lives in terms of their shared, um,

experience and journey, but like where they each are inside of that, you know, our opening note from Alison is, I believe I'm quite content as a spectator. Thank you. That's what she's saying to Rhaenyra. And then, you know, Rhaenyra sitting, resting her head on Alison's lap in the godswood as they study the tales of Nymeria, this page that will make its way through the season and through the decades. And

And... They're just friends, Mallory. Yeah. Just pals. Just pals. I want to fly with you. I'm dragging back. Just pals. Just pals. And there's that, like, we see really how...

their confidence. That's the other thing that really stands out on a rewatch, you know, Rhaenyra saying to Alison, like for as long as I can recall, it's, it's all he wanted meaning of, of the Saracen, his desire for a son. And then of course for, for Alison with her relationship with her father, like right away, Otto is pimping out his daughter, you know, go check in on, on the King, stand with him and maybe read to him as he works on his Lego sets. Uh,

Couldn't be more important to establish that relationship in the opening episode, given the way that Rhaenyra and Alicent function in the story moving forward as the respective heads of these respective sides. So neither of us picked the triarchy dominating our first small council meeting right from the beginning. Don't worry, the crap eater will come up later for me. You didn't have Viserys' festering back sore or...

I promise you we will get to the king's wounds. You got some rotting flesh. You got some rotting flesh coming in future episodes. Let's do episode two. Episode two. The rogue prince. Jo, what's your first point? I'm going to guess something you just said about Alicent, which I think was very important. User at Hightower Hottie asks,

Am I the asshole? Am I the asshole for putting on my dead mother's dress and seducing my best friend's dad over late night model making? It's a good question. Listen, we all know that there are many extenuating circumstances here. Allison is being manipulated, maneuvered, all that sort of stuff. It's not her grand seduction plan, but...

We will revisit Allison and the am I the asshole question as we go through. But yeah, it's the dead mother's dress that really puts Otto in and on the shit list for me, among many other things. But the dead mother's dress is really a problem for me. You know, he's just he's got some thoughts on on Westerosi drip. And who can blame him? Who can blame him?

My first one is another bundle. It's just key choosings. So I have a few things inside of this that could be other bullet points for you. I'll hit them quickly. The choosing of Sir Christian Cole. Big one. Bullet point number two for me in a move that certainly won't haunt her for the rest of her life when you're a promoter. Donishman Christian Cole to the Kingsguard. Gods. He's Donish. He's Donish. Could have just listened to Otto here and gone with one of the... I know. For once, Otto was right. ...politically helpful. Yeah.

that would have bolstered a relationship with another house. But no, Kristen Cole, you maniac. Welcome to the party. I think I have like maybe three or four instances where it's hashtag Otto was right. And this is one of them. Oh, exciting. Is that your main takeaway when you watch season one on the whole? I just mean in general, I think three or four is pretty low. Are you putting an Otto was right mug next to your Thanos is right mug? No, go ahead. Okay, thanks. For you. I love watching Otto.

The bowels of the pleasure den. No, save that. We'll get there in a couple episodes. The choosing of Alison Tytower. Big one. Big one. The broken and repaired stone dragon. Viserys is saying to Laena on their walk, I imagine even dragons get lonely, and then dropping his stone dragon in front of Alison. He's barely able to contain himself when she presents him this super glitter dragon.

Have you ever related to Viserys more? You love a Lego. I've said many times, like I just, I just pour over the plans, but this is someone else who stone masons do all the real work. The way that this decision alienates Corlys blindsides Rhaenyra. This is just astonishing stuff from our guy Viserys Targaryen. And, um,

The way that entwined with this question of who will Viserys choose to marry, that Rhaenys and Rhaenyra conversation shorns inside of that. And that was a conversation that we found ourselves returning to a lot throughout our season one discussion. Men would sooner put the realm to the torch than see a woman ascend the Iron Throne. And Rhaenyra and Rhaenys are not on the same page there, nor are they through much of the season. That's such a crucial conversation. Yeah.

Are you saying we didn't solve misogyny in episode one of House of the Dragon? I regret to inform you that we still have some work to do on that front. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I thought the stairs did it. I thought the king did it, but okay. All right. What's your next one, Jo?

This is my last bullet point. On the Bridge of Dragonstone, Rhaenyra and Daemon make a fool of Otto Hightower's attempt at diplomacy as their dragons, Syrax and Caraxes, flirt with each other. This, I think, is not just important because we go back to this Bridge of Dragonstone, not just important because Massaria, our favorite character, is here, but important because it...

previews what's to come in this war where it's like, as we talked about a lot, Otto likes to wage war with quills and ravens and that sort of stuff. But really this is a battle of dragons. It will always be a battle of dragons. And so what, what, what, what use is someone like Otto Hightower, if both sides of any conflict, be it a stolen dragon egg or whatever, have a dragon. So. She's your steel. So, um,

You mentioned Miss Aria. And I guess we could just say it was an unspoken thing that...

our first real time. Obviously, it's in episode one as well in the brothel, but the scene with Masaria and Damon on Dragonstone is really, that's like where we hit another level of transcendent experience on Accent Corner and made with child. Wonderful stuff. Wonderful stuff. Thought that would be one of your picks, but no. Oh, Masaria? No, Masaria does not feature anywhere on our list. Masaria, Accent Corner, nor did you have in your final three here Magabulls with Melos?

Weird. No, no. Interesting. Yeah. You didn't pick what's to mislike. She's 12. She will mature. Did you assume I would I would be covering? I would be covering. Yeah. You and Torlis are always thinking about the same thing. You don't have Sir Crispin? I guess you do. Sir Crispin took place on the bridge. And so that counts. OK, here are my my next two. My next two are both kind of key themes that.

hammered with here and then play a role across the season. So the first one is like the idea of decisiveness versus trepidation because this is where Rhaenyra's readiness to act when Viserys will not is brought to the fore. You have Dragonrider's father send us. We move toward the finale when Rhaenyra's own children are ready to say that. But they were not ready. Luke, we mourn you still.

Aren't you still? And on that decisiveness front, this is also where we get that great cordless line that we talked about so much across the season. To elude a storm, you can either sail into it or around it, but you must never await its coming. And ultimately, one of the great indictments of Viserys the Peaceful's reign is that he too often awaited something's coming. And then my third point

My second big theme here is just the idea of second sons. Obviously, that's like the closing scene of the episode with Corlys courting Daemon. I just always love, not to remain to the point I'm making now, but I always love that scene when Daemon says it was never my brother's strongest trait. And Corlys says what? And Daemon says being king. Just remarkable stuff from Daemon Targaryen. But this idea of second sons, Corlys saying...

Our worth is not given, it must be made. What I love about this in this episode is how we start to understand here, not only how that can be something that characters like Damon and Corliss in this conversation align over, but also it can be a through line and a truth that is shared between people who are opposed.

Like Otto, as Damon pointed out in the first episode, is a striving second son, right? Who's not content. And then of course also there are going to be second sons who are seeking to clear the way. Like Laris, or second sons who believe that they're better suited. Like Aemond. And then while the women of the story are obviously not second sons, there's a shared truth there too. Like the focus in the season on the characters who...

by the rules of the land, were not meant to inherit power but then wind up wielding it is so elemental to this story. Kristen Cole is like a huge, huge part of that. I hate him, but, you know, classism is standing in Kristen's way. And the way that then that power, the power that has to be like

snatched or sort of just like you know clawed out and stuff like that then it just sort of winds up sort of being brutally applied often because it had to be brutally won this season on Naughty Island when we were new they spoiled me they even gave me a phone but then it's like I didn't exist

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Speaking of brutality, Jo, let's go for a hunt. Let's do it. Time for episode three, second of his name. King Viserys Targaryen gets wildly trashed. Hammered. Annihilated. And confessed to Alicent that he has some doubts that all the signs and portents he received about putting Rhaenyra on the throne. Turns out sexism wasn't solved way back in episode one. Wild. Yeah.

Oh man. This is a big episode for wine.

Oh, yeah. You know, Viserys couldn't be more sloshed. I always love when you get the for nearest face with Jason Lannister's like, oh, the finest honeyed wine in the realm. And she's just like, this tastes like shit. Absolute garbage. Great stuff. So you're telling me all three of your bullet points are not about Laris. Only one of them, I assume. But not all three. My guy, my guy is not in this. He didn't make the cut. He's coming in later episodes. That's fine. That's fine.

Okay, I thought all three might be back. In more ways than one. He will definitely be coming in a later episode. Tell me. Oh, boy, we're back. But yes, Laris sidling his way into the gossip circle with all the bitchy old ladies of Westeros, as you know, is one of my faves. Great stuff. It's great stuff. My first one is signs and portents. Portents and signs.

Plots and schemes, schemes and plots, signs and portents, portents and signs. A couple subsets of this. The baptism by blood. Rhaenyra and her boar. Daemon and his greyscale laden crab feeder oomph. A lot of symbolism at play there. And then, of course, the white heart. All of the talk throughout the episode about the signs and portents and what this means on Aegon's name day. And then Viserys can't kill Aegon.

The brown stag as everyone stands there and watches. It is a heart-wrenching scene in so many different respects. And then the white heart appears to Rhaenyra and Kristen Cole, and that's it. Kristen is the only one there to see the white heart appear to Rhaenyra. It's her portent, not Aegon's, but no one knows. Great stuff. Except the worst guy in Westeros. Okay. I'm just going to knock out- But he's not wearing a dumb hat yet, Jo, so-

I feel like the dumb hat is just always upon him. Do you just see it? Like, does your brain, like, auto-complete that visually where... I feel like the true dumb hat is his personality. So...

I'm going to knock out my other two bullet points because they go under what you just said. So speaking of signs of portents, which I literally did have here in the doc, speaking of signs of portents, Rhaenyra, meanwhile, sees a very symbolic white stag that lets her at least know that she's meant to rule. And Daemon kills the crab feeder and somehow does not get greyscale. How? We'll never know how. Speaking of body parts, the king, it should be said, looks rather ill and likely won't last much longer.

One of the things I enjoy most through visiting season one, going from episode three to episode four, no concern about whether Damon got grayscale, but he did need to get a haircut to get rid of all of the blood that stained his silver mane. Oh, Damon. Okay, my second one is corkships. This is a great episode for... I have a very fond memory of us and Chris talking about, you know, how to make a match in Westeros. This is like... I mean...

Our guy Harwin Strong makes a wonderful entrance here, admiring Rhaenyra in all her blood-soaked glory. The lustful look on Breakbones' face as Rhaenyra walks in and then the cut to Jason Lannister, like, ew, no thanks. Yeah. Sensational stuff. On the Jason Lannister front, I always get such a kick out of Rhaenyra saying he's arrogant and self-serious and Viserys saying, oh, I thought you might have that in common. Very amusing. Yeah.

Very amusing. Viserys has a few bars. Does. So Rhaenyra is saying to Kristen, how lucky you are to have a say in your own life. And this is the stretch of the season, including in the next episode in her chats with Alicent, where Rhaenyra is in very much a like the grass is always greener vantage point. And the moment of like needing to confront that she will have to wed leads to so many incredibly entertaining moments.

conversations as you know my favorite of which is auto going to viserys worth watching even if you never turn on subtitles do it for this scene because we get some like grogu-esque like babbling babbling and cooing yeah praying on and saying uh and and auto makes his pitch you know it's what about something closer to home the boys just heard do auto yes

But it would cease the endless proposals. That scene just kills me. It's so funny. The Laenor pitch from Lionel. And it builds this really heart-rending conversation between Rhaenyra and Viserys where she's like, you have no further use for me. The way that she's confronting throughout this entire episode, and this builds into my third point, which is this is where the push for Aegon begins in earnest. The carriage ride to the hunt.

no one's here for me. Rhaenyra says, like, it is just so heart-wrenching to see her confronting this new reality. This is also where, like, we get to see Alison to go from her, her blue outfits into her red and black before something that I suspect we'll talk about in a couple episodes. Mm-hmm. Um, the, still to this day, absolutely outrageous. Hey, Bob!

of his name treasonous downright treasonous Hobart do you want to cheer do you want to make your your moniker for the season the Conqueror Babe Mallory Rubin the Conqueror Babe yes yes where's where's the merch

Mallory Rubin Conqueror, babe. Great stuff. Yes, that would be wonderful. And if everyone could clap also when I'm introduced as such, I would appreciate that. You got it. Thanks. Good call. Good call. This is where Otto really starts to apply the pressure to Alicent. The road ahead is uncertain, but the end is clear. Go work for Saracen. We see he's getting the pressure from Hobart that's leading him to apply that pressure to Alicent, etc. And it

you know, this is like, there's really no, despite all of the crucial fulcrums and seismic events that unfold the seeds, you watch this episode, you revisit this episode and you're like, well, could it have gone another way? How many better choices could people have made to have present to have prevented this? Or was, was this the inevitability that auto is outlining here? Um,

I'm glad you had the drunken bonfire with Viserys and Alyson. It's great stuff. Very sad. I so wanted it to be true, to be a dreamer myself.

I'm going to miss Viserys so much season two. What if I was wrong? Me too. Great one. Episode four, King of the Narrow Sea. Let's do it. I just want everyone at home to know we are all obviously benefiting from Mallory's incredible, all the work that Mallory has done to put this together. And I want to honor and respect and admire it. Just let you know, the original idea for this episode was three sentences per, but we expanded it to bullet points. But then we changed the idea because that wasn't too much or that wasn't enough. We expanded it to bullet points.

And I didn't know that this is what we're doing. That's my lack of awareness that we still have a sentence cap after we changed the idea specifically to avoid a sentence cap. Real twist. Okay. King of the Narrow Sea. Put on the...

Driftwood Crown, take us through it. What's your first pick? In a move that certainly won't haunt her for the rest of her life, Rhaenyra pisses off Westerosi lords up and down the continent by not taking their various proposals of marriage very seriously. Great scene. Yeah. Fantastic stuff. Blackwoods, brackens, everything you could possibly want. You love a bracken. You love a blackwood. I do. I do.

A Baratheon I'm a little mixed on, but, you know, here we are. And, you know, every time we go to Storm's End, it's peaceful and calm and fine. And no one dies. I feel like they said in the behind the scenes that they had all these, like, fans to, like, blow the leaves around on the floor of Storm's End just to make it feel stormy at all times here at Storm's End. But yes. Yes.

Rhaenyra, a large thread of this season, which becomes clear upon rewatch, is how Alicent is going through and amassing allies and Rhaenyra is going through and alienating allies. And the allies that she does grasp for are not necessarily extremely helpful. So here we are. Here's a big diplomacy misfire.

There's a lot that people blame Rhaenyra for in terms of like when they talk about her kids or whatever it is that I'm just sort of like, I don't think that's relevant at all to like whether or not she could rule. This is. This shit here is in terms of like, this is not a good look for a future ruler of Westeros, what she pulls here at Storm's End. And we can only extrapolate what the rest of the tour has been like. Right. Yeah.

But it does all build toward Viserys during Daemon's return feast. Like, you shouldn't deprive yourself. You know, you want to see the tapestries? Go do it. Go do whatever the fuck you want. I love the family dynamic at play in that scene. Pretty hilarious. The way that Daemon's eyes are like darting back and forth as he's watching Viserys and Rhaenyra interact. He's like, I have missed some stuff. All three of mine kind of like connect and build toward each other. I'm certain you have.

one if not all of them on your list uh the bow daemon uncle daemon takes his niece raniera uh to a brothel through through king's landing and then to a brothel to full-rounded public incest o'clock is here thrones you never fail us

Secret passageways. This is like free range. This is like free range, like wild incest as opposed to like state sanctioned approved incest. Exactly. Exactly. This is, they don't call them the rogue prince for nothing. Demon removing incest.

little beanie part of her disguise. You know, let's make sure people see us and that word travels fast. Definitely something that stands out revisiting this scene. This gives us one of the most iconic lines of the season, of the series. Fucking is a pleasure, you see. Poetry from Damon. Yeah.

And of course we build toward one of genuinely our favorite moments of the season, which is Otto, like girding up the courage to go scheme the way he'd like to and tell Viserys plot and scheme scheme and plot both.

That they were seen together in the bowels of a pleasure den coupling. And then Daemon makes his pitch to Viserys. He's like, well, marry her to me. You know the traditions of our house? He's given him a little bit of a lecture, too. Like, you are the dragon. Your word is truth. Not only are we watching Daemon pursue what he wants here and navigate his demons, but...

we see this like really crucial divide between Viserys and Daemon in terms of how they're both students of history in a different way, but like how they think about Targaryen might that's very present here too. And I'll just build right into my second one from there, which is Rhaenyra and Kristen, because that's how the episode builds as well. After Daemon, the way that Kristen folds

and gently places that white cloak before he and Rhaenyra have sex. And obviously everything that this builds toward, not only in the next episode and the one after, but for the relationships and the story overall in terms of the dynamic between Kristen and Rhaenyra, and then eventually Kristen shifting his allegiance. I have this summed up as, Damon abruptly cuts Rhaenyra's personal tour of the bowels of a pleasure den short.

And in a move that certainly won't haunt her for the rest of her life, she opts to complete her- I'm noticing a theme. She opts to complete her tour of pleasure with Kristen Cole instead. And then my last bullet point is Rhaenyra promises to marry Corlys' nice gay son, Laenor, if her dad shakes up the org chart at King's Landing and ships Otto Hightower back to Oldtown for narking on her. The king- That's the third one as well. It should be said-

Looks very ill and likely won't last much longer. Oh, man. Viserys. Just chunks of flesh falling off. Just hanging on way longer than he should have. I just remember watching this in real time and you and I being like, how many more body parts can he lose? How much longer can he hang on?

We, you know, the ousting of Otto was also my third one. And obviously that connects in this episode to the Alicent and Rhaenyra, who believes whom and how does their conversation go and that like judgment that Alicent brings to it initially, but then her decision to believe Rhaenyra. But in terms of Viserys' like festering sores, of course we have, we get quite a view from above of his, of his,

flesh sloshing off his back because the way this episode is in or cut. Terrible. I didn't choose to make him look that way. Oh, you want to talk about Allison's no good, very bad night, which is like every night when you're Allison Hightower. Yes. Taking over for the sore bath and then summoned for late night sex. And the way the episode cuts between Rhaenyra's night of

the reckless pursuit of freedom and pleasure. Pleasure. And Alison, owls of a pleasure, Alison pinged beneath. Duty. That duty that we will keep hearing about. It is a really crucial stretch of the season. Episode five. We light the way. We light the way. Murder cloak time. I actually don't have murder cloak here. User, user at Hightower Hottie asks, am I the asshole? No,

Am I the asshole for putting on a flashy green dress and making a late dramatic entrance to my former best friend slash current stepdaughter's wedding banquet and therefore upstaging the would-be bride? This is also my first one. The full merch, the Hightower merch with this gown. Very dramatic entrance. And I think we would just both like to formally thank Laris and Harwin Strong for explaining that green is the color of...

Not only of House Eidower, but when Old Town calls its banners to war. Thank you, House Strong. Laris definitely would have a podcast about him. Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah. In case you don't know, this is the meaning of this green dress here. I think it would be tough for Laris to have a podcast, though, when he's cutting out the tongues of the bulk of the people who make their way into his life.

So I have a mission for you. But he's not an interviewer on pod. He's an interrogator off pod. That's his day job. The podcast is his hobby and pleasure. It's that and looking at feet. Speaking of which, another bullet point I have is Laris imparts some completely innocent and very concerned and useful medical information about Rhaenyra and some moon tea to Alicent. He's just trying to help.

And not at all eyeballing her ankle. So, yeah. Otto's out. Nothing little finger-y-in, lingual little finger-y-in about this at all. Otto's out. Thought you'd want to know. Laris settles in. Sees a vacuum of power. He's got some thoughts on the local plant life. You know, not local, actually. It should be thriving here, Jo. But it is. Here we go.

My second one is Kristen Cole, your favorite character, murdering the Knight of Kisses. Yeah, a hate crime. This is a tough one for Kristen Cole. And keeps his, not only commits a hate crime at a wedding banquet, but punches like the future queen's consort in the face in front of everyone and keeps his job anyway. So good job, Alison, because she's got to be the only reason he keeps his job.

He had an offer for Rhaenyra that hinged on cinnamon and oranges. I love oranges and cinnamon. You know that about me. I'm the same. I know.

You do. You love an orange clove scent. I do. But I also don't want to marry Kristen Cole. So Rhaenyra and I have that in common. Rhaenyra was not ready to choose infamy, as she said. You know? She is the crown. Big moment for Rhaenyra. Huge moment, obviously, for the rift in their relationship. And Alicent not only... Would you say, though, that Rhaenyra could have rejected that offer a bit more diplomatically and perhaps...

Her mishandling that is a move that might haunt her for the rest of her life. Sure, though I'm unwilling to put Kristen's behavior on Rhaenyra's shoulders. No, no. But I do like the theme. It's not her fault, obviously. But she does like a little bit laugh at his face. And you're just like, you know. He literally says, you want me to be your whore as he cries.

And weeps over his besmirched honor. I hate him so much. He's like, I woke up early for this conversation. And this is all you have for me? That you are the crown? This is not how I thought this was going to go. I don't know. Alicent stopping Kristen, who is in her confidence now. Larris and Kristen in one episode. Killing himself.

My last one is like maybe a stealth one in this episode, but it always stands out to me. I love this scene. I love this conversation. It always feels important. Viserys barely hanging on and Lionel discussing legacy. When Viserys asked Lionel, will I be a good king? I mean, obviously as Thrones viewers and readers, we're always like anything about legacy just pings up our Tywin programmed minds, you know, to activate. But I love this conversation about

There's a part of me that wishes I'd been tested. This idea for Viserys, this question of the crucible and whether he could have been forged a different man. And we talk across the season, like, what was the stepstones as a crucible for Daemon? And what are all these crucibles for all the characters? And then Viserys, like the end note for him here is perhaps it's best not to know.

And that just feels like it kind of sums up everything, not only about his character, but the distinctions between characters like Viserys and then Daemon and Rhaenyra.

And Laris will have such an interesting sort of like answering speech that in the next episode. Last thing I want to say. Yes. Just just so it's on the record. Yeah. Laenor and Rhaenyra do get married next to a pool of blood. Viserys falling apart quite literally. You and I both really enjoyed the way that he could not cut his chicken. And the king, it should be said, looks very ill. Failing at dinner, as Jaime Lannister once said, you know. The king, it should be said, looks very ill, likely won't last forever.

Much longer. Episode six. The Princess and the Queen. Oh. Dime jump! Dime jump! Ten years! It's been ten years.

I'm going to guess your items before you do them. Here they are. Number one, Viserys just walking in with an arm missing. Number two, meeting Talia. Number three, Aegon going full Roman Roy, jacking it from his bedroom window. Are those your three? I didn't make room for any of those, but I was really tempted by the last two. Talia.

Talia, I wish I had made room for you. Oh, boy. Here's what I have. Yeah. User at Hightower Hotty asks, am I the asshole for making my former best friend, now my stepdaughter, walk her still bleeding from childhood self through a castle so I can inspect her baby and make snide, racially tinged comments about its parentage?

obviously, Alicent did not demand that Rhaenyra walk through. She just wanted the baby, but Rhaenyra being her stubborn self took that long walk. We love a long walk. Alicent did one in a dress. Rhaenyra did one trailing blood, literal, like, blood through a castle. And Viserys will do so in our favorite moment of the whole season. So, yeah, Alicent and Rhaenyra and the long, bloody walk. My first one is very much related to this. It's Three Strong Boys Part One. Ha ha ha!

Do keep trying, Ser Laenor. Sooner or later, you may get one who looks like you. Alicent. Alicent to Viserys. The way that Alicent is, like, unrelenting in how she lays into Viserys across this episode. To have one child like that is a mistake. To have three is an insult. You're alluding to our actual, I think, shared favorite moment from the season in episode eight, which we'll talk about when we get there with Viserys' long walk. But...

On the three-strong boys front, we must talk about the training yard, and we must talk about maybe front at least, our favorite moment of the season. This is the stuff, Lionel. This is yours, and I give it to you freely and lovingly. I love it. And I shall claim the bees. The buzzing of the bees is my favorite, obviously, but I'll give you...

Viserys and Lionel. This is just, this absolutely kills me every time. The way he is just with joy in his heart watching absolute carnage unfold below him. They will certainly form a lifelong bond. Wouldn't you agree? Hate each other. Viserys. The Kristen Harwin like baiting and bragging

Very one-sided, intentionally brawl that unfolds here. The Harwood-Lynel people have eyes. A conversation that Rhaenyra overhears. Rhaenyra's attempt to resign is hand. The Viserys does not accept. Rhaenyra's appeal to Alicent at the small council table. Got a betrothal suggestion for you. And Alicent's just like, Rhaenyra, you're leaking milk from your breasts. Jace asking Rhaenyra if he's a bastard.

The parentage question could not be more central in this episode and obviously will be deeply crucial moving forward across the rest of the season. So it is, in fact, the stuff. It is, Lionel. It is, in fact, the stuff. Here's some other stuff. My Lord of Straw.

What Allison said. Yeah. Gee, I sure wish my dad and Otto Hightower were still Hand of the King, so I felt I had more support in the castle. What Laris heard. Start a fire in your family home, burning your father, Hand of the King, and your brother, the father of Rhaenyra's children, alive.

simple, basic, corporate miscommunication, really. This, this is the stuff, Lionel. As Laris is ready to point out, like there's just like, there's a curse we could just blame it on. The queen made a wish. So I don't know. Very handy. Everyone's always talking about these ghosts at Arenal. It's burnt already. It's pre-baked. I don't know what to tell you.

My second one is you are the challenge. Essential scene between Alicent and Aegon. Shout out, Ty Tenet, now and always. Wonderful. Our fave. Bring him back. Different wig. Yeah, exactly. The way that Alicent says to Aegon here, you are the challenge, you are the challenge, Aegon, simply by living and breathing, and basically is a decade later,

the one who is espousing these harbingers and these warnings that her father left her with just one episode prior. Just fascinating to see how that evolution has set in. And on that front, we get these fascinating Alison Larris conversations across the episode about parents and children. There's the dinner chat, the way that Larris pauses when Talia comes into the room. He's no notes on it. No notes.

Long before the rest of us, Laris is like, listen. Oh, man. It's true. And that conversation is important because that's where not only, like you said, like Allison's like,

Is anyone going to side with me? But that's where Laris is like, it's a willful blindness when talking about parents of children and says, you'd surely suffer the same affliction if it came to it. She says, I would not. And then that's in our mind as we watch how she responds to the horrible things that her children do. Some of her children. I mean, I should say, she knows that Aegon is a piece of shit. She knows that.

You're the challenge, right? She at least has some like awareness. She will. She's not blind to what they do. She'll just protect them in it. You know, even though she's she's saying here, she wouldn't. So the hypocrisy. Delicious. Joe, what are children but a weakness, a folly, a futility? You absolutely heard. But love stays the hand. Yeah, it's a downfall. My third one is dragon stuff. Just dragon stuff. Great episode for dragon stuff. Pink Dread.

Yeah. Shout out the pink dread. Allison's response to the pink dread prank always feels so key to me. When she says to Aemon, your obsession with those beasts goes beyond understanding and has to build and evolve from that real misread of how important that would be for a Targaryen, both symbolically, but also practically into the,

Let me tell you how Aegon's coronation is going to go. Well, but, and I think what's important, like she understands the symbolism of the state and stuff like that, but it's just important, again, the underline as we did before, that Otto and Alicent, as politically canny as they are capable of being and do become and how instrumental they are in pushing things one way or another, are fundamentally ill-equipped to understand what a Targaryen civil war is. They just fundamentally cannot understand it.

Here's my last bullet point. And we can go back to more dragon stuff if you want, but I will just say this really quickly. In a move that certainly won't haunt her for the rest of her life, Rhaenyra moves to the left of her family, three kiddos, her nice gay husband and his nice gay boyfriend, to Dragonstone. The king, it should be said, looks very ill and likely won't last much longer. You know, it is amazing. An absolute marvel that Viserys makes it to the end of episode eight. Incredible. Spoiler, he does. Frankly astonishing.

Oh, Viserys. Paddy. What a joy. What a treasure he was to watch. Truly. A real treat. I love that Dragonstone Bridge, man. It's always great. Always great to see someone strolling up that bridge. Never goes well, but it's always great. Shout out the volume.

On the dragon stuff front, the other things quickly, we get some like dragon keeper training, which is always interesting to watch. You know that once they're fully bound to you, they will refuse to take instruction from any other lesson that Jace receives as he's preparing to give a command to Vermax. Daemon, this is the Daemon, Lena, Bela, Reyna, Pentos episode. And so crucially, it is our first real time with Vhagar, which is Vhagar thrilling. But Daemon,

is this figure who's like, it's in his library, reading the histories, soaking up the lore. Just like us, you know, soaking up the lore. Just a book guy and a girl bad, you know? But then it's like the very sad aspect of that where we see him

tutoring Bela, who is a rider. And then Reyna's like, dad doesn't give a shit about me because I'm not a rider. Heartbreaking. And the lesson that Lena imparts to Reyna is a really cool part of that episode. Like you ever heard a road, but Bela's dragon was born to her. But if you wish to be a rider, you must claim that right. That idea of like claiming that right. And then of course, this is the episode where Lena asks Vhagar to burn her alive so that she will have a dragon rider's death. Yeah.

Very intense. So it's a big, it's a big, it's not as big as the next one on the dragon front, but it's a big, it's a big dragon lore episode. Actually, there's a lot sprinkled in that one. I cheated a little. Some Helena prophecy. He'll have to close an eye. You love a Helena prophecy. I do. And I love bug stuff. As you know, um, you do, you do. I'm going to, I'm going to seven. Who's a bullet point from episode six and episode seven. Oh, it's just to set the stage. And to say this, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde,

To lose one wife may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness. After murdering question mark, question mark, his first wife. I mean. Damon has lost his second to childbirth slash self-immolation. Lena leaves behind two daughters and one very large, very unclaimed dragon. That's where we are on Driftmark.

That builds nicely into my first one, which is Aemon. Unsurprisingly, my first one is Aemon claiming Vhagar and giving us an eye for an eye, one of the most iconic sequences in the show and the story. The oldest and largest dragon in the realm, the fight that the kids have, like the sequence of the claiming is like a thrill. If you're a fantasy lover and you love magical creatures, that's great. That was wonderful. I adored it. The intensity of what follows is just like exceptional television, but

fight with the kids and the sound

when Luke slices, it's an uppercut with the technique, the blade technique. It's fascinating to watch. I always love when Sir Harold shows up and he's like, God, speaking of it, looks at Aemon's face. Tough one. But then that builds to the fight. Everybody's gathered. Everybody's assembled. Viserys is irate. The bastard whispers. Aemon's leaning. Aemon's leaning, of course. Rhaenyra's showing up late being like, ah!

I couldn't sleep. I took the air. I definitely wasn't fucking local. I was shaking the sand out of her skirts. Oh, man. Quick injection of bullet point there, too. Yeah. User at Targaryen Tart asks, am I the asshole?

For propositioning and then fucking my uncle under a pile of driftwood at his second wife's funeral, faking my gay husband's death, and then marrying my uncle at a seaside hippie occult dragon ceremony. That's a good smuggle. There's a lot in that one. Love that one. Wonderful stuff. Yeah. I can picture you slicing a lip to draw runes in your own blood as you read that to me. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's the thing that I definitely do when I do our notes. 100%. Occult blood stuff.

What was the... When we were picking house tomorrow, wasn't there a... Was Blood Sisters? Blood Sisters, yeah. Blood Sisters would gain some traction. People really wanted that one.

Oh, man. I don't know. I don't see that one tearing up the charts on iTunes anytime soon. Blood Sisters. We do have some Blood Sisters action in this episode because Allison slices Rhaenyra's arm open with the dagger of prophecy. Whoops. Joe Great News. It's a clean cut. This is not actually one of my items. This just makes me think of it when Laenor comes back late.

And, you know, everybody's wounds are being tended to. And he's like, is everyone okay? And then the camera pans to Luke. Anyway, back to Alice and to Rhaenyra. One of the scenes of the season, right? This is the...

Even that you've entitled Alicent lament and the Rhaenyra exhausting, wasn't it hiding beneath the cloak of your own righteousness, but now they see you as you are fight. And it builds toward Alicent like being ashamed, which is an important thing for us to see. She leaves this with regret.

I asked for a child's eye in front of everyone and then I sliced open the Iron Throne's arms. What, dad? I feel like I made a mistake and the Viserys is mad at me. And Otto's response is like, I never thought you had it in you until right now. Right? It's just wild insight into their dynamic. Not my favorite moment of parenting from Otto. I think this is my favorite Otto line of the season, though, in that conversation with Alicent.

what that rogue Aemond has done in winning Vhagar to our side. The boy was right. It's worth a thousand times the price he paid. You love Dragonmath. You love Dragonmath. I love Dragonmath. I do. I do. My second item is Daemon and Rhaenyra finally fucking, which you already hit. Listen.

We need to go back, though, to that Allison and Rhaenyra. Because remember when we talked about them just being girls and pals when they were kids? Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, where's duty, where's sacrifice is trampled under your pretty little foot. It's just a normal thing that you say to an old friend of yours. More or less normal than leaning into your uncle and saying it felt good to be desired and then whispering, I want you as you put your hands on his chest. I want you. Oh.

Oh, man. My final one is the Laenor not dead reveal as part, entwined with this marriage pact for Rhaenyra and Daemon, both because of what Rhaenyra is saying to Daemon and Daemon is saying to Rhaenyra.

That we've always been meant to burn together idea, the way they talk about fire and the way they talk about the sea. It's so interesting to contrast how they view, even while acknowledging like the pitfalls and perils, these symbols of Targaryen might with how Viserys like fears them and the way that they are actively cultivating in a way that we still have questions about, honestly, this like they will fear what else we might be capable of response. And the Laenor not actually being dead thing was just not only interesting,

interesting in terms of the story, the Corlys and Rhaenys dynamic, right? So many of the great Corlys lines, like, what is this brief mortal life if not the pursuit of legacy? And the Rhaenys attacks about his insatiable pride are in this episode. And of course, opens questions for us, like, heading into season two now, still, like, there's a moment in season one where Rhaenyra's like, I didn't, I wasn't a part of that.

But she's not like, by the way, your son is actually alive. So we're still like wondering if that is coming because in the book, this was a shock to us. Like in the book, it's like, Laner's dead. So not only what this means inside of the flow of the story of the show, but this was, I thought, a really big, I mean, there are a ton of adaptive changes. Actually, this is something we had a lot of fun talking with Ryan Condal about like more broadly. But this was one where we were like, we genuinely like can't be sure we know what is going to happen. So that just felt really seismic.

You already covered it, but I'm just going to read my final bullet point anyway and say, in a move that certainly won't haunt him for the rest of his short life, Luke's dagger finds a home in Aemon's eye. Aemon loses an eye, but gains a giant fucking dragon. And as far as dragon math goes, that's him coming out way ahead. The king, it should be said, looks very ill and likely won't last much longer. On the...

That was just an absolutely savage bit of evisceration. Tracker, Sarah's saying the gods can be cruel because he's basically like offering his sympathies to his brother who he has not seen in some time. And Damon replying, it seems they've been especially cruel to you as he takes in his brother's festering state.

Great. Honestly, great stuff. I chuckle. I can't think of a single phrase that would better take us into episode eight than festering state. The Lord of the Tides. What do you got?

I just want to add a six year time jump. I just want to add plots and schemes, signs and portents, a new one from you, uh, perils and pitfalls. Just, just, just putting it on the, on the list. Okay.

The Kings? Yeah, I'm going to need you to, sorry, I'm going to need you to pause and reset your Zoom background because I'm still seeing some dragon orgies and I need you to update. No, it's all. Targaryen heraldry needs to go. It's time for some seven-pointed stars. Seven-pointed stars. Yeah, it's just green. It's just green. We're on episode eight. Okay, Lord of the Tides. The King's Limbs

Teeth and probably organs are dropping like flies, but no worries. He's got a gold Phantom of the Opera mask to disguise it all. And he makes a long, very long, very slow, very long walk to the throne. Joanna and Mallory cry as the Sarah Sarah's drops his crown and Damon picks it up. Come on.

Couldn't love this more. I was thinking of this so much when, you know, Ryan is going to talk about the complication, the contradiction that is Daemon Targaryen, and this is just like one of those very key moments. Absolutely fantastic sequence. We get to see this like reunion between this gravely ailing Viserys and Daemon and Rhaenyra, like the way he like wheezes Daemon's name when he realizes he's Daemon. And when he's introduced to Aegon and Viserys, and he's like...

Oh, name fit for a king. Just heartbreaking. And then Rhaenyra going to him in the dead of night. Like, defend me. And my children asking if he really believes that the Song of Ice and Fire is true and asking him to stand for her and then the way he does. And on that long walk, in terms of just the cinematography and the direction...

The contrast between the looks and how Allison and Otto are framed, and then the way that the camera positions Rhaenyra as Viserys looks over at her, almost in this angelic...

Light. Yeah. Light. It's just so fascinating. I will sit the throne today. And then Aldo has to kind of bow away. I just love it. That was my first one too, obviously. It's just fantastic. Couldn't be better. Shout out, and we haven't yet, but please shout out to Olivia Cooke's frustrated, disgusted face, which she shows so many times. One of my favorites is when

But Sarah starts talking to her about it's the stallion, right? He was like, it was the stallion. And she's like, what are you talking about? And Olivia Cooke's face is just like. Did you witness the act? The like flaring of the nostrils in her eyes. She's just like, Jesus Christ, man. Okay. I love the body language and the look when she's like, I don't need the blanket. Earlier episode was still sensational. Great stuff. What's your next one?

What Viserra said, quote, something, something, milk of the poppy, something, something, Aegon, mumble wheeze, dying dead. What Alyson heard, do anything up to and including letting my dead body rot in a room for several days in order to put our shitty, irresponsible, rapist son Aegon, not my long-standing heir Rhaenyra, on the throne.

Yeah. I summed this up. This was my third one as a stop naming all your kids egg on. Yeah. This is just still so fascinating to me. Like the way a misunderstanding plays such a crucial role in this war and like the backdrop inside of war

the prior episodes too, but this episode in particular of Allison and Egon's relationship, like the way that everything unfolds with Diana, the way that Allison goes to him and says, you're no son of mine. And then the misinterpretation of, of Sarah's final words before he reaches out with his rotting hand and calls out for his love and leaves this mortal coil many episodes after we thought he might based on the state of his life.

Failing body. My guy, you made it so far. Way further than you should have. You really did. You really did. And Joe, I went out of order, but my second one was Three Strong Boys Redux because... Dinner party from hell. Before everything falls apart, you know, Viserys gives this stirring speech at this last family supper...

The crown cannot stand strong if the house of the dragon remains divided and Alicent and Rhaenyra, first Rhaenyra, then Alicent, they toast each other. Like, it feels for a second, for an instant. Viserys certainly thinks so as he looks out and just... Like, I did it. So I'll get it all in. I said...

He's like, remember in episode one when I solved misogyny? Now I have also solved. Everything will be fine. Take me to bed. This longstanding conflict between my family. I'm ready to drift off. I'm sure I won't say anything confusing in my final breaths and moments. Everything's fine. And then, you know, there's the everything with Egon and Jace and Bela, the poking and the prodding, the prodding and the poking. And then Luke's lab laughter.

The smirk at the pig when the pig is brought out to the table. Eamon's response, the three strong boys toast. It just all falls apart. What would have happened if they served lamb instead of pig? That's probably a question I asked when we podcasted about that before. Maybe everything would be fine. Maybe everything would be completely fine. Here's how I bullet pointed that. Dinner Party from Hell starring Allison's mean blonde children plus sweet Helena.

And Rhaenyra's sweet children plus her mean husband, Daemon, things do not go well. It's a great scene for Helena. Let me share my thoughts on marriage. P.S. Neither of us talked about Daemon cutting a man's head in half. Sorry, Daemon. Sorry, Daemon. But yeah, for Daemon at that point, it's like, yeah, of course that's what Daemon did. He can keep his tongue. All right. Penultimate episode. The Green Council.

Here's the first and most important bullet point. Are you ready? Is it about Kristen's hat? Lord Lyman Beesbury takes one for the team. And by one, I mean a small council ball to the eye. And for the team, I mean team black because he's the only one on the small council sticking up for Nira during a full blown coup. Bees. R.I.P.

God's be good indeed. God's be good to you, sir. Forever. Via small ball. You have to really think about, I mean, Kristen's strong and the balls are, they're firm, but. They're not pointy. He just like shoved him down and he's got his skull just disintegrated. I do want to shout out. I mean. I love his like, his final stand. Like this is seizure. Yeah. And his theft and his treason. He did try. He's a good guy. Yeah.

Great showing for bees. I do want to like, we remember God's Be Good. We remember Dear Me. We remember all of that. I do want to go back to the wedding banquet and shout out Beesbury for just hightailing it the fuck out of there as soon as things get dicey. He's like, oh, and me? I'm leaving. Bye. There's like a Lyman Beesbury shaped hole in the wall as he's so quick to get out of there. Anyway. He has some great little moments. Like, I like seeing him take the bats. He's just working as a bookie at the Aeros Torni in the premieres.

My first one was a related one. It's the riffs among the greens because this entire episode is team green. And as anybody who listened to our podcast in real time will surely recall, this was not our favorite episode of the season. And we were actually kind of confounded by whether this was

Whether the dramatic tension inside of this episode was compelling or for us like too inert. But this particular aspect of Allison learning that the rest of the small council had been plotting in secret. Important.

The team Alicent versus team Otto race to find Aegon, still very strange to me to this day because they both want to install him as king and the distinction is simply... Negligible. ...about what decision they'll make regarding Rhaenyra and the other thing, of course, that... Yeah, it's a little confusing. I do like the framing of, like, Alicent doesn't want Rhaenyra to die. Otto, like, would happily kill her. So that's, like, important. But, like... Yes.

Yeah, let me just hit a quick bullet point and say two indistinguishable twins, a murder-cooked Eamon and Kristen Cole on a stupid hat go looking for Prince Aegon in the bowels of a pleasure den. They don't find him there, but they keep looking. Eric and Eric. That's Eric and Arik, actually. Eric and Arik. What an astonishing amount of time we spent with them in the penultimate episode of season one. I'm grateful for Kristen's dumb hat.

It gave us so much joy. Just, we got to see if Eamon says to him, he said time to get it wet while recounting Egon taking him to the street of silk when he was 13. And Kristen said, every woman is an image of mother to be spoken of with reverence without wearing the stupid hat. It wouldn't have been the same, but he had stupid hat on when he said it. The other thing I want to highlight inside of this, the rift among the greens and this, this,

competing chase to find Aegon first is what Aemond expresses about his brother and himself. And that whole, it is I, the younger brother's speech we get as he builds toward, it is I who should be...

stops just shy of saying king but then says I'm next in line should they come looking for me I intend to be found so that's a that's a really notable thing inside of that episode great stuff Eamon's like I speak nine languages I've got a huge dragon I've got a sapphire in my eye I'm ready to go let's go let's do it sure does oh man Joe our hearts were never one I see that now but Eamon does have a sapphire in his eye he's got one of those so that's great good stuff

The Hightowers. What's your second one? It's actually my last. During Aegon's Coronation. Yep. Rhaenys breaks out of captivity on Dragonback, killing Hun of small folk.

But for some reason, declining to torch anyone in the royal family because it's quote unquote not her war. But who gives a shit about this mother? This is on my list as well. This is the beast beneath the boards. Another little Helena Colonel. Helena, you genius. Bearing fruit here. This is just still, this is just extremely strange. Extremely strange. It will never make sense. It's just extremely odd.

Oh, man. We did get the good Renise Allison scene earlier in the episode that we loved. You just have to be free but to make a window in the wall of your prison. But Renise and Maylee's crashing through the floor of the dragon pit, murdering legions of small folk and then being like, this isn't my war to start in the next episode in terms of not wanting to inflict violence on the greens. Quite odd. Quite odd. My last one is Footstuff. Yes.

Thank you. Foot stuff. Interesting Laris episode in a few respects. He's got the little finger energy when he goes to Otto and is like, there's no reason those hours that I've been spending with your daughter can't in the end benefit you. You know, playing every side, working every relationship. And speaking of angles, this is the episode where we learn that he likes to wank it to Allison's feet.

get the initial glimpse and then no, I need you to lift them all the way up onto the chase so I can see in full as he is revealing the information about the, uh, the spy network. It's disgusting and upsetting. And I'm really sorry that Alison feels that she needs to do this. But again, this is like Alison team, Alison, that she has amassed here. Kristen Cole, who sucks Laris who rules, but also sucks, um, her shitty children, all of that. Um,

And, you know, Rhaenyra has Daemon. She doesn't even have Rhaenys on her team because Rhaenys is like, I'm not even involved in this war. I'm not going to do it. Rhaenyra. Does that take us to the finale? The Black Queen. Episode 10. How many of your items are about Boros Baratheon not knowing how to read? In my heart, all of them. In actuality, none of them. Rhaenyra gets her own crown.

And in a move that certainly won't haunt her for the rest of her life, she sends her young sons, Jason, Luke, to round up some allies. Great stuff. A remarkable commitment to the bit today. I love it. Sensational. Sensational. Rhaenyra's coronation is my first one as well. Erik, bring in Viserys's crown. Not Erik. Swat the lord, the queen. Don't, don't.

Don't make the mistake. It was not Arik. As Mallory said, it was clearly said it was Arik, not Arik. Arik was Arik, not Arik. Okay. Just be very clear about that. You know, in the armor here, so there's no longer like a delicate pipe on a bit of common clothing to track. The armor,

We were just looking at the photo of these twins at the London premiere where they're wearing- Exquisite. Identical, like beautiful, like very like sort of Alain Delon, like in the Riviera outfits. But one of them has like a top knot and the other doesn't. And one of them is covered in tattoos. The tattoos would obviously be extremely helpful to us. But barring that-

Why didn't you give one a top knot and one not? I will never to this day now. Oh, man. The Cargill twins. The funeral turning into the coronation. Not only the mirror, obviously very sad, this little bundle mirroring the funeral and the premiere, but this idea of

Of fire and rebirth for the Targaryens, death into life, but also how inescapable loss feels for these characters. And of course, as part of the coronation, you know, Daemon placing the crown on her head. And that's it. And they're a strong unit for the rest of time always. My next, my second thing is just Daemon versus Rhaenyra and there are like 5,000 things we could talk about. Rhaenyra tells Daemon about the prophecy which pisses him off actually. Well, actually, I'm going to say the last part of that bullet point.

Because, I mean, the big thing that happens in this episode, obviously, is Luke runs into his cousin, old Aemon One-Eye, and his giant fuck-off dragon, Vhagar, and poor little Luke and poor little A-Rex get chomped in midair. Very sad. You owe me a debt! Incredible sequence. The shot of...

Vhagar and Aemond versus Luke and Ereks was my third one as well, obviously. The shot of Vhagar. Little tiny little fluttering Ereks and giant Vhagar up above. But like before that. That was incredible. Before that, Vhagar like sort of rising up in the night and the rain. Like Godzilla. Like it's just. It's incredible. Yeah. The.

bookend in that episode or from the start like Jace and Rhaenys on their totally normal sized dragons and then little like Eryx just trying to keep up for Max and Maelys are like this is fine little

Very, very sad. Little fluttering baby. The way, like, Aerax with the plume of flame into Vhagar's face. Vhagar obviously just ignoring everything that Aemon says. The way that both Luke and Aemon are shouting, like, serve me. And we get this stretch of, no, no, no, no.

from Eamon that bookend to Viserys's warning from episode one about the hubris of control and how central that theme is here and this just the moment where Rhaenyra turns to the camera after learning what has happened and the look on Rhaenyra's face I'm gonna fuck everyone up for this what a note for the next season um

Back on the Rhaenyra and Daemon front, which was the number two, there's a lot to hit inside of that. They're just very... They're not on the same page. They've got a lot to work through. And there's a lot of arguing in front of the War Council. Not ideal. Not ideal. Sending ravens without her leave. Jailbreakers.

Jace is like, nothing's supposed to happen without my mom's sign off. And he's like, let me take you to this little dragon intimidation session I have planned for the Knights of the Queen's Guard. The dragon math from Damon in this episode is crucial and important. He runs through. Dragonstone has 13 to therefore. And then he's like, let me remind you, I also.

down into the dragon to find some eggs. So they're establishing, they're drawing attention to what the dragon math is at that point in the story. But they have very different reads on how to proceed. Like, I love that moment when Rhaenyra says, if you could take the Iron Throne without putting Otto Hightower's head on a spike, would you? Because, as you noted in your item about, you know, Rhaenyra mentioning this larger responsibility and burden to protect the realm, and Daemon's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

She is thinking in a completely different way about what really is her charge, what she has to pursue and why. And Damon is like, I'm going to go sing to Vermithar. They just have such different places with how they're assessing this. But the way that Damon says, after obviously the incredibly horrifying story,

where he chokes her. Dreams didn't make us kings. Dragons did. And this divide between Daemon and Viserys that now emerges here and what that might mean moving forward. It's just like a really harrowing note in this episode. What I really love about this is like when you think of the triangulation, I mean, it's harrowing, yes. I don't mean to gloss over that. But like when you think of the triangulation between Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Viserys,

It's like, you know, if right is doing more dragon stuff and left is doing... They were both right of...

And when Viserys is there as a comp, they're like, we both agree. More dragon stuff than what Viserys wants to do. But once Viserys is gone, Daemon's like, oh no, I'm way further right than you are. Oh no, we are not at all aligned. We thought we were in comparison to Viserys, but without that reference point, we find ourselves scattered on this spectrum of warmongering, bloodthirstiness, whatever the case may be, power hunger, et cetera. So...

Here comes season two, where I'm sure that miscommunication and not on the same page in this will not come home to roost. Season one. There you go. We did it. I just want to say, I love and adore you. And I just think you did an incredible job with all the research and all the quotes and everything that you did. Absolutely wonderful. And I'm sorry that I interpreted the prompt a little goofier than you did. But here we are at the end of the day.

I thought it was an absolute joy and a thrill to revisit a season that we shared together in real time. And we're going to get to do it again. But before we watch season two, we get to chat with House of the Dragon showrunner, Ryan Condal. Should we go to that conversation? Let's do it. Okay, Ryan, thank you so much for joining us today. We are absolutely thrilled. And I am going to shock all of our listeners by opening with a question about magical creatures.

For me, one of the great delights of House of the Dragons season one was its active embrace of the fantasy elements of the tale from dragon dreams to dragon claiming and writing. We get to see Aemon claim Vhagar. We get to watch Daemon sing a lullaby to Vermithor. Wondering a couple things here. Does...

your own fandom make examining and centering these elements of the lore more exciting and more crucial to you? And then how do you think about...

finding the marriage of mythology and theme, because that was one of our favorite parts of the first season, too. Like, I think my favorite example from season one would be Viserys's warning to Rhaenyra in the first episode, the idea that we control the dragons is an illusion, building toward Vhagar disobeying Aemond as she eats Arax like a fun-sized Halloween candy. Starting the dance. Tough one for all involved.

Yeah, I mean, I think I bring my love of sort of weird fiction into this. It's kind of inseparable, I think, from being a fan of A Song of Fire. And what I love about the original books

and the way George introduced the fantasy was after he sort of, you know, hits you in the face with it, with the prologue of the first book where you meet the white walkers beyond the wall and the undead. But clearly in that meeting, uh, that's all new news. So all those, uh, the, the rain, you know, the Rangers, uh, uh, Waymore Royce and all those guys that are out there. So, you know, that it's a, it's not, this is not an everyday event for them either. It seems like for them, it's like a, it's like a, uh,

a a a boogie monster you know coming to life um and then after that there really is nothing

or very little maybe it's hinted at and it seems like maybe varus had you know there was some magic done earlier in his life but you're you're constantly questioning yourself if this magic exists in this world or does it not as he kind of turns the genre on its ear and then um you know three books later you have uh dire wolves uh warging you have uh you have face changing assassins uh fire magic uh shadow babies um dragons are reborn

But all these things, they're slowly and very methodically introduced, and there's a cost to all of them. It's not this world of sort of free magic and very, very high fantasy. And it just reminded me of

very much of Robert E Howard and Conan the Barbarian which is a favorite of mine from you know way back in the day when I was reading Tolkien and everything as a high school kid so yes I wanted to imbue this world with that it's uh in a way it's a bit more challenging because uh I

Everyone laughs when I say this, but House of the Dragon does not happen in as accessibly a fantasy world or readily a fantasy world as the original Game of Thrones does because we don't have the undead and skin changers and fire magic. We have dragons. We have 17 dragons, and that is the big magic in the world. But all of that magic exists, and we know from...

the original books that dragons leaving the world meant that magic largely left the world. So in theory, in this time, magic is even stronger than it was in Daenerys and Jon Snow's time. So I wanted to figure out ways to

bring that in, but also make it feel like it did in my first experience of reading the books. And I think a good example of that is what we did with the dragon dreams and the prophecy and the white heart story in episode three. And look, what do you believe? They just saw a white deer, whether that's magical or mystical. I think it's part of the fun of this world. It is not ever...

you know, totally spelled out for you, the magic elements. And yeah, and I think, anyway, those are the things that I kind of love about this and makes this, that's what makes this not just another sort of Tudors series of a bunch of people with British accents fighting over a throne. That's what makes this world unique. And I, you know, I want to lean into that.

I want to ask you a bit about like pushing that even further in season two, because there, there was a lot of talk of dreams, but not a lot of talk of like, not a lot of surreality in the first season. But, you know, we, things we love about the original thrones are like the sequence of the house of the undying, like this idea of dreams and surreality. And I know that like,

Matt has been talking in interviews about sort of the odder shape of the season for his storyline. So I was wondering if you could talk about that at all, about the idea of where you draw the line in terms of how magical to go. Yeah, I think you're walking in constant balance because you don't ever want it to feel like it's everywhere and all the time. And I think one of the good rules to follow is that

when you introduce something like that, the way to make it feel special and unique, even within this world, where characters, I think, generally accept that some level of magic does exist. Or...

or things that are supernatural that they cannot explain. When it's happening to them and they're freaked out by it, then I think you're saying, just like the example with the White Walkers from the prologue of Game of Thrones, those characters were freaked out about that and it made it feel special and unique, even with a world where we're kind of accepting that magic exists. So I want to let everybody have kind of a pure experience and read of the season. But yes, I think we've...

I think we've done a good job of texturing and layering this world with some more of those elements while also staying true to the kind of accepted, I would say, magic systems, for lack of a better word, that George has already established. So Joanna's dream is to become a witch, as you might have gleaned. Great. It's true. Our shared dream is to spend time thinking about the stories that we love and what we would build if we got to...

play in these well-tended and well-loved sandboxes. So, of course, we have to ask you about getting to adapt a George R.R. Martin text. And part of what has been so fun and interesting for us as book readers is that we actually don't know what's going to happen because, of course, Fireblood is full of these competing tales from unreliable narrators. So when you're going from page to screen, how are you deciding which

little kernel to make a meal out of, which offhand mention can become a real plot driver when maybe an assumed historical fact in the text, like say, Laenor's death and fire and blood will be revealed as something else entirely, you know, a secret escape on the open sea. And then most crucially, like, how do you decide whether to align your canon with Mushroom, Eustace,

Munkin or none at all. Is there an unreliable narrator's account that you're inclined to put the most stock into? I don't think there's a, I just answered the last question first. I don't think, no, I don't think so. I think we just try to find our way through the narrative in the most, I think the most interesting way possible is simply put. And now that we've spent a lot of time with these individual characters,

characters and the characters as we write and spend time with them tend to evolve. I think we use the characters as guidance for how to get through the history. So it's a lot of times it's playing on, well, we know, you know, we know our show version of Alison say like, and what, what would show Alison do most likely in this situation. And then we look at the history and see how the history interpreted it and try, you know, try to play with that. So we're trying to, we're trying to

walk you through this history in a way where people can interact with the sort of book written history and say, oh, I can see how a historian writing about this event

20 years after it happened with the court records would be able to put it back together in this way. But I can see how the thing that I just watched happen in live real time could get interpreted that way 20 years on. So I think, and I think some things are just exactly as they're written in the book. And, and that's the fun of it is like, you know, as with, I imagine real medieval history, some things we have right. And other things we are

we are totally way off on. And until we invent time travel and can go back there, like in Michael Crichton's timeline, we won't have an accurate retelling of the history. And I, that's what we really want as writers, you know, Sarah, Sarah Hess and I, my writing partner, we, we really want this show to be not just a didactic retelling of, of the history. We want it to be accurate and faithful, but we want it to be a companion piece to the book so that even people that have read the book can be satisfied in the experience of,

watching the show and saying, oh, that's interesting how they've taken this accepted event and then spun it. But I can see how the history was accurate or it was mostly accurate, but this little element was off or they got it totally wrong. But this thing that happens three moves down the road still happens because all the other events lined up. And if you look at these three guys as trying mushroom aside, mushroom is very much his own case.

Yeah. My favorite. We're team mushroom over here. Very good. Mushroom who was not there. Yeah. I want to see the later spin off the show. That's like a very adult animated series where they just do the mushroom version of everything through this entire history. We're ready. Absolutely. No, no. But yeah.

But like Eustace and Munkin, they're trying to put this thing back together. And then Gildane on top of it is the poor guy that's sifting through all these things trying to write this history. And we also imagine that there's – in some way, even if there's not a kind of naked agenda, there is an agenda in the writing of this history. And it feels – if you read the pages –

Is this sort of underlying take on this where you could say that there are these, again, mushroom aside, there are these two men who wrote these accounts and a third man who are all kind of in service of a...

a more orderly world that's outside of the Targaryen empire, um, that are kind of trying to make sense of and place blame for the war that kind of ended all wars in, in, in Westeros, this, this, you know, this world changing war that took all the dragons off the table. And if you read it with, with that bent and like, you know, I'll let people interpret what that means.

Um, it, it, it opens up an entirely new and interesting interpretation of what goes on in fire and blood. And that's what we love about the book. And what we think is so brilliant about it is it really is a very unique piece of material to adapt.

Because if you take a novel, you can't either adapting the novel or you're doing a, you know, you're doing your own, your own version of it. You're taking, you're taking another direction. I think there's variations on like how faithful and adaptation is to a novel. And we know changes are made for all different reasons. Whereas this, there's this, I don't know.

There's this kind of like living conversation between the show and the book. And I hope that, I've always said that I hope that people who read the book that come to the show, it can deepen their enjoyment of both and vice versa. So if you've read, if you've watched the show and then you go back and read the book, hopefully it deepens your enjoyment of reading the book and, and brings, shows you new layers of the show that maybe, maybe you wouldn't have seen unless you'd read the book.

That's my hope. Lofty goals. No, I completely agree. And I think, you know, you're leaving it open to interpretation. So I will say,

My interpretation of part of what you're talking about is this, you know, it's three men pinning the blame for this war on two women, right? That's part of it. There's a lot of other factors involved, but that's part of it. And I think the smartest adaptive choice that you and your writers made in the first season was the friendship between Rhaenyra and Alicent and how that sort of burbles underneath everything, which is completely different from the account that we get in the book.

I was wondering if that is your favorite adaptive change or if you have a different adaptive change that you're sort of proudest of. Yeah, I mean, that one was, I think, pretty readily apparent in the early days as we were trying to figure out how to create a dynamic between Alice and

that would lead to surprise instead of just, you know, if they hated each other right out of the gate, it doesn't give you many places to run. But we, you know, it sort of started with, well, hey, what if they were, what if they were a little more contemporary in age? Because, you know, in the book, I think Allison is listed, her age is listed as a bit older than Rhaenyra. Not that that really matters, but, and we also meet Rhaenyra

at this point in the timeline when she's older versus being literally a child, which makes her have more agency and direction in life and driving her parents more crazy than she would probably as an eight-year-old. So that was something that was, I think,

apparent as you get into the material of like, if we're going to frame the show around these two women, how do we make it dynamic and interesting? So definitely very proud of that. I think the take on Viserys as a character, which again, a direct reading of Viserys in the book, the show is completely faithful to that because all of the elements of Viserys that escape the history are the

kind of contradictory elements about him and the things that you would, would not be in the court record. It would just be like, oh, it's this guy that kind of likes the attorney attorneys and feasts. And he, you know, he doesn't, he tries to not to rock the boat too much when he's making choices. But then when you hear him in, in these private bedchamber conversations with Raniera and then later with Alison as his wife, you see how conflicted this guy is because he's carrying the secret around and it really deeply kind of nuances the

the decisions that he's making and this promise that he made that almost to a, to a detriment to himself in the realm, to keep the realm at peace. He's taken it on like this, this, you know, millstone about his neck. So he won't even in many ways, won't even discipline his own daughter or just, or properly deal with his, his, his, his insane brother and, uh, and the chaotic force that he is within his reign. So, I mean, those are the two things that leap out to me. I think, uh, you know, I, I,

We're trying, you know, my hope is that we're not making radical changes in the books. I mean, I think everybody's going to come to this with their own interpretation of what that word means in terms of an adaptation. But the fun for us is trying to render a very faithful adaptation of the story with surprising twists and variations on it that hopefully make the show a

another layer, an interesting layer of this storyline and gives people that are so familiar with the book, in the end, surprises to find as you go on and a reward for spending all this time on the couch engaging with our show. Building off of Allison and Rhaenyra, who were obviously such a dynamic and magnetic scene pairing in season one, the dragons are dancing.

Which means that many of the characters who played off of each other in season one are now forced apart by the story. Either because a fixture like Viserys, who you were just chatting about, and his rotting limbs, and his golden face mask are no longer in the mix. Or because the ratcheting up of the war of succession just definitionally separates people who used to share a room in season one.

Allison and Rhaenyra are figureheads of the opposing sides. Daemon and Rhaenyra are both Team Black, but Daemon ends season one by declaring his intention to go seek out a toehold in the Riverlands. So did you meet this structural reality that is present and inextricable, really, from the nature of the story?

as a chance to just keep season after season unearthing new fresh magic between newer character pairings? Or does this feel like a real challenge that you have to try to creatively solve against? Or both? Are those things not mutually exclusive?

I mean, I think part of the gift that I think the expanding narrative of both Game of Thrones books give you, meaning the original series and Fire and Blood, is that you start

with everybody under one roof in times of general peace. And then, and then, uh, a hand grenade is kind of dropped into the mix and scatters everybody in the, in the form of war kicking off. You know, we meet, we meet all the Starks living together under the same roof and, uh, in the, the original books. And then we get to know this family and care about each one of them. And then we follow them as they, uh,

They go on their various adventures. And some of them will encounter each other again when they're different people, and others will never see each other again, very sadly, in the future narrative. So I think

We kind of use that as a, that's a great storytelling mode because it makes you realize how precious this time is that these characters that you love have together. And you don't know whether they're going to see each other again. One could march off and die or just the circumstances of the war could mean that it doesn't bring them back together or doesn't bring them back together within the bookended narrative of our show. So I think we lean into that and sending characters on their way.

uh, diaspora in this, uh, in the story as part of the way you introduce new characters, because when Damon goes to a new play, we care about Damon, we know Damon. So we're in his point of view. So we're interested in the people that he's going to meet and encounter along the way. And that's how you engage with, you know, with, with, um, this new layer of characters. And I think again, you know, Thrones did the same thing in the original series, every series that came along, every season that followed the first, you would meet

you know, more and more new characters, but you would usually meet them at least starting in the POV of a character that you already knew and followed and cared about. So it's this clever way that all these little dots are connected. And by the end, you have this really rich tapestry of people that then you start to have to kill off in order to have a manageable narrative to tell and bring it back around to the end. But very simply, part of the fun of a Game of Thrones narrative is taking these characters,

Meeting them together, loving them and loving their relationship, blowing them apart through the same circumstances of the world, sending them on their various adventures and then wanting or willing them to find their way back to each other. And sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. Right.

Speaking of new characters, Mallory and I are huge Slow Horses fans, huge fans of The Greats. We are thrilled that Freddie Fox is in the cast this season. My guy. I'm a huge Tom Bennett fan, love and friendship. I think he's one of the funniest people alive. So I was wondering if- Love Tom. I was wondering if the introduction of these more comedically gifted actors, Freddie Fox as Gwaine Hightower, Tom Bennett as Ulf White,

intentional as the war ramps up and things get naturally like more horrific, more bloodthirsty. So like that, are you like, let's lighten the tone a little by bringing like, not that season one didn't have its own laughs, but like bringing people like Freddie and Tom into the mix. For sure. I mean, I think a lot of the humor, the inherent humor in, um, in

in the original books and in, in game of Thrones is by finding these kind of culture, cultural clashes, and then putting them together. Bron and Tyrion is a great example. Um, you know, Sander Clegane and anybody in the world. Um, and that, that is where you, that is where you extract humor. And as the world gets darker, the opportunity for gallows humor just increases. Uh, so I think, yes, we are definitely, um,

we want to find those moments of levity in the show, but it's about earning them so it doesn't feel like you're winking into the camera or breaking the bond that you have with the audience and the agreement that everybody in this show doesn't know that they're in a Game of Thrones show. For them, this is very real and they're not able to make quips about

dragon puns as the dragon is descending and trying to burn their army. It's just that that's not the tone of our show. So it's finding gifted actors like Tom, like Freddie, and

And bringing them into the, into the mix because that those cultural, you know, and Gwaine Hightower, who's a, um, that we kind of cast as a, uh, a man of great privilege or grew up at the, whatever the equivalent of boarding school would have been at old town. And then you, and then you, um, thrust him into a world where he has to salute a guy like Kristen Cole, who he regards as the, um,

you know, the help who got promoted up to, you know, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. There are really fun dynamics that come from those relationships. And, you know, Tom Bennett in any situation is just funny. So yeah, yes, more of that. I mean, you know, Damon will continue to have very acid things to say to people and not particularly care about their responses to it.

But yeah, I think we landed some good funny this season. Tom Glen Carney is hilarious. I don't know if anybody's prepared for how funny he is and how he can take an expected thing and spin it. But yeah, I mean, as the stakes get higher, it's almost easier to win.

make a joke out of it because it's just a way of releasing the tension out of a very tense situation. You mentioned Damon. Let's build from...

Laughter to black hearts here. You have spoken in other interviews about the surprise that you felt in season one regarding Damon's just embrace by the viewing public is like the internet's bad boyfriend. This podcast is one where Damon is a patron saint of the problematic fave. And so we really wanted to ask you about this because for, for us,

He is not a hero. He is this deeply flawed character who often gravely airs and dismays us, but we find ourselves so drawn to him and pulled in to watch every decision that he makes and everything he does just find him so utterly compelling. In the wake of season one, you almost seemed dismayed that some slices of the fandom viewed him less as this like

gray, messy magnet and more is just like outright hero. How top of mind was that and mining and examining and centering the elements of Damon's character that you consider like essential and true as you set about structuring and writing season two?

I mean, to be clear, just to clear the record, I'm in no way surprised that people are fascinated by Damon. I mean, it's a fascinating character with many layers and twisted corners to explore. And Matt Smith's performance is incredibly charismatic and magnetic. I mean, Matt just beams charisma. It's hard not to be.

glued to Damon when he's on the screen, when Matt is performing him. I totally understand that. There was a sort of subsect of followers that seemed to see Damon as this patron saint

of this world and kind of infallible and everything that he did including putting his hands on his own wife slash niece was justified or somehow a way of trying to, I don't know, diminish him as a character when the real answer is no, he's a deeply broken person. And while he can be fascinating and capable of moments of great honor and heroism,

He's also capable of moments of great monstrosity. And I don't think he's a straight, he's not a straight villain character to me. He is the classic anti-hero in this world. He's deeply conflicted and layered. And, yeah.

You can, in one episode, go through an experience where you're rooting for Damon to kill everybody in the room. And then at the end, going like, what have I done? Who have I sided with? Where am I? And that's the experience that we want people to go through with a lot of characters in this show. We don't want anybody to portray a pure hero or a pure villain. I mean, of course, there are people that sort of trend in either direction. But George...

Always talks about this is a, this is a, there's a world of archetypes with, with where you, you make gray characters. You take the, you take the expected archetype, the way Jamie Lannister was the, the Lancelot archetype, and then you turn it on its ear.

You know, and you make it a surprising character. And we start with Jamie being fascinated and loving him. And then he throws a child out the window and you're like, well, that's it. How can I ever like this guy? He's the great villain of the series. And then he gets his hand chopped off. He gets his great skill taken away from him. And two books later, he's one of the most, you know, beautiful.

purely empathic characters in the book. And that's the kind of experience that we want. We want to not necessarily with Damon, but we want to take people on in these character arcs in the show. You're going to be watching these characters over multiple seasons. You have to go through sort of peaks and valleys with them. So my only surprise was how there were, there were a not, not insignificant percentage of the audience that was willing to make an excuse for anything that Damon had did to justify his heroism. That, that to me felt surprising. Um, yeah,

We do love a character on an arc. Love a character on an arc, Jo. We do. We both have paintings in our respective homes of Jamie, Knighting, Brianne. That's true. So what painting of Damon will we end up with? Who can say? Who can say? We'll find out. There's so many.

Speaking of our favorite sickos, I was listening to your interview with our pals over on the History of Westeros podcast. And you were describing Laris as detached from human emotions, which I consider you doing me a favor and opening up a door for me to talk about foot stuff. And my question to you about Laris, who I love, is if he is someone who is detached from human emotion, is his...

Are his exchanges with Alicent about power and control, something more directly connected to his own physiology, or is there actual desire in the mix there?

I mean, I think it's a complicated spectrum of things, but I think, I mean, that situation in season one was definitely about power and control. I mean, that's what that scene was supposed to be. And it was supposed to be, I think, not on the nose about it, but I think it was supposed to be knowing what we knew about Laris and where Alicent was at her point in the story, which at her kind of zenith of power, that should have read to

to most people, I think, as a quote-unquote power move. That is Laris showing his power to somebody who everybody else in the story and the world regards as incredibly powerful. I love him.

He's a delight. Matt Needham is just wonderful. We have many of these actors on the show, but he's just one of those actors that you can give a breakfast menu to and he can make a Shakespearean plot out of it.

We are very excited to spend more time with Laris in Season 2. We're very excited to travel elsewhere in Season 2, beyond the Red Keep, beyond Dragonstone. Laris might be sad to discover that it's cold up north, a lot of boots and stockings on the feet, not as much visible flesh. But we did want to ask you about the widening of the world in the north in particular. So in Season 1, Rhaenyra and her war council are...

out their plans to recruit new allies, and they're doing so while standing over the painted table, which, by the way, looks just dynamite illuminated in season one. It's absolutely incredible. So this is not only, of course, a reminder of...

this burden that Rhaenyra has inherited to protect the realm, but just felt like a nice wink to us as viewers about how much bigger the story was about to get in season two. So Jace's mission is to head to the Eyrie and then head to Winterfell. The trailers have given us these precious little glimpses of the wall in the north. Joanna and I freaked out when we got to see the ice and the pommel. It was wonderful. We've seen brackens and blackwoods in the trailer. We've done a lot of sigil spotting. We're having fun.

So in addition to the literal battles and showdowns that just traversing Westeros during the dance will, will of course spawn, what did widening the scope of the map beyond King's Landing and Dragonstone to include, you know, not only more, uh,

locations and houses, but also small folk, people outside of a seat of power unlock for you and your team from a storytelling perspective. And then in particular, what was it like to write material for the Starks and the North, given Game of Thrones fans and viewers just deeply entrenched emotional attachment to that slice of the world?

Yeah, I mean, I think everybody will see fairly quickly in this season that the scope and scale of the world expands rather quickly. We've been to

We've had a, at the end of the first season, a king died, a throne was stolen, and a dragon ate another dragon. So the dominoes have started falling in a big way, which means that everybody has to kind of scramble to their corners and start trying to raise armies and alliances in their favor, which means that we get to very naturally broaden out the world, again, through characters that we've already met.

uh, in, in season one, which I think is always the best, best way to do it. The most natural organic way to do it. Uh, so it's, it's a thrill. I mean, it's such a deeply realized world that, um, uh, it's, it's great fun to both take people, I

I think, back to places that they might recognize from the prior series and then take them to new places where maybe you touched on or were mentioned or weren't mentioned at all in the original series and introduced these new worlds, which they're all their own characters. And the people who populate them are very different based on what region they come from and what gods they salute and all those things. And then, as I mentioned before, the kind of the differences in the social strata

as we talked about and having those cultures kind of clash. So it actually presents an opportunity to do all those things, which I'm very excited about because I think you will feel as soon as

a few episodes into the season, you will feel, oh, this is a much bigger tapestry than we were playing on season one when everybody was kind of landlocked to King's landing or drift Margaret Dragonstone or one of one of the three. Um, so it's, it's, we've expanded, we've done it organically. Uh, yes. One of the places we go to is in the north. Uh, I'm excited for people to see that it was great fun. I mean, it's, it's a moment where you can, um, do

do a nice moment of fan service for all of the many millions of fans that very kindly followed our show. Thank you for all of that. But also do it in an organic way that honors what's in the book and also propels the story forward. And those are always things that I'm, you know, I'm a fan of doing. I, you know, I worry about things like terms like fan service, Easter eggs, those things all kind of make me feel icky a bit as a writer, but when there are opportunities to do it that feel like,

satisfying not just on a sort of visceral level, but satisfying on a deep, dramatic, resonant level, then I'm all about them. And I think going up north was a great example of that. I know that...

It's not your job to put together the ad campaign for any given season of your show. But we've been having a lot of fun talking about this sort of team black versus team green ad campaign that HBO has put together for the season. Because the question a lot of people have is like,

How do you root for Team Green? Does it bother you at all? Do you care how much easier it is, at least so far in the story, to root for Team Black? Does it matter to you if the sympathies are balanced between the both sides? Like, how do you feel about that? Um...

Yeah, I mean, thank you. Yes, thankfully they don't ask me to do the marketing because I don't know that I'd be very good at selling my own show. And it's one responsibility that's taken off my plate in the making of this, which I'm grateful for. No, look, I get the reason why they did it. It's a brilliant campaign because it really does activate

engagement and all those things that they're looking for. It's a very, it's a clear message, you know, black and green and it's unique to the show. All the, all those things as going for it. I think we as dramatists are looking for a more nuanced reading of the, uh, of the conflict where, I mean, hopefully you, you know, if we've done our job, hopefully it's hard to find, um,

one side to throw all in with because of the complexities on either side of the equation. I think there are people on both sides that you would say, oh yeah, I think they would make a good sovereign. And then there are people on both sides where you're like, I don't want them anywhere near the throne. And that's the fun of it is finding individuals to root for and making it complicated for you to throw all in and say, yeah, I don't know that I totally want

you know, Rhaenyra to take the throne because that means that, you know, Damon is at her, you know, at her side. And what does, what does that mean for the realm? And what does that mean for Rhaenyra? Like, is he, is he purely, uh, seeking to put her on the throne to put her on the throne or so, so that he can be, he can be close to her to try to snatch back

what he feels Viserys took from him. And I think, you know, those things can, those feelings can change as the story evolves. And the same with Aegon. I mean, you'll see him in episode one, like trying to be king and, and do, you know, doing a job of like trying to learn, you know, learn the job on the job. And,

he might not be suited right out of the box, but I think he, I think, you know, Tom and his great Tom Glen Carney and his great portrayal of him makes, makes for this very empathetic character. And I think it will, it will complicate people's feelings about, um, uh, about where, where they stand in all this. And I think that's what makes for a long running television series. That's engaging and causes a lot of, uh, online debates and podcasts and all, all those things that we, you know, we want to happen about the show. We were not looking for the pure sort of, you know, um,

Justice League versus the team of baddies kind of reading of this. If that happens, I think we're not doing our job. We'd like to thank the marketing team for allowing us to do a two and a half hour dueling trailer breakdown after the green and black trailers were released. Thank you. Thank you. Yes.

We have to be ourselves. We can only be us. We do. Much like the characters in your story, we can only be us. Maybe your answer to this question is going to be Team Green. Maybe your answer to this question is going to be Team Black. Maybe it's going to be Team Gray. But did you have a favorite character to write for this season? Like this season in particular, maybe it's the same as your answer overall when you're thinking about the story. But is there one character who you were like most enticed by and pulled toward? Uh,

I mean, as I always say, it's like picking a favorite child. But everybody has a favorite child. Don't they? Do they? Mallory. I mean, I don't have kids. I mean...

I, we really, I mean, it's a cliche answer. I mean, we really do like writing for everybody. I mean, the thing is with the, with the dynamics that we set up in season one, I mean, everybody does present an interesting corner of, uh, you know, way into this world. I will say in, in season two, um, I'm most excited for the fans to get to enjoy, um, the next generation, the, the, you know, the, the kids, uh, so to speak when I say kids, I mean, you know, the, the, the,

teenagers and young 20 somethings that are now responsible for prosecuting this war that their parents and grandparents started. But we've known, we've

Egon and Eamon and Helena and Jace and Bela and Raina as characters and also as wonderful people and wonderful young talented actors for a long time now. And now that we barely got to write for them in season one and the tantalizing experience of writing for them in like an episode and a half each.

And seeing what they can do on screen really excited us and really drove the writing, I think, in season two in a great way. So I'm excited for being able to see all the great things that we were able to do in season two when you got this little teaser of them in season one. You're like, oh, that's fantastic. And then just being able to write these

you know, three-dimensional stories for each of those characters. That was deeply satisfying. And it also a new sort of a new wrinkle, a new, a new layer. I mean, everybody loves writing a great sort of acid quip for Damon. But, but you know, but right, you know, writing for, for Egon this year and, and, you know, writing more stories for Helena and for Amon and for, you know, and for Jace who plays a, you know, major, major role this year. And then, you know, and then also, you know, Bela and Raina, like that stuff was all, you know, really, really satisfying.

So how's that for an answer? Is that all right? But in season one, your answer would have been Beesbury, right? Oh, so Bill Patterson. We love. Legend. Joanna's absolute favorite. Yeah. He's a boy. We have a lot of Beesbury lines on our soundboard. Our house on our soundboard is just a dear man. It's just bees all the way up and down the board. We love Beesbury. Very good. He was so fun to write for and so fun to have on the show. I am...

How do you reference the Force when you were talking about Star Wars and the Force, when you're talking about sort of the idea of the different degrees of strength of connection between a dragon rider and dragon? And I was curious if you had some other, I mean, you already mentioned Conan as a foundational text for you, but if you have other sort of classic...

This is like a classic rigor verse question, like classic sci-fi or fantasy stories that are top of mind to you. You mentioned Tolkien too, a favorite of ours, obviously. Yeah, Professor's always welcome. Yeah, when you're processing House of the Dragon, what are some of the other big mythologies that you're thinking of when you're making sense of this story? I mean, I think I've always been interested in Arthurian mythology generally, not any one specific myth.

writer or scholars take on it, but just Arthurian mythology as a whole. Certainly, you know, Joseph Campbell, the hero with a thousand faces or 10,000 faces. How many thousand faces is 10,000? It's 10,000. And yeah, I mean, you know, classic literature. I mean, you know, I was a student of Dune, certainly, you know, certainly growing up. Not that that necessarily impacts, you know, impacts on this. But yeah, I mean, I, you know, I look, I read all the same things that

i think a lot of science fiction and fantasy literature fans uh did uh growing up and kind of finding you know finding my way through and and i also it led me to reading uh a lot of medieval history because i just became fascinated with the the the allegories that george was using in the writing of the song of ice and fire so i would go back and i would read a book about the war of the roses i read a book about the anarchy and the making of this show which is all that that stuff is all deeply fascinating um uh but yeah i mean look i

Um, I've spent a long time, a long time, uh, with my nose buried in a, in a book, uh, and also, you know, buried in movies and things like that. Um, and I think you end up drawing from all places, but the nice thing about being sort of immersed in all of this is that I think once you, once you are a student of it, you can start turning things on their ear and, and running against the grain of expectation. And, and the reason that so many,

images for

from tolkien for instance have become cliche uh in the way that they've been you know turned around and spun uh so many times is because tolkien was so so singularly great and so many people were inspired and drew off of that um but i think you have to be able to take that thing and turn it on here i mean one of the things i remember laughing out loud when we uh when reading uh a game of thrones for the first time and thinking you know being lulled in and thinking it was a fantasy book and then you read a bunch of chapters that just seems to be like a sort of

Tudor's kind of palace intrigue story. And then suddenly, George introduces a dwarf character and you're like, oh, this is fascinating. And then you realize in the reading of the chapter is like, no, he literally means a little person, but he's playing with your, I'm reading a fantasy book and this is how I'm reading this as like, oh, a take on Gimli. But then you realize like, oh, Tyrion is actually burdened by

his stature, you know, literal and figurative in this world because of the way people look at, you know, look at people that aren't, you know, don't fit the normative sort of, you know, picture of a person and how it's inspired him to have to use his brain and his mind. And like, you realize in the reading of that one chapter, how he has taken this sort of, you know, Gimli trope and just created a

timeless, fascinating character in one chapter has done that. And those are the things that I think, you know, just steeping yourself in, in these, in these worlds can lead you to, um, inspiration, you know, hopefully, hopefully like that. Amazing. I love it. Okay. If you have two more minutes where we want to end with like a lightning round, just a couple rapid fire, two questions. Boy, Joe, you go first. I don't know which one I want to, I want to ask yet. Um,

Okay, if you were to get merch with one house sigil on it, I mean, I'm sure you have plenty of merch at your fingertips, but if you were to get merch with one house sigil on it and you can't pick the Targaryens, which house do you choose? Oh, um... I...

I like the Valerians. I'm fascinated with them as a house just because in this period, they're so powerful. And then in the original books, they're kind of a footnote, you know, and by the time we get to the world of Robert Baratheon and you see how great houses can kind of rise and fall. And, you know, we spend a lot of time writing for the Valerians in the show. And, you know, I love their whole story. I love the story of the sea snake, this guy that kind of comes in and takes this house that should be great because they have this Valerian history and maybe kind of fell a bit into, you know,

I don't know, kind of decadence or sort of acceptance of the status quo. And then he put the world on his back and had these nine voyages and then built a castle with his own strength and money. And I really like that particular character in this world. So I would say in our period, Valerian.

Do you have an affinity? Oh, I was going to say, do you have an affinity for him because he, like you, has like his treasures sort of planted around his castle. That room was entirely inspired by my life. By your merch collection? Yes, yes. I love it. I'm going to keep a close eye out for some sort of like Lego assortment that

Oh, yeah. There's that too. There actually was a Conan sword buried in the Sea Snakes collection. It just never made it to screen. But the art department set decorator did that as a nod to me. Wonderful. As if he had gone out to sea and found and met Conan and killed him and then brought home his sword as a trophy. I love this. Okay. Speaking of swords, for my lightning round, a little bit of fun here, I'm going to do a classic House of Arse smuggle.

Here we go. You knew I was going to, Joe. Couldn't help it. All right. Dark Sister or Blackfire? Dark Sister. Viserys's crown or Aegon's crown? Aegon's. Dragon orgy tapestries or seven pointed stars? Oh, orgy tapestry. Of course. Okay. All right. Perfect. Thank you for joining us today. We did it. Yeah.

We ended on dragon orgies and that's exactly where we wanted to end. Thank you. Mission accomplished. Thank you, Ryan. This was awesome. We really enjoyed chatting and thank you so much for the time. We're hyped for season two. Thank you, guys. This was great. Great discussion. All right. We revisited season one. We had a wonderful chat with Ryan Condal. We placed our pod upon the Iron Throne as the bells of the Grand Sept told. And all the dragons roared as well. The bells? Not the bells. No, not the bells.

Joe, that's a wrap on today's pod. Time for thank yous. Thank you to our small council, Steve Allman, for producing this episode. Arjuna Ramgopal for his additional production work on this episode. And Jomie and Dan are on for his work on the social for this episode. Quick reminders. Two Midnight Boys episodes coming your way on...

the ringer verse feed ringer verse YouTube channel this week, the accolade instant reaction on Wednesday, the boys season premiere instant reaction on Thursday. Joe and I will be with you on the house of our on Thursday for our accolade episode three deep dive. We will be here with Chris Ryan on Sunday night, right after the house of the dragon premiere for our first episode of the season of talk the thrones and all of that. You will be able to find the,

in video form on Spotify and on the new Ringerverse YouTube channel. And if you just want to listen, you'll be able to do that as usual wherever you get your podcasts. Grab your tickets to Talk the Thrones live as well. Ringer.com slash events. Join us June 25th at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles. I think that's it. This is the stuff. Dear me. ♪