Welcome back to the blog readers. House of the Dragon's second season has been just as incredible as its first, and I am so upset that this is where the journey ends once more. It absolutely sucks that this is the final episode of the season, and the wait for more HoTD will likely be about 2 more years. Last week's episode was so fucking good and featured everything; from dragon carnage to intricate character studies. Now that I have mentally prepared myself for this finale, will this episode, titled "The Queen Who Ever Was," written by Sara Hess, and directed by Geeta Vasant Patel, be a worthy ending to this brilliant season? Stick around to find out.
NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the episode.
I want to start off this spoiler review by saying that this season has been utterly fantastic, probably neck and neck with the first season. I will not go into too many details here, as I will be saving those for the season review. But I noticed something strange. People not liking this season finale because there was no big massive climax for anything, and I find that frustrating. While I did very much like this episode (although it was not as fantastic as last week's), I found it counteractive seeing all the negativity. A good amount of storylines are wrapped up here, the performances of Emma D'Arcy, Matt Smith, and Abubakar Salim are fucking awesome, and the third season is teased in a big, big way.
The first performer that I want to dump an unimaginable heaping of praise on is Matt Smith. He has been one of the more consistent performers on this show even since the first season. His story arc at Harrenhal this season, although it dragged a little bit, has finally reached a payoff this episode that filled my cold, cold heart with all the warmness it could have. A story trait that Daemon has had since the beginning was his total rejection of the supernatural, and this season has him questioning everything he has ever known and leads Smith to his best performance of the season where Daemon finally realizes exactly what he is a part of. Smith makes you believe in what Daemon has seen in this episode masterfully, and his final major scene will leave you with goosebumps. Trust me, it certainly did to me, and I have a cold, cold heart.
Next, I want to praise the performance of Emma D'Arcy as Rhaenyra. This season has been a whole lot of her trying to figure out who she is as a person and as a leader, and although there have been things that have deterred her, she is finally in the place where she can be a confident leader and truly prepare for what is to come in later seasons. D'Arcy has been the true MVP of this season, showing off emotions and passion that I did not think they had. Almost every performance has been Emmy worthy for them, and I hope they get some love next year. This episode though? They really make you believe that Rhaenyra has become a confident leader with a strong and dare I say confident performance. Her scene with the new dragon riders was intense and tension-filled. Her scene with Daemon was the best of the episode and possibly of the season. I just love this actor and I wish nothing but the best for them.
Now, we get to someone that I have not talked about at all this season, and that is Abubakar Salim, who plays Alyn of Hull. He has been kind of a side character over the course of this season, but this episode has a major role to play not only in his journey, but in the journey of Lord Corlys as well. It has been established over the last few episodes that he is the bastard of Corlys, and harbors a bunch of resentment towards him, and now we get to see it play out. When Corlys offers his help to Alyn, he turns him down less than politely and basically rips into him about how he felt neglected and not seen by his father. In the eight episodes of this season, I have never felt the rage and anger in someone's words quite like I felt them here, and it proves to me without a shadow of a doubt that Abubakar Salim is a world-class actor. I hope he is not a one-and-done type of situation and that we see him working out his daddy issues next season.
There is a lot of story in this episode to unpack, and I want to start by taking things to Harrenhal, where things have been going a bit slowly. I did understand what Daemon was doing there and what his purpose was, and we got the fuller answer in this episode. We start with the man that Rhaenyra sent to Harrenhal getting there and basically swearing fealty to Daemon over Rhaenyra. Simon Strong heralds a message to her and she departs for Harrenhal. The witch that has been assisting Daemon with these visions and dreams, Alys Rivers, tells him that he is finally ready to learn his place in this world. She gives him a vision of future events to come, such as the notion of the White Walkers and their role in the pending war, and a back shot (no, not that one) of one Danaerys Targaryen. I literally gasped when I saw her, because we knew right there that Daemon finally realized that his ambitions are not as great as what is to come. He also sees a vision of Rhaenyra on the throne and finally realizes that she is the one to lead the realm to peace. By the time she gets to Harrenhal, Daemon has been amassing his army of men of the Riverlands in the same spot where Jahaerys named his grandson Viserys as king all those years prior. He swears allegiance to Rhaenyra and announces that she is the only one to lead the realm to peace. This was a hell of a scene and it ended a two season-long story about Daemon rejecting the supernatural and the understanding that there was bigger things in play than his ambitions, and the payoff was absolutely fantastic in this episode. Now that he is aligned with Rhaenyra, she has an absolute advantage in the war to come.
For the last few episodes, we have been getting a subplot where Jacaerys has been getting pissy about Rhaenyra's actions and the people she has recently been around. She has basically told the new dragonriders (Addam, Ulf and Hugh) to their face that they are not legitimate and criticizing them over issues that should not involve them. He does it again this week after Rhaenyra prepares a feast for them. It is clear that Hugh and Addam are ready to bear the responsibility, but Ulf is not quite there yet. I think this subplot of Jace not being happy with these new dragonriders has already gotten stale, and I think that is has reached its final climax in this episode. I hope to not see this in the third season, unless they wind up turning on her for some reason. I hope they don't because that will be weak as hell. Let her have this Ryan!
Now we go to a place we have not been yet in the Game of Thrones universe: Tyrosh. What that is and where it is I have no godly clue, and I really do not care, just like I do not care about what happens here in this episode. We start this episode off with Tyland Lannister going there to get their support on behalf of the Greens, but ends in this weird cat-and-mouse game that he winds up playing with Sharako Lohar, who is the admiral here, and the awkward encounters that the two have. Tyland beats Lohar in a mud wrestling match and then gets asked to have children with his wives. I personally do not understand what this plot is aiming to get at, but it did not get there with me, that's for sure. Hopefully there is some sort of payoff for this in a later season, but this was pointless.
Speaking of pointless, Aemond is bigly mad for some reason. Just because you were forced to retreat upon the sight of three dragons does not give you the right to literally and angrily burn down an entire coastal village. All of Westeros learns this and Larys (aka Mr. "Unhappy Feet") plots to get Aegon out of King's landing for his safety. I both like and dislike this because we know Aemond is tying to kill Aegon and take the throne for himself, but by leaving he would make himself out to be a king who decided to join a battle to prove himself and then run away when the pressure got to be too much. Obviously we see that he decided to run like a little bitch and now he is going to get his half-burnt ass handed to him when he is found. Oh, I cannot wait for this.
The final bit I want to talk about in this longer review is the final conversation on Dragonstone. Alicent decides that she is done with this whole ordeal and plots to go to Dragonstone to talk to Rhaenyra hoping that they can finally call off the war, but she did not take into account that Rhaenyra has changed since the last time she saw her. Rhaenyra in her last meeting with Alicent accepted that the war was inevitable and began her preparations to fight the war. Now knowing that Alicent is in the same boat she was in in that last meeting, she tells her bluntly that she has made her moves and there is nothing that can be done to prevent the war. She accepts Alicent's offer of surrendering King's Landing, but knows she cannot take her place on the Iron Throne without having Aegon's head as a sacrifice. Alicent accepts these terms as she leaves Dragonstone, Rhaenyra watches her, Aegon and Larys flee King's Landing, Rhaena finds the wild dragon she has been searching for, and the armies across Westeros prepare to go to war. What an epic, yet unsettling montage this was, because now we know that war is afoot and if Ryan Condal is to be believed, next season will be all-out war. The wait for 2026 is going to be agonizing.
House of the Dragon sputters a bit in its finale, but gorgeously sets us up for what promises to be a brutal and bloody third season. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for my review of the season as a whole.
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