This is a recap of the most recent episode of HBO's House of the Dragon. It contains spoilers. That's what a recap is.
Credits! And last week's Butcher's Ball has been added to the Die, You! Tapestry, as you'd expect. It's a bit confusing at first, because we just see two pairs of corpses slumped to the ground, sitting back-to-back. But then we get the confirmation, because there he is at the center of those and many other dead bodies, in all his (vain)glory: Our boy Criston Cole, arrow sticking out of his handsome but extremely dead face.
The final image we get is of a black dragon against a red field, which seems all well and good, except for the fact that it isn't the House Targaryen sigil (they use a red dragon against a black field).
There's no way the show will get around to covering the Blackfyre Rebellion, in which one branch of the Targaryen family does use a black-on-red dragon. So its presence here is on the tapestry, more than 50 years before the Blackfyres make it a whole thing, must remain a mystery, like the reason the fabric doesn't rip in two at the end, the way it's been doing in recent weeks.
(You guys I worry that his tapestry may not be the all-knowing, intricately encrypted cipher bursting with enticing inscrutable secrets that it once seemed to be.)
This is a densely plotted episode, so let's tackle its many developments in chunks (you know: like Sheepstealer's neck!) according to where they occur.
Harrenhal: Where Alicent channels a '70s sitcom mother-in-law … by way of Dateline
In the mouldering pile of rocks and rot and bat guano that is castle Harrenhal, a still-recovering Aemond is bustin' out some sick sword-moves, shirtless, at the foot of his bed, like the dirtbag metalhead high school boyfriend that way too many of us remember.
Alicent shows up and feeds him a line about having escaped the Red Keep. Be it known that the show is not playing fair with viewers, here — because even though it's not really Alicent (it's Alys Rivers doing Targaryen bedroom play like the good, giving and game gal she is) Olivia Cooke is performing Alys-as-Alicent (let's call her Alysent) as if she harbors the same misgivings about her assination mission that the real Alicent does.
Alys' sexy ruse is revealed, and Aemond rejects her. Look, I know it's gross, but Targaryens gonna Targaryen, and anyway why is she in the wrong for knowing which of Aemond's Oedipal buttons to push, and how to Oedi-push them?
Then the real Alicent shows up, and says some of the same things that Alysent said, which Aemond eyes with suspicion. (Well. Eye with suspicion, anyway.) Then she leads him out to Harrenhal's godswood courtyard to meet the guy who rescued her, Ser Adrian Redfort.
Now, you and I, reader, know that Ser Adrian is a loyal member of Rhaenyra's queensguard, and was sent here with Alicent to kill Aemond. Aemond doesn't know that, but it turns out that doesn't matter, because Aemond immediately shivs the guy up through his chinny-chin-chin. Out of an abundance of caution, he says.
Alicent is horrified, but then Alys shows up to ring the dinner gong.
Dinner is a strained affair, and I'm not talking about the soup. Alicent's like, "And what are your intentions toward my son?" and doesn't seem terribly impressed with Alys' whole gothy, get-high-on-whippits-behind-the-Wawa vibe. Aemond announces that he's staying at Harrenhal and will make it the new capital of Westeros, and he wants Alicent to stay there with them. They'll convert an oubliette into a mother-in-law suite, complete with a kitchenette! And a half-bath! Maybe a full! It will really depend on the plumbing codes!
Alicent, still reeling over the Redfort who's now a Dedfort, sneaks out to snatch a dagger from his corpse, only to find some deadly nightshade. Which she only recognizes because she remembers Helaena's endless prattling on about her precious nightshade-eating caterpillar. It pays to listen to your weird kid's weird hobbies!
But there is no joy (division) in the Aemond-Alys relationship tonight. Alys' spooky-ooky ways have clued her in to Alicent's assassintentions, but Aemond ignores her warnings. He ignores them hard — so hard that he guzzles down some of Alicent's Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime nightshade tea, then collapses at Alys' feet.
Alys, who is swiftly taking up the mantle of Being Right About Everything, Always that nobody's worn since the passing of the late, lamented Rhaenys Velaryon, sums Aemond up nicely:
"Idiot."
Don't worry about Aemond, though — you don't get to be Harrenhal's resident Witchiepoo without knowing your way around basic plant pharmacology. He may be an idiot, but he knows exactly whose form to prostrate his fool self before.
In The Vale, dragon-on-dragon violence is on the rise
Daemon flies to the Vale to ask why Rhaena and Sheepstealer have been sighted so often, when they're supposed to be on the down low. Lady Jeyne Arryn looks haughty and pained (must be Tuesday) and grudgingly dismisses her comely courtly paramour to address Daemon. (Said paramour is a lady of the female variety, thereby ensconcing Lady Jeyne in the show's tiny but fast-growing pantheon of queer featured characters.)
Lady Jeyne mentions local rumors of a dragonrider – a wild girl in the mountains living among nettles and sheep, causing legions of book readers to point at the screen like so many Leos DiCaprio.
Addam and Baela, who are hunting for Vhagar at Rhaenyra's request, have also spotted Rhaena and Sheepstealer, and report as much to the queen.
Daemon eventually finds Rhaena and in a corker of a chaotic scene, they have it out. Rhaena is exhausted and fearful of her own dragon, but is determined to hunt down Vhagar in a gesture of apology to the queen. In his first and only fatherly act, Daemon offers to help her study for that particular exam. But before any inspirational power chords of a training montage can kick in, the queen and Addam fly in on their dragons.
What was already chaotic descends into bedlam, as Rhaena attempts to flee, gets caught by Addam and stands before Rhaenyra, who then turns on Daemon. It's a real horror of a rocky situation.
Then the three dragons descend on Sheepstealer like they're trade show attendees and he's the prime rib carving station. It's an ugly fight, and gobbets of Sheepstealer go flying. In the end, Rhaenyra loads Rhaena on Syrax, and flies her back to King's Landing. (That ride must have been a long one; I bet the queen refused to turn on the radio, and both women just sat there staring out the windshield in a fraught and weighty silence.)
Daemon sticks around to finish Sheepstealer off, but seems content to let him sort of hobble away. We don't see a body, so draw no conclusions. And even if we did see a body, dragons on this show have a funny way of rallying ….
Near Rook's Rest, a funny way of rallying
Larys, Aegon and Tyland are on their way from Rook's Rest and headed to Maidenpool, a port town where they will book passage to Braavos, in Essos. Larys is appealing to Aegon's base appetites by extolling the virtues of Essosian wines, but that plan is abandoned when they realize that an army loyal to Rhaenyra is headed toward them, hunting for Tyland and the lost gold.
Larys, bless him, peaces out, and he does so in that way that we've all seen hundreds of rogueish characters like him do, leading us to fully expect him to show up later at just the right moment, to save the day. He may still get his Han Solo moment, but it doesn't happen this week, and I hope it never does. I want Larys to stay true to himself, and only to himself.
Later, Rhaenyra's army marches on Aegon and Tyland's campfire. Aegon makes an entirely out-of-character stand, and we're at first led to believe he's really benefitted from those courses at Westerosi Toastmasters, but soon it becomes clear: Looming behind him is his beloved Sunfyre, who — as I and many others insisted — lyves.
And burns. Because the army quails before him, and then gets turned into roast quail.
King's Landing is the lair of the white worm and other Ken Russell movies
In the Red Keep, Helaena dreams of a horse in the main courtyard. (I at first thought this a reference to the white horse that Arya Stark rides out of a smoldering King's Landing in the Game of Thrones finale, but Helaena describes her dream horse as a gray mare, so maybe not.)
Rhaenyra wakes her and tries to get Helaena — rather forcefully — to tell her about her dream visions. But although Helaena's seen some pretty gnarly things about both Aegon and Aemond, she clams up, increasing Rhaenyra's already numerous and myriad frustrations.
At her Small Council, Torrhen Manderly has finally come to realize that his appointment as master of coin was nothing more than a means for Rhaenyra and Mysaria to throw him under the bus. Er, horse cart. (This realization occasions a hilariously on-the-nose shot of Mysaria taking a long sip of wine while shifting her eyes cartoonishly.) He complains about there being no money even as he sports some very impressive bling.
Sabitha Frey, meanwhile, finally gets what Jaecaerys promised her last season — Rhaenyra's permission to seize Harrenhal for House Frey. She's delighted, but has no idea what awaits her in that cursed and gloomy place — Alys Rivers is squatting, alongside a poisoned prince and a dowager queen going full Medea (the Greek mythology murders-her-kids one, not the Tyler-Perry-in-drag one). (Though that would be fun, too, admit it.)
Mysaria can sense her position is weakening — she eagerly seizes on Daemon's lying to Rhaenyra about Rhaena and Sheepstealer to drive a wedge between him and the queen. But Rhaenyra isn't picking up what the White Worm is putting down. Except in the sexytime sense (read: they kiss).
So Mysaria invites one of her colleagues from the old neighborhood (read: from the bowels of a pleasure den) to the Red Keep and tries to pass herself off as the queen's proxy, but her guest isn't buying it, and warns her of her precarious position.
Speaking of: Helaena dreams some more. She sees herself giving birth, and having the child taken away. She sees herself atop her dragon Dreamfyre, broasting some commoners as they storm the Dragonpit. And she sees herself far away from the Red Keep, in a hilariously twee, Thomas-Kinkade-the-Painter-of-Light cottage, looking after all of her impossibly blond kids, and that grey mare.
In Tumbleton, Ormund's got his finger on the pulse. Somebody's finger, anyway
The Black army (consisting of rivermen and northmen) have finally crossed the Blackwater Rush and are nearing Green-occupied Tumbleton. They're carrying Criston Cole's head on pike, which is A: A grisly totem, and B: Maybe Westeros' first bio-weapon, given that we know Ormund has a sensitive nose, and Criston's head is probably pretty pungent by now.
Gwayne is worried, but Ormund isn't, insisting he's got a plan.
What he's got, in fact, is Corlys — his men captured the Hand of the Queen at the end of last week's episode, you'll remember. Ormund's goal is to keep the Velaryons and the island of Driftmark out of the fray by using Corlys as hostage.
Privately, Gwayne and Daeron think this a stupid plan, given that they're about to be attacked by an army. They commiserate over Ormund's status as a bugnuts glory-hound, and Gwayne even displays the first stirrings of Criston Cole's world-weary nihilism, while Daeron, for his part, refuses to abandon the Greens and fly away on his dragon Tessarion.
Which isn't much, admittedly. But in Westeros, it counts as noble.
In the Red Keep, Alyn accepts a package from Ormund — his father Corlys' finger, complete with the sigil-ring of House Velaryon.
But Ormund hasn't just been sitting around Tumbleton, smarming his way through meals and lopping off random digits. No, he's been talking to Ulf, the drunk and resentful Team Black dragonrider. And he's managed to sway him to the Green side, by appealing to his deep-rooted sense of pride — and his even more deeply rooted sense of really wanting a castle.
Ormund promises him the island of Driftmark, and Ulf promises that the Blacks will burn.
Parting thoughts:
- A satisfyingly meaty episode that some might dismiss as simply moving the show's chess pieces around the board in preparation for next week's season finale, but I dunno. That dragonpalooza scene felt like the kind of brutal, distressing incident this show has been parceling out too sparingly. Or denying us completely.
- Let's remember, though, that Season 2's finale was a talky, uneventful letdown. Here's hoping the creators learned from that.
- Emma D'Arcy was great in the early season, as a bereft mother shakily getting her bearings as queen. They're even better now, as Rhaenyra's maddening frustrations (she's awash with dilemmas and deficiencies!) threaten to grow literally maddening. D'Arcy has found a comic sense of exasperation that makes them fun to watch at the center of chaos, which, famously, cannot hold.
- Aemond at one point reminds Alicent that she was the one who told him to go to Harrenhal in the first place. You'll recall she only did that to serve him up on a plate for the Blacks. Alicent's manipulations are piling up so fast she can't keep track of them; that doesn't bode well for her.
- So did Daemon let Sheepstealer live, or what? He's cruel and ruthless, but he's got a soft spot for dragons, so it could go either way.
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