House Of The Dragon ends season 2 with a lot of things up in the air

And just like that, we reach the end of House Of The Dragon’s second season, with a finale packed to the brim with surprises, not least of all the fact that it set up so very many exciting things and then just…left us dangling. Honestly, it was the televisual equivalent of cooking an epic 12-course banquet and then only letting people look at the showstopper dessert. (Drop that spoon, sir! Not one bite!) Still, that quibble aside, this 70-plus minutes of drama was mostly ace, largely because it finally resurrected not one but two of my favorite onscreen duos from the show: Daemon and Rhaenyra, and Alicent and Rhaenyra. 

The reunion of the former takes place at Harrenhal, when Rhaenyra—convinced, fairly, that her husband is about to betray her—rushes to confront him in front of the extremely large army he has gathered.  “They are sworn to me and not a moment too soon,” Daemon tells his niece-wife. “And to whom are you sworn?” she asks him loudly, so that everyone there might awkwardly listen in. What Rhaenyra doesn’t realize, of course, is that Daemon has been (for lack of a better phrase) “Dagobah-ed.” By which I mean that Alys Rivers has acted as his own personal Yoda and helped him harness his emotions (fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and all that), before helping the hotheaded Targaryen Prince activate the power of the Godswood and see into the future. It’s a nightmarish future, which sees Daemon plummet through the sky toward a dark and unfriendly sea, Rhaenyra crowned and sat upon the Iron Throne, the hatching of three dragon eggs, and a mysterious blonde woman (hey, Daenerys) surrounded by tiny dragon babies.

“This world is not what we thought it was,” Daemon tells Rhaenyra, slipping easily into High Valyrian. “The war is just the beginning. Winter is coming, with darkness and doom… I saw it. I saw that we cannot withstand it. And yet somehow we must.” Then, slipping back into the common tongue and speaking loud enough for his new army to hear every word, Daemon not only swears his allegiance to Rhaenyra, but he also bends the bloody knee. “You are the true queen, Rhaenryra. First of Her Name, protector of the realm. I am meant to serve you and all of these with me until death or the end of our story.”

Honestly, judging by the expression Rhaenyra’s face, she’s never wanted or loved Daemon more (who’d have thought that mutual respect would prove such a key component in a successful partnership, eh?), and I do believe this is one marriage that’s well and truly back off the rocks. For now. “Leave me again at your peril,” she says, only half joking. “I could not,” says Daemon. “I have tried. My queen.” (Is it bad that, once again, I’m rooting for this insanely problematic and toxic relationship? Damn them both.)

Ewan Mitchell, Olivia Cooke (Photo: Theo Whiteman/HBO)

Of course, a woman like Rhaenyra could never just have one love interest; the chemistry is still bubbling away between her and Mysaria, for starters, but more importantly there’s Alicent. At Dragonstone. Explaining that she’s been mistaken. (“In what?” quips Rhaenyra drily.) Talking about how her recent walk in the woods has left her more than happy to “die unremarked and unnoticed.” Explaining that she’s willing to welcome Rhaenyra and her armies into King’s Landing as conquerors while Aemond is out causing mayhem on his dragon, even if it means sacrificing Aegon and his poor burnt head.

“I cast myself on the mercy of a friend who once loved me,” says Alicent simply. “[Because] I am at last myself with no ambition greater than to walk where I please and breathe the open air.” “You speak as if from a distant dream,” marvels Rhaenyra. “Come with me,” says Alicent simply, three words loaded with significance following the revelation that Millie Alcock and Emily Carey played the younger iterations of these characters as queer. Sadly, though, Rhaenyra cannot, no matter how much she might want to. 

“It was decided for me long ago,” she tells her best friend/stepmother. Cue Alicent turning on her heel and hightailing it outta there, a strange expression on her face. Why does she want out all of a sudden? Well, she’s keen to save herself, sure, but she’s also driven by a need to protect the sweet Helaena from the horrors of war. Because Aemond—furious at Team Black’s sudden advantage over them, dragons-wise—has been trying to force Helaena to ride Dreamfyre and burn people at his behest. Too bad for him, then, that she is a far bigger player in all of this than he realizes. (Hell, she shared in Daemon’s visions from afar.)

“Will you burn me as you did Aegon?” she asks him. “I saw it. You burnt him, and you let him fall. [But] Aegon will be King again. He’s yet to see victory; he sits on a wooden throne. And you… you’ll be dead. You were swallowed up in the God’s Eye, and you were never seen again.” “Aemond spits out, “I could have you killed,” clearly frightened at this sudden twist. “It wouldn’t change anything,” smiles Helaena, who knows all too well that this life they’re living is “all a story.” Crikey.

Obviously, these are not the only major moments of interest in this episode. Rhaena is running around in the wilderness like Bear Grylls as she attempts to hunt down a sheep-stealing dragon. Corlys is getting some seriously painful home truths hurled his way by his illegitimate son, Alyn (and I’m here for it all). Lord Tyrod—sorry, Tyland—is mud-wrestling his way into the hearts of the people of Essos. Ulf is grinding everyone’s gears over at Dragonstone, particularly Jace’s. Aegon is getting horribly descriptive about his burnt cock. Larys is spiriting the young King out of the city and away from his murderous brother. And Gwayne Hightower is challenging Criston Cole over the situationship he has with Alicent, only to get a bleak description worthy of Donny Darko from the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard: “The dragons dance, and men are like dust under their feet. And all of our thoughts, all of our fine endeavors, are as nothing. We march now toward our annihilation. To die will be a kind of relief, don’t you think?”  

Matt Smith (Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO)

Someone’s been watching Chernobyl, clearly. And as if that doom-laden prophecy weren’t enough for you, Rhaenyra has a whole speech about how history will paint Alicent a villain, a “cold queen grasping for power and defeated,” failing to realize that future historians could just as easily say the same of her, depending on who eventually wins the war. After all, the Godswood might say Rhaenyra will sit the Iron Throne, but Helaena says it will be Aegon. Who will prove right, come the end of it all?

Yes, the big battle everyone thought and hoped we were building up to might not happen. But that doesn’t really mar the episode. There is wit, warmth, and humor here. There are reunions and surprises well worth gasping over, too. There is, as ever, some truly excellent face acting by Emma D’arcy. And there are dragons and visions and an oh-so-meta sub narrative to dissect. Plus, all of our pieces—Rhaena and her new pet, Daemon and his army, Tyland and his naval fleet, Rhaenyra and her reluctant advantage, Alicent and her sneaky plans for absolution, Aemond and Vhagar, Aegon and Larys doing a runner—are being moved into place, setting the scene for a truly epic third season.  

Gods, please let it come round quickly. I don’t know how long I can wait to see those dragons dance.  

Stray observations

• • I wouldn’t say no to a spinoff about Tyland’s misadventures in Essos. Everything about this—the mud wrestling, the bitch slaps, the confused response to the cannibal jokes, the terrible pun-laden sea shanty, the bemusement over Admiral Louse’s demand he get all of her wives pregnant—is just great. Perfect levity in a relentlessly tense run of episodes.
• • So Aemond has been torching people to get his feelings out. He’s “laid waste to the whole of the town” of Sharp Point, in fact. I’m with Aegon; he really is a “fucking mad cunt.” 
• • Speaking of Aegon, that was, quite possibly, the nastiest imagery ever laid out in the Game Of Thrones universe…and it does it without showing a single thing. “I am burnt, disgusting, and alone. And a cripple. My cock is destroyed, did they tell you that? It burst in the flames like a sausage on the spit… I can’t even piss without it running down my leg.” It just goes to show, a series can be brutal without being gory.
• • Aegon keeps banging on about poor dead Sunfyre, doesn’t he? He just keeps banging on…so much so that I’m starting to doubt the dragon is really dead. Anyone who dies offscreen is a big fat question mark in this show, quite frankly.
• • Daemon? Mysaria? Alicent? So many love interests for Rhaenyra, the sexiest of queens. 
• • Corlys has named his ship “The Queen Who Never Was” as testament to his brilliant and wonderful dead wife. Too little, too late, quite frankly. Will he do something for his illegitimate sons while they’re still alive? Other than wind them up with his terrible advice and rude dismissals of their feelings?
• • “This place will have you barking at the moon.” And the Biggest Understatement Of The Week Award goes to Daemon on Harrenhal!
• • Aemond is stopping the fishing boats.. Now they don’t even have fish. The smallfolk are going to despise him.
• • Jace has been serving some seriously bad energy of late, so thank the gods for Baela. “Here you are sulking, because you believe that if not for the dragon or the trappings of your station, you are nothing. Do you believe that you are the first noble heir that was not sired by his noble father? Such is the way of the world, Jace, and in resenting it, you only diminish yourself.” Baela, preach! 
• • OK, so Ulf is dangerously inappropriate, without a single ounce of nobility or honor to his name. That’s never a good look in a dragonrider. Rhaenyra wants them to “kill innocents” and Hugh is, as mentioned last week, a noble bastard. (Surely he won’t stand for that, especially if his wife or her family are in the literal firing line.) And Addam…actually, I think Addam is probably the happiest of the trio to be there right now.
• • Also, anyone else reckon Ulf is going to have a KFC installed on Dragonstone at the rate he’s going through the little birds?
• • Rhaenyra knows that to claim victory she “must strike, and in striking [she] doom[s] thousands to their death” because she is a just and good queen. Will history remember her as such?
• • I really love that Alicent and Rhaenyra have been able to pop back and forth between Dragonstone and King’s Landing so easily and so very often. It makes no sense. Honestly, the war would have been won long ago if either of them had shared the details of their secret time vortex with the rest of their councils. 
• • Rhaenyra and Alicent’s reunion is pretty great—powerful, emotive, and even funny at times. (They’ve nailed spiky sarcasm quite well.) And I especially love that Alicent reassures Rhaenyra of her father’s love for Aemma, too. She needed that.
• • Also, Alicent looks like something out of The Traitors in that cloak, and I hope it’s just a wild coincidence.
• • I can’t believe we end the season with an 80s-style montage.
• • Also, and I ask this with love: How do the flying dragons look more realistic than the seafaring scenes?
• • These guys would all be wildly upset if they realized the small part they play in getting Daenerys to the Iron Throne ends with…well, the Game Of Thrones finale.