I have awoken from my two year slumber to bring you an important announcement: Season Two of House of the Dragon was mid.
It wasn’t awful. It wasn’t offensively bad. It was just mid.
While there were many good moments, there were just as many let-downs and anti-climaxes. This is exceptionally disheartening considering Season One was a banger and it ended on a massive jaw-drop. Shit was supposed to hit the fan. Rhaenyra’s son was murdered in the Season One Finale and the episode ended on her face, twisted with grief and unbridled fury.
Regretfully, we didn’t get Rhaenyra the Rage Queen That Was Promised for Season Two.
Frankly after watching this season I would have settled for Rhaenyra the Somewhat Competent.
It truly feels like the writers didn’t know what to do with Rhaenyra this season. Somehow she is both too passive and too impulsive all at the same time. Her actions, particularly early in the season, are completely nonsensical.
I can forgive Rhaenyra for disappearing without word the first time. Her son just died and she wasn’t thinking clearly. However, Jace is completely justified for ripping her a new one the second times she does this. Trying to sue for peace with Alicent without telling anyone what she was doing was a stupid idea. As Jace rightly points out, Alicent could have easily seized her and either executed or imprisoned her, forcing Rhaenyra’s allies to surrender or put their lives in danger to save her from The Greens.
We are meant to think she’s a cautious leader for not wanting to continue the war with The Greens, but what makes her think the conflict can be stopped at this point anyway? Both sides have suffered heavy casualties and Alicent has no reason to give up the cause now. In case you forgot, your beloved uncle-husband hired two goons to give her grandson the Anne Boleyn Special.
Besides, even if Alicent tried to persuade Aegon to take the L and give up the throne to his half-sister who he thinks got his son killed, there is zero chance he or his council members would listen. If anything, she might be prisoned or executed for treason for even suggesting they do such a thing.
I’m not even sure why Rhaenyra wants to put a stop to the conflict in the first place. She’s been estranged from Alicent for over a decade at this point and she doesn’t have any affection for her half-siblings apart from Helaena (we’ve never actually seen them interact with each other so this affection seems forced but whatever). Not to mention, Luce was murdered by Alicent’s son Aemond. A fact that Rhaenyra almost seems to forget after Episode One until the season finale. I know the writers don’t want her to be overly emotional and reactionary because of muh sexism, but wanting revenge for your murdered child isn’t a Woman Moment, it’s called being normal.
Hell, Aegon is a psychopath and he’s more cut up about his son dying that Rhaenyra is about losing hers.
bUt PeOpLe WiLl DiE iF tHeReS a WaR!!
So what?
The idea of war being a thing to avoid at all costs is a relatively modern concept. Back in those days people would start a war if you so much as ate the last drumstick at a christening. I think the writers want us to believe that Rhaenyra doesn’t want any innocents to die, but her sentiment for her people is up in the air in my opinion.
She sends out boats full of food for the smallfolk to eat as a token of benevolence, however, the narrative seems to forget Rhaenyra was the one who set up the blockades in the first place, leaving millions to slowly starve. The Greens were able to get food regardless so the peasants were the only ones truly hurt by these measures. Was the purpose of the blockades to sour public opinion of The Greens only? If so, that’s manipulative as fuck and doesn’t show that she truly cares about her subjects.
Likewise there is the issue of the Targaryen bastards. Instead of leading each candidate one by one to the dragons, she decides to take them into the dragon pits at the same time. The real reason she does this is because the writers needed another action scene to keep the audience from falling asleep, but from a purely pragmatic standpoint this was needlessly idiotic.
It was not necessary that all the dragonseed be in the pit at the same time. What if the dragons accidentally killed one of the riders it wanted to claim while it was roasting someone else? What if one of the “unworthy” participants knocked a rider off the ledge into the pit to their death in their desperation to get away from danger? Some of these people might have survived if Ulf and Hugh had been lead in before the others.
Then there is the issue of Rhaenyra’s trust in Mysaria. Yes, she owes Mysaria a debt of gratitude for warning her about the assassination attempt, but that doesn’t mean she should trust her enough to tell her all her deep dark secrets.
Also, that kiss was random as hell and I will die on this hill.
There is no romantic chemistry between them at all. To make matters worse, it’s never addressed again. I’m assuming this will turn into a love triangle between Rhaenyra, Mysaria, and Daemon but-sigh– do we really need a love triangle? Is a romance between an uncle and his niece not toxic enough that we need to drag a third person into the mix? A third person that happened to be the uncle’s ex-girlfriend? This love story makes Colleen Hoover sound like Nicholas Sparks.
Moving on…
In the spirit of fairness, I think it’s only right to point out all the ways in which the writers have screwed over Alicent this season.
I had more sympathy for Season One Alicent than most fans. She was a child manipulated into wedding a man twice her age, forced to watch as some spoiled brat flaunted her privilege in everyone’s face, careless of the people she affected with her behavior.
But I can’t help feeling as if Alicent deserves whatever fate she receives now.
Is she actually willing to let Rhaenyra kill Aegon? Really? After everything? In Season One she was ready to get dragon-blasted for Aegon and flew at the crowned princess with a knife after Aemond was injured by Luce. But now that her sons think she’s cringe and won’t let her go to their baseball games anymore, she’ll let Rhaenyra cut off Aegon’s head and parade it through the streets?
Alicent, darling, even if you surrender there’s nothing stopping Rhaenyra from taking Haleana and her other child hostage. Hell, Rhaenyra might decide to just kill the other kid for good measure. They are Aegon’s after all. And what about your son that isn’t a dick? He would become the heir upon Aegon and Aemond’s death. Rhaenyra would have to murder him as well.
I watched a Youtuber try to argue that her appealing to Rhaenyra to end this war was somehow character development as Alicent realizes she was wrong to think Viserys wanted Aegon to be king, but this is just cope. It’s not character development, it’s her running away from her decisions. She failed her sons and now she’s throwing them to the dogs.
I know the show favors Rhaenyra over Alicent (although it’s more favorable than the book’s interpretation of her), but this is character assassination.
This portion is supposed to be about Alicent, but I still can’t get over Rhaenyra’s “a son for a son” line during their final exchange on Dragonstone, as if the whole Jaehaerys incident didn’t happen. You already got a son for a son, Rhaenyra. Just because it wasn’t the right son doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.
What happened between Season 1 and 2? It’s like the writer’s don’t know how to write females anymore.
Then there is the Daemon plot.
Sigh…
I didn’t mind Daemon going on a LSD spirit quest and having to face his inner demons. HOWEVER, did it really need to take up the entire season? Could he not have gone to Harrenhal, still loyal to Rhaenyra, and won her an army AND have gone on the spirit quest at the same time? Is his having GOT spoilers in his head going to impact his character going forward or, did he rage-quit Rhaenyra’s side temporarily so the writer’s could prove Rhaenyra is a strong, independent Black woman that don’t need no man?
I’m still trying figure out why Daemon didn’t just kill Alys once it became clear she had something to do with his involuntary spirit-quest. He’s offed people for less. And why would he take advise from a bastard-born women? Also, not a good move to remind us of a show that ended with a historically bad reception. It only leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
And finally, we arrive at the lack-luster finale.
It’s not enough they blue-balled us with the cliff-hanger ending between Aemond and Rhaenyra, they did it again with the season finale.
We couldn’t afford another dragon battle this season!
Why did you green-light a show about civil war between dragons if you can’t afford more than one dragon battle a season?!
If you couldn’t create another dragon battle for the finale, at the very least we should have gotten the burning of Sharp Point. To me, this was the second most egregious part of the Finale. Aemond, in a fit of rage, decides to burn an entire village. This is a huge character moment, but it happens off-screen. Even if the budget was getting low, there are ways the writers could have gotten around this.
Maybe I could have been satiated if there was some new shocking revelation, a plot twist, a death, something. Instead, it ends accomplishing next to nothing.
Even the dragon, Sheep-Smuggler or whatever the hell, was a let-down.
Now we have to wait two years before the next season.
Two years.
Just because this fandom is used to long hiatuses does not mean you should take advantage of their patience.
All these things being said, not everything about this season has been terrible. I won’t go into depth with everything I liked about this season because it would take way too long, but here is a brief overview of everything I thought worked well:
Oscar Tully GOAT Lord of the Riverlands.
Sir Simon Strong, Comedy Relief Extraordinaire.
Daemon being Daemon.
The Riverland People.
The dialogue.
The gorgeous dragons.
The Battle of Rook’s Rest.
The music, especially for the episode finale.
The twin assassination attempt and its symbolism of how a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Literally any scene with Rhys Ifans who approaches his role of Otto the same way other actors would play a Shakespearean role. Seriously, dude is underrated.
Aegon’s fall from grace and his grief upon losing his child.
Blood and Cheese (I’m kind of glad it wasn’t as intense as it was in the books tbh).
The acting in general.
My thoughts overall echo the words of many parents the world-over: I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. HOTD is still better than 98% of the schlock that’s out there right now (not that that’s saying much), but this season could have been so much more.
The Crooked Pen 