House of the Dragon season 2 finale recap: Tensions boil as the realm prepares for war

After last week’s dragonseed bloodbath, House of the Dragon wraps up its second season on a less fiery note. There are no big dragon battles to be had, no one major dies, and swords remain sheathed, but tensions are rising on both sides as the Blacks and the Greens head to all out war.  

The season finale opens not in Westeros but in the Free Cities where a bedeviled Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall showing some of the sharp wit Tyrion would later inherit) is negotiating with the Triachy to break the Gullet’s blockade. He finds the pirates distasteful but manages to get the support of their armada in exchange for many golden dragons and possession of the much-disputed Stepstones. 

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They add one last condition – Admiral Lohar (Abigail Thorn) must go with him to break the blockage. Tyland is all fine, fine just give me the ships until he meets the fearsome Lohar who turns out to be not a man, but a woman who calls him Tywin and says he must best her first before she will agree to sail. One messy mudwrestling bout later, Lohar’s impressed by his virility and decides she wants some lion cubs of her very own. Not with her but her wives and at this point, Tyland probably wishes he never left Lannisport in the first place. Since Lohar sails into battle beside him at the end of the episode, we’ll assume she got her wish. 

Larys tells Aegon it’s time to get out of King’s Landing

Still in rough shape, Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) is at least conscious enough to ask for some rum to ease his pain. Larys (Matthew Needham) comes to visit him with news that Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) has three additional dragon riders and that as a result, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) has burned the nearby town of Sharp Point to the ground in his wrath. The Prince Regent intends to kill the king next but when Aegon says he’ll throw his brother in jail first, Larys points out that without Vhagar, the city will be wholly unprotected when Rhaenyra makes her attack.

When Larys suggests they can live quite well in Braavos on the gold he’s stashed away from Harrenhal’s reserves, Aegon can only wallow in self-pity saying he’s now crippled and alone. A vulnerable Larys is about to start singing “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” but decides to make the case that Aegon can let Rhaenyra and Aemond kill each other and then return to his grateful subjects as Aegon the Rebuilder. Though Aegon darkly names himself the Realm’s Delight, he does flee King’s Landing with Larys but seems to give no mind to the survival of his wife, mother, or daughter. Real swell guys, the two of them.  

Aemond looks for a dragonrider in the least likely place

While Aegon is not the only member of Team Green deciding it’s time to evacuate, Aemond clamps down harder on the passage in and out of King’s Landing after hearing the new dragonriders escaped from the city. Even the fishing boats will be inspected, stressing the already starved populace. “We all must make our sacrifices,” Aemond says coldly.  

The sacrifices won’t stop there though and he demands Helaena (Phia Saban) ride Dreamfyre into battle with him. Though her dragon is one of the oldest in Westeros, the fragile woman is no warrior and refuses to fight. Enraged that the dragonseeds have defiled their birthright, he gets rough with his sister until Alicent (Oliva Cooke), comes between them and eventually he storms out in anger.

Later, he approaches Helaena alone and begs her with tears in his one eye to ride to Harrenhal with him. She asks, “Will you burn me as you did Aegon?”

He denies it but she saw it in a vision. Not only has she seen his treachery but she’s witnessed their future. Aegon will rule again on a wooden throne and as for Aemond, “You are swallowed up in the God’s Eye and you are never seen again.” For those who missed their Westeros geography lesson, the God’s Eye is the largest lake in the Seven Kingsdom and is located right by Harrenhal, where Aemond is headed. 

Even if he drags her to war, his fate will not change. 

Jace pouts while Ulf pisses everyone else off

Though Team Black is full up on dragonriders, Jace (Harry Collett) feels insecure about his own history as a bastard while among them. Though both Addam (Clinton Liberty) and Hugh (Kieran Bew) comport themselves well, Ulf (Tom Bennett) is another matter entirely. His boorish nature sets the pouty prince’s teeth on edge and it does not help matters that he brings up Jace’s bastard brown hair to his face. It’s only with Hugh’s intersession that Jace doesn’t feed Ulf to Vermax. 

Ulf continues to test everyone including Rhaenyra and the other dragonseeds. However, since he has claimed Silverwing, they must tolerate him while hoping he rises to the task at hand. 

And that task is no longer deterrence but war. Rhaenyra hoped that having seven dragons under her command would be enough to get the Greens to surrender but with Aemond at the lead, that hope is slim. Corlys (Steve Toussaint) advises that she must strike now and with force. Though they have had a complicated relationship, he believes she is ready for battle.  As is he on the refurbished Sea Snake, which will sail under a new name. In honor of his late wife Rhaenys, he has rechristened the famed ship, “The Queen that Never Was.” 

As Corlys prepares to set sail, he tries to give the taciturn Alyn (Abubakar Salim) advice on how to inspire his crew but the young man refuses to listen. Having been ignored by his father so long, Alyn finally tells Corlys of the deprivation he and Addam lived under while Corlys swanned about with his rightful heirs cloaked in furs and filled with sweetmeats. It’s only when all those heirs have died that Corlys finally deigned “to scatter the crumbs of your favor.” Having survived so long on his own abilities, Alyn is fine continuing on alone without his father’s help.   

Daemon has a vision of Ice and Fire

As the wind in the weirwood hisses “Traitor,” Ser Alfred Broome (Jamie Kenna) arrives at Harrenhal with treachery in his heart. Instead of continuing to support the faltering queen, Broome suggests Daemon (Matt Smith) put forth his own claim and declare himself king instead. A few weeks ago Daemon might have welcomed the support but he pauses here, noting warily, “I never took you for a turncloak, Ser Alfred.” 

Daemon does not commit to the plot but Ser Simon Strong (Sir Simon Russell Beale) witnesses the exchange and ever loyal, sends a raven to Rhaenyra with a warning. 

If Daemon was considering making his betrayal of Rhaenyra complete, the castle has other ideas for him. As he communes with the castle’s heart tree, he sees the future filled with a whole lot of Game of Thrones Easter eggs. A Three-Eyed Raven in the shape of young Targaryen bastard Brynden Rivers appears and transforms into a battle full of bleeding men and dead dragons that leaves Daemon drowning in the depths of a lake. In another flash, he sees the Night King among an army of white walkers, three familiar dragon eggs bathed in fire, and the rebirth of the dragons in the form of his descendent Daenerys Targaryen. I don’t know if the show busted their cameo budget with Milly Alcock and Paddy Considine’s returns but sadly we don’t see Emilia Clarke in this vision. 

Lastly, he sees his wife Rhaenyra on the Iron Throne and Helaena appears saying “It’s all a story and you are but one part in it. You know your part.” Daemon doesn’t realize he’s just learned of the Song of Ice and Fire but when Rhaenyra arrives in a surprise visit to Harrenhal alongside Addam on Seasmoke, she finds her husband humbled by what he has witnessed.

In Harrenhal’s Great Hall where Rhaenys was passed over as queen decades before, the estranged spouses come face-to-face as the room brims with the Riverlands swords loyal to Daemon. When Daemon starts talking like a Stark with “Winter is coming with darkness and doom,” Rhaenyra notes he now sounds like her father. 

Coming close before her, he says, “The realm’s only hope is a leader who can unite it and my brother chose you”. He kneels, proclaiming, “You are the true queen, Rhaenyra, the First of Her Name, Protector of the Realm. I am meant to serve you, and all these men with me, until death or the end of our story.” That’s about as romantic as Daemon can get. 

Grabbing her husband’s hand, Rhaenyra says in Valyrian “Leave me again at your peril.”

He smiles wryly in return, “I could not. I have tried, my Queen.”

And with that he calls his men to fight for their queen. As the men wave their swords and begin their war chants for her, Ser Alfred slips through the crowd to escape. 

Rhaenyra gets a midnight visitor

Leaving Daemon to fight for her in the Riverlands, Rhaenyra returns to Dragonstone where she gets a surprising midnight visitor in Alicent. They have a long, meaty conversation where neither can refrain from sniping at the other while they hash out all of their issues, including the fact that the holier than thou Alicent has taken a lover after shaming Rhaenyra for similar behavior all these years. 

Though Alicent admits she made a mistake placing Aegon on the throne, she only thought she was doing what Viserys wanted. She put her faith in the men around her and now having realized the patriarchy she loyally served her whole life was faulty, she wants to make amends. She tells Rhaenyra that the reason Viserys never wavered on naming her heir was the love that he carried for her mother Aemma, which was the very thing that sustained him. Alicent mentions that Aemond is soon leaving for Harrenhal and with Helaena as the crown’s authority, she will engineer it so Rhaenyra can finally enter King’s Landing as a conqueror and claim her throne. All she wants is to leave with her daughter and granddaughter and Rhaenyra can have it all. She wants freedom and nothing else.  

When Rhaenyra asks “What of Aegon?” Alicent, unaware of his plans to flee, believes she can prevail upon her broken son to surrender but Rhaenyra says that won’t work. “I must take Aegon’s head. And I have to for it for all to see. You know this.” 

Alicent must make a sacrifice. A son for a son. She agrees saying she will arrange Rhaenyra to enter the city in three days time. As for herself, “I cast myself on the mercy of a friend who once loved me.”

“History will paint you a villain” notes Rhaenyra, which is true because the Alicent in Fire & Blood has more in common with Cersei Lannister than anything we’ve seen on the show. Alicent asks Rhaenyra to come with her but knowing the prophecy laid before her, she cannot. “My part is here, whether I will or no. It was decided for me long ago.” 

As Alicent takes her leave, war is already in motion as the Lannisters, Starks, Hightowers, and Tully forces march forward even as the two queens who started this fight now wish to end it. 

See you next season! 

Notes from the Archmaester

• Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) wanders around the Vale like the heroine in a Brontë novel but she eventually finds Sheepstealer. Frustratingly, she does not ride the rather raggedy wild dragon but hopefully, she makes a dramatic entrance on dragonback next season to makeup for it.  
• Speaking of dragons, we got our first official Tessarion sighting! And a very distant view of Daeron gliding over the Hightower forces as they march to war. 
• Confirming Alicent’s suspicions that something happened to her father, Otto seems to be a prisoner in what looks like the hold of a ship. It’s not clear who holds him but nice to see Rhys Ifans again after Otto disappeared for most of the season. 
• Even though Rhaenyra and Mysaria kissed a few episodes ago, they’ve returned to platonic status and with Rhaenyra and Daemon renewing their bond, it seems like the kiss might have been a one-off. 
• Since the show eliminated Aegon’s second son and he can no longer sire children, he is left with only a daughter as his direct heir. Which was the exact problem that Viserys had when this mess started. 
• Criston (Fabien Frankel) has serious dragon-related PTSD. 
• The show revealed that face on Harrenhal’s heart tree was actually modeled after George R.R. Martin. 
• There has been a long brewing argument over whether the Prince that was Promised prophecy meant Jon Snow or Daenerys but Daemon’s vision suggests it could have been Daenerys. I always thought it meant both of them together but this vision will surely spark a new round of discussion.