***Spoilers ahead!***
Fark. FARK. FARRRRRRRRRRRKKKKK!
Beloved readers, my sweet kittens, our favourite world came back to us - and immediately punched us in the face with unexpected-but-probably-should-have-been-expected awfulness.
I mean, it was all there in the title: A Son for a Son.
But which son, kittens? WHICH SON?!?!
Much like Alicent after telling Criston Cole that was definitely the last time, I’m torn.
I mean, here I was thinking “Of course I’m Team Black. Team Green is clearly a pack of manipulative weirdos and evil freaks. There is no alternative.”
But then a grieving and distraught Queen Rhaenyra utters four words that sets in train a devastating sequence of horror that even she - as hellbent on revenge as she is - was unlikely to have predicted. Events that have perhaps engendered a little more sympathy for the Greens than I was expecting to have.
Of course, the whole thing did go down while Little Miss Purity Alicent was riding Christian Cole’s, uh, Hightower, so that might just cancel it out.
Either way, it was a thrilling return to Westeros, and I’m so excited to be back as your glorious Mother of Kittens/humble recappespondent.
So let’s make like the aforementioned Dowager Queen Alicent and get stuck into some piping Hot D.
S2 E1: A Son for a Son
Before I begin in earnest, some bittersweet thoughts.
Since we last left Westeros, things have changed. In the real world too. By the time The Black Queen aired in October 2022, the marvellous, kind, clever, hilarious Stuart Layt was well into treatment for cancer. It was tough, and Stu kept much of it to himself. I like to think doing our Raven On podcast and focusing on the fun of the show helped during that time, but honestly, not even chemo could have dulled Stu’s shine.
He truly was the hero we needed.
Leading up to this season premiere, I realised that the first episode of House of the Dragon premiered on August 21 US time, August 22 Australian time, 2022. Stu died very early on August 22, 2023. Not long after midnight, in fact.
He was taken from us exactly a year after House of the Dragon first aired.
Weird coincidences like that keep popping up for me regarding the big guy - and obviously when you miss someone you’re going to find reasons to keep connecting to them.
So you will have to forgive me if these recaps gets peppered with mentions of Stu. Much like the stunning tapestry of the new opening credits (more on those below), Stu’s DNA is woven through this world. Events of this episode I would previously have noted with a typical “Natalie’s obsessed with Game of Thrones” level of emotional investment felt more intense knowing how chuffed Stu would have been.
For instance, as soon as I saw those familiar rounded towers of the continent’s northernmost seat, I involuntarily screamed “Winterfell!” and then burst into tears. It was what I never knew I needed and I immediately thought of how happy Stu would have been to see the North again.
The North Remembers, and we do too.
Of course, given how quickly we leave it, I suspect it won’t feature heavily in the rest of Season 2. But I’m still glad the production team decided to start us off in the land that for so long saw Jon Snow stomp grumpily around it looking windswept and interesting.
It also provided a brilliant background for an ominous opening voiceover, with young Cregan Stark intoning the seriousness with which Starks take both their oath to the Targaryen ruling house AND their role as guardians at The Wall.
In a montage, we see North men pulling coloured rocks from a bag, with one of Cregan’s own relatives, a square-jawed, bowled-cut lad, removing a black stone, indicating a life of service, snow and no sex ahead of him.
The voice over becomes reality, with Jace in the creaky elevator with Cregan at The Wall, and no stopping at perfumerie, stationery and leathergoods, wigs and haberdashery, kitchenware and food, going up.
Only the most topical references for you, dear kittens.
Like all southerners, Jace is somewhat disbelieving of the reasons why The Wall needs to exist and take up so many resources, saying it’s just to keep out wildlings and weather.
But Cregan has that famous Stark sombreness down to a tee, giving Jace a metaphorical cold slap across the face by letting the wind deliver a literal cold slap across the face.
“Do you think my ancestors would build a 700 foot wall of ice to stop snow and savages?”
“What does it keep out?”
“Death.”
“Just you wait… seriously, just you wait. About 100 years. Thanks.”
Even though I’m still working out if it’s pronounced “Cree-gan” or “Creg-an” or “Craig-an”, it was glorious watching a young Stark standing there, with Ned Stark’s famous family longsword Ice strapped to his back, swaddled in furs, direwolf sigil on the chest and hair styled in the famous half-up, half-down Stark family man bun. The nostalgia! Or future-stalgia!
Miss you, lover.
Now, the age gaps and time jumps in this story continue to baffle my poor visual-learning skills.
Alicent and Rhaenyra still both only look about 30, Criston Cole is a vampire who hasn’t aged since episode 1, and Aegon, Helaena and Aemond look about 25. Aegon and Helaena have kids of their own, making Alicent a goddamned grandmother, which I KNOW was a thing but still makes my brain hurt.
(In the book of Gone With The Wind, Scarlett O’Hara has a baby when she’s 17, and her mother then dies a grandmother at 32, AND Rhett Butler was older than her mother by a year, so if for no other reason, I’m really glad the South was beaten in the Civil War.)
Jacerys looks over 18, but by my reckoning is more like 15 or 16, which means I am SUPER CREEPY for admiring just how much of a “Snow-up” he’s had. Seriously, in the few days he’s been away from Dragonstone visiting the Vale and Winterfell, he’s had a full-on makeover. It looks like his dragon Vermax flew him through a Prada workshop and dunked his head in a lake of licorice-black Rogaine.
This is the before people. This is a Bridgerton-level glow-up.
The actor who plays Jacerys, Harry Collett, is 20, so I’m still a terrible, terrible person, but at least I’m not a criminal I think? I’m just remarking on significant styling decisions made by the costume team?
We’re reminded soon enough of Jace’s youth when his tête-à-trêaty with Cregan Stark is interrupted by a raven from Dragonstone.
Cregan gives him a classic Stark LOOK, and Jace knows something is wrong. Imagine seeing the unimaginable unknowableness of The Land Beyond The Wall for the first time, discovering not even dragons like to fly over its terrifying landscape, and then finding out your little baby bro and his little baby dragon got hella chomped mid-flight?
That’s not going to make for a very safe-feeling flight back to Dragonstone. That’s the kind of info that’s going to make you feel like you’re flying Boeing.
Air Force One remains the peak of CGI plane crashes.
Someone who’s already a bit tired of flying is Rhaenys Velaryon, aka possibly the coolest character in this whole saga. She is managing a one-woman-atop-one-dragon defensive strategy with Meleys, patrolling the waters off King’s Landing to help enforce a blockade her husband has instigated to close off the capital from the Essos and surrounding isles - and she’s over it for today.
So she has no f***s to give when Prince Daemon, the resplendent Matt Smith, tries to get her to jump back onboard for an all-out attack on “that hoary old bitch” Vhaegar. Rude.
Daemon is all angsty that Rhaenyra has disappeared in the wake of Lucerys’ death. “The mother grieves while the Queen shirks her duty,” he whinges. It’s Rhaenyrs’ good sense that makes the Prince see sense: a raven is not enough to convince a mother her baby is gone; Rhaenyra needs physical proof to properly mourn.
She gets that by stalking the beaches of Storm’s End (in surprisingly sunny weather), waiting for some relevant flotsam and jetsam to float by.
Emma D’Arcy doing a Mr Darcy.
Eventually some local hicks pull a silvery wing into shore, but their excitement soon turns to terror when Rhaenyra zooms in on Syrax to ID the body. Rhaenyra finds a soaked red-and-black cloak nestled into the remains of the silvery wing, and breaks down. A quick search tells me that Syrax was actually the mother of Lucerys’ dragon Arrax, which explains why she too wailed inconsolably along with Rhaenyra.
Elsewhere, grief strikes Corlys Velaryon as he waits for his ship to be repaired on Driftmark. The Sea Snake is keen to get back on the water and lead the blockade of the Gullet, which we can interpret as feeling the need to do something to feel useful at a time like that.
But reality hits when his chief repair guy - his name is Alan, which I find delightful - presents him with a delicate golden dagger, which Lord Corlys admits he’d had made for young Lucerys on his official naming as their heir to Driftmark. Luke may not have been his biological grandson, but thankfully for his soul blood alone doesn’t matter.
Back at Rancho Dragonstone, Rhaenyra has a tender moment with Daemon as she arrives back in the throne room.
The positioning of the pair in this moment echoed that of when Daemon whispered to her about Luke’s death in front of the hearth. Except this time we heard his compassionate question: “Did you find what you needed?”
We just see the Rhaenyra’s head nod, another tick for Emma D’Arcy’s excellent back-of-head acting.
A short time later we have the saddest moment of the episode, when Jacerys informs his mother of his success in securing the loyalty of the Arryns, and 2000 hardened fighting men from the Starks.
He’s doing his best to be professional, but seeing his tear-stained mother’s face makes the sweet baby angel lose his composure. He fumbles, and chokes up. Without words, Rhaenyra wraps him in her arms tightly, the two united in grief.
However, Prince Daemon is up to some f**kery. The blockade has delivered him his one time paramour Mysaria, or as I know her “Magical Mysaria Tour”. She’s been acting as the White Worm, a spy supremo, and being paid by Otto Hightower, Alicent’s father and Hand of the King, for information. She’s been busted on a ship trying to flee to Essos - which makes sense given at the end of season one we saw her house on fire, seemingly set by Ser Larys “Foot Guy” Strong.
Understandably she seems to have lost her spirit, and has no time for Daemon sniping at her about treason and conspiracy and murder. He’s still suspicious - but the awesome Ser Erryk steps up to defend her as not being an agent of the Hightowers. It means once Rhaenyra makes her demand for Aemond, Daemon has an idea on how he could achieve that murderous goal - by offering Mysaria her freedom in exchange for information that could help him get into the Red Keep.
Before we get to his dastardly plan’s devastating outcome, let’s take a look at what’s been happening in the capital in the days since Aegon was crowned.
What’s been happening is Dowager Queen Alicent getting some Hot C, if you get my drift.
It’s apt that her first words of the episode are about summer being over, because Ser Cristan sure did go south for the winter.
Seriously though, how long has this little gruesome twosome been happening? Last I recall, Alicent was all “dignity” this, and “honour” that. Viserys’s death - which can’t have been more than a week prior - appears to have unlocked her mental chastity belt.
But why Cristan “Incel” Cole? After all, he was the one who deflowered Rhaenyra and then got all huffy when he was rejected. Did Alicent want to sample the goods that her teen bestie had enjoyed? Is it some kind of revenge boning for both of them?
Maybe it’s simpler. Maybe he’s the only man she’s not related to in the Red Keep who isn’t interested in her feet.
I did love Alicent telling Cristan they can’t do it again, and the tone of his “Yes, Your Grace” reply indicating that they would ABSOLUTELY be doing it again.
Meanwhile Aegon is gearing up for Small Council, and wants to take his son (and nephew!) along. Helaena disapproves, but Aegon thinks his lad should start learning how to be king early.
Spooky Helaena takes a moment to let her husband (and brother!) know she’s afraid, which he interprets as fear of an impending dragon attack by the Blacks. He reassures her that Vhaegar is patrolling the skies, but she interrupts.
“Not of dragons. Of rats.”
Ahhh, I nodded sagely, in the comfort of my Oodie on the couch. It’s a metaphor for the smallfolk, the ones we later see hassling King Aegon for mercy and money in the Throne Room. Rats = poor people, and as soon as the blockade makes life hard in King’s Landing, the peasants will be revolting indeed.
Turns out, no, it’s going to be a lot more literal.
Aegon takes Jaehaerys to cabinet, and proceeds to act like a total arse. When the lad steals Tyland Lannister’s marble speaking ball thingy, making the nervous Tyland try to get it back, Aegon demands the Master of Coin give the boy a pony ride. It’s unedifying behaviour that thankfully Alicent is able to manage by blaming Tyland for interrupting and insisting they have no time to be sidetracked.
But Aemond also rocks up to the Small Council despite not having a seat, and Alicent has to fight to convince Aegon NOT to ride to Harrenhal and make the River Lords bend the knee. For how long can she convince the king - and his brother - to stay put, that Vhaegar is needed to protect the city?
Aegon heads into the Throne Room to hold court and hear petitions from the smallfolk. He’s accompanied by two hilarious hype guys, who flank him walking in and announce him as “King Aegon the Magnanimous”. When Aegon quietly questions this, one of them just shrugs. It’s a delightful moment.
You might remember in the back half of season one, that Aegon tried everything he could to get out of being King. He was a drunk who loving whoring, and had to be bodily kidnapped to attend his coronation. But once crowned and acclaimed, he changed. Public approval meant everything to him; so it’s perhaps no surprise that upon seating the Iron Throne, he fancies himself a wise and benevolent ruler.
Unfortunately, he’s hamstrung by the realities of politics. He graciously offers to give a shepherd back his sheep, but those sheep are needed for dragon food in the event of war. It’s up to Otto to deliver the bad news that Aegon simply can’t be a perennial people pleaser.
“Your ego’s writing cheques your body can’t cash.”
But Otto isn’t able to get his own way in every matter. It turns out there’s a cost of living crisis in Westeros too, and the price of iron is rising. The ironmongers want their money before they start work, and Aegon agrees. Otto’s expression would indicate he’s not best pleased about spending precious coin on annoyances like labour, something that would put him in company with Gina Reinhart and Donald Trump.
All of this puts Aegon in a suitably malleable position for the true creep of the series, Ser Larys Strong, who watched him in action on the throne and wants a quiet word. In his typically understated way, he suggests to Aegon that Otto was a good Hand for Viserys, who was easily manipulated, and hints Aegon may want a new one. Safe to say Aegon does NOT get the irony of understanding his father was pliable and not realising Strong is bending him like plasticine too.
Ser Larys also tells Alicent that he has shut down the spy network that had infiltrated her inner circle, saying “they no longer breathe our air”. As always, Alicent wants problems to go away, but shirks from truly accepting her role in the method in which those problems are dealt with.
The upshot is he’s chosen her new personal staff himself, something that later weighs on her mind as his hand-picked handmaidens attempt to sponge-bathe her.
Ser Larys is getting his ducks in a row, that’s for sure - but I’m not certain how Otto might react to being dumped as Hand. It is, after all, his only claim on power, as he’s a second son of a minor house.
Certainly Otto is aware of the delicate balance of keeping both of his grandsons in check. Alicent is frustrated with him for speaking over her in the Small Council, saying he needs to reinforce her voice, not suppress it, or both boys will ignore her. Surprisingly Otto agrees, saying “I hadn’t seen it that way”. In turn, she agrees to his view that diplomacy must soon give way to violence, but says it doesn’t have to be wanton.
Otto describes Aemond’s actions against Lucerys as “the caprice of youth”, which is a nice way of justifying murder. But Alicent can’t even look at him as she says “I hope so”, meaning she fears he has the evil eye in him (if not on him).
Otto worries about this too; and confronts Aemond about it later, interrupting a cosy chat/scheme he’d been having with Cristan Cole about alliances and troop movements.
Aemond is very realistic about his relatives’ failings, even calling his mother a fool. Cristan doesn’t exactly jump to her defence; only saying she got enthralled by Rhaenyra years ago, so nothing is really her fault. Dude, it’s been years, take some responsibility. Aemond also calls Alicent angry, which is intriguing as she had also called him that. Mother and son seem to see the same qualities in each other.
But Otto can see Aemond is also smart, and capable of controlling his baser instincts. He tells One-Eye he needs to exercise restraint, because they both know Aegon won’t.
We see Alicent at prayer in the Sept of Baelor, lighting candles for her mother, Viserys - and Lucerys Velaryon. It’s juxtaposed with Rhaenyra and family holding their own burning ceremony for Luke, but as they have no mortal remains, they place his clothes and his little horse toy in the fire instead. It’s such a sad scene as a teary Jace holds little Joffrey in his arms, and his cousin/finance Rhaena sobs. Whatever the sins they might commit, I think it’s safe to say the children of the Blacks wing of the family seem to demonstrate more real affection than the Greens.
But someone is missing from that family moment, and it’s here where things take a turn for the Blacks.
Daemon has quietly slipped into King’s Landing to find a big burly chap in the City Watch. He was once their Commander, and the fellow recognises him. Daemon proffers some coin and asks if it’s true that the White Worm described the bloke as NOT a fan of the Hightowers.
“F*** the Hightowers,” he replies, taking the money, and look, fair.
Pretending Daemon is a prisoner, the Hired Goon takes him to a ratcatcher named Cheese, which is a great name, particularly as Cheese goes well with Goon.
I feel like backdoor backstabbery is not really Daemon’s typical flamboyant style, but here we are. The Prince offers Cheese a ton of, well, cheese, to sneak into the Red Keep with Goon and murder Aemond. He agrees, rather too breezily for my liking. Maybe he really was just proud of knowing the fortress better than “the shape of my own cock” and wanted to show that off.
So Goon and Cheese (and Cheese’s little dog) make their way into the Red Keep, kitted out in rat catcher attire. They pass through the Throne Room itself, where Aegon and his hype guys are boozing and brainstorming new sobriquets, because nobody knows what “Magnanimous” means. Of course, this inevitably turns to the might of Aegon’s tumescence, which means they’re suitably distracted and don’t notice the rat catchers.
Goon forces Cheese to take them even further than he would normally go for his job. The royal chambers are eerily quiet, with the room where Cristan and Aemond had been plotting dark and empty.
The pair split up, but eventually Goon discovers Cheese holding a knife to Helaena’s throat. Goon works out her two children are in the room, and insists Helaena tell them which one is the boy. “A son for a son” is what Daemon had said - and they proceed to smother the boy’s mouth and dismember him. That horror isn’t shown, but the subtitles do read “slices flesh, bone” which surely is evocative enough.
I don’t know why, but this might be worse.
Now I’ve previously been slightly dismissive of spacey Queen Helaena and her psychic ponderings.
But Phia Saban’s performance here was stunning. The almost pathetic offering of a valuable necklace to save her son’s life; her shaking but definitively pointed finger; her eyes filling with truth as Cheese understands she’s definitely pointing at Jaehaerys; shock and tears as the two murderous men set about their terrible purpose; the way she gathered up her daughter and almost floated through the Red Keep to her mother’s room.
Where Alicent was, well, Cole-dancing.
Some might think catching her mother and the head of the Kingsguard mid Cole-tus might have be even more traumatising, but frankly after seeing your baby son beheaded I suspect a parental bonk loses some of its sting.
The big question is - why DID she point at Jaehaerys? Daemon’s Hired Goon did after all spot the potential rumble of pointing at the daughter to save the son, because this is Westeros and only penises have value gah.
“I also find penises valuable.”
I have a theory. Earlier, when Aegon interrupted her cross-stitching to take his son off to the Small Council to begin his instruction in kinging, Helaena muttered “What if he doesn’t want to be king?”
Given that she has some Cassandra-level mojo happening, maybe she allowed Jaehaerys to die to save him from a life she knew he wouldn’t want.
Of course it’s not the kind of story you necessarily want to tell the King, your Mum, your brother, your Pop and your favourite assortment of spiders and bugs. I suspect she will come under some suspicion because that’s the kind of world it is, but I hope Aegon will take her sight seriously now. Although I’m more inclined to think he’ll just send Aemond on Vhaegar to roast Dragonstone to dust, because this is NOT going to go down well.
The other question is - was the death of Jaehaerys truly an unfortunate happenstance, or was it sanctioned by Prince Daemon?
He had seemed fairly insistent that it was Aemond he wanted killed, giving Cheese a proper description. But at the end of that scene, Cheese said “What if I can’t find him?”, it cut back to Daemon with a slightly conspiratorial half-smile, then ended.
What didn’t we see him say?
What if he told them that as long as they got a Targaryen head for him, they’d get their gold?
It certainly tracks with his “I’m gonna go f*** some s*** up” style.
Rhaenys even made a pointed remark in his direction that Rhaenyra was wise to recuse herself while grieving, to not act on impulse like SOME people *cough Daemon cough*. And he responded by saying she had the chance to eliminate Aegon’s line but didn’t take it. Maybe he decided it was a decent second prize if Aemond didn’t show?
We then have to ask whether he’ll ‘fess up to Rhaenyra that he sanctioned the child murder (churder?) and wonder what her response will be? I suspect while desperate for revenge, she retains enough maternal feeling to not want toddlers' heads hacked off as retribution.
Of course the biggest response will come from the Greens itself. I confess this course of action did make my loyalty to the Blacks wobble. I don’t want to overstate this, but it is VERY HARD to come back from child murder, and Jaehaerys was an even younger child than Lucerys.
We await the fallout next week!
Yay! Best Moments.
Obviously lots of great stuff in this episode, but let’s focus on those new opening titles, because they are just lush and fantastic. Game of Thrones had its famous maps, which helped situate you for locations used in that episode. Season one of House of the Dragon moved to a bloodline-style animation, outlining the different wings of the Targaryen family. However, it was slightly complex to follow, what with the blood and gold flowing through stone and what not.
This version keeps to that idea of the family tree, but repurposes it into history lesson, with images weaving themselves in glorious colour. It starts with the Doom of Valyria, and the Conquest - you can definitely see a Stark kneeling, and I think the burning of Harrenhal is in there too. More recent kings and queens can be seen too, including the depiction of when Jaehaerys named Viserys his heir. Alicent and Rhaenyra stand opposite each other, and then Aegon and Rhaenyra sit two thrones as rival monarchs.
The Bayeaux Tapestry in Normandy is a 70-metre long depiction of events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and so it’s a lovely tribute to that as well. I wonder if it will be added expanded in coming weeks?
Zing! Best Lines.
Daemon: Fly with me. It’s a command.
Rhaenys: Would you were the king.
The Queen Who Never Was ain’t taking shit from The Prince Who Isn’t King.
Daemon also gets another comeuppance from Ser Erryk when he threatens the Kingsguard with the treason brush. He says Ser Erryk should have killed Aegon when he had the chance in King’s Landing. But Ser Erryk claps back in the best way, saying he and his brother, Ser Arryk, were named to the Kingsguard at 18, and pledged to protect the whole royal family. What the hell were they supposed to do when that family turned on each other? It’s a nice rejoinder.
Oh yeah, and when Otto tells the Small Council that the Starks and Arryns have not responded to their ravens demanding loyalty, Aegon simply asserts: “C***s”. You’ve got to love a confident C-bomb.
Ew, gross.
I know there was child murder in this episode, but also, Cheese KICKED HIS OWN DOG. Come on, guys. That little pup did nothing to you. He was just trying to earn a crust doing good, honest rat-catching work. Poor little thing. I hope he is found and adopted by Helaena and lives happily ever after.
Boo, sucks.
I’m worried there’s a disturbing lack of ogle-able men in this series going forward. Sure, Matt Daemon goes all right, if you’re into burly blondes who strut with their head looking down. It’s unlikely we’ll see much more of Cregan Stark and his mysterious brother, the one sent to the Night’s Watch in the opening montage. I’ll probably get arrested if I invest too much into Jacerys, and Cristan Cole - ha!
So I ask you, what’s a good recappespondent/pervert supposed to do?
Thank you so much for reading, kittens! Remember you can find my Patreon here and sign up to throw a few bucks per month my way while the season is running. The support is incredible, and I cannot thank you enough!