Review: House of the Dragon, "A Son for a Son" | Season 2, Episode 1
Back to Black (and Green) in Westeros
Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of season two of HBO’s House of the Dragon. As always, this review is free for all, with subsequent reviews exclusively for paid subscribers. For more information on our schedule for June and what your subscription gets you, check out our About Page for more information. To revisit our reviews of the first season, click here.
“What were we to do when they turned against one another?”
I admire that House of the Dragon doesn’t spend much time on exposition as it begins its second season. Although we live in an era where past seasons are instantly accessible, and anyone who is concerned about their understanding of the plot could easily turn on the first season finale to become reacquainted, the fact it’s been off the air for almost two years means that there are no doubt finer details that we probably forgot about. Case in point: I certainly would have never recalled the tale of Kingsguard twins Arryk and Erryk if I hadn’t reread my own review of the finale before watching the premiere. But after basically giving over its entire first season to an expositional series of vignettes to rush through twenty years of history, “A Son for a Son” is better for predominantly focusing on the moment we’re in.
The above quote—from Erryk, the one who sided with Rhaenyra—is the most important dimension of that moment, reinforced by where the episode begins. Sure, we mostly open the episode at Winterfell and The Wall because this is a prequel to Game of Thrones and they don’t want us to forget that, but it’s also helpful to show us how a house that we know and understand is responding to the conflict playing out in close quarters in both King’s Landing and Dragonstone. The first season clearly established the interpersonal stakes of the battle between Black and Green—what this second season gets to add in lieu of the expositional framework of season one is the human cost for the rest of the Seven Kingdoms.
Jacaerys’ conversation with Cragen Stark might seem like fan service at first glance, what with its gestures toward the White Walkers, but the Starks and the North as a whole are the epitome of honor as we understand it in this story. But their decision is simpler than that facing others: they’re far away from King’s Landing, with no strategic value and an importance to the larger security of the realm than others. They honor their oath to Viserys and the Targaryens with two thousand (“seasoned”) soldiers, but the small folk around King’s Landing have far less agency to make such a decision, and the diplomatic game is going to become even harder once all-out war comes to all of Westeros. As the dragon eats its own tail, as it were, it’s the people of the Seven Kingdoms who are going to face the consequences, whether in the form of blockades or barbecues.
This is not a huge part of the episode, admittedly, given there’s plenty of plot within the Green and Black sides of this story to focus on. However, it’s the part of the episode that felt like the show maturing into itself, with now solo showrunner Ryan Condal asserting the show’s intentions in a way that the narrative structure of season one never quite allowed. It’s not a dramatically different show—I was reminded that he said it was going to be “funnier” in interviews around the end of season one, and while there’s maybe a bit more humor, this is still an episode about a grieving mother who asks for the head of her son’s killer and instead sets into motion the beheading of an innocent child. We know that’s the kind of show House of the Dragon is, but I’ll be curious to see how the war that follows continues to find moments like the opening scenes where the worldbuilding comes to the forefront even as that world comes apart.
We’ve known since last season’s finale that war was inevitable—although Rhaenyra fought against the idea for a long time, there was no way she would continue to do so after Luke’s death, even if it’s also clear she would have never supported Jaeharys’ murder. But whereas we’ve come to see Daemon as the devil on her shoulder, the equivalent to Aemond and Aegon’s recklessness under Alicent’s watch, in this case he was following her instructions and simply chose to put his plan in the hands of men without a clear handle on the politics involved. I have no doubt that killing Aemond would have plunged them into war just the same as this will, but it would have been a more justified death—arguing that the episode’s title applies to what happened here is difficult, even if you could argue that “an heir for an heir” is politically trenchant if also destructive to that faint glimpse of a possible peace that Alicent continues to hold onto even after Luke’s death.
Rhaenyra spends the majority of the episode exiling herself in her mourning, returning only after recovering Luke’s cloak from the ocean, so this is really Alicent’s episode in terms of our two central characters. Overall, it captures the contradictions that define her life, which Aemond characterizes as “speaking with two tongues.” She is self-aware enough to realize that her sons are pieces of shit that need to be controlled if they’re going to accomplish any kind of diplomacy, but she’s still resistant to Otto’s machiavellian scheming. She uses the whispers of Larys in order to do her bidding, but she still is discomforted by the idea of his control over her staff, who she sends away. She tells Criston that they must cease their sexual activity, but she’s also riding him when Helaena enters her chamber with news of her grandson’s death. She’s not fully cut out for the world she’s inherited after her husband’s death, but she’s still playing the game, and I appreciate how there’s no easy read on how she’ll handle what’s to come. Does this give her the same taste for war Rhaenyra gained after Luke’s death? Or does her pragmatic side continue to win out?
As I noted last season, I’m choosing not to read Fire & Blood this time around, and while I suggested back then that I’d read up until where the first season left off, I regret to inform you that I never got around to it. But the final moments of this episode are the reason why I made that choice, as I got to experience the horror first hand. While not among the show’s biggest twists, the sound department really went to town on the grisly nature of the attack, and it’s the kind of ending where you’re left sitting with something deeply disturbing when the credits roll. I don’t know if the scene was suspenseful, exactly—even without reading the book, I felt confident Aemond wouldn’t be dying this early, so I never expected the mission to be successful. But there’s a tension in knowing that Westeros sits on a knife’s edge, and Daemon placed its fate in the hands of a ratcatcher and a disgruntled member of the City Watch.
If I have a central complaint about this episode, it was the choice to return to the White Worm, a character that I didn’t think worked last season and which doesn’t get dramatically better here. Some of this is the inscrutable accent that Sonoya Mizuno unfortunately did not abandon between seasons, but it also feels too convenient that she’d be randomly found on a ship leaving King’s Landing, delivered to Daemon, and then offer him the necessary details to infiltrate the Red Keep. In an episode where we were reminded that there is a much bigger world outside of this conflict—like in Corlys briefly connecting with the man who saved his life—to see it come back to a character we had already met in this way shrunk that down. I would have been more than happy to see her just disappear between seasons, allowing the show to focus its energy elsewhere.
Overall, “A Son for a Son” reminds us of the compelling dynamics that the first season’s story gave us, whether it’s Rhaenys jousting with Daemon over strategy or Larys poisoning Otto in Aegon’s ear. I don’t know if I have any deep investment in any of these characters in the way that Game of Thrones established early on, but I was still moved by Rhaenyra’s grief, particularly in her reunion with Jacaerys. Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke may have memed their way into notoriety between seasons, but I’m compelled by the idea of these two women grappling with their combination of a righteous claim to honoring Viserys’ wishes, the intense grief of the losses they’ve suffered at each other’s hands, and the bloodlust of their advisors who desire power for reasons entirely unrelated to what is just or right. Every now and then there’s a scene where I wonder why I’m supposed to care about this, but that core struggle is central enough, and once we get into actual war I’m presuming there will be some stronger justifications for time spent.
“A Son for a Son” did reinforce to me, though, that I have become disconnected from the “fan” experience of this show. It’s not just that I didn’t read the books—I also can’t fathom the idea of “picking a side” as though there’s a rooting interest, and I’m not trying to keep up with the dragon names either. I definitely forgot all the kids’ names between seasons, and while I obviously had the ability to look them up, I struggle to imagine them entering into the larger cultural lexicon. And given the long gap between seasons, I do have to wonder whether the same will be true for the audience who made the show a “relative” hit for our Peak TV moment, even as it fell far below Game of Thrones’ peak.
That said, I’m hoping that the show will find some momentum of its own in the seven episodes that follow this one. House of the Dragon scratches the itch of what Game of Thrones offered, and I appreciate that the latter’s success opened the door for this scale of fantasy storytelling to exist on television in a way that seemed unfathomable two decades ago. And there’s something dramaturgically interesting about a prequel that always compels me, and while I might not be optimistic that it will become a show that I’m truly on the edge of my seat for each week, I’m at least open to the idea that all-out war could give the show a new angle into this world that will give us something to talk about.
Stray observations
Love the new tapestry opening title sequence, wish they would have gone all in and just changed the main title theme as well. Still flabbergasted by that decision.
Given how crucial Alan Taylor was to the early seasons of Game of Thrones, there’s not really any significant aesthetic shift after the departure of director/co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik. This remains a handsomely made television show.
“Would that you were the king”—I want to see Rhaenys have a more active political role as well, but existing mostly to just needle Daemon is working for me in the meantime. (He’s right about how her choice to not just burn up the entire family was dumb iin retrospect, though).
Sometimes I forget character names between seasons just because they’re all too similar and weird, and sometimes I forget because I want to erase someone from existence. That was certainly the case with Ser Criston Cole, who is just a sniveling snit of a snot.
I appreciate that they’re not depicting Aegon as evil in the way they did with Joffrey—same with Aemond, for that matter. The latter got caught up in the revenge over his eye, while the former’s time hearing the pleas of the smallfolk reveals him as inherently decent—he wants to give the dude his sheep back, after all. He has no acumen for political strategy, and no respect for the throne as he drinks on it with his bros, but he’s not a terrible person and that’s for the best.
I know from the comments last year that there was some frustration with Luke’s death being played as an accident on Aemond’s part, as it softened his character. It’s clear here that he hasn’t told anyone that, and we don’t really get any sense of vulnerability or trauma from his point-of-view, so it does seem like he’s going to become that hardened version of himself even if we know the inciting incident was maybe more complicated than the history books will suggest.
Welcome back to Episodic Medium’s coverage of House of the Dragon! This review is going out to over 5000 more free subscribers than my first review of season one, and this is one of the shows I committed to reviewing when this Substack was just me and my desire to stay on my existing A.V. Club beats back in early 2022. I appreciate that some of you may have followed me from there, and am excited to continue our conversation about the show alongside lots of other great shows this summer. As always, your support is so important in helping me support not just my reviews but those of our tremendous contributors, so I hope you’ll consider joining us if you’re heading back to Westeros in the months ahead.
I've never been one to compare the show unfavorably to the book, but the assassination scene at the end is just so poorly conceived compared to that in the book, I'm at a complete loss to conjecture why they changed it.
Spoilers, kind of: in the book, the two men (called Blood and Cheese) come upon Helaena and her *three* children - older twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaerya, and younger boy, Maelor. They force Helaena to choose which boy to kill - she chooses Maelor. So they lop Jaehaerys' head off. The heir is dead, Maelor knows his mom chose him, Jaehaerys knows about all of it, and Helaena goes completely insane. It is SUCH a high-drama turning point in the book and here it's so subdued, removing the Sophie's Choice, and just leaving Helaena ... pretty upset, I guess?
It's such a weird whiff and I do not get it at all.
The problem with the “Which team will you choose?” marketing is that (within the show at least) there’s absolutely no reason anyone would be on Team Green at this point. It’s pretty cut and dry that Rhaenyra is the rightful queen and that the Hightowers committed a coup. Having not read the book, I imagine we’re heading in a direction where everyone is awful, but as of now there’s nothing to make a viewer think the Greens should win.