House Of The Dragon: Episode 2 Was Solid, Even If A Little Slow

Hopefully no one was eating while watching the beginning of this episode, or you probably lost your appetite like I did. House of the Dragon: Episode 2-The Rouge Prince has successfully followed up HOTD’s premiere episode’s lofty expectations, even if it was a little slow at times.

House of the Dragon has leaped the second great hurtle this show was going to face early on: keeping the story compelling after a highly publicized, action-packed premiere.

Most shows fail to keep their audiences engaged with the characters and plots after the first episode, usually because the succeeding episodes go too far in one of the two extremes of either becoming too action-oriented or making it too plot-focused. I.E.: major pacing problems.

Thankfully, House of the Dragon’ showrunners and writers have avoided that stumble by pacing the character and plot development subtly and consistently.

Anyway, if the last episode was all about the scheming and politicking of the powers of the Reach (the Citadel, Grand Maestar, Ser Otto Hightower, Alicent Hightower, and the rest House Hightower), then this episode was all about House Velaryon’s time to shine.

More specifically, Lord Corlys Velayron’s attempts to get his daughter onto the Iron Throne.

Due to Queen Aemma Arryn’s death in the last episode, King Viserys was left widowed and lonely as the love of his life not only passed away (well, more like was murdered, but I’m not sure if they could’ve saved her anyway), but also his baby son, Prince Baelon, died as well.

Thus, with the king widowed and left with only his daughter, Rhaenyra, as his heir, the powers of the realm did everything they could to get their daughter to be Viserys’ new queen (and provide him a male heir of their own family’s bloodline).

As I said, Lord Corlys was easily the most…uh…blunt (just watch Viserys and Laena’s ‘stroll through the garden’ scene and you’ll see what I mean) with his desires for Viserys to marry his 12-year-old daughter, Lady Laena Velaryon, and join the last two Valyrian households in matrimony.

Now, let me just say that the casting of the Velaryon family was absolutely brilliant by HBO, especially Steve Toussiant as Lord Corlys.

Toussiant brings out that ambitious, calculating, blunt ruthlessness that I really despised from Corlys in the books, though Steve Toussiant’s portrayals of it may be bringing me onto Corlys side.

But I’m defiantly not on his side when he’s trying to marry off his 12-year-old Laena to a 40ish-year-old Viserys. I get he wants his family on the Iron Throne after his wife, Princess Rhaenys (who had a wonderful scene with Rhaenyra in this episode), was passed over, but this is a little extreme. She’s only TWELVE!

Oh, and I should mention that Laena’s actress, Nova Foueillis-Mosé, did a great job portraying a dutiful, yet adventurous young Laena. Seeing as this is her first major role (or at least the only one I could find), Foueillis-Mosé didn’t look out of place at all.

Anyway, don’t let me trick you into thinking that the Hightowers were quite in this episode as they most certainly were not.

First, Alicent Hightower’s constant “visits” with King Viserys obviously had their intended affect as the Targaryen king was infatuated with the girl all episode long (which had its payoff as the episode ended). Moreover, I’m not sure how Rhaenyra didn’t realize that Alicent, her best friend, was secretly visiting her father in his bedchambers for months.

I feel like that kind of was a massive oversight on her part.

Nevertheless, the other Hightower, Ser Otto (Rhys Ifans), once again stole the scenes he was in with his scheming, authoritative portrayal of Otto Hightower. Again, he was in the scene of the episode for me as his confrontation with Daemon Targaryen on Dragonstone had me on the edge of my seat.

For those who haven’t seen it, essentially Daemon left King’s Landing and took up residence at Dragonstone after his banishment from court, taking Prince Baelon’s dragon egg with him. Daemon, in the only way a guy like Daemon could deliver this news, sent Viserys a wedding invitation to his and Mysaria’s wedding at Dragonstone, even though the King did not and would never approve of such a match.

Plus, he told the king that he had gotten the Lyseni woman pregnant and was going to give their child Baelon’s dragon egg. What a guy.

Obviously, Viserys was not happy with this and resolved to go to Dragonstone, confront Daemon, and take the dragon egg back. This is where Otto’s mastermind scheming brain kicked in as he urged Viserys to stay in King’s Landing as it would have been ‘too dangerous’, and to send him in his stead.

It was clear what Otto really wanted to do by going to Dragonstone: further alienate Daemon from Viserys and the court of King’s Landing.

But, Viserys, like the terrible king he is, agreed, and allowed Otto to travel to Dragonstone with the new Lord Commander, Ser Harrold Westerling, new member of the Kingsguard, Ser Criston Cole, and twenty of Ramsey Bolton’s…ehem…Otto Hightower’s good men. Yes, the show had a callback to that line.

These kinds of political scenes with Otto Hightower make this show so good as it emphasizes the best strengths of Game of Thrones and of George R.R. Martin’s novels: the character’s political schemes and conflicts with one another.

The way Otto was so condescending when confronting just Daemon, versus how timid he became when Caraxes (Daemon’s dragon) showed up was hilarious. He may not be as intimidating as Tywin Lannister, but he’s just as calculating (if not more).

The scene culminated with a dragon/Targaryen standoff as Rhaenyra flew Syrax to Dragonstone, confronted Daemon herself, and retrieved the egg without bloodshed, which was looking unlikely under Otto’s command. Just simply a fantastic scene and foreshadowed what is to come.

Regardless, the episode ended with King Viserys finally making his choice for queen…Alicent Hightower (what a shocker), Corlys Velaryon storming out of King’s Landing in disgust, and the Sea Snale hosting/planning with Daemon Targaryen to take the Stepstones from the newest villain, the Crabfeeder (who looked terrifyingly awesome in the few shots we saw).

Like I said, this episode was a great follow up to the premiere, though I do have two complaints with it:

A. They should have made the time jumping a little more obvious as I didn’t realize this episode jumped 5-6 (if that’s even right, Idk) months after Ep 1 until I was writing this article; B. Mysaria’s accent was really bad as it kind of sounded like she was trying to pull off a French accent, though it ended up sounding half America, half French, and all fake.

As for a theory about the upcoming episodes, I believe that either the Maesters or the Iron Throne itself is killing Viserys. First, he had that puss-filled wound on his back and now his finger has become infected and is decaying. Someone, or something, really wants that poor guy dead.

Still, these two minor complaints didn’t weigh too heavily on my rating as I’d give this episode an 8.5/10, easily making this show bonified “must watch T.V.” and the true successor to Game of Thrones’ legacy.

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