‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Episode 2 Recap: What’s So Civil About War, Anyway?

Fire up your novelty Dragonstone conference table and put a cue ball in an ashtray, because in the wake of poor little Jaehaerys’ murder, House Of The Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 finds rival small councils in dispute with each other and themselves. The war has already begun, but its opening skirmishes aren’t tactical. They’re hyper local. As in: Aegon II’s confrontation with his Hand-father, Otto Hightower, and Rhaenyra’s wordless realization that the hit was Daemon’s doing. More on the situation in King’s Landing in a second, but get a load of the fantastic Emma D’Arcy here, as Rhaenyra sees her uncle-husband’s pointed silence around the Painted Table for what it really is. 

As they argue In her chambers, Rhaenyra wonders if Daemon only interpreted her orders as a pretext to do his own revenge. She wonders if she ever should have ever trusted him at all. (Like in season 1, while Rhaenyra was alone in painful labor while he was planning a war council.) And when he refers to the prize as his “brother’s throne,” it’s a step over the line. “My throne, Daemon.” All of this is a dispute over her claim in line from Viserys, not whatever he thinks he’s owed. And while the Black Queen instructs Daemon’s daughter Lady Baela Targaryen (Bethany Antonia) to take up surveillance over King’s Landing on Moondancer, the silver-haired freaky war boy – love that armor – cruises out of Dragonstone on Caraxes. Harrenhal is nice this time of year. 

In King’s Landing, the Red Keep is riven by grief, rage, and optics. “Who did this? Who did– what?! Is there any question who did this? The bitch queen of bastards.” Of course Aegon II is entitled and despicable. There is precedent! But in season 2 of HOTD, how great is Tom Glynn-Carney at revealing new layers inside this upstart? There’s acidic humor, and the emergence of a genuine wish to rule – as well as later, in private, his true, weeping grief over the murder of his son – and all of that is clashing hard with Hand of the King Otto Hightower’s plans to use Jaehyrys’ death for political gain. It’s a plan that starts with a garish funeral procession. Let the smallfolk come and see. Let them witness “the Blacks’ depravity,” but also the gentle royal flesh of Helaena and Alicent. The dowager queen understands how this is part of the job, and persuades her grieving, reluctant daughter, though she also wants to know where Helaena’s head’s at on what she saw in Alicent’s room. You know, how her mom was having sex with Ser Criston Cole. But in a sequence full of the morbid – an open casket on a rickety caisson, the little red stitches along Jaehyrys’ neck – this funeral procession, as directed by Clare Kilner, also captures Helaena in a moment of beautiful, cryptic dissociation. 

Blood (Sam C. Wilson) sang immediately upon viewing Layrs Strong’s impressive menagerie of torture tools. But he never knew his accomplice Cheese (Mark Stobbart) by any name, only vocation. And so, after the gold cloak brute is ended with a mace to the face from Aegon II, every single rat-catcher-faced man employed by the household is soon hanging from the walls of King’s Landing. And if Otto doesn’t like it – he hates it, because this heinous act threatens to reverse the funeral procession’s goodwill – gramps can go ahead and turn in his Hand of the King brass boutonnière. Aegon has made Ser Criston his new Hand. Criston, who Alicent will push away but not kick out of her boudoir. Criston, who sends Ser Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor) on a mission to Dragonstone to impersonate his twin Ser Erryk Cargyll (Elliott Tittensor) and murder Rhaenyra. (For his own reasons? Or for Greens retribution?) This tense, dangerous clash, right in front of the Black Queen, is the second time the beardo brothers Cargyll have fought over allegiances. It is also the last. 

As Team Black and Team Green continue to circle each other, the opening salvos of their civil war are getting a lot of people hurt who aren’t actually them. The hierarchies in each center of power are shifting. (In their bed, Lord Corlys also wonders if Daemon would actually challenge Rhaenyra’s claim. “Not as such,” Rhaenys answers. “But neither can he allow her to command him.”) And Otto, suddenly in need of a new job, looks toward Oldtown and House Hightower-friendly diplomacy in the form of an as-yet-unseen Targaryen. “You have a son there who’ll take more kindly to instruction,” he says to Alicent. “Daeron may still help us in the weeks to come…”

HOT D’s:

• Rat-catchers and Kings and Queensguards aren’t the only others out here catching strays in a royal dispute. We briefly met blacksmith Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) in episode 1. But now we learn he’s got a sick kid at home, and his wife’s concerns about shortages of medicine and food caused by the Blacks’ maritime blockade of Blackwater Bay. Aegon II promised Hugh better wages. But right now they’re hurting out in the streets. And they aren’t the only ancillary characters House of the Dragon is introducing. At Driftmark, we’ve also met Alyn of Hull (Abubaker Salim), the sailor who pulled a wounded Coryls Velaryon to safety at the end of last season. But Alyn is reluctant to accept greater favor for his actions. There’s a real war brewing, he tells his shipwright brother Addam (Clinton Liberty), and the younger Hull is insistent. “Brother, he owes you. He owes us.” Until we see how these side characters figure into the bigger picture, because it really seems like they will, maybe we’re owed a bowl of Addam’s apparently famous goat stew. With carrots! 

• Mysaria’s (Sonoya Mizuno) meeting with Rhaenyra is an interesting one. The opportunistic whisperer’s intelligence did contribute to Daemon’s hiring of Blood and Cheese to do his dirty work. But it was a transaction, just like everything she has done as a woman striving to maintain her agency in a world where men wield power. Mysaria and Rhaenyra aren’t exactly allies. But the Black Queen honoring her freedom does lead Mysaria to another opportunity. It’s the sharp eyes of the White Worm which alert Dragonstone to Ser Arryk’s subterfuge.
• And finally, how about Prince Aemond and his relationship with a mothering King’s Landing sex worker? She’s the reason he wasn’t in the Red Keep on the fateful night. And she’s also his sounding board for what might just be true emotions. “I do regret that business with Luke,” he says, all curled up in her bosom, nude and bejeweled. “I lost my temper that day, and I’m sorry for it. They used to tease me…” 

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.