House of the Dragon Episode 2: Ending Explained! A Marriage And A Dangerous Alliance Threaten The 7 Kingdoms
The expectation could not be less with House of the Dragon Episode 2. After its shocking and long-awaited premiere, which broke all kinds of records on the HBO Max platform with more than 20 million views, the following week we woke up with the news of the renewal of the series for a second season. Which left us with a question in the air: Does the first chapter of the Game of Thrones prequel justify the production of a second season? And the premiere of the second chapter answers us with a resounding yes.
Day of House of the Dragon, and this Sunday the Episode 2 of the new HBO series and the world of Game of Thrones premiered. And after a first episode that revived millions of fans of the first series, now the problems continue in the new chapter that has more problems and that we review. Attention! Below are spoilers for the second episode of House of the Dragon. If you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to find out, don’t read on.
House of the Dragon Episode 2: Summary Recap
Beginning the second episode of House of the Dragon, we see the Privy Council of King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine) begin to question who should take the place of Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith). Princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock), newly appointed as the heir to the throne, is willing to intervene in the conversation to help her uncle Daemon’s rebellion stop completely after he took refuge, with the help of the Royal Guard, in which he commanded before his exile in Dragonstone – Dragonstone – but he is not allowed to participate with any contribution (very medieval mansplaining).
At the same time, the King’s Privy Council is pending before the ‘need’ that Viserys choose a new wife to marry and with-it descendants. So, the different lords begin to collude so that, in case the king chooses someone from his house, it will be strengthened. Being Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) offers the king to be his daughter who marries him. Seeking to unite the forces of the two families of ancient Valyria, remembering that the Targaryens and Velaryon are the only ones from these Lands, that for years they have married each other and that they rule Westeros –Poniente– from Aegon the Conqueror.
The strengthening of the ruling family line is not a minor issue, with the entire kingdom colluding to know who the next queen will be, Viserys is seduced by Corlys to maintain the Targaryen-Velaryon alliance -an alliance of power between dragons and naval fleet- only to realize that Laena Velaryon is only 14 years old. Along with the courtship –if we can call it that, a walk between the king and Laena– we see Rhaenyra watching them from afar, worried about what will become of her as heiress when her father marries. To which her aunt, Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) – Corlys Velaryon’s wife – engages her in a discussion about the infeasibility of the throne falling to a woman, remembering what she lived in the Great Council of Harrenhal where she is the direct descendant, her successor was removed to pass the throne into the hands of Viserys.
‘Your father is going to remarry, sooner rather than later,’ Rhaenys bluntly comments to her niece, ‘and he’s going to make heirs. The chances of him being a boy are high, and when your father dies, the men of the kingdom expect him to be the heir. Because that’s the order of things. And here, in this discussion within the Targaryen family, we heard the phrase that hooked us –and outraged– from the trailer: ‘Men would rather see everything burn than see a woman sitting on the throne.
While the obvious ruptures between the Targaryens and the Velaryons begin to take shape, the Targaryen House itself begins to crumble from the inside when Daemon steals a dragon egg, justifying that he will soon have it – illegitimate – and that it is his right as a Targaryen. The fact that he raised the suspicions of the Privy Council due to Viserys’s lack of response to the contempt of his brother. But, knowing that the stolen dragon egg was the one destined for Baelon, the newborn who died along with his mother, the king’s wrath is not long in coming. However, it is the Hand of the King, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), who convinces Viserys to be the one to go to Dragonstone to execute Daemon.
Seeking Daemon’s banishment, Otto arrives at Dragonstone to find that he is expected with an army of ‘golden cloaks’ and threatened by dragons. But, it is the character of Rhaenyra who arrives riding her dragon, preventing the bloodshed and convincing her uncle to return the dragon egg. All, despite contradicting his father’s orders not to act in the fight between him, Otto and his uncle. Finally, episode two of House of the Dragon culminates in Viserys choosing his future wife. Surprisingly choosing Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey) – daughter of Otto and best friend of Rhaenyra, unleashes the fury of Corlys within the Council. Ends the episode with a truce between Corlys Velaryon and Daemon Targaryen to show their strength against the rebels in the Stepstones –who throughout the episode have been mentioned as attacking the Velaryon fleet– to show their power and challenge the lineage and succession of the Iron Throne.
House of the Dragon Episode 2: Ending Explained
Six months passed from the events of the first episode, in which both the wife and the son of King Viserys died as well as the expulsion of Daemon Targaryan from King’s Landing. Now the problems come with the threat of the free cities in Stone Steps that has turned into a battle with the Velaryon troops; the pressure that the king must solve this problem and also the conflict of mistrust and envy that Corlys Velaryon has for him.
The leader of the House of Valyria not only presses him with resolving this conflict with pirates killing soldiers near his territory but with the proposal he makes to Viserys to marry his daughter, Lady Laena. Of course, Viserys doesn’t like the idea very much, not only because of the recent death of his wife but also because of Laena’s unusual age, only 12 years old. Something that does not seem to matter much to the subjects as long as the leader of the Targaryan House has a new option to have a son who is the heir over Rhaenyra, who because she is a woman does not generate consensus despite the leadership that shows his 15 years.
While Viserys had to face this situation of remarrying not the eldest daughter of the Velaryons, Daemon Targaryan continues to complicate relations with the kingdom and steals a dragon egg, just the one that Rhaenyra chose to place in her deceased brother’s cradle. This causes the Hand of the King along with the new Commander of the Royal Guard, Sir Criston Cole, to go to Daemon to confront him. Without much success, Rhaenyra arrived on his dragon to threaten his uncle and intimidate him.
Finally, the episode has two points that will surely give something to talk about in the rest of the season. The first is that Viserys decides, after talking with her daughter and deciding that it is the best option to remarry and have a plan B as an heir, to remarry. But he does not choose little Laena Velaryon, but the daughter of the Hand of the King, Alicent Hightower, also young. And it is that the only daughter of Otto Hightower has been driven by her father these months to approach the king and be almost sold as an object for the counselor’s plan.
This is how Alicent, who in the next episodes will be played by actress Olivia Cooke, will be the new wife of King Viserys, surprising her friend Rhaenyra and something that Sir Corlys Velaryon did not like at all. But the chapter ends with a new conflict looming, as Corlys decides to turn to Daemon to disobey the king and face a war on the Stone Steps. This is how Alicent, In the next chapters we will see how this alliance between Daemon and the Velaryon works and Rhaenyra’s reaction to having her best friend, Alicent, as the king’s new wife. The third episode of House of the Dragon premieres next Sunday, September 4.
