Bros & Shows - War Comes to Westeros (House of the Dragon s02ep03 Part 1)

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

What doth it do Bros? Welcome back to Westeros for the third episode of House of the Dragon season 2. In part one of this episode, the realm is uneasy as war is beginning to seem inevitable. The Brackens and The Blackwoods square of in the Riverland's resulting in a massive battle, setting the stage for the importance of the region. Ser Criston Cole prepares for his first day as hand of the king and wouldn't ya know it, he is not prepared or equipped for the role AND he's late to his first meeting. Rhaenys informs Rhaenyra there may be on way to avoid war and that is her speaking directly with Alicent in an attempt to reason with her. Aegon teases the possibility of riding into war himself to prove that he's "a man"... Mysaria joins Rhaenyra's council. Meanwhile Rhaenyra sends all of her young children away with Rhaena along with 4 dragon eggs. Daemon makes it to Harrenhall and Ser Simon Strong swears fealty to Rhaenyra giving them rule over the region. Criston Cole avoids his duties as hand of the king and rides off into war with Gwayne, Alicent's brother. We see Rhaenys and Corlys discussing getting their own house in order as it seems more and more evident that war is finally upon us... All that and more in part 1 of our 2 part recap of HoTD!! Time Stamps: Intro: 0-4:36 HoTD : 4:37 Introducing BravBros Members! Offering exclusive access, bonus episodes, monthly Q&A zoom and more! Use the link below to join! https://thebros.memberful.com/join This episode is brought to you by Quince. Spruce up your wardrobe this summer without breaking the bank! Go to Quince.com/bravbros for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex, Plathom, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best hapice in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca.com. The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is an eight-episode Hulu original limited series that blends gripping pacing with emotional complexity, offering a dramatized look as it revisits the wrongful conviction of Amanda Knox for the tragic murder of Meredith Kircher and the relentless media storm that followed.

The twisted tale of Amanda Knox is now streaming only on Disney Plus. As there's a drive in a deep left field by Castellanos, it will be on. man, it's 8 o'clock. And so that'll make it a... Brof bros. Good morrow, brav bros, and welcome back to another episode of Brov Bros, your favorite podcast from thy bros for everyone. For whomever wants to listen, I'm your co-host, Stir, Steele, joined as always by the one

and only shooter mick gutter. I got steam. Yeah, I figured you would lose steam somewhere in there. Also, H.B. Bros. H.B. Bros. H.B. Bros. H.B. Bros. H.B. Bros. of the dragon.

Nah, I like HB. Bros. Brose better. But that's double B. Double B. H.B. H.B. B. Yep. We're off and running. We are really killing it right now. Yeah. Well, we are back to discuss. house of the dragon and this season is heating up you can feel the tension in this episode i wrote a lot of things down as far as the theme and what we're pointing towards you can feel it in the air war is

upon us yep this is the lead up to it this season has already been everything i wanted it to be and more and the scenes from upcoming seasons up and the scenes from upcoming episodes look incredible i love that they are leaning so heavy into the dragons the entire landscape of everything. The cinematography in this show trumps that of Game of Thrones, which is hard to say. Yeah. But it's just, it's so beautifully done. It's so beautifully done. And they, obviously, they didn't have the budget that House of the Dragon has,

talking about Game of Thrones, for the first couple of seasons. Correct. You can see somewhere in the middle, they're like, oh, whoa, we just got like an extra $100 billion to do this. Yeah. Now House of the Dragons, like, we're still operating off of that money. Yeah. So we're making sure that we get into this quick. Yeah, I appreciate it because I don't like waiting for dragons. I don't like waiting for all the shit to pop off.

This is what you would call. Not a lull episode, but this is exposition. This is giving us the setup for everything that's about to come. So it wasn't as wild as some of the other episodes that we've seen so far. But I really, really enjoyed this episode. I really enjoyed it too. And it was very much what we were used to in early Game of Thrones where everybody was kind of scattered. Yes.

There's a lot of different storylines going a lot of different places. We saw this episode that there's people leaving. There's people going to places that we're very familiar with, where they're going to Pentos. Yep. I believe, who was it that's going? They're going to House Aaron. So, like, they're going all over Westeros and then some. Yep.

Which is going to be great because that's what we're used to. Scatter them out and then have them come back. Yeah, because we need the multiple storylines. I know it gets confusing. We get introduced to new characters as though we're supposed to know exactly who they are. And if you haven't read the books, you probably don't know who they are. what this show does better than Game of Thrones is within the scene

they will give you enough that you can figure out what that person, who they are, where they came from, what their goal is, whereas Thrones I felt like they would introduce people

and they're like, you're not going to figure out who they really are for like two or three episodes. So I'm pretty up the speed, I think, and the other part of doing this and having to write it down

is making me way more comfortable with names and knowing who people are. There you go. I know. Normally, you know me, I'd be like, who's that? Wait, who's that? Yeah. I got everybody because I have to write it down. I have to pause a lot, then rewind a lot, so it takes me like two hours to watch these, but I'm not complaining because I fucking love this show. Yeah. Before we get into the business, we need to discuss. We have our community Zoom coming up next week for our brav bros members.

It will be Tuesday night at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Give you West Coast. There's enough time to get home, get comfy, and join in the fun. But the bigger news is we hit 250 members, which means it is time for exclusive episodes, baby. Only members will be able to listen to our exclusive episodes. Wednesday is our first one. Wednesday this week, we are recapping How to Lose the Guy in 10 Days. It is the beginning of our bromance series. So we're going to be recapping a bunch of rom-coms for our members only. So if you want to join in, make sure you click the link in our bio or scroll down to the bottom of

this episode description, click the link right there, $5 for the month, $50 for the year. Without further ado, let's jump into some House of the Dragon Talk. Now, we start out with this episode, and this kind of sets the stage for the Riverlands, and that is where the toehold needs to be placed. They keep reiterating toehold. I don't know why it's not foothold. That bugs me. I know it shouldn't.

It shouldn't, but also I agree with you. What's the difference? No idea. Is this the important things that we're talking about? No. Hold versus foothold. No. But we start out with the Riverlands. You got House Bracken versus the Blackwoods, and this has been a feud that's been going on for a very long time.

You get a young knight who's standing on like the boundary stones. I thought it was actually a really funny scene. Like two young squires are like chesting up against each other. Like, oh, yeah, you're not a real knight. And Renara's the real queen. It's like, oh, yeah, well, Renera's the kin slayer. so she sucks too and they're just kind of like

trying to out tough each other but the immediate follow-up of just thousands of dead bodies and the bracken knight with a sword through his neck like in the creek right there I was like that's real war you guys want to be tough and poke each other

like this is what happened yeah and the grand scale of everything when they start to pan out obviously they start off with the bracken kid with the sword through his neck pulling it out that ends up looking like the battle of the burn mill yeah which i'm not mad i know there's a lot of people out there that are mad that we

didn't get to see more of this we want more war we want battles we want things just wait just be patient because this is really just hey these two houses didn't need much of anything to go to war right they're ready to go at any any given moment and this is what happens you get a little squabble they run back to their houses they start talking about it they go to war right away and then the mill burns correct and when a mill burns a mill burns a Mill Burns. But my favorite thing was the week leading up to this episode, everybody's sharing that picture of the Blackwood boy.

Oh, that's Benji Blackwood. He's huge. This is going to be so incredible. He's dead. He's dead. That's not Benji. That was Davos Blackwood. It was Davos Blackwood.

If you watch with the subtitles, you would know that. Everyone thought that was Bloody Ben. No, it's not. No, that's Davos. It's Davos. And you find out from this battle when they're talking about it a little bit later, that it seems, I think it was Willem Blackwood is dead. That was the kid from before that was courting Reneer in the first season.

Oh, right, right, right. Which then creates a pathway for Benji to become the Lord of Blackwood. Got it. So that, we haven't met him yet. So that all those pictures where everybody's like, this is the perfect cast. I love the way that House of the Dragon does this. They're always casting people perfectly. Can't wait to see Bloody Ben.

You're going to have to wait a little longer. You're wrong. He might not even be in this season. Let's be honest. I don't do that. I hate when they have to push it for another season. But to kind of tack on, and we need to speed this up because we're going to be talking for four hours if we just hash out this one scene. But I think it's important to note why they set it up the way they did where we didn't get to witness that battle.

Because, yes, that would have been an epic battle to watch. No one's arguing that. Well, there's no dragons. How epic can be. There's no dragons. But regardless, I think the big thing to point out here is this sets the tone for what this whole entire episode is. This whole episode is about setting up the actual war in Restoros. Restoros.

Wow. Restoros. I said Restor wos. The rest of Westeros. The rest of what. Thank you. Yeah. I was tying it all in.

Yep. But that's what this whole episode is. And if you pay attention to how these scenes are filmed and the way they're shot, the dialogue, it's supposed to give you this sense of uneasiness where you're like, oh, shit. Like you can feel the tension building in this moment right here. If we had seen an all-out battle, that kind of ruins that feeling. of the lead-up to everything. So I think it gives you a taste of, oh, shit,

it's about to pop off. Things are getting real. But it's not time yet. You got to build this bad boy up a little bit. Got to build it up, and I thought they did it perfectly. I thought it was a great continuation of Eric and Eric last week. We saw two people who love each other that were on different sides

and ended up killing one of them. The other one killed himself right afterwards because they can't handle everything that's going on around with the Targaryans going through a civil war. It's creating the rest of the realm. to essentially kill the people that they love. Right. Or, in this case, the people that they hate. Right.

So now we're leading into, hey, it's not just two people that love each other that are going to kill each other. It's also a huge, it's a, what is it a Tinder fire? Is that what you call it? Sure. A Tinder? I don't think that's... Cinder? What's the fucking term?

I don't know. It's a little thing that, like, you set on fire and it blows up. A Tinder box? Tinder box, yeah. A Tinder fire. Tinder, whatever. You know what I meant. Maybe you didn't.

Maybe he didn't. But what is it. it leads into is the rest of the realm is chomping at the bit. They just need one little push, and you already gave it to them. I think you're kindling? Maybe. Oh, anyway, sorry. Whatever. No, something that goes up in flames

very quickly. Kindling. Tinder box. Tinderbox sets kindling a flame. Okay. They just move on. Let's talk more about this. Do we have more time? No. But the rest of the realm is waiting for any little detail, and you guys going through your little Civil War with your dragons is going to blow up

the realm. It's going to blow up the realm. think that also points out that the Riverlands is going to be the most important part of this war, but you have to settle the Riverlands first. There's 40,000 swords there. Sure, there's a lot less now, but also you have to unite these two houses to get them to fight on the same side to garner the support of the entire Riverlands. And as we know, when we see later, Harron Hall's a fucking mess. So these two houses are going to play a very pivotal role and being able to unite them under one banner is going to be difficult in of itself. So I think that's, That's also important to note.

Just from this one quick scene, we got all of that. So let's move on before we get stuck on something else. We get Jason Renera and everyone, and they're burying the twins. And this is another nod to Renara being a much more sound queen. Because while Jace is trying to talk shit about Aric, she even points out, you can't fault him for not breaking his oath. She still gives him props there, understanding this whole thing. Rani strolls up and says, this definitely wasn't Otto.

Otto wouldn't sanction this. And this is important because she goes, soon we're getting, we're getting to the point now where we're going to forget why this war started. And Renera proves her point. She goes, well, it all started because it was usurped from my throne. She's like, was that it? Or was it when Jeharis was killed? Or was it when Luke was killed?

Or was it Amon's eye? It was all the way back then where the house, was the house divided? I would argue it goes back even further. It's when Allison Vassaris got married. Yes, you could argue that. That's the whole point. We're getting to the point now where, and they're trying to point the finger at the men being bloodthirsty. They're getting to a point where now it's about honor.

It's about pride. It's about bowing your chest out and killing people. Are you just singing the rock song? Oh, it's about pride. It's about power. It's about, oh, apparently, yeah. The rock was singing about House of the Dragon. It all ties into House of the Dragon.

It's all Thrones based. But Rainis is the first one to suggest to Renier. there's another way. If you are able to talk to Allison, maybe there's another way. By the way, she sent you a Raven. Maybe you should go read it. Reneira is not ready to read that note.

And she tries to once again point the finger and says, Allison permitted Luke's death. So I'm not going to read that. She said, well, you, quote unquote, permitted Jaharis's death. Both of you, the same exact thing happened. And this episode really painted a picture for me as far as everything happening on both sides is identical.

Like every single thing that happens over here is simultaneously happening on the other side or that's the reaction. Both sides are doing the same thing. It's how they're being handled, I think, that you look at who's the better ruler, who's more fit for the kingdom. But no one's playing the game flawlessly at this point. No. And neither side is playing fair. They're all taking cheap shots. feels weird to call

you know killing a baby cheap shots it's a cheap shot it's a cheap shot in thrones land it's cheap shot that's a cheap shot you're not going to meet me outside and do a one-on-one you're going to kill my baby yeah cheap shot that's cheap shot definitely a cheap shot and nobody's playing fair everybody's playing dirty at least at this stage and yes eventually it will break out into all-out war

no matter what you try to do however many times you say no they're sending out the dragons every time that the other side is saying no to sending out other dragons, eventually it's going to happen and it's inevitable. And I feel like that's what this entire episode was, is you guys can do all you want now and you can try to backtrack and you can talk to each other and try to fire your hand and promote Kristen Cole to Hand of the King, and he's going to run away immediately because

he's no what he's doing. You could do all of those things. It doesn't matter. It's inevitable now. Everything's been set in motion. There's nothing you can do about it. It's war. War, to war then.

To war then. But we move on from there. to Kristen Cole, our favorite knight, our favorite hand of the king, the very capable Kristen Cole. Why does he get that stupid necklace? Like he didn't get a little... Oh.

Otto threw the hand emblem at him. I was curious why I didn't have the hand emblem. He's got a little necklace. That's what the necklace was. It's all hands joining together. Oh, I'm glad I didn't notice that. I would have hated that. Yeah, well, he's lame, so it makes sense.

But as he's strolling down, you can tell by the air about him. He's late to his first small council meeting. He's fucking late for one thing. And two... It's hysteria. He's just nervous. He has no idea what he's doing. It's very apparent that he has no idea what he's doing.

He walks by the new Knights Guard members, which are Agon's boys. The dude she was drinking with, that's who you want protecting. You great call, dumbass. But he walks by them and gets to the council meeting, and he's late. And of course, Agon's like, hmm, important things, no, what I say? Doing important things, no doubt. No, he was staring at himself and wondering, oh, God, what did I get myself into? What am I doing?

I'm not equipped for this. That's what was happening. But Kristen Cole points out that there's some new Knights Guard members that were appointed. And Agon's like, well, we had to replace the ones that died. And somebody points out that the last one died fairly needlessly, referring to Aric, going to try to kill Rennara. And Kristen Cole defends himself. And this is going to be a valid defense because of who is king.

Because he's like, well, at least I did something. And he failed at his job. And you gave him something that he could not be successful at. Like, there was no way that this was going to work. the fact that he got into Renair's group. I was going to say, you could argue that he was way more successful than any of us actually thought he'd be. I agree. And then he goes on to say, like, well, we can't all just hide in a castle.

And what you're really seeing is a council that is completely in shambles. Nobody knows what they're doing. Nobody knows what the next step is. Everyone's disagreeing on what the next step is. The hand of the king's an idiot. The king's an idiot. Allison is so fucked up now that she doesn't know how to point anything. She, I think, is starting to realize that she's lost control of Aegon and Tyler.

like it's no longer he's no longer malleable as she pointed out last week he was so you're seeing the council just kind of in tatters mostly because otto's not there anymore that's the only one that could actually lead them the rest of them are idiots yes and they don't know what to do because they're afraid that you have this impulsive king you speak something wrong you tell him to do something that he can't do he'll kill you he'll kill you and then do it yeah which is not what you want in a leader but they bring up the bracket versus the Blackwoods and Agon marks it up as a win because what's his nuts was killed he's like first death for us let's go and everyone there's like not really your grace because

this isn't really a W we lost a lot of people we need them to fight this war and a lot of them died so we're kind of not in a great spot right now the best part arguably of this episode is when he says

well, what are we going to do now? Silence. Kristen Cole is like tapping his fingers against a table like, do-to-do, I don't know. No one seems to know what to do, except Kristen Cole does remember, I just had a really good conversation with Amon's where he came up with a great plan. I'm going to use his plan. Let me use his plan and then cuck him out of his own plan. Nope, we need you and Vagar to stay here.

Yep. I'm going to go do this for glory. Yeah, you just sit there. And also I get to get the hell out of here so that I don't have to be handed to the king anymore. That was the big thing. That's the big thing. But this gave me hope that maybe we're going to meet Darren a little bit sooner than I thought because they said, let's send a raven out to the Tullies.

Darren's there. Ormond is on his way here. Let's get the Lannisters involved, perhaps. They're a castile rock. They've got some peeps that can come down to the fight. Nobody, once again, like, they're just pointing fingers. What do we do this? Why do that?

Why do this? What do that? Kristen Cole finally, as you said, speaks up about Amon's plan and says, why don't we do this? And this is where you get a very important moment with Aegon, because. as Agon decides to insert himself and say, sounds great, I'll suit up, and we'll fly out together. There's so many reasons why that's a bad plan.

There's so many reasons why that's a bad plan, but that's not the point. The point is he has this complex that he has to prove that he is one up for the task and two, not a bitch. Yeah, and I think we're seeing more of that going back to the first episode where he even granted that guy's sheep back and then had to quickly rescind it. He does these things not because he wants to be a good king,

but because that made him feel good in the moment and he's impulsive in that way saying, oh, well, I'm the king. I need to be leading. I need to be out there and show everybody that I could do this. But you would know immediately as soon as he gets on the dragon

and starts going, he would start shaking and turn around. Oh, yeah. Like he would not be able to leave Kingslanding because he would be unsafe and he would realize that he made a terrible call. Yeah, my Aegon death prediction as he gets to a point where he's like,

no, I'm going to prove it, I'm going to prove it, and flies off on his dragon, tries to be a hard ass and is killed very quickly. That's my agon death prediction. That would be great. Yeah. Because there is a clip in like the season.

They just have little snippets. And he is flying his dragon fully suited up. So I think that he's going to get to a point where he's like, I'm going to show you and he's going to die very fast. And that would be very satisfying. So that's my prediction. During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures.

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exactly who you are as you are. Be true. Be authentic. Be unapologetically you. Express yourself at Simons. Calling all book lovers. The Toronto International Festival of Authors brings you a world of stories all in one place. Discover five days of readings, talks, workshops and more. With over 100 authors from around the world, including Rachel Maddow, Ketouru Isaku, and Kieran Desai. The Toronto International Festival of Authors, October 29th to November 2nd. Details and Tickets at Festivalof Authors.ca. We'll see if that happens, but we move on and we get Reneira and Masaria, and Masaria's back in the game. She's back in the game.

She has earned her good graces. She has, from her grace herself. Yep. And one true. The one true, we know. But she thanks her for her service and says, what's the reward? And she wants to be appointed to the council. And she's finally found her place.

She said last week, I figured out that I will never be part of the Cool Kids Club. And I'm okay with that. I want to sail off to the free cities and just disappear. Now she's found a way in and to actually be of service. And she's going to prove to be a very, very useful. useful piece of this whole thing, I think. Because she does understand how the Red Keep operates. She knows how people move there.

She had little feelers out. She was the white worm. She was the white worm. I feel like she's very much like Varus was in the Game of Thrones, where she's very much for the common people, for the realm, keeping everything together. Kings are going to come. Kings are going to go. It doesn't really matter.

But the one thing that piqued her interest was she was surprised that Renera let her go. And that surprise was enough for her to want to stay. Yes. She saw that. She saw an opportunity to get herself back. And then she'll end up being the lady of whispers or whatever. Oh, the lady of whispers. Yeah.

Not whisperers. I thought it was whisperers. No, no. The lady of whispers. Isn't he the, because Laris is the master of whispers, not whisperers. I always thought it was whisperers. No, it's master of whispers. You have a bunch of them out there and they're all whispering to each other.

I get it. I get it. But I think the whispers are all encompassing, unless I'm wrong. Again, you're probably right. Again, discussing the important things. That's what we do here. Uh-huh. but you see sea smoke out just restlessly flying about and we saw this last week and that was

the nod to Alan of Hull or sorry, Adam of Hull. He was big enough the clams on the beach and now I think I've put it together because I do think that they are the bastard children of Corlis. I think that he is going to ride sea smoke at some point. That's the connection there. But also in this moment, what you're seeing is the dragons, I believe, because we get a call to it later when Reneira says the dragons are restless, they can feel war. Seas Smoke flying all about restless and everything, I do think is indicative of what she is

feeling in that moment. And it goes a step further when Masari goes, maybe he's lonely. Reneira is lonely. So there's a different way to look at this. C-smoke is not her dragon. She's never had a connection with him. So it's not what she's feeling, but rather potentially Lainor is in. When he died was when C-Smoke became restless.

or it could just be as simple as Lainor left Seasmoke, but now obviously Seasmokes back and floating around. It could just be that Seasmoke is lonely and needs a rider. There's no way. Because Seasmoke grew up with a rider. So it could be that,

but it's more logical to think that because of the bonds that the dragon riders have with their dragons, that Lainor is actually dead. Because I don't think we're ever going to see him again, and there's people that have said in the books that he's presumed dead, but they never really go further than that. Yeah.

So for the show to be, like, nice and tidy, they might just say Lainar's dead. I agree with that. I see, I got 100% that's the most logical approach. I just thought that because in that moment, she seems that way, she does have blood of the dragon. You know what I'm saying. Yeah. You get, you're picking up what I'm putting down. Sure.

Don't fucking do that because it does make sense. And everything in this show is. Well, I mean, you're saying that Reneera is trumping everybody else because she's the queen. No, I'm not. I'm just saying that dragons can feel her more than anyone else. I think that there's more. there to it. It's not her dragon.

I don't think that she's not her dragon. But the fact that C-Smok's flying about, restless, she's lonely, Masario points out that the dragon's lonely. Renara is also lonely. That ties in. I'm not crazy for saying maybe that's a thing. I'm also not saying this is definitely a thing. So take your gaslighting and get out of here.

I just disagree. That's fine. We can disagree. I'm just saying, again, I'm not like foot in the ground like this is what's happening. That was kind of how I read it. But we move on. We get Renera and Raina.

and she is sending off all of her little ones with Raina to take them safely to Pentos, I believe is where they're going. Yeah, she's dropping off Joffrey with Lady Iron. She's also Agon and Vesaris, which is very confusing. I didn't know there was another Agon. I had another Vassaris. So it's Joffrey, Agon, and Vesaris are going with Raina to get to safety. And again, we like to point out with Reneira.

She has a heart. She cares about her kids. This is her trying to disassociate from motherhood, I think, to get them out of there so she can focus on making decisions for a potential war. She's still under the guys that maybe there's a way through this without war. I don't think she really thinks that. But she's getting her kids out of the mix, which look across the street or across the water, they're not doing that.

They're still not doing that. No. One of your kids was just brutally murdered. Yeah, the head cut off, kids still in the castle. No, it's really funny. And there is actually a, there's a fan theory that people are now saying, that the showrunners have confirmed, those dragon eggs that Reneas sends out.

Three of those dragon eggs are the ones that Teneres gets in Game of Thrones. I figured that was what that was. So there is a fourth one there. It's probably Rana's, because Rana does get a dragon at some point in time. But as we already know, the shows don't line up with the books

and all the people online that are yelling and clamoring about the books doing this and books doing that. The show has proved them wrong more times than not. And George R. Martin keeps saying, I'm running the show. I'm helping this out, we can deviate from the books. The books are written by a third person or a third party person.

It doesn't really matter. We're going to do whatever we want over here. So we'll have to see what happens there because there were four eggs. Obviously, DeNaris gets three, but it is a cool little fan theory. I like that. Yeah, I kind of figured, especially when she makes the nod, if everything burns to the ground, like here's the last remaining. Here's the future. Right.

So that, it was, I don't want to be that guy. I thought it was kind of obvious. Yeah. But I do think that's a cool tie in there. I'm sure we'll get more as the season goes on. but we move on and we get Damon and Caraxis and they are this scene was so cool when he's flying into the castle and like in the rain storm yeah dude it was so sick and he lands on top and he's ready for a battle and I watched the the post credit when they do the showrunners talk about it

and Matt Smith himself was like this is a moment for Damon in his mind to redeem himself a little bit to make amends to Renera is I'm going to go claim Harron Hall by myself. I'm going to get the army that we need because we don't have an army yet. And this will get me back in her good graces. Because again, Damon might be a crazy piece of shit, but he has his own weird moral compass that he follows. Like it's confusing, but he thinks he's doing the right thing. Yeah, it's definitely very confusing. And we do know that Harron Hall is a great place for a tow hold.

The toe hold, not a foot hold. Because they can Garrison up to 40,000 people there, which we knew from Game of Thrones because Tywin Lannister was there for almost the entire second season, really. And he wanted to go there to claim it first rather than what Kristen Cole's plan is, which is to go through the Riverlands and try to get as many people as possible and then show up at Harron Hall. We'll have to find out which is the better plan. We'll have to see where we go from here.

But as we know, Haran Hall is essentially haunted. Yeah. That place is haunted as hell. everybody references it I remember during Game of Thrones I think Peter Baylish got it at one point in time as some sort of reward I think for betraying Ned Stark and

everybody said yeah do I really want the ghosts that come along with that place I'll take it sure that'd be kind of sick if you can fix it up yeah you can't fix it up because you know it was burnt out by dragon how do you fix a castle well I don't think they can fix that castle

because the way that it was built before Agon the Conqueror got there Apparently, it was built, how's this for timing? It was built, I forget the name of the guy who built it, and I'm going to get roasted by somebody, but... John Heron. Yeah. It was built, and the day that it was ready is the day that Agon came to Westeros.

Oh, that's funny. And then within, like, a couple of weeks or a month or whatever, he burned it down with Valerian. Suck at Heron Hall. Yeah, yeah. So it's definitely haunted because a lot of people have died in there, and as we saw last season, Sir Harwin Strong and his father both perished in there due to fire. So it's haunted.

this ship. Yeah, you know, even though you can't really light a fire there, hey, Lars figured it out. But as he's going through the castle or the keep trying to find people, and we know there's people there because we saw the two guards like run away in the beginning, like, oh, dragon, how many times do you think we're going to get that moment? Dragon. A couple people running away. Yeah. The two people running away, dragon throughout the season. But as he's going through, he gets to the, not even the throne room, it's just like a council room, the great hall. He kind of opens the door and... There's a fire in there.

I'm going to call it a great hall. All right, I like that. And Sir Simon Strong is in there and this dude wants no fight. This guy's ready to pledge fealty to anybody. I think whoever arrived there first, he's like, it's yours. Although he makes a good point to say that he hates Laris. That's a good point. Because he blames him for the death of his nephew and Grand's nephew.

Great nephew? Great nephew. Sure. Would have been Harmon Strong. So, yeah, he is right about that part of it. But he's not going to put up any sort of fight. And I love the memes that came from this. If I send you this picture, it just means I don't want to fight with you.

Yeah, I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to say whatever you want. Yeah. Hey. I pledge filthy to the one in true king, queen Rennara. You want some medicine and some peas? I wouldn't poison you, even though the peas aren't great. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Just eat the deer. Yeah. But much like the castles and shambles, the Riverlands are as well because the Brackens and the Blackwoods, once again, just had a huge fight. Lots of people died. He needs to figure out how to get their support. Grover Tully enters. not the scene, but enters the game, I guess, but he's not even capable of discussing

and from what it sounds like, he shits himself a lot. I don't think he's capable of entering anything. I mean, he's, they talked about him. He's around. He's somewhere. Somewhere, probably in the same room at all times. He's not doing great. Yeah.

But the whole point of this, I think, was just to show, like, yeah, Heron Hall is yours, but you still don't have anybody to fill Heron Hall with. Yeah. So what's the next step? And Damon, I do believe, figure it out in some way, shape, or form. But that's the big question mark.

Can you unite the Riverlands to fight for Renera? Do you think he's got it in him? I think he's got it in him. I think that we're set for a fight outside of Harren Hall, where maybe he'll get a certain amount of people there, but Kristen Cole will show up with a little bit more, and then we'll have some sort of battle. My whole thing with Kristen Cole's approach,

let's gather people and bring them to Harren Hall, if you have too many people out in the open Dragon, which he learned. Very quickly. I know, we're almost there, actually. But Kristen Cole's getting ready to leave. Just got a pointed hand of the king. Let's bounce.

Let's get the fuck out of Dodge real quick. Got a fancy new necklace. I'm out of here. I'm deuses, but. And a haircut. The duchiest Lord valiant haircut I've ever seen. I don't know who you're going through it. That's what I got from.

Yeah, that was the haircut. The haircut is, hey, this guy's going. through it. Yeah, I don't feel good. Slick personality. Yeah, I'm really struggling. I fuck me up. And that's what happened. But you can tell he's jealous immediately of Allison talking to who he find out is Gwain, her brother. And just the look that he gives them as they're talking, like you can tell, this dude is just, get your shit together, bro. Yeah. Stop fawning over people. That's what I don't understand is we see them in the small

council and he's very quick to laugh at the things that she says, like knock her down a couple Pags, act like she's not important, and then do this again at the end and say, hey, do you mind if I get your favor? I think that's like a power thing. Yeah, it's a weird thing. And that's what's going to happen, I assume, is him being, you know, the general of the armies and the hand of the king. He's going to get this whole power complex, especially over somebody like Allison.

And it's going to be weird to see where that goes. Yeah. Because he already has that going with Gwain immediately. Right. When Gwain starts talking about how he's a low-level Dornish. which the High Towers hate the Dorns or the Dornish. So, yeah, there's already something going on there. Gwain was so much of a douchebag, though, that it made me almost agree with Kristen Cole.

Oh, really? Yeah, I thought Gwain was such a dick. I did too, but I liked his duchery because I hate Justin Gold. That's fair. So I was like, yeah, give it to him. I didn't say I do like, it just, it almost made me agree. I got it, I got it. But, you know, Gwain's pissed off because Kristen usurped his dad as the hand of the king.

So he's not viving with him. He also, as you said, doesn't like it. He's from Dorn. Request a favor. We get a quick shot of cheese getting his eye pecked out. We've got a lot of eye talk from last season to this season. We had that scene with the Dornish coin over Aman's Eye, which, by the way, is interesting that he picked the Dornish coin,

as you pointed out, because Sir Kristen Cole is from Dorn. Is there more meaning between of Cheese's eye getting pecked out? I don't think so. You don't? I think it's just a show that he still there. Still has, yeah. Oh, maybe it's that he looks like cheese now. Like Swiss cheese.

Because he's got a whole. There you go. That's pretty good. No, I think it's honestly just to show you, hey, by the way, Agon still hasn't ordered these bodies to be taken. Yeah, that's probably. Not be bothered. And that he looks like cheese.

He probably forgets that he killed the rat catchers. He doesn't care. Yeah, that's yesterday's news. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case.

Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. Wait, I didn't get charged for my donut. It was free with his Tim's rewards points. I think I just stole it. I'm a donut stealer. Ooh, earn points so fast, it'll seem too good to be true. Plus, join Tim's rewards today and get enough points for a free donut, drink, or timbits.

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while paying your people what they're worth too so your business can stay unfazed learn more at SAP.com slash uncertainty Oh, hi, buddy. Who's the best?

You are? I wish I could spend all day with you instead. Uh, Dave, you're off mute. Hey, happens to the best of us. Enjoy some goldfish

jetter crackers. Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. Moving on, we get the council at Dragonstone once again, and we're getting kind of check-ins from across the realm. There's no movement anywhere, really. There's no word from Damon. There's a lot of people voicing, let's send the dragons out, let's strike first. They're not moving yet. It's our turn to strike. Renera has enough wherewithal to be like, look, if we go dragon fight right out of the gate, it's going to burn the world down. Like, if we start with that, it's going to be too much. We need to win this war with an army. The dragons will complement the army. We can't just go out there scorched earth, literally. Yeah. And there is a good callback to the first

season where Vesaris and Reneira are talking right after Reneer's mother passes away. They're standing at the foot of the skull of Balear and the dread. And Viseras is talking about how if we use dragons to do everything that we're supposed to be doing over here, we're going to burn the world down. The whole place is going to come down. And why? Because we're Targaryans and we can do it. Dragons are the power and we started to use this power for our own good.

And that's not how we're going to do this. So Reneira is still Viseris's daughter. And she is so much closer to him than anyone else is. Anyone else that could be a king. And for all intents and purposes, Vassaris was a pretty good king. That's the funniest thing. He wasn't great, but he was pretty good. But that's what's funny is you look back and they kind of pointed out it the whole time during his rule,

like, oh, he's not really cut out for the job and Damon talked shit about him. He had a peaceful rule. I know it was cut short because it's so funny they got poked by the fucking Iron Throne and got infected and died. Well, that was the thing that we said,

you and I had actually talked about this last year. There's a whole thing going on where the Iron Throne can reject you as a king. Right. Yeah, we can kill you and it starts to poison you or whatever. So maybe that's what was going on here. But it's got to be tough to, you know,

get appointed after the great council and become king after that. especially after the conciliator who has been, I guess, widely known as the best king that there ever was. It was like 60 plus years of peace in the kingdom. So it's kind of tough to follow that up. Totally. But I think that especially looking at what the options could have been, it's like looking at your backup quarterback after the starter goes down. You look at your options after the fact, like he did a pretty damn good job.

I think that they shit on him when he was actually king. But if you look at it overall, fairly peaceful. Fairly peaceful. You had some, you know, quabbles within the house. things like that, probably some battles and scuffles here and there, not all-out war. And the minute, and by the way, we also find out this is only weeks after Vassaris's death. This is not months. So look how fast it all came crumbling down when you had a king that was actually capable of doing the job versus a pissed off teenager.

Yep. So I think that we owe old Vs a little more credit for his rule. Good old V. Good old V. R-I-P-V, but let's keep moving. This whole council scene to me, what it's really pointing to is the fact that this council and I think is also indicative of the entire realm or anybody that swears fealty to Renera questions her without Damon by her side because they're like, look, Damon's not here. You're very exposed. Why don't just go somewhere for a while?

Go take a vacay and, you know. We'll take care of everything. You leave the dragons. You leave the dragons. We'll take care of it. We'll be fine. go hang out in the free cities and just get a tan. Just do your

thing. Yeah. And thank God Ranero 1 is like, this is bullshit. Remember that's treason to operate without me here. And even furthermore, you get Raynees, who they definitely revere stepping up and being like you'd be smart to remember who the fucking queen is, boys. Like, let's not overstep here.

She's the queen. Shut the fuck up. So having the support of Rainier, and you see it starting to build more and more this episode where she wants to do what she can for Renair. She has her doubts about Ranira, but she is probably her best ally, I think, in that rule. So it's good that she's stepping up

when she needs to step up, and it goes immediately to Raynees and Corlis and this is where I started to get very themey, very motify, if you will, because what I started to pick up on, and I'm curious if you picked up on it as well, but everything starts

to get uneasy. All the rooms that we've been in thus far, there's fights breaking out, there's arguments, nothing seems settled. It's raining, you get, Corliss and Rainis, there's a physical pull between the two of them as they're discussing things. I feel like they are their safe space. We've seen them be connected this whole time together. Not that they're fractured, but it just feels to me, and I'll point it out as we go, everybody's comfort.

Let's call it their comfort blanket, whether it's a place that they're comfortable, the person they're comfortable with. And I think that that indicates what the entire realm right now, what all of Westrose is feeling is all of our safe spaces are starting to diminish. Yeah. Everything's starting to diminish. Families are fighting with families. There's people pointing things out. I mean, going back to Harenhall, you have a strong accusing another strong of killing strong. Family, family. Family, family. Like, all of these families are fracturing all over the place because the main family is fracturing. Yes. So I do agree with that. I don't think that Rainies and Corliss are like that because they probably have the strongest bond. I don't think they are. Oh, I thought you were saying the pole in between them was indicative of their potential. No, not at all. I think. think that they are solid. Don't you do that to me? No, no, no.

I think they're going to always be solid. Cornice. Cornice is always going to be. Hashtag Cornice. They're always going to be solid. I'm saying their safe space is getting shaken up because Corlis is going to have to sail away. He's going to have to go to war on his own. Yeah, my guy hasn't been on the sea in weeks.

He's got to get out on the sea. He's got to get out there. Everybody knows if the sea snakes down on the sea, he shrivels up. Yep. If you don't use it, you lose it. That's how it works. My point of saying that was not that they are going to break up. It's more so.

they are each other's comfort. They are no longer going to have that. I think it's more in this conversation, the way that I viewed it was Rainis is sort of weighing her options, knowing what's happening, all out war is about to break out. We got to get our house in order. We need to get our house in order and we need to be safe. Yeah, I agree.

And I'm getting the vibes that Raines is going to die for a son. I do too. Based off of the way that she's talking and saying that she just wants to be with Corlis. One of them's going down. And Corliss's response is, well, I'm a, damn good sailor so you don't have to worry about me. I'm like, maybe you're going to die. I don't know.

Somebody's going down and it's going to break the other one. We've got to update our death pool soon. Yeah, we'll update our death pool before next week. Yeah, I'll put it out on Instagram. Yeah, we're going to have to do that. But I think it's really, it's, and again, the whole theme of this episode is, are we too late to stop this? And the smart people in this show are realizing, yeah, there's nothing we can really do about

this right now. The idiots are either denying it or saying, well, then we're, we're in war, like Agon. It is war. And the people in the middle that are smart about this, Rainey's and Corliss are thinking is there a way around this? Are we still going to be able to survive through this? Because I don't know if we can't. Yeah. So they're trying

to get their house in order. And again, I'm not, there's going to be other moments that I'll point out. Hopefully they'll tie it all in. You'll understand like where I'm coming from. But I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times. And I'm Paul Shear, an actor, writer, and director. You might know me from the League, Veep, or my non-eligible for

Academy Award role in Twisters. We love movies, and we come at them from different perspectives. Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't. He's too old. Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dude, too, is overrated. It is. Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits. Fan favorites, must-season, and case you missoms.

We're talking Parasite the Home Alone. From Greece to the Dark Night. We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks. We've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look. And we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of like Ganges and Hess. So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure. Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to hit the follow button.

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