Girls Gone Canon Cast - House of the Dragon S1E2: The Rogue Prince Ft. Kim Renfro

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

Kim Renfro - author of The Unofficial Guide to Game of Thrones- swings through to talk HOTD, as well as give us a few treats and insight to the newest episode The Rogue Prince.  SPOILERS: ASOIAF, F&B, KOT7K, TWOIAF, ETC @conquerorscrown thread @KimRRenfro | Insider @aCastofKings | acastofkings.com Join us at our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/girlsgonecanon Follow us on Twitter: @GirlsGoneCanon Sound Effects from Pixabay  "Night Vigil" & "Big Drumming" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/  

🎵 Hello everyone and welcome to Girls Not Canon Watches House of the Dragons Season 1 Episode 2 featuring Kim Renfro! Hey Kim! We're so excited for you to be here. Of course, I'm one of your hosts, Chloe. Hi! And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana, and I forgot, I'm usually not the one who leads us into these things I'm unused to it I'm an untrained princess oh my god oh and I hit the mic yeah beautiful beautiful well Kim we were just talking before this you are an author in our community um I don't know there's a little book out there i heard you might have written maybe just uh you know just a few thousand words you know yeah uh i published the unofficial guide to game of thrones emphasis on unofficial there folks um yeah in 2019 like during wow what isn't that really 2019 no it like really messes with my head to think about

that's crazy wow being alive i remember yeah and and of course i don't know i i said kim for your next book and you were like no stop no i mean maybe someday more therapy under my belt before the uh the old volume two absolutely absolutely totally understand that game of thrones will do that to you actually though actually if we had therapy for all the characters especially in this episode that would probably be good probably deeply family therapy well family episode between the series like that family therapy episode that would be a great episode well kim i know that you've been doing uh some really good stuff over with cast of kings so far for house of the dragon in fact you have an episode that's going to be going live very soon it's out right now or coming out right now just for uh your fans that yeah platform

it is where is it how can we get it yeah i'm doing podcasting with david chen this year which is amazing uh obviously him and joanna robinson used to work together and i am very grateful to be following in her footsteps and co-hosting a cast of kings this year and so he has set up um a whole platform it's decoding tv.com because he's doing a lot of like other tv shows and stuff too but you can find the a cast of kings premium there and if you subscribe folks get episodes early and then we're also trying to record at least one bonus a week about like sort of the deeper stuff that doesn't quite fit into like the regular recaps and stuff so yeah my episode for um last night my episode for the episode is already live on for like yeah premium subscribers and that'll be up for free um with

ads everywhere else later today I think yeah awesome yeah goodness so busy so in addition to doing weekly a cast of kings episodes I'm also still doing my full-time entertainment reporting job at Insider. And so I've got some interviews with, like, Ryan Condal, Miguel Sopachnik, and a lot of the cast. I'm just sort of, like, doling them out week to week because we talked about some spoilery things that need to be, need to await. So, yeah, there will definitely be more of that to come for me, as always, over on Insider. Wonderful. We'll throw those links below, so make sure you check that in the description thanks we're excited to be getting back into a song of ice and fire in the books as well as in westeros here on hot d so if you're interested in listening in if you're not getting enough from our all spoilers house of the dragon episodes here

spoilers everything in the world under the sun um if you're not getting enough from that we do a song of ice and fire point of view by point of view every week next week or this week you'll be seeing in your feed bran one in a game of thrones i'm so excited i know it's my baby and you know we we just recorded up a patreon bonus episode didn't we eliana we did we did and we'll touch on some of that here but not by much uh you know some of the stuff in fire and blood from the mothers of the dragon part one yeah part one part one you're gonna hear more about that in the episode if you're a patron over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon in the stranger tier the five dollar tier and above lots of other things going on every week.

We're doing a hot D episode discussion hosted by our friend Maddie. That is for Thunder tier and above patrons that have access to our private discord server. So come hang out Thunder tier and above and every Friday, 2 to 4 PM ET. That's you time. Eliana time. I guess so. It's you time too. UT. Wait. ET. That's you time, Eliana time. I guess so. It's you time too. UT.

Wait, nope, that's a different time soon. Oh my gosh. And of course, we'll be back every week with these episodes, you guys, during the season. See you folks then on, what's next week? Episode three, we'll be back for that one. So without further ado, I guess let's jump into it with Kim. Yeah, I'm excited to have you here because it seems like

this is like this episode you seemed very about some of the themes in it and some of the happenings in it and I'm excited to get your takes yeah well what you I want you to start what did you think because like with a lot of these episodes so I've already seen the first six um which is like so many I was honestly shocked when I found out we were getting like more than half the season up front. So I've been sitting with them and like ruminating on them for a while. And it's very exciting to me to like hear other people talk about them. Did you both overall like the episode? Yeah.

I mean, I've been excited for the show because i've said this many many times and i'm still feeling gloaty about it and this is the one that i wanted adapted right of the of the prequel stuff or any of the things that could have been adapted in george's role and apparently george agrees with me no brag no brag this is the one that we we wanted adapted me and george but um yeah i think that they did a good job with this there's a lot that they crammed into this um episode it was i think definitely faster paced than the last one and the time skip is interesting but i mean overall i was happy with the episode how about you chloe i think that it was a good second episode it was strong

there was a lot it was a little clunky. So like, I try to look at it from like, what if I had never read these books? What would I really think then? Sure. Right? Like, even if I was like an uber Game of Thrones fan and just had never read the books, like, what would I think? And it does make me think, I'm like, wow, how are they devouring this?

I hope that they're getting it. And I know a lot of, you know, there's a lot of sites and people that do the memes and the infographics and good timelines, like over Ins over insider that are like they can keep you a little on track um but I don't know because this is our you know successor series here I'm kind of just rolling with it and I love it like everything feels like some of it can be maybe overbearing but I love it I love I love it I'm very happy i like the pace i think it's a slower pace though this episode i'm surprised you think it's a faster pace because i thought it was you're right it is it is slower it's just a little bit clunkier yeah yeah but i like it overall and i don't know

it's fun it feels more fantasy than the first series in some ways and more soap opera which i'm fine with and because that's it. That's what it is. Yeah, the dance is just a dragon soap opera, which is literally all I want to watch. That sounds amazing. Yeah. How about you? Yeah, I really liked that it was slower

because I feel like they could have decided to just try and keep everyone on their toes all the time and make sure and slice off a few limbs every episode or whatever but it feels like they kind of like came out the gate with like a lot of intense like visceral violence and then the fact that they chose to like jump ahead six months and then just like let us sort of marinate in how all of these relationships are continuing to like fracture or like morph or whatever and i just like i don't know i also wasn't sure like the i really like the way that they're approaching they're sort of focusing in on rainiera as our main protagonist and like

really spending time getting you to understand why both her and alicent are eventually going to do what they do and like be at total odds with one another and it's just yeah i just i really appreciated that writing choice as opposed to like i feel like with game of thrones sometimes you would have like a pretty good moment for like one of the women characters or something but then the next episode it was just kind of be like a reset of like the momentum for what's going on with that person. And so the fact that they're really letting you sit and watch how Rhaenyra like,

yeah, just got named heir to the Iron Throne, but is now basically at every turn being treated like garbage by a man and not respected. And like, clearly that's going to have dire consequences in the future. And I mean, as you said right it really goes into exploration of how she's changing and developing as a person because you really see that insecurity in her and how she's trying to

convince herself that that it's all real when no one else is acting like it is yeah something i haven't written this up yet but i probably will soon but one of the folks that i got to talk to before after just seeing the first episode and then we did like the press junket and so i was i was speaking with emma darcy who plays older reyniero so like even though we haven't met that version of the character yet emma darcy was still like able to sort of speak to the overall approach. And they pointed out that it's almost like watching in real life how allyship works and how there's a huge difference

between saying, I support this person or these are my beliefs and then actually doing day-to-day actions that support that and like so I feel like this was the first episode where you see how Viserys has like is like almost setting Rhaenyra up to fail by naming her as the heir and then like holding her in place as cupbearer and following Otto's lead when it comes to kind of like shushing her ideas at the table and all of this stuff it It's like his his actions are speaking a lot louder than his words. Yeah, why would anyone respect her? Like, he quite plainly doesn't. He didn't. I mean, you know, we kind of talked about this earlier. You get her as a cupbearer, which is a very important place to be. You're hearing all the stuff in the

council, but it's been six months. She's the heir. And especially because of kind of the norms for the gender of their society, she can't just go on to be a squire or a knight. When you're a cupbearer, you go up from there. But the society's already literally checkmate. It's over. It's got so many rules and parameters that you can't break apart. It's like they're just there or if like if i think if the king really wanted to he could but he's choosing not to like he he's he broke part of protocol i guess by like naming her his direct heir which has never been done before but then

didn't do anything else to like continue to break up that system um so like obviously it's not going to work because he's not dismantling everything he just went for like the shiniest apple on the tree and then is assuming that everything else will work out and clearly it's not going to yeah which is how he lives his life yeah in general he's like it's gonna be fine it's gonna i'm gonna just do whatever i want and not really actually do anything and it'll work out. And I'm like, no, this series. And we'll see how that all plays out this episode.

Well, how about that new intro? Oh, goodness. Yes. Threw me for a freaking loop. I was like, I'm sorry, what are all these things? I still like all of the Twitter thread I saw you guys linked was so helpful. I was like, what the hell? Like all of the Twitter thread I saw you guys linked was so helpful. I was like, what the hell?

How's the average person supposed to understand anything from this? Because we didn't at first. Well, to be fair, we were so excited. Like it was just so cool. It was metal. I was like the blood and Valeria. Oh, my God. I was excited and then immediately realized like, oh, it's I've kind of made it my job to explain these things to people.

And I was like, shit, I'm gonna need some backup. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. I need some help. Conqueror's Crown broke it all down really well. And I think it's the crowns it looks like, right? So it's supposed to be the ruler's crowns and the bloodline trickling down.

So, and I think it's going to change as we introduce new characters in the season i'm guessing as the season progresses like next season for sure you'll have a lot of new children to add to it it seems to raniera's line or to damon's line but i love that each crown or each piece corresponded because for raniera you got that celtic knot yeah from the necklace that damon gave her and that was gorgeous it's like kind of like a trinity knot kind of like a love knot but it's like unending love and the trinity of the mother the maiden the crone right and the mother was our big focus this episode between the our stepmother our stepmommy you know Alicent and our mother, Emma. Yeah, I guess that is what she is. Step-mommy. Oh, Alicent, my darling, I feel for you. I do.

I do. I also feel like they're setting Alicent up to be the, like, it's like she's the one following the rules closest. Yeah. And, like, that bitterness of, like, well, i'm doing what i was supposed to do and now my life sucks as opposed to like rainier's i think maybe a little still has more agency because of her position right she she doesn't quite understand i think those same constraints she is a little naive to that but not to everything right she understands that she has positions to fill and hasn't necessarily always been taught to to do that politicking yet right um later on i'm jumping ahead but

and we'll come back to the the intro but like you know otto has to tell her this is where you thank him for his service she's definitely still learning yeah which i mean makes sense i i don't know anything when i was 14 i was like i don't know yeah first day of high school yeah but he just has to be such a shithead about it and his sour little face he always like looks very concerned and i'm like you just you figured out how to like knit your eyebrows together so that people think that you're being like very serious and contemplative but he's just like being a shithead i don't yes he was real 4d scheming this episode right like he was every dimension he was playing every game and in his mind everywhere at all times um yeah he was

something i don't know i don't know about that auto i just i think that the writing team is doing a really good job of setting up every person's like conflict with the other it honestly does kind of remind me of succession in the way that succession does a very good job of like you know what every character wants or like what they're kind of going for and therefore you understand how it starts to go wrong or like whenever like power kind of shifts in one way or another and so i just i love that entire dragonstone scene because like Rhaenyra flying in with her dragon, like literally saved his ass basically.

And like did a good job, got out of there like with the egg and without bloodshed, like she said, but like you watch in real time how Otto goes from being like, I'm here on the King's orders to being like completely shown up by a teenage girl on a dragon yeah i love it yeah it's good that she reminded him too like don't forget i have the dragon you don't otto but there are some problems that do need to be solved with bloodshed maybe probably and by that

i mean we uh have read foreign blood and are gonna talk about it this is a spoilers all uh podcast so let's talk about the crab feeder let's talk about like that opening scene with a honestly low-key i was like oh delicious when all those crabs were walking across the screen i was like that is not how i'm supposed to feel about this scene well fed well fed crab crab beast happy crabs oh it was gross yeah it was great it was a very that felt classic thrones to me right like that feels so classic opening up that was the gore it was a slow horror because i feel like and i know especially like with the births for example they're kind of giving a theme to each one they've kind of hinted at this season but for me i'm like it seems like they're bringing different horror elements into every episode and i don't know for me that's'm like, it seems like they're bringing different horror elements into every episode. And I don't know, for me, that's what I love about media is like a media that can embrace

so many different genres in one piece, right? Like you can have a fantasy show, but it can also have horror. And, you know, it can have romance, it can have action, it can have suspense, it could have everything built into it in different ways. And, you know, it's like a musical piece, right? Like you're like like musically playing it with all these pieces like to bring emotion evoking like a composition and no not like that one get out of here ragar agar agon pick one a song a song of ice and fire? No. I'm so tired of you. I love that scene too, because like the cut to the small council meeting and like Otto again, shithead being like, well, we're going to make an offering to their families. And I'm like, bro, do you not understand that it's like money doesn't just like fix people's problems when someone that they love has died a horrifying death at the hands of a scary pirate.

Like. It reminds me of Game and Pale Hair in Fire and Blood. One of the laws they put forward was, like, if you lose a limb in your lord's service that Sylvana and Essie were pushing, like, you would stay with the lord and he would have to take care of you till you died. And I'm like, see, these are the laws for the people yeah this is otto doesn't care about the laws of the people no and like viserys is so like oh i sent an envoy like he just like does the bare minimum to show that he is you know ruling or whatever but he thinks he's he thinks he's such a nice guy and he's not patty considine is really good at that tension too i think between like this guy who clearly like knows how to be warm and like friendly when he needs to and like charming

knows how to be like serious and like a king but he like i don't know at the end of the day is just and like a king but he like i don't know at the end of the day is just wrong like all the time absolutely and he doesn't quite he seems to think that he got to where he is based on merit as opposed to like how the episode ends right this idea of we have to have made ourselves when you're not you know the first and the heir etc and uh as you said right he's just doing a great job and he he doesn't quite understand the need for using force when we've seen that other targaryens have done so we see jaherys and alice and do that chloe and i just revisited aegon's wives reynira and visenya and visenya was fantastic at being like you don't really need to always burn them and you got to do something you have to do something yeah a gentle threat you can yeah a gentle threat burn a building

no but literally people are and be like hey just so you know i could annihilate you yeah reminder i did love the time jump i did not expect it that fast today and now i'm seeing because we have the weeks ahead which we'll talk about at the end we'll speculate a little i guess kim can't kim you gotta shh but uh next week's episode like you can see there's definitely a two-year time jump it looks like going on or so uh there's babies galore coming out of them so there's gonna be some time jumping maybe i just don't know enough babies in real life but i have such a hard time like knowing the difference between like a one and a half year old and like a four year old like they all yeah so like i don't know like yeah that baby in the weeks ahead i was like how old is that kid it's not talking i don't know

talking happens around like two yeah that's a great question i actually don't know that much about babies talking reading is more around two right i mean well then that's why like when we speak of children often they're spoken of in months right because there's like so many different developmental stages but you had said eliana that looked like he could hold himself up right it looked like he could sit up and that's significant right because apparently babies have to learn to sit up which i didn't know before they like have no neck muscles or something like and he's got a lot of hair i think he's one he's got to be one which means it's like been a year and nine months or so because then also she's pregnant right so it's all happening it's like been a year and nine months or so because then also she's pregnant right so it's all happening it's moving so that's a big jump i'm excited to like i i know you've gotten to

experience it but i'm like what's gonna happen there and then also how many more time jumps until the time jump that like everyone knows about the time jump obviously there's a big one coming yeah so i'm interested to see how many more we have now. Cause I just, you know, Game of Thrones didn't play like this. I know. This is a fun, this is fun. It is.

I love new treats. It's new. It's exciting. Yeah. That was something Ryan Condal also said during one of our chats was that like, he really, he's always loved episodes of TV where like,

it takes you a little while to orient yourself of like you have to like listen and like look for some context clues to like figure out exactly like what time it is and so like that's what house of the dragon is doing so i think it was like you know a couple minutes into this one where someone says like damon's been at dragon stone for over six months now and it's like okay boom it's been six months but like you aren't quite sure right away. So yeah, there's more of those to come. I do like that that scene when we do get to the small council, you know, they're all talking about rime red wine

and I'm like, ha ha, I get it because they're pouring red wine into the cups. And it also evokes, of course, the intro. It reminds us of the intro scene as well. I'm like, oh yes. Blood, blood. Yeah, it coming i uh i'm bummed that we didn't get more ryan i know that it's it's great we got him at all to be fair but uh i had a feeling he'd die in the night off screen you know at the hour of the bat or something and i'm glad

they poured one out for ryan redwine for sure uh i actually thought this was great to open with this council scene right after that again because it is as we'll talk about the feast for the crows here six months later and um it's kind of upsetting to me renear doesn't get treated great in this council we learned about the daemon and dragon stone thing he's kind of being a giant baby and viserys a bigger baby has done nothing about it. He's like, yeah, whatever. Let my baby brother just rent out the house, the beach house. Even though that's like kind of rude. It's like really rude because it's Rhaenyra's house. It's not his house.

He brought all of his cops to the beach house also. Oh my god. He did. He brought, wait, no, this is also just like. It's literally gemstones. Yes, no, it is. It's just righteous gemstones. I like how you knew where I was going also just like it's literally gemstones yes no it is just right exactly i like how you knew where i was yeah it's literally righteous gemstones it's the god squad so damon and his god squad are like frat boying it up at her house that is her house in like less than a year that's her house i know she'll take it don't you worry but like that is

you should be nicer it's being rude yeah i agreed agreed so not only is viscerys like letting him stay at rhaenyra the heir's heir seat the seat where the heirs stay they put their butts there at dragon stone historically they also um kick rhaenyra out of the council yeah she has like a good suggestion about the stepstones war they're talking about yeah the series doesn't want good suggestions that's the problem or hates good ideas no loves bad ideas i also found it like borderline comical the way that he went to like every person he could think of to like oh my god to to get to like try and find someone to tell him that maybe he shouldn't marry Lena, but every single person without fail was like,

oh no, that's the smart move. That's a smart move. Oh yeah, that's a smart move. And then he's like, I'm assuming that he had some midnight chat with Otto, and that's why Otto brought Alicent to the small council at the end, so that they could have the dramatic final rose reveal. Oh my god, who will get it who will get it i need to join the bachelor fandom yeah i'm not really in it either but i know that much i want to be i want to be in it i'm aspirational about myself okay marjorie

terrell sit down i do who will get the rose they're having a lot of fun in that phantom okay they're having so much fun and i want to be part yeah so um yeah so they kick reneara out they're like no good ideas sorry nothing that actually has to do with action and they're like why don't you go choose the new kingsguard you know it's whatever just go choose one of the new justices that we're never going to be able to oust whatever no big deal give her something to do go look at the boys with the muscles raniera run along and and she did oh she did they should be careful what you wish for right be careful what you ask your heir to do because she just made a fated choice man and of course she chooses a warrior not any of these tourney knights uh which i love

it's very smart right she says oh you're a real warrior because you've been in the dornish incursions maybe should have chosen a tourney knight i don't know but he's so cute yeah if evil why hot if, why hot? If evil, why hot? I mean, I just loved, again, the way that, like, they managed to show us how, like, yes, she's young. Maybe she doesn't know all, like, the niceties about thanking dudes for catching almost poachers. I also, I listened to that scene twice, and I'm like, did they say that he caught a would-be poacher? So I'm like, this man just, like, arrested a guy who hadn't done anything wrong yet. Some minority report shit. Sounds like cop behavior to me.

Yeah, exactly. So, like, yeah, I kind of was like, yeah, you should just ignore that man, whatever. I loved the detail that he was the, Sir Christian Cole's the only person without a page there or like a squire everyone else has like a little dude holding the banner behind him but sir christian cole's just like there in his like plain silver armor so i think like they did kind of a good job of like yeah playing up the whole he's kind of an outsider and she's feeling like an outsider right now but

like we know that he is skilled he just beat the shit out of Damon in the last episode and she watched that and was like all right cool I like my uncle if you can beat the shit out of him then you're probably pretty solid um so I I see her logic but yes it is a very fateful choice I also love the little detail of her like being on a stool like she has like heels on and she's on a stool and she still has to like get onto her tippy toes to like get a proper look at everything going on i love her she's small small bean she's small there's something great one of our friends over at our discord patron maddie pointed out that his armor is like the only dented armor there oh yeah so if you look his armor has actual use and same at the tourney

like he was the only one without fancy armor so um definitely has actually seen real battles at first she's kind of like what do i do here and then she looks up and she sees rainy staring at her and then i i assume then she remembers rainy's being like at the tourney saying none of these knights have ever seen actual battle yeah and and then gets the idea of like this is a way to actually determine to create this tiebreaker yeah kristen cole as you said right he he doesn't have a squire page there it fits into that idea of like these are people who have had to make themselves in the world they don't have it handed to them and interestingly he has done so by being part of the dornish marches right like those boars right living there among some march lords

and as we all know from the first episodes where they exclaim he's dornish maybe half it seems like perhaps his mother is and like that's interesting that he fought on the side of the stormlands then would have been against the dornish and i'm like oh so he's just used to betraying the teams or the people he's supposed to be for I think so I think that's it yeah I think he's like supposed to be sort of at this stage like the naive outsider who thinks that he understands the order of things in like royalty and honor and like all this stuff. And it's like, oh yeah,

he's going to quickly figure out that like, this is a merit based system of like, yeah, like, yes, I guess where the money's going. Kristen Cole and his motivations are such a mystery and fire and blood. So being able to get that depth will be really,

really interesting. And I mean, we'll talk about it a bit. Alicent and him have their first interaction in this episode, which I almost like blink and you miss it. So that's kind of exciting. Where she says like, bring the hand back safe, Sir Kristen. Sir Kristen, her night. Uh oh. Uh oh. So it turns out both of you girlies don't like your hubbies uh-oh and you both have the same crush now this stepmom stuff is hard it's hard it's not easy yeah i'm just i'm not gonna say anything viserys and alicent break a dragon, right?

So it feels like a metaphor. They're at his Warhammer set, which he didn't build, by the way. Stonemasons built it, and I thought that was also a metaphor. I'm like, oh, so you didn't build any of this, and you're just sitting on it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Just thriving off that golden Jaehaerys era. Tells Alicent not to tell Rhaenyra of their meetings. Red flags. Red flags. But also wants her to fix his relationship with his daughter at the same time, simultaneously. Garbage. Garbage man. Garbage father. Garbage king. I just, it drives me bananas.'m like if you know if you're telling her not to tell your daughter then you know that what you're doing is wrong on some level or that what you're doing

would upset someone on some level like you don't ask someone to keep like your quiet lunchtime conversations alone second red flag you haven't noticed that this poor girl is like shredding her fingers open in front of you all the time that's that's such a great because he's like oblivious to everything he doesn't want to see yes you know totally he only sees what he wants to see but like yeah it really evokes him being like don't tell rainier it evokes like this is gonna sound gross but like it is a gross it is a gross situation it reminds me of like those those videos they show you in health class to warn you against predators, where they're like, this will be our little secret. And I'm like, chill out there, Viserys.

Yep. No, totally. And also the fact that Otto sending her to the room was like its own weird secret. Okay, great. Now my father, my only family member in this castle i can't talk to about how this makes me uncomfortable because he's the one making me do it and she's been explicitly told by the king not to tell rainira and i do think that alicent they're also setting up alicent as like the rule follower right like she might have she has like she seems

to have like a little bit of like a rebellious streak or whatever but like that scene in the gods what i keep thinking of because like that's i mean now that we know that the marriage announcement's been like made at the end of this episode it's like that's probably the only scene we're gonna get of rainier and alicent like yeah entirely alone and like kind of relaxed around each other and the fact that alicent was still trying to be like we have to do what the septus says like like read your book and reyniera was like fuck this book she's yeah like to her own detriment keeps following the rules and like is now in a position where she's lost her best friend slash maybe girlfriend and it's really sad yeah it is she's

like trapped between you know these two men and they're isolating her and i think that that is really important you were talking about allyship allyship can't happen when you're isolated right and that's why people are afraid of creating that sense of organizational power and and by tearing them apart right they can't form these bonds to be able to to get the things that they want to do done. They can't form power, right? It doesn't only happen in isolated rooms. And I think another reason it bothers me is because, like, he never thought that all this time, like, wow, I'm here really talking about Valeria and all these things and histories and stuff with uh this girl who is the

same age as my daughter like that entire time that you were in your grief and talking about your family's history you could have been talking about it with the person for whom that is also her family's history and then bonding and sharing that together but he's just absolutely not an adult in any way and i understand he's grieving but it's like homie step up well i think it also comes back to the choice that he made for emma right like miguel sapochnik the way that he said it mean like miguel saw it as him effectively murdering his wife right and also i saw someone on twitter pointing this out like nobody went to get raniera to say like hey your mom is dying and like you can come and say goodbye right now right like everything that viserys should have done after that he doesn't do because i genuinely think he's

like too full of shame to like actually be around his daughter anymore because he knows that he did something terrible that emma and bail on died anyways and so like you're totally right that like all those conversations he should just be having with rainera and then he's also just a freaking hypocrite like when she when rainera tries to apologize for like the small council guffaw he cuts her off and says like oh you, you're young. You'll learn. In one instance, he can talk down to her and like disrespect her ideas or her like importance in the room by saying that she's young. And then when he's made up his mind pretty much to marry her best friend, he says, oh, I forget sometimes that you're a woman grown now. Oh, very convenient of you to

now suddenly see your 14, 15 year old daughter as a woman grown because you're hours away from announcing that you are marrying her best friend with the motivation and intention of getting your best friend pregnant as soon as possible, which you now know is an extremely dangerous predicament for a woman to be in because she might die. Just let that soak in folks and there's that moment right opposite of that where otto says to allison like you're the most comely woman in court and so they both are growing them up like right there right then to avoid that shame yeah it's it's so weird it's i i as you said right i I love that you pointed out part of it has to do with his shame and his guilt. And that's why he won't.

And that's why you like spending time with Allison. Because she's playing the dutiful role her father told her to that he does. He plays Yes Man. And she tells him like, oh, they don't understand you. Right? They don't see you're so agreeable. She builds him back up because. Because she has to. because she has literally no

other choice yeah that's her job and and he doesn't understand like but he does know that's another part of his shame like he knows that she can't say no to his like playtime with legos like he knows yeah she as the hand's daughter i mean otto he knows in his head otto will jump up his ass to get power right like he knows that otto is He also knows, like, in a way he's using that connection. Yeah. Well, that Alison Hightower girl's real nice, and obviously she's showing interest in me because she's coming to my room every night, so quite frankly, like, this is just what's gonna happen. I'm just gonna tell her she can't tell anyone, and we're just gonna play Legos all day because he's a little boy. That been talked about i think especially recently and like maybe especially

within like entertainment circles and stuff as like an acknowledge an acknowledged pattern that abusers have which is that they convince themselves that they didn't do anything wrong or that the women wanted to be in that hotel room or like whatever because like interesting there's a self-delusion associated with like a power imbalance once you get to a certain level of like wanting to think that people just genuinely enjoy your company as opposed to the fact that you have manipulated them into being there and are making them uncomfortable and are choosing not to see that or recognize it. So. And it is sad because he is alone, right? Like we see him go through this episode, he gets very isolated. And it's like, he also is alone.

So it's sad because he obviously doesn't also know how to socialize anymore on that level. You know, like he has no clue how to healthily converse. It sure isn't, you know, everything he's done for the last six months so it's just sad because it's like it's sad on both levels like he could have been a better king he could have done these things and he chose to you know be consumed by grief yeah and there are at least two people i can count in this episode who who do enjoy his company like they legitimately do um one of them goes to great lengths to to try and get his company we'll get there in a second i have to say before we run down to talk about corlees and

rainies and viscerys the reneur and allison and the sept what i am guessing don't spoil me kim is my very last time ever seeing them agreeable and sweet together i mean this is just an educated guess but you know the last time emotionally i mean was beautiful. They got me a little teary-eyed with the crying and praying and very sad because this buildup is really gonna break down and it's gonna hurt even more. I know. Yeah, I loved that scene too. And it's also, it just feels, I feel like Game of Thrones did this a couple times with like women having conversations in like temple or like prayer settings or something but yeah like this idea that like that and the gods would are like the places where they can speak freely because there's no one

else really around and no one seems to care what little girls pray about in steps like sansa yeah so yeah it's like a nice moment of like feminine intimacy in front of what i assumed was the mother statue yeah that's what i assumed also it has to be yeah yeah they're praying to the mothers it must it makes sense right like that's what it would be and yeah i mean it was just such a sad scene if you know what's like gonna happen next and um yeah i think that they also do a good job of showing you like all of like the niceties that alicent has with viserys it's like she she does just genuinely seem like someone who knows how to be comforting to people because like she lost her mother and seems to have like absorbed sort of like how to process grief in that way and is happy to like

pass that on to viserys and reneara wherever she can but unfortunately the fact that she's being used as like this pawn is like quickly putting an end to that basically i think well and you can see her hold back right in the sept with her you that she, like, gets her to the moment where Rhaenyra can have some emotional clarity and is like, I want this for you. But she doesn't attach herself to it. And she stays very reserved about it. And she doesn't quite open up herself, right? She talks a little bit about her mom. But you can tell she's really just thinking about viserys and like the niceties so look at otto when he's standing next to raniera i mean this is how she's been what she grew up like being told how she needs to be and raniera was not usually told that so like otto was almost cowing raniera and like telling her no you need to be a

nice girl no you need to say say this this is the queenly thing to say this is the polite feminine thing you should say to these men out here where alison you know she says those things very prettily she has them at the ready and yes they tear her apart but she does know them already raniera has never had to yeah we also don't exactly know right how alison's mother died do we and like there's something kind of now gross in that she's been forced to turn her mother's death into something that was her own and this personal thing this personal grief between her and her father and this huge loss into a political tool right her mother's death has turned into something that was for her into something that she uses to manipulate her best friend and her best friend's dad yeah no it's true i do think there's something more genuine when she tells it to reynira as opposed

to when she uses the same pickup lines on her dad yeah i think maybe because she like genuinely seems to really know reynira whereas like yeah i know she's been having lunches with him and stuff or whatever but like i feel like she probably views viserys as a little bit more of a stranger or like a separate person nervous yeah she's very nervous around him obviously obviously, as we see. Hello, Mr. Targaryen. Sir, is Rhaenyra here to come out to play? Literally, that's the only interactions I would have. I'd be like, hello, is my friend here? I don't think I was ever alone with one of my friend's dads

when I was a kid or in high school. And if I was, I probably would have been very uncomfortable. I don't know how to talk to dads when you're freaking 14 no thanks yeah what do you talk about tool sheds i don't even remember i guess not there's a reason and he must know that's inappropriate uh he has to know let's be real uh well about more inappropriate so corley's rainies and viscerys have a little exchange they're like look no hard feelings about the council but about that we kind of want to still go to war with the stepstones and that's fine we could maybe set it aside but also you could marry my 12 year old daughter and that would fix everything all the wrongs of the past several decades would just melt away all would be well oh my god i love this scene too because again it shows how like viserys is so like

oh don't worry about that tension this is my favorite cousin we're just having fun like he just like wants to make surface small talk all the time and then the second anything serious comes up he's like i don't know about that and that's why i get not to jump ahead too much but like at the end when damon is like that was never my brother's strong suit or whatever and corliss is like what he's like being king he's fine he's fine having the the chit chats at the barbecue with his favorite cousin and like talking about the weather or whatever but like the second things get serious he can't he's such a coward he's an emotional coward he's like my favorite cousin and she's like that's so funny because you're literally my least favorite cousin like of all of my 800 cousins you're the one i

never want to see again how funny is that oh that's so ironic viscerys and then yeah and then you get corliss being one of the first ones to be like can i speak really and he's like of course i love honest opinions liar and i don't think corliss is wrong like i appreciate that corliss is like the one who you know kind of gave Rhaenyra a little bit of support or like at least just seemed interested in listening to her which is not what a single other man in that room felt like doing Corlys was at least going to like hear her out and like talk talk the strategy through you know like no bad ideas Corlys is like a no bad ideas guy whereas Viserys is like oh you only

have bad ideas renera shut up like excuse you that's auto talking through him it feels like but still i do think that he does like the avoiding war thing i will say is like that is big but like as corliss then says in this scene well the best way is just to go on right through it like you got to take care of it you can't just let it fester like the wounds on your body the series it's a metaphor and i wonder if he's just like more willing to listen to is he more willing to listen to rainier's opinions because he's used to respecting women's opinions like his wife well that happens in the next scene right the the awkward family dinner where they're like talking about their work days and she just wants him to be maybe a little proud of her with the one task she did get to accomplish um he's kind of a jerk kind

of condescending he is yeah yeah i think corliss is a much better feminist like he genuinely seems to still believe that his wife should have been named queen and like has never quite let go of that which again i don't think excuses you pushing your 12 year old daughter towards a grown man but like i'm my most gratuitous interpretation of that on his behalf is that like he is still very much of the belief that someone in his immediate family should have a connection to the throne because rainies was wrongfully passed over in her time or whatever but yeah the maggots are a symbol yeah the feast for crows um okay actually the maggots are real eliana says they're like yeah irl people still do this this isn't just like old timey this is a thing yeah it's so gross i was like we were sitting next to each other and i just looked at her i was like what i mean it's also

kind of like cool that like they just somehow know to only eat the dead flesh and not like your real flesh. Like those are some discerning little bugs. They are. They have taste. They've got taste. They're tasting. That's for sure. They're doing a lot of tasting.

This is the Viserys Targaryen tasting menu. Yeah. Well, no, they literally do. I'm trying to resist the urge to constantly be like, oh, they did this in House of the Dragon because they didn't do that thing in Game of Thrones. But I'm like, we didn't get like super gross ruse bolton leech experience true in game of thrones so i feel like they were like oh is there an opportunity to not only show like crabs eating dead flesh but like some live maggots doing it too like let's get in

there yeah and i mean we do actually also leeching does still happen every now and then not they don't use it as like a foolproof pill anymore right they are not like let's do leeching for everything but there are times leeching and maggots make sense and it's not like they use they don't use like maggots from the trash you know these are clean maggots okay oh so you have a problem with all of the maggots now no hashtag not hashtag not all maggots interesting because i thought you were really supporting these bugs a few seconds no i do so i know i support their use in medicinal medical properties and i mean yeah right like you're glossing over this feasting on corpses yeah i knew a feast for crows this is a weird like

several degrees of separation thing but i knew that leeching was leeching was still a thing because there was a gray. It was in a gray's anatomy episode. Oh, and also the director of this episode, Greg Yaitanes, I think. Why?

Why? A I T A N E S. I'm going to call him Greg. Someone feel free to tell me how to pronounce that last name. If you know, um, I, cause I really, like I said said i really like this episode so and honestly this was an episode where the credits rolled and i was surprised that it wasn't one of the female directors i thought for sure after seeing the episode i was like oh this feels like an episode of television directed by a woman and then it wasn't so good for you greg um he um he did house too he'd house he was the

executive producer on house so they just bring him for all the medical stuff i was scrolling through his uh his imdb and he directed two of my favorite gray's anatomy episodes in like season two or three and i was like okay greg heck yeah good for you was like, okay, Greg. Heck yeah. Good for you. Okay, Greg. He's perfect for this. Yeah. I haven't looked at the writers yet for this episode, so maybe that's part of why you're getting that sense.

I don't know. It's just credited to Ryan Condal, but, like, writing credits on episodes can be interesting sometimes because, like, usually they just pick one person in the writer's room to be the credited name but like other writers might have written individual scenes or like done passes at the script to like change up dialogue or something so i definitely i definitely feel like you can tell that they had women in the room when they were breaking a lot of these episodes which makes me happy yeah absolutely it shows it does

show the series kind of shows up talking with the maggots in his hand right so the maggots are eating him away while otto and the maester are flitting around him and he's like what do you guys think about my marriage prospect lena and the maester's actually like, yes, absolutely. Yes, this is this would really fix a lot of things in the realm. And like, everything would be sewn together happily. And Otto's like, Oh, I don't know about that. She's a little young, your grace, like, shouldn't you look for you know, a woman grown for this? I don't know about this girl. Sneaky, sneaky. Otto. Otto is this whole episode. he's being a sneak he is really setting seeds for war to brew this entire episode that fake ass look on his face when he's like I don't envy you because oh I just can't I couldn't possibly imagine the position that

you're in let me remind you about how sad you must be. Except wait, you're not sad when my daughter's in your room. Doesn't that feel good? Wouldn't you maybe like to marry her? Ugh. You know, just asking for a friend, though. Yeah. Just asking for a friend. Just wondering.

Not for me. I thought it was interesting that the maester does give a decent, honest opinion. Because I think after the previous episode, a lot of people thought that the maester does give a decent honest opinion because I think after the previous episode a lot of people thought that the maester was like in Otto's pocket or something like that yeah it is interesting how Viserys splits everyone up like the fact that he talks to Sir Lionel strong on his own for some reason like why wasn't Lionel called to the maggot room that's so interesting especially because it almost echoes tyrian right telling the different story of who's going where just to see like the truth

or not the truth and so it's like he's looking for truth on their own without the influence of one another and yet he doesn't listen to any of them except for ot. Yeah. Like, why'd you ask if you weren't really curious? Or do you just think they're all lick-spittle pieces of crap? I mean, that also could be it, that he thinks none of them have a backbone, which is kind of true. We haven't really seen him... I don't know that Viserys has really changed much

from episode one to two after damon tells him i think very accurately like all the men around you see you as weak because you are and like they all just want something different from you so maybe maybe the splitting up was like him trying to be a little more politically savvy after getting roasted by damon but then again i don't know it turns out like a majority of council members their goal and what they want is for the throne to be strong what a novel concept well the throne will almost be strong but not quite well get it because i got it the strong the boys the lads the boys oh boys uh before that let's talk about a girl oh my god i was so excited for this scene you guys i love lena so much i love you lena i

love you lena so much um she's adorable she does such a great job but the scene with her and vasari's i have to say a lot of people were yo, I can't believe they're doing this. And something Game of Thrones really shied away from was kind of some of these. They did some age-ups to make things less uncomfortable, which that's okay, because I mean, you know, you had to have Thrones happen in order to have Hot D happen. You couldn't have this without that. But I'm so glad they're facing this kind of stuff. You know, like, they're straight up just going at it. They're like, yeah, let's make you uncomfortable. That's actually how media should be. It should take you out of your comfort level in some ways.

So kudos to them for that. And of course, kudos to Lena just talking about dragons the whole time. I love her. She's like, one more time. Can you give me some general map of where Vhagar, where is she? Where's that big dragon? Just for like maybe the next episode or two or something maybe.

Because I think we're going to see her. I feel like she's going to claim Vhagar on screen. I feel like they're going to give me this thing. And I think it's coming for me. I think that, you know, I have given for so long and now I get to receive this show. It's for me. It is for you. The show's for the girlies. i get to receive this show it's for me it is for you the show's for the girlies it is it really is it is part of me wonders like based on something one of you was saying earlier of like you know viscerys he's weak right um and and he's he wants to believe

that allison wants to be there and that she really thinks all these things about him and and she's easy to control right like she says yes to everything that he's saying like is he afraid of wedding lena not just because she's young part of it is because she's really young and my partner when uh watching this happening started yelling no no get away from her get away from her that is a child he's like no but um because she's spirited well she's spirit lena is spirited but a she has the backing of her family right is he afraid she has the backing of her family b does he realize oh there's a chance this child could become a dragon rider and does that threaten him and his authority and his rule as king because then he couldn't

threaten her as easily right he couldn't control her as easily if she has her own power through her family and of course physically that is a really interesting point because alicent specifically is not interested in dragons they took the time to establish that in the first episode when we when reynira offers to like take her for a ride oh that's right um and she's like no i'm good and like has doesn't seem to have any interest in that piece of like the targaryen dynamic but lena came in hot with the dragon questions and she was like tell me all about the dragons. I have so many questions. And I do think, they don't really ever explain this,

but I absolutely think that Viserys is like somehow fearful of dragons or just like wants to stay away as much as possible. I don't know. In Fire and Blood, do they ever really get into why he never bothered to ride another dragon after balerion i they never explicitly say it but i always thought that the uh suggestion through the books is that you can't a human can only bond with one dragon ever and that's it is my is what seems to be intimated okay and the opposite is like that the dragons can bond with many but not not more than not at the same time just one at a time and also right they don't care

they only go off of vibes they're just like i don't know whatever dragons love vibes they're like i'll just go to the other side of like your enemies now they seem fun yeah yeah honestly i think that that that rings kind of true and his ride on balerion was sad like he only took like a ride on balerion once and it was just over king's landing did a couple circles came back and and there's something like very tame about that right like they've all been tamed and we keep watching the dragons being put in the pit for example throughout the story. And the power is waning a little bit, I'd say, just a little. It's the beginning of the end.

That is absolutely what it feels like. And while this scene is happening, I love the connection kind of going on up above as Rhaenyra's watching this, and she's like, fuck, my dad is gonna marry Laena. Fuck! And Rhaenys is sitting there and kind of gives her some hard, cold truths, right? She's like, your dad's going to remarry someone. He will produce heirs and they probably will be males. But Rhaenyra is going to break the wheel, right?

She's going to break that wheel. I feel like we probably talked about this on Twitter before, but maybe not. I mentioned this on my, on, when I was, I think, to dave last night and like the twitter spaces thing but no little women have you seen are we all are we all fans of greta gerwig's little women i haven't seen it but i heard you talk about this but yes i'm a very big fan she yeah that this rainy's monologue where like she says the line from the trailer completely reminded me of the speech that Jo March gives in Little Women where she says, I believe women have minds and souls as well as just hearts. And I'm so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for or whatever.

And then in the trailer, that was it, right? You get good girl power moment. It's a beautiful line. And then in the movie, she says all right you get like good like girl power moment it's a beautiful line and then in the movie she says all that and then there's like a pause and then she says but i'm so lonely and like that completely kind of recontextualizes like why she's so emotional about this fact about women um and how she feels and in this too like i was like yeah okay great speech of course like perfect for the trailer the realm would rather like torch itself before seeing a woman on the throne and then like the stinger is when she says like and your father is no fool or like but your father

is no fool because she's really putting the point on the fact that like viserys is setting her up to fail that like he knows as good as anyone else does that there's going to be an issue with her ascension to the throne if there are other male heirs in play and so i appreciated that like the speech wasn't just like pointing out the systemic thing that's wrong it's also really nailing viserys on that point as well of like if if there was ever going to be something done about this your dad would have to do it and he's clearly not doing it because instead he's going off to marry someone else and try and have more babies so yeah let's get which like i get that he has to do to like re like obviously the odds of like your soul air dying are bad.

So you should probably have more than one. But still. Not like this. Don't do it like this. Especially because, like, I think what they're hinting at is not just, you know, he has to because of the royal line, but because of the prophecy. Right? Yeah. the prophecy, right? So he feels like, oh yeah, we gotta make sure that there's at least gonna be some sort of Targaryen there that'll be able to take the throne and unite the realm.

But, I mean, he kind of is a fool. Maybe part of it is he takes it for granted, right? He's like, well, everyone just decided to name me king, so that's what'll happen when I say that Rhaenyra is the heir, right? Everyone's gonna accept it like they did when there were two different claimants, decided to name me king so that's what'll happen when I say that Rainier is the heir right everyone's gonna accept it like they did when there were two different claimants but doesn't seem to truly understand I guess the what that really means and how I as you said right he's like absolutely like undercutting all of her power and yeah it's also just like I don't know it's a difficult scene

because it's a great scene but it's a difficult interaction between them because i was discussing with this with chloe but like rainies doesn't come at it like with like the nicest attitude and rainier is 14 and i'm gonna be real at 14 i thought i fucking knew everything yeah no this is like a boomer talking to a millennial in high school and trying to be like like oh you think you know you don't actually know how the world works you can't tell a teenager that because they're as old as they've ever been I think of I think about this all the time that like I felt so grown up when I was 18 years old yeah if a single adult had tried to tell me that I was young I would

have like completely like hackles up like shut the hell up I'm an adult I have a job I'm like I'm financially independent I'm living my life I'm an adult but like it's because that's of course that's like that's the oldest I've ever been that's the most freedom I've ever had at this point in society or whatever and you simply you cannot thrust perspective upon a teenager you just can't they just have to learn that like they have to live that experience and oh she's gonna experience yeah fuck yeah and the fact that rainies comes at it from a slight point of like condensation and like condensation yeah condescension yes yes not not missed um condescension this this is definitely the

point which on a monday my brain stops working after like i would have been like fuck you fuck you as you said like boomer i'm not listening to you and there's a way to let she could have done it and i mean i think it's really sad right because yeah reynira does legitimately think she can enact change even though and she's hoping she gets that chance right she's trying to do anything right now to do any change and i generally believes at some point she'll be able to do that and that opportunity does come for her during the dance war and yet reyniera does not choose to do so uh because of what uh when it comes to the rosby succession yeah there's you know there's some traitors they try to flip from green back to black even though they were originally black so they

try to double cross come back and say please take us take us back. And Rhaenyra says, hell no. It was kind of two arguments. So their deaths left her with a nettlesome problem of succession. They each left a daughter, no sons. So by leaving a daughter, maybe marry Hugh and Ulf off into these houses and carry the line matrilineally. However, that would set a huge precedent so damon feminist damon targaryen um he really promoted this idea he's like rhaenyra you have to do this like this is the way to do it but corley said no that changes everything which is interesting because corley's has been all about wife guy up until this point we thought because he's only a wife

he's only a wife his wife only his wife guy sorry wife guys everywhere hashtag not all wives not all wives um sometimes a wife guy uh but then you know yeah and then there's death well she was dead she was dead by that yeah so maybe he sends no no wife he's just depressed about it he's like no fuck women and their succession rights uh but he does say like, the lords will never accept you. If you do this, the lords will never accept you because you're going to uproot succession across the entire nation of Westeros. And so she basically has these two choices either, just like coming back to that conversation of allyship, fight for women everywhere to have the right that she's burning down the country for, or get her fucking crown on her fucking throne.

And she chooses her crown, her throne. She chooses herself over that idea and over that change. Not unlike her father, right? As we're seeing in these episodes that he's not making the changes or calling, hey, this is the new succession for the throne. You know, this is, we're going to respect that our daughters could maybe rule too. Yeah, no, totally.

I think that it is, I think that the show is doing a good job of setting you up to understand how like, and exactly like you were saying earlier, the way that isolation and demoralization are like the tools of oppression, like tell someone that they have to do it alone and that they have to be like entirely focused on themselves in order to get ahead. And that's how you're going to stop like widespread change from ever happening because everybody will everybody's being taught to like protect their own

and no one outside of that immediate circle like whether that's your spouse or a child or whatever like the fact that not enough people can extend that desire for change to outside of their own personal needs is going to be to the detriment of everyone she picked she does pick her own and doesn't do that widespread change because, again, it would upend all the succession everywhere else. We would have a lot of little spinoff succession shows everywhere. I mean, also there's that other thought too, right, of how do I rule from the inside of the system without being able to be,

like, if I don't win, then I can't make this change instead of just making the change yeah she's like maybe she's kicking it down the road we'll see how it plays out in the show i wonder you know how they're going to to bring more depth to it because i think the show is doing a good job of bringing depth to a lot of uh the things that we see in fire and blood and and this speech right from rainies does a great job of showing how the patriarchy is a trap right it traps it's trapping all of them not just her um it's it's trapping um also rainiera i think that was a point i want to say castle black the podcast was making that point also in their uh coverage of the very first episode their second one i think is not yet out yeah and and for rainies

we see that she's forced to play in that same system too right like she's submitting her 12 year old daughter to it in an attempt to power take power for themselves but also secure the power of in general the valyrian line etc and and for her daughter she's like well this is the best placed position i can put my daughter in even though it is also one in which she's vulnerable yeah it's like there's really no safety in most directions for all the women in this society unless and like i think that rainier gets closest to that because she's a dragon rider like the fact that she the fact that she has enough agency to be able to like show up and surprise everyone on dragon back when like auto just had to fucking sail on a boat there like a loser all night like it's great is a loser

correction well actually it's because he is a loser is a loser big loser that's true though i mean you saw it in her eyes the second he was like i'll get on a ship she was like oh i'll get on my dragon good yeah yeah she's like see you at home smell you later well and i love the uh the lena scene and rainies and raniera talking about it comes right back to back with alicent and viserys right where alicent is back and brings him a present she brings the reforged dragon again i think it could be a metaphor for something um but brings him this dragon and now it's fixed and then otto enters and interrupts right so kind of that same bearing of rainies is up there watching as her daughter is cattled off and otto is here to uh say oh hello i see you and my daughter have been hanging out lately.

The series puts on his king's voice, his lord's voice, too, which I thought was great. Earlier you were saying that flip in character, that he can play both. He knows how to be both. Yeah, it's a great character moment because once again, you see that like, I'm sorry, sir, if you need to fucking gather your skirts before someone can walk in the room when you're talking to a child maybe you're talking to her in a way that isn't entirely appropriate like uh yeah that was a great moment because he does he has to be like oh let me let me sort myself out here oh yes come in like with those maggoty fingers you're welcome now they're not anymore now the maggots have done their job i hope with all the talking up you've been doing of them i would hope they're very effective people survive people live because of maggots well speaking of those maggots otto hightower calls an emergency session uh for

the small council because Daemon Targaryen has to be stopped he has stolen a dragon egg specifically we find out from Rhaenyra listening and speaking with them uh in Valyrian that it is Dreamfire's egg which set off the sirens for us we're big Dreamfire fans because we love Rhaena Targaryen uh but yeah so the scroll says he's taking two wives he's like mizari is pregnant she's my other babe she's my other wife uh and i'm taking this egg you know i gotta start they my heir deserves an egg yeah and then otto's like no sir that's for fancy babies only and they start the meeting and she's not she's just coming into the room the meeting has started

without her even fully being in the room but i'm like i guess at least someone told her it was happening there's at least that yeah they totally did yep i feel like her being the perennial cup bearer is the equivalent of asking the only woman in the room to like take notes at a meeting yeah yeah oh yes oh holy shit oh shit shit that's been me fuck same yeah oh my god uh-huh we've all been there that's horrible yeah that is horrible or to not be invited to the team meeting because they're like oh we'll catch you up later doesn't matter yeah and she's the only one that gets anything done here like she realizes exactly it's dream fires she's like yeah he's still balan's egg he's trying to get your attention dad yeah and it works it does work totally like i'm going and honestly he should have gone you think so yeah i don't know i mean maybe maybe not but

like if he had gone everyone could hug and then they would have like reunited and then damon would have been like you fucking idiot otto hightower is trying to get you to marry his daughter right but but uh i mean otto doesn't want him to go because he doesn't want him to connect with damon he's he's isolating he's isolating what abusers also do and i yeah he sent he sent allison to to fill in the role of daughter wife i guess yeah like that that literally is what he does he lies like later he lies in the second when he's at dragonstone he's like oh your grace would never ever waste time on this here he doesn't have time but viserys is like i'm going and he's like no you can't you have to stay here not for any reason or anything or anything uh and the next

scene is him telling allison once more you know go seal the deal get in there and that look she gives him there's some pure hatred in that look, I feel like. Like, that glare that she says, sure, dad, I'd love to. This will be great for me. She says, like, if you wish or something. Yup. Mm-hmm. Gritted teeth, glaring. And then-

Especially, like, after he, like, looked at her fingers again and was like, Mm-hmm. Oh, why are you doing this? I don't know, sir. Why don't you ask why your daughter is dissociating and making herself bleed when she's spending company around violent men well of course right of course it should be her fault it could never be otto's fault it could never be the man's fault no never ever he's just grieving his poor wife oh my god still so hard this is the best way to grieve

i hear dressing your daughter up in her dresses and plotting and yeah i do love like the dynamics total schemes just 40 schemes all day long the dynamic of when they get to dragon stone and just like him and damon uh the pure just poison between the two of them is great especially because matt smith as like puppy damon targaryen is very cute he's like my brother didn't come i did this for him this is literally i did all this for him i think maybe um and otto and him are just they go at it i love it the little exchange where he's like um otto's like this is gonna start a war and he's like wonderful like i'd love a war perfect like otto can't rattle him because he's just like i don't give a shit about anything that happens other than i wanted to see my brother

show me my brother. I need love. I mean, I love that it's so obvious, right? Like that in his facial expressions that he really just did this for family attention. Our friends at Hot Pod done by Stanford Fraser and his co-host, who I'm so sorry I forgot his name. We're talking about like how Stanford's wife said, yeah, David's just doing youngest sibling stuff, trying to get attention, and we don't know what that's like. I don't know if you know what youngest sibling acting out stuff is like.

We're only children. I'm a middle child, so. Oh, no. Stannis energy. Oh, dang. Why are you attacking our guest, Chloe? I'm sorry. Why are you attacking our guest?loe sorry why are you attacking our

guests you invite her on you invite her on well you stab her um she'll come back no not stannis um yeah god but no i mean i've i've seen the younger the younger sibling dynamic play out and yeah he's just a big he's a big man baby who like also do you guys watch succession too yes every day of my life yes right like it's like a little bit of like kendall or roman roy energy of like yeah please please pay attention to me please see that i've done this new dashingly thing and tell me that it was good or like bad or whatever like they want a kiss from daddy he just wants yeah a kiss from viserys I the I think one of my favorite little like daemon is just a big kid moments was like I think it was after rain era flew up and he

just sort of like he like cuddles the egg a little bit he just like hugs it and kind of like set like settles into like watching rainier approach like you could just tell he's immediately no longer in like i'm gonna kill someone mode he's like all right yeah like a little family moment now just me yeah niece and my egg it's actually like such a great little change incidentally your dad was calling just now oh really yeah was he really yeah he really was i saw it on your incidentally her dad was calling my dad just called me his ears were burning because we're talking about yeah dads yeah yeah yeah and it was not sedition at all i i know what sedition looks like i live in today in the modern our modern country um so i love that daemon is like i have better people

better hardware i also have a dragon you need to shut the fuck up otto i love his dragon i love caraxis little like yes oh bloodworms little snakehead yeah noodle total noodle like it's the longest noodle i've ever seen and i'm'm in love with it. It's so great. Really shows you how we might get to a point later on where they're like, dreams didn't make us Kings, dragons did. Mm-hmm. I could see it now. I could see it. And I also would say that, like, oh, that's gotta be a great battle with him and Viserys

or something, because, like, you know how quotes are always taken out of context constantly in this show? What? Yeah, always. Like, they always, they like to fool you. I just could see him being like, brother, you're so stupid. Why to fool you i just could see him being like brother you're so stupid why are you so worried or raniera you're so stupid why are you so worried about this prophecy you should just get your chair girl get your chair and go home i love that she talks him down in high valyrian right like she's able

to talk him down yeah uh and there's even a little bit it kind of reminds me of like asha and maybe like victorian or something like there's a little bit of it kind of reminds me of, like, Asha and maybe, like, Victarion or something. Like, there's a little bit of that vibe to it of the way she speaks to him. Like, Uncle, like, you could just murder me if I'm sitting in your, you know, spot. Why are you playing all these games? There's almost a little, like, Asha and her uncle's vibes going on. And she wins, right? She gets the egg.

She takes the egg. She saves the egg. Gets it in the brassiere. And they take off on their dragons and no more no more dilemma otto goes home the long way which is good until the next part where he gets in trouble for it all poor damon when you just said puts in the brassiere i fully just imagined like a giant bra and then i was like yeah that's not the right word for that it could keep it warm it's kind of it could be it could be um soft it's way smarter than victorian though damon is smarter than victorian

i will give him that yes i was just like wait who was i was like they didn't have victorian in no no they just kind of like merged him with what's his butt you're on you're on yeah it would have been a good hbo character i think hbo would have enjoyed a character like victorian yeah but interestingly during that confrontation on the bridge before like the cool sword shumi stuff which was very fun we keep getting close-ups of misaria um when yeah when uh when they keep saying all the stuff and at first you think it's like because she's so offended right and she's very hurt that no one would accept her being married or her child

and then he turns out it's not like that at all yeah she uh we get a big kind of backstory of her motives like obviously he just lied in front of like all of these people 60 people it was just like oh you're my second wife and you're pregnant with my heir except then she's like but i'm not and i thought that was a very interesting way to play this scene for her to be like i come to you for you know to feel liberated to feel safe i've never known all these exciting things of feeling liberated and having this power within me i've been sold i've been this i've been that and you you just pull this bullshit on me you're just trying to make me a targaryen mayor yeah and at the bare minimum make her a target for possible like assassination or sabotage or something for anyone who doesn't want daemon procreating which fair about that well it's gonna happen i guess so too bad for them but

yeah absolutely i mean it's like uh it's funny because you said it when you're talking about making her target it reminds me of the line that we get in a lot of times in a song of ice and fire but especially in a feast for crows when we are talking about kristen cole uh to crown him is to kill him right so for damon to wed her is to as you said make her a target and interestingly it doesn't seem like he could he could breed her if he wanted to because uh we get this reveal and i think it's phrased very subtly but it sounds like misaria might have sterilized herself i missed that the first go around david asked me about that this morning and i was like what are you talking about he was like she says that she like made it so that she could never be pregnant and i was like or something like that and i had totally missed that as possible

like yeah somehow like self-sterilization i think maybe I just assumed like she just drinks moon tea all the time or whatever because of like, don't the sex workers kind of have it like available to them so that they're not constantly getting pregnant? Well, we know some of them did because that's how Bobby B had so many bastards, right? I don't know. Yeah, I totally miss that that would be interesting if they're if they're somehow alluding to the fact that women have some way of well and it seems magical yeah we know that mazaria is going to have some some sort of bits of magic right about her it'll be interesting to see if she did something like that or if it was something more like liza right in a storm of swords revealing uh the moon tea rest the moon tea through the different ingredients

of the recipe i was gonna say the flavors the different flavors of the flavors of poison yeah the different poisons she drank but like even if it's that even if like she made it just so she could never the the term is insured she says i insured and i missed it actually eliana i was like okay roll it back i need to see it again and she straight up says i insured never again interesting yeah and it's a shift from the books right yes it's a shift from the she doesn't have a child in the books right i i they they say that right they say that she like miscarries so i think i saw someone being like is this the show's way of explaining why she never had a baby in the book like maybe damon's because damon did he wrote it he put it in the scroll too that she was pregnant so like at some point people are gonna be like

where's this baby exactly yeah exactly and um some pink lettery shit now that i think about it but uh um who wrote damon's letter obviously not nazaria we can say that it was not nazaria rule out one suspect immediately yeah i mean what you were saying right like is this how they explained that she miscarries i mean they they had to put out a public statement because he put out a public statement and it's a nice touch of the way that you know i know that history of westeros in their recent interview with george they were discussing the difference between like there's a show canon there's a book canon you know they both serve their stories in that way and you know it's interesting to see how the difference between

the private and public lives what gets chronicled in history of course only the maesters will only know that yeah damon knocked her up and they wouldn't know mazaria being like that is impossible yeah yeah and not and actually that mazaria doesn't want that right because it frames mazaria as like kind of scheming to maybe become like a wife when turns out that was never in her desires and and what isn't shown in the history books yeah i do want to hear more from asari about like what it is that she wants aside from like freedom freedom from fear but like she's investing a lot of emotional energy into damon like she's totally like mothering him when he's in his little big baby moods and like encouraging him to like take pride in his supposed like right to the iron throne and

stuff like she's the one who kind of like eggs him on in the first episode to like make a speech that then eventually gets him banished from king's landing temporarily so i don't know eggs him on eggs is that what you said kim there's that little bit of stannis and alessandra too you know like that little bit of whispering in the ear because i mean i will say mizaria doesn't get the most fulfilling role in fire and blood it's not a very fleshed out role we get her in bits and pieces she becomes the de facto unnamed you know mistress of whispers and uh we have to get her there right yeah yeah but mistress of whispers or it is like it is a big role right like we see the the power that role can hold with various's character in a song of ice and fire with blood raven's character in i don't know throughout the rest of like their

history this one's family this family's future though not history but um it's in what you're saying about how she talks up damon is an interesting parallel then to how alicent talks up the series because you know she talks about how she's been sold like property over and over and is that so dissimilar to what we're seeing in this episode is that so dissimilar to corley's and rainey's being like hey here's my 12 year old daughter or uh what otto is doing with allison and you know it's it's it's less palatable perhaps it's covered up and it's fancied up but it's still all within that same system yeah yeah it's a loss of bodily autonomy because you're viewed as being useful for one primary thing whether it's sex for pleasure or sex for babies yes or yeah exactly and here she's trying to take ownership she's like

i don't i want control also over my narrative of what i don't want to be used and endangered as a pawn in a scroll that's given to the fucking small council jesus damon he's out there right now yeah he like left it in the dragon nest like it's like he pulled like an indiana jones, like, took a mug and left a scroll just throwing Misaria under the bus. I want that short. I want that mini-sit. A little animated of him doing it. I think it would be great because it's, like, half that and then, like, Home Alone. It's, like, half that and half Home Alone.

I'm not kidding. He's literally Home Aloning Otto Hightower the whole time. Love it. I can't believe I didn't get to listen to last week's episode yet for Cast of Kings. Eliana listened to it for me, and she was telling me I was writing this outline, and I was like, all right, so let's go to The Bachelor, and that's when she told me. She's like, oh my god, they joke about The Bachelor, Chloe. I think it was last night, right?

It was last night? Yeah. It was last night's reaction episode. Dave was actually the one who brought it up. He's apparently the... Is's being the bachelor fandom i didn't really ask i should i should check in with how how into the bachelor if you get all of us in he could get us in right to the fandom i think we i think we just need to do that ourselves the problem is like this is it's the same problem i have with doctor who and granted i could just start at any season i'm sure of the bachelor but there's like 13 seasons now or more i mean that's

not fair because i've literally told you i'd guide you through doctor who so wow betrayals are happening already in the dance you guys betrayals are happening wow maybe we just have to embark on season one of the bachelor together you know because i think i watched it way back in the day when it was first airing and then i fell off you know in my my teens and 20s yeah but i see exactly as soon as he was like oh it's like a rose ceremony i was like yeah everyone's standing around kind of awkwardly we got like reaction shots from almost everyone yeah and i will quickly say like when you know before right before this scene right when um rainiera returns home oh yeah and then and then viserys is like where were you it's it's it's very it's very teenager has snuck out of their home and you know she's back and i

love that because because i think you were pointing out like how in the small council scene before she goes and retrieves the egg right um she's just there awkwardly standing right when she returns home to her father who's chastising her for a couple of reasons right a uh you're not supposed to do that you're not supposed to disobey me the king b you're not supposed to disobey me your father and then also see you're endangering the line not just because you are the heir um and our family's political power is weak but also the prophecy and she asks to sit down she asks to sit down which is a sign of being conferred respect and being uh taken seriously as a politician and a leader then he sits down and in that moment when he

finally regards her as an equal there they can they open up and before you know everything blows up with the bachelor scene yeah and it's crazy because he totally lies to her like he's straight up like just like he does to every one of them he's like what do you think of my matches and they're like lana lana's great and she's like yeah dad i give you permission go remarry that 12 year old because that means i have a couple years to gain on you you know what i mean yeah let me get a couple heirs in uh and then the next scene he gives the rose and it's not to lena it's to allison corley's is pissed everyone's pissed everyone's really pissed yeah and no that may i that may i sit moment was so great from her because she's just like i'm not taking your bullshit anymore dude like and it's very it's

he's being patronizing he's like he thinks that she needs protection when we just saw how clearly in control of that entire situation was like she bested every man in that negotiation setting by just like swooping in doing her thing and then leaving she was entirely like right i think to do that and she i think that she now knows it i also love last thing, like, really get into the rose ceremony, I love her music cue. Yes! That little, like, ah, ha, that little, like, choral voice that kicks in. I'm obsessed with it. We were wondering, is that, like, her theme now, right?

Is that going to be her theme throughout and play with it? Because you can hear some of the Targaryen in it, right, of the theme, the swooping, but then it has more drums. Yeah. Kim can't say, but we're wondering. Kim's shutting it out real tight. She's had a couple of those moments tonight. Who knows?

But I mean, like, I think that was like one of my favorite songs I've ever heard in like any of the series, right? I mean, no new theme song was fine because it's so iconic. I don't care. But it was also disappointing. So I was like, what's it going to be? What's it going to be?

So now I'm like, all right, give me the good themes good themes ramin i'd like all the good themes all season long yeah as as as as people probably rainier's age say it was a buff yeah the youths um the youths on their tiktoks and westeros no for real though uh and yeah and i like that he emphasizes you're my heir and i don't intend to change that as he's bringing up the marriage, which to me says he doesn't intend to name a male heir still. Right. Like, he's recommitting that to her, but again, it's like, what he says privately to her doesn't matter as much as what he does in front of everyone else. So, like, I still don trust trust his instincts on this and also he says like i i don't he specifically also says like i don't want to become estranged from you and it's like well guess what buddy you're doing like the one

thing that you could possibly do right now that would really upset her like how do you not see that it's because he's a bad dad he is absent did he think like did he think like oh by marrying your best friend isn't this great she's part of our family now like is that like was that the thought process like i think so do you really think so yeah i don't know i mean he does seem out of touch of human emotions he's got tunnel vision i don't know whole scene, everyone's heartbroken. Like, Rhaenyra is like, how could you fucking do this to me? You can see it in her eyeballs. Corlys is like, how could you fucking do this to me?

You can see it when he stands up and says, how could you fucking do this to me? Everybody bails after that. You can see just from this moment where the lines are being drawn of where people are being driven, right? Like, you can see why Damon and Lena get married, because Corliss is like, oh, Annie up, I need to get some power, let's go fuck up the Stepstones, Damon. Where Rhaenyra's like, I have a new knight to play with. So that really paints the next picture we're gonna see next week.

Pretty vividly. Yeah. All I'll say is that next week's episode is really good too i like it a lot i have a i have i feel like right now i have a respect for the way that the writers room have figured out how to weave everything together and do time jumps so that like yes you're dropping in on a on a new like chronological section but every single one of like the motivations and the interactions and the loyalties from the previous episode perfectly set you up to understand how they change a little bit in this episode and then like like all everything that you just said about like you you can see where the lines are drawing that corliss as we know from like the final scene like corliss is headed off to now try and team up with damon now alicent is

like fully you know about to be wet yeah like we know that she's going to be married to him by the time that like the next time jump happens and so then like who does rainera have left to talk to pretty much just sir kristen cole who we specifically watched her have like a one of the few positive interactions that she had in this whole episode was like her recognizing his skill and like deciding to honor him right away like easy question her dad approves like boom so like it's all all the it's not even like the puzzle pieces are falling into place it's like they've all shifted once again and now like next episode we see like are they going how do they continue to shift and morph as like we drop into every new time setting it's great because it'll bring us back right like when there's all

of a sudden the valerian deaths which are horrible and i don't want to see them uh but when those happen like that's going to change it again the pace is going to change the tables my how the tables are going to turn they're going to turn table and i love that like i'm very excited to see because it won't get boring you know there's going to be a couple big oh let's spin it again yeah totally so i do kind of wish like we had gotten a little more reaction from you know the rest of the small council just for just for you know dramatic bachelor's sake it's fun it's fun everyone's like oh my gosh and yeah he looks over at renearing he's like this is great right i'm getting remarried and she's like what the fuck dad runs out and not like this yeah not like this and speaking of time and allison as many people have pointed out is she wearing

how long has she been wearing the same dress and what does it mean mean yeah i only recently saw someone theorizing on twitter that like it means that they must have slept together because she's like wearing the same thing the next day. I don't know about that. It does seem weird that she's wearing the same dress multiple times. But we know that her dad was like, go wear your dead mother's dresses. So I'm like, is there just a limited number of dead mom dresses hanging around? So she's an outfit repeater uh was it like that was like a life-changing episode of lizzie mcguire okay yes that's what it's

yeah it's kate and lizzie they're the same age they're like the same age as in this episode basically 13 14 wait is alice and kate then i have questions i have a lot of questions i don't know maybe maybe or uh no kate well but kate has a soft side too so hmm that's what it is that's what i mean yes that's why i'm like maybe but rainier's not very she's more of miranda yeah that's true way more of miranda she's a little edgy yeah yeah it was uh seeing like that that dress though like i mean the other thing is there's twofold to this like in a song of ice and fire i feel like we're constantly reading like there are specific dresses for specific events

right like this one a obviously it's got the cutouts on it which gives a little bit of the skin which is obviously what she was trying to sell for her father and then not only that but then in a song of ice and fire it's like they have certain dresses to be worn for certain events right or that are nice enough for certain events and like you might just have a couple dresses that are good for going to council and you might have a couple like lesser dresses you wouldn't wear in council. So, I mean, maybe not, but it was interesting to me to think of it from that angle, too. they had sex out of wedlock first which like seems to be the implication and i just i don't under i don't if that had happened i feel like it would have been important to show some other hint that like she had been called out of her bedroom in the middle of the night mysteriously or like summoned somewhere or something or like i don't know i'm just not sure because i'm like if so what does that change

yeah yeah i don't know i thought it was an interesting theory whether you know she's uh whether he sleeps with her or not um but yeah it is interesting she keeps wearing the same dress i'm i'm like is this your mom's sluttiest dress or is it like what's what's going on like but yeah um in regards to what you were saying about the cutouts it also has i last week or something and then i got it wrong i did our best and it was supposed to be her village um because she was where she was wearing a dress that had a similar like paneling right that was reminiscent of the her village bandage dress specifically it is called the bandage dress and it's like is she bound is she being wrapped bound into the roles that she's in okay trapped i like that yeah i do like that i

mean i think that is part of it with like the cagey because it's like cage style right it's a cage like bralette looking kind of thing at the top it is very cagey uh she's being pretty cagey right now in this family she doesn't have a choice i guess she has no choice yeah it kind of sucks um it's it's so much more angular than everything that rainiera wears like rainier is very like rounded with like her like rounded headpiece rounded collar her like you were talking about like the trinity knot like that like circular symbol that she has and like alicent is all like little square paneling, like line blocks too.

And it's like, and Rainier is wearing, I think a lot of high necklines, right? She's very covered, which I mean, that makes sense for her age, right? She's not trying, she doesn't feel like she's, has to be forced into that sort of role of being sexualized or a woman yet. Whereas Alicent, she doesn't want to be, but she's being forced into that sort of role of being sexualized or a woman yet whereas alicent

she doesn't want to be but she's being forced into it yeah and the first dress that we saw alicent in before she was sent to viserys room was similar was much closer to rainier's in terms of like modest like a more like modest young girl neckline and like pastel coloring and now she's in this like cut out dark jewel tone like very like noticeable noticeable like goth sansa in season five yeah dark sansa yeah well yeah compared to like the the first season yeah the the light colors yeah they really went for those pastels and those youthful innocent colors and like even uh there's something even said of that dress she wears when she first goes to him having the black flames licking across it and that now the flames have like torn the rest of the dress away and

she's wearing a different dress and here she is like like a phoenix risen out of that dress yeah but also tearing herself apart yeah that too that too it's tearing up my heart with you i really don't want to marry you okay i like both versions these are good is this the song of ice and fire maybe ah could be oh my god well we close up on that corley's daemon right they make a deal they're like ah yes what if we were allies in a game of thrones um she said the thing and they're going to the stepstones to do some wars uh and we do see a close-up on crag has trahar and he has grayscale according to the end of the episode which makes sense because like greyscale especially breeds well in a cold damp place which was stepstones definitely is so there's your

not unlike viserys's wound right it's got kind of that similar you want to keep this place your little hellhole you've built while you have greyscale too hell yeah it looks very you know the whole thing the whole thing of how that all ends looks very, you know, the whole thing, the whole thing of how that all ends looks very fantasy-esque, which I love. I love that we are leaning into it and he looks sort of monstrous, but it's fun. And yeah, we haven't heard him talk. He seems scary. I'm excited. Kind of hyped for the Stepstones because like in the weeks ahead, you actually see Lainer in the next week video in the background, and I'm like, whoa! So that's a change, which is awesome, from the book.

And I had a feeling they'd do that, because he has to get knighted before he marries Rhaenyra. So this is a perfect chance to give him a knighthood, I feel like. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, it's smart. And I like that it's, like, Crabfe's like crab feeder is he's like the overt villain everyone else are like very subtle villains like yeah all all the bad things that all the other men are doing are a little more on the like political emotional damage side and then it's like they took the time in episode one to mention mr crab feeder

and then like really really show him off in this episode yeah mr crabs i love it because you know finally we have a real villain everyone can just love the characters for just one episode just kidding just let us enjoy this one oh my god yeah but what if what if crab feeder is the good guy i mean he's just out here feeding crabs you know is that so bad to feed the crabs the crab they're a vital piece of an ocean ecosystem i hear you know absolutely they they also make music according to the little mermaid yep little tiny crab violins both the crabs and the maggots should form an alliance they should i think they should at the very least a union an animal union they should a feast for crows union my god they'll have the air they'll have the sea and they'll have

the land air no veneer is the air oh get it right um well i look forward to next week because we get some strongs in the house harwin's showing up clubfoot's showing up they're in the trailer for next week you can just see him clubfoot is clubfooting i am like i'm floored he is clubfooting that is they committed to this whole bit that they're doing called House of the Dragon. They committed to it, the bit. Completely. It's amazing. Except for Mushroom.

Except for Mushroom. But I think he might show up. I'm a believer. You really think so? Maybe. Maybe in the background. I have no idea. I have no idea.

I don't know what to think. I believe. I believe. Kim is once more saying nothing. We are getting nothing from Kim Renfro right now. Nothing. Well, in kim's defense this is a very difficult section obviously chloe and i want to talk about and speculate what's

uh what we've been shown in the next week on hot d but um yeah no go ahead i'm just gonna sit here and drink my dr pepper what's great is we can see kim's face but you can't right so like i mean it's a pretty she's making a neutral face at each of these we're not 100% sure but like i felt something from a few of them this episode i felt a couple things in this episode that i'm like oh oh what was that face kim um it could have just been kim's face to be fair i don't know i don't but i thought it meant something i probably i have a terrible poker face i keep the podcast that i'm doing with david he he like films and is putting clips of it on tiktok and youtube and stuff and i was like oh i need to i need to pay attention to what my face

is doing all the time you're gonna take some take some notes from allison take some notes from uh auto i guess i don't know that would just be a 40 chess a furrowed brow at all times just yeah just just look like you're pondering all the time and no one will know that actually yeah so sad about my dead wife so sad you should say that and then see what see what happens see if you fool everyone every time every time you don't know what to say just say that everyone will be like oh my god yes of course so sad i'm just grieving over here don't yeah don't listen to me will we think aiken too is cute for the only time ever yeah probably probably time ever yeah he had some cute choppy cheeks that nice hair yeah this is it this is the last time uh and and um so i said that the outfit that allison was wearing was very mrs claus but i also

really like chloe's observation it's um from beauty and the beast christmas is really what it is though it's literally literally it is look it up right we'll link it below everyone because it's literally bell's outfit in the beauty and the beast christmas it's like the like kind of pink one outfit in the beauty and the beast it's like the like kind of pink one yes yeah it's the same outfit the fur trim on like the cloak it's literally that outfit oh but her hair nuts are so pretty too oh my god the show did hair nuts wow good for them good for them meant to go over your head i love it i love this i'm excited for the costuming next episode that is one of my favorite things in the show so far is that like every single episode has had like four different

outfits for everyone except for allison except allison someone get that girl a dress again this is like sansa season four right now with her like two dresses she wore for two seasons yeah that was painful for allison yeah she gets more dresses later i don't even need to look at kim's face to know that i've seen some of the promo material she gets a lot more dresses so don't worry guys alicent will get new dresses real good dress moments coming up which is only to be expected from yeah i mean it has to be yeah as you pointed out it's part of the story i mean it's decadent yeah it has to be the greens and the blacks actually becoming a thing. And it's like kind of like a fashion fight. There's, you know, it's not just a fight. It's a fight with fashion.

My favorite kind. Yeah, I love that. I look forward to that. Kim, what, without spoiling, obviously, what episode do you think we should be looking forward to the most right now? They didn't, they didn't they didn't warn us i don't even know if i should say this i don't have notes on all the episodes okay okay because i kind of like just started blowing through them very excitedly and was like oh i'll take notes later that's what i would do and now i can't access all the episodes again. Oh, no. So I'm like. I honestly, I don't know. I did really like.

Here's one thing I'll tell you. My notes for next week's episode. My little handwritten notes right here. I made a little star and wrote Downton Abbey in all caps. Interesting. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.

And I love Downton Abbey. Same. Because I saw someone compare it to downton abbey i was like is that a bad thing i fucking love downton abbey i don't think it's a bad thing at all i think it's an example of like a really good family drama and like showing like the the rich opulence of a certain family in contrast to like everybody else in the lower classes and like yeah a lot of things a lot of things going on um so i think next week's is going to be a fun one for book readers and then definitely five and six i can't remember now what happens in four that i think i know i don't know honestly i i thought that it kind of just kept getting better that's why like when i saw people's when i saw people's like positive reactions to the pilot

i was like okay because like honestly the pilot's probably like the least it just has to like it has to do so much stage setting which is like the pilot's job like i think it's a really good pilot but in terms of like getting into the meat of other things getting into like i'm sure there will be hashtag discourse about things to come but like yeah i was i was really into it and i will say i i also know like a lot of people have been talking about how great millie alcock is as renera and i agree and some people are like this sucks because i know that she's not going to be playing her forever because at some point it's going to jump to emma darcy in that role but like the first episode that i saw emma darcy as reneara i was like i love this so much like

they crushed it so yeah that's awesome and and then yeah i mean i'm hopeful that this means though that millie alcock and emily carey will then have the opportunities because they've done such a strong job here to do like other great acting work later on and i also know that you know you're writing like it's important right that we switch these actors out because they are trying to emphasize they are trying to emphasize right how this system hurts girls like children young girls and young women yeah totally i think that like for a very long time it felt like if you wanted to make a show about something like this where women were married at very young ages because they were basically married as soon as they were able to get pregnant for the sake of like

continuing on a family line. It's like, it's one thing to say like, oh, well that this is true. And this is how it used to be. Like, don't put your modern politics on this.

Like it's normal within the world. And I'm like, why, why have we stopped questioning? Yes. Whether, whether it might have been normal at some point in human history for women to be sold off like property and made to bear the children of older men that they may or may not know at all and possibly die in the process because

their bodies don't matter like maybe it's good that we continue like looking that in the face through a show like this instead of just like hand waving away like oh yeah good that we continue like looking that in the face through a show like this instead of just like hand waving away like, oh yeah, well that's just like, it's normal within the culture so like don't don't put too much stock in it. I think that the show is very intentionally getting you to understand that there are like serious emotional repercussions when girls are told at a young age that they don't have power and control over their bodies or what they do with their life like that's the through line so yeah and while like that did you know

used to happen like i i don't know i'm sure each of us has experienced it here though we thankfully are not being married off as early as 13 or 14 i mean that hasn't stopped us from sexualizing like that hasn't stopped society from sexualizing girls right like i the first time i ever was cat called i was like what 12 yeah same yeah yeah so we're seeing what that looks like and we're we're looking that in the face and yeah it's through this lens of i mean it's coming out today in modern day this is not like real history and it's good to examine that yeah yeah agree totally so i'm excited to see how how it continues to unfold and how people respond to that because i think it's going to produce some good good convos

and it's all just very well performed and well written I think so and if six episodes were that good I mean the other four those were going to be bangers bangers very excited I'm excited that you said it's only uphill from here

yeah well Kim thank you so much for joining us today we had such a blast breaking down this episode with you and please tell everyone where they can find you online one more time oh yeah you can find me on twitter again i've i've re-entered the fray um so i'm i'm at kim kim r renfro on twitter and then you can follow along with like a cast of kings a cast of kings is pretty much on every social platform so like there's youtube tiktok twitter then you can follow along with like a cast of kings a cast of kings is pretty much on every social platform so like there's YouTube TikTok Twitter obviously you can find it and download it pretty much anywhere you go and if you go to decoding tv that's where you'll get

like bonus episodes and stuff and then all of my reporting work on the show is on insider.com so find me there too nice awesome the unofficial guide to house of the dragon will be coming out when i'm just kidding second book second book one more one more one more time come on cam come on just give it four years a tumblr vlog instead thanks for having me this was so fun i could honestly talk about this for another four hours at all times but i should probably and of course uh as well as you being able to find the cast of kings and all those places you for another four hours at all times, but I should probably. And of course, as well as you being able to find the Cast of Kings and all those places, you can always find us in a couple of places too. For example, on social media,

you can find us on Twitter at twitter.com slash girlsgonecanon, C-A-N-O-N, where you can send us a tweet or a DM, or perhaps you have thoughts that are maybe a little longer. Feel free to shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. Yes, and hopefully if you're listening to this episode today, you are listening to it on a platform that you love to listen to us on

and you're subscribed, following, etc., etc. But if you're looking for a platform to subscribe to us to, you could get us at Podbean spotify google play itunes stitcher acast iheart radio and many many more and of course you can always find us on patreon patreon.com slash girls gone canon where we also have bonus episodes in the for for patrons in the stranger tier and above five dollars and above and this month we have covered the mothers of the dragon milfs of the dragon part one yeah tune in patrons in the stranger tier and above to hear how many parts this baby may go and we are doing weekly discussions for patrons in the thunder tier and

above over at our discord on hot d it's hosted by our friend Maddie. She's doing an excellent job so far. Last week was a blast. Every Friday, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. E.T. Eliana time. And also we do a monthly brunch. We just had ours for August, but we will be doing another brunch happy hour for our patrons at Discord,

and we can't wait to get together again. And of course, thank you again, everyone. Thank you to Kim. I have been one of your hosts aliana and i have been another one of your hosts chloe we'll be back next week with another all spoilers breakdown of episode three which i think is second of his name i think i've heard it's the second of his name aeg Goodbye. Bye. See y'all next week.