Girls Gone Canon Cast - House of the Dragon S1E8: Lord of the Tides

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

    the gossip girl thanksgiving episode leaves us speechless, floored, on the ground, screaming   check out the telenovela versions of HOTD courtesy of our friend Fran! https://twitter.com/flortundis/status/1577311141352669185?s=20&t=DliuJBOe8UGnb8dQZp7NGA https://twitter.com/loversground/status/1573099706502324224?s=20&t=X2zv_KIS5jydDfw45pUCsQ --------------- SPOILERS: ASOIAF, F&B, KOT7K, TWOIAF, ETC 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 Hello everyone and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Watches House of the Dragon Season 1 Episode 8 The Lord of the Tides I am one of your hosts Eliana And I am another one of your hosts Chloe And we're back, back on track. Well, Corliss isn't back on track, but before we jump into that, Eliana, what's our spoiler policy? All right, everyone, please, please, please do not skip these first few seconds of the episode if you are someone who has not read Fire and Blood, has not read any of the A Song of Ice and Fire slash Game

of Thrones books, depending on how you call them, or The Roald of Ice and Fire, or any of the Winds of Winter chapters, but we don't really talk about those, so you're probably safe if you haven't. Anyway, or any of Dunk and Egg, because we talk about everything yeah all of it all of it is spoilery in our book it is free reign free territory uh thank you for tuning into the spoiler section it is very imperative you hear that before we move forward and if you are hearing us for the very first time on these house of the dragon episodes we also have a podcast where we talk about the main series of A Song of Ice and Fire. We are rereading A Song of Ice and Fire, POV character by POV character at a time. We're currently covering Bran Stark. We're about to wrap up A Game of

Thrones with our friend Manu, Manuclear Bomb over from Nauticast, from the my brother my captain my podcast podcast and uh god and his pod sants frontier talking about metal gear so menu's coming on to talk about brand with us in the next chapter and then we'll wrap up a game of thrones and on to clash we go we're so excited indeed and also if you uh want more people to talk about house of the dragon with well do we have a place for you it is called the girls gone canon discord yeah the discord is wild it is where every week on fridays at 2 p.m et eliana time our friend maddie hosts a a discussion a hot discussion on this week's episode and speculates about the next episode coming out. And honestly, it's a really nice time. Maddie puts a lot of great work into it,

and I've had fun listening in and hearing some theories, some speculations every week, just a roundtable chat. And that's not the only thing you get out of the Discord. There's also a monthly brunch or slash happy hour, depending on where you live and what time it is. And that takes place on a Saturday or Sunday every month from 2 to 4 ET PM. This month, we haven't called the date out yet, but tune in to Bran this week with Manu to find out that date.

Yeah, that's TBD. And of course, I mean, as chloe said the hot d discussions are going great maddie's doing a wonderful job uh even though she gets bullied a lot so tune in support sometimes she brings it on herself hey and there are a couple other perks if you are just looking to support on a little smaller scale, you want to throw $5 in the tip jar every month, we do a bonus episode every month. Special content just for patrons. And we did put out last month the second part of our series, Mothers of the Dragons. Or, affectionately, that can be called Milfs of the Dragons.

Yes. If you so like that, which i do uh i do too and yes so we did part one on visenya rainies reina and alissa valerian uh over in over in august and then we did part two on alice ann and all of uh her children last month september and this month we might do part three but we also might not we are still also figuring out what we want to do for this month's patreon episode yeah this month's episode will be announced uh probably soon as well so keep your eyes peeled for that if you want to head over to patreon.com slash girls gone canon you can check out all those tiers what they have to offer and more yes so this is something that we usually do during our episodes for our read-through which

is emails and tweets of note uh people you know understandably don't always have time between like when the episode drops and when we record to send us emails and tweets of note but we did get one that was very fun from fran felix uh who also sent a picture of their cat blue which was wonderful thank you for that uh if you have photos of your of your animals that you would like to send us please email us at girlsconcanon c-a-n-o-n at gmail.com that was very important but Fran says hey guys I was wondering if you have seen the tweets where people gave Hot D the telenovela treatment I found it amusing and really accurate and Fran linked a couple of hilarious examples

of people like editing scenes and stuff from House of the Dragon to teleno novella openings like opening credits very very fun yeah like passion de dragoness is my favorite one probably it's amazing it's so good uh fuego y sangre oh my god it is hysterical these are the funniest we will link them for you guys in the description of the episode you have to check these out this is the kind of mail that i like to receive thank you yeah and also i think um the the uh a we love we'll we can retweet them as well but also something else that um people loved last week was corin's theory about Helena and blood and cheese.

So that was a banger. God, that was a banger. And I'm not ready to accept it, especially with the further Helena prophecy today. Well, I mean, let's get into it, right? Yeah, up top, before we launch scene by scene through this, as planned, I do want to shout out that we had some wonderful directors and writers this evening. Aileen Shim is a great screenwriter. I haven't gotten to check out a lot of their work,

but, I mean, has a good little resume built up there on the old IMDb deck, if you know what i mean and then gita patel directed and she actually has directed a show that's very dear to you that you dragged me into recently which was the mindy project and she did the very famous jeremy and anna's meryl streep costume party episode of 2017 mindy's best friend baby got backslide and she's Meryl Streep costume party episode of 2017. Mindy's best friend, Baby Got Backslide, and she's done a couple one-offs for Runaways and The Magicians and also did Superstore, a bunch of episodes for Superstore. I really, I kind of liked getting to see the opposite side of that, right? Like she's done a lot of comedy and some lighter toned stuff and she went in on this episode oh absolutely and um yeah i absolutely love the mindy project i love

i love mindy killing stuff in general but also um yeah i mean i think i like all those other shows too like superstore and runaways and the magicians i think with superstore and Runaways and the Magicians. I think with Superstore and the Runaways and the Magicians, like also with the mini project, but like those, they have some really important emotional beats. I think they're kind of known for that. So you can really see that shine in this episode. Absolutely.

We open up the episode on Driftmark and Rainies isys is ruling because Corlys was hurt fighting in the Stepstones. And I really love the way this opens. It kind of infers to us within the first opening scene that it's been six years. And that Rhaenys and Corlys have been estranged for those six years and that he chose to grieve the loss of his son and daughter through war and left her to rule with Bela and I also think it's good timing for him to possibly have dragon seeds crop up maybe question mark question mark question mark Rhaenys really becomes this political player in this episode because we see in the last episode in private she speaks really harsh truth with Corlys her beloved uh but is a unified front and understands where power comes from on drift mark and in King's Landing in this episode she

absolutely sees yes I know what's right but do I know what saves our house's skin I like that idea that this could be maybe something where the dragon seeds start, you know, where he plans them, right? But I'm not sure if the timing works for the span of the war. It might, it might not. I don't know because of, they're doing things like a little differently in terms of timing. But it really like shows, as you said, those cracks in their relationship and explains how someone like corlees could end up having two bastards right because we are told in fire and blood that he's so devoted to rainies um who i guess is pronounced renees but you know i've been saying it as rainies for a really long time so it's hard to break habits but it's rainy yeah it was fucking yeah i couldn't like i couldn't um really always reconcile

that description with someone who yeah agreed especially if they choose to adapt it for this with laner it's very obvious that they aren't laner's kids so passing it off as laner's kids is hysterical like the funniest joke corlees could ever play having bastards and being like what they're laners but at the same time i guess we don't know yeah they could be and it doesn't matter as much at that time anyway because they're so hard up on needing needing dragon riders right uh there's the only one that's left is like joffrey by that point when they're because they all die that's a great point that uh it is hilarious and uh you know everything just makes everything look so

much more suspicious with uh i mean veymond looking down on him from the seven hells elephant in the room that is not an elephant because everyone's fucking talking about it this episode so yeah that b word is out there bastards yeah does it make you all scared as a bastard i want you to know i hope it does i hope it does i kind of wonder if corlees would see lanor there fighting at the stepstones because yeah i was wondering that i i don't know like it would make sense right that's part of where lanor went right or that's what we assume he went to because that's what he really wanted to go join but and also he was like a he was a pretty i think talented strategist so it would not be surprising

if he rose through the ranks and you know helped command some of some forces or whatever. But also at the same time, I'm not fond of the theory that he returns as Adam of Hull. I'm not about that, but... Yeah, it doesn't work. Yeah. You could only have so many Gianna Reads in this story before you complicate it too much.

Yeah. Not to be that asshole, but you could get a very sad death out of lanor in his dad's arms do you think he's gonna come back up at all because i know like that's been a point of discussion like does do we see lanor again at all within this show like are they gonna address that and if we do it's to see him die in courtley's arms i bet you twenty dollars otherwise it's just gonna be sea smoke i mean you arms. I bet you $20. Otherwise, it's just going to be sea smoke. I mean, you know, going into a fit of rage all of a sudden out of nowhere and crying out into the sky.

Maybe. I don't think that they would because it feels like they really went out of their way to not have to do, right? And to subvert the barrier gaze trope. So I don't think they would bring Laenor back just to die on screen like that in that way but I don't know look season two Rhaenyra there's a down slide in the morality of some of the things that she and her people on her side do we are going to see some of those slides of morality come out of them. However, it could do here and there to give her a couple redeeming things. So in a sick, horrible, twisted way, they might just undo their bury your gays, unbury your gays.

They might unbury the gay, bring him back, bury him for real. I hope they don't. I don't, yeah. I mean, Seasmoke has to get a writer. I hope they don't. I don't think that they will. I think that there's something there to, I mean sea smoke has to get a writer I hope they don't I don't think that they will I think that there's something there to I mean sometimes people just disappear from your life and you're like I don't know what happened to them you know and it's like not to spoil the end but I'm gonna spoil the end of due revenge to an extent but someone be like you

were the lucky one right like you got out of it i mean i think he has to die still sorry later i do think he'll have to die probably eventually but like it doesn't have to be off screen i don't think i i think that they on a meta level right like went out of their way as showrunners to be mindful of that and not play into that rain Rhaenys and Bela are hearing Baemon's complaints because he's got a lot of them and it is interesting to see that in this conversation Rhaenys does not seem to repeat Bela's claim if I'm not mistaken and also there's something there to be said about how Rhaenys ruling in Driftmark um You know, obviously she has to an extent a claim as well, right, which Rhaenyra brings up later. But it parallels Alicent's situation, which is

something that Vaemin reminds her that, you know, the king isn't ruling right now in King's Landing. And he kind of fails to see the parallels between this of like, I'm going to ask the person who's ruling in the king's stead to give me rulership over driftmark as opposed to the person who is currently ruling in my brother's stead he doesn't necessarily even ask alicent for the approval when he goes there right like it's very much a formality and he there's a look that he exchanges with otto right before he calls them bastards he looks at otto and otto kind of catches his eye almost as if to say go on just like we practiced young Vehmint just like we said behind the scenes and like almost like the air like if he blinked

there was going to be a nod right there of him saying do it and he doesn't ask Alicent he's not there to ask Alicent Alicent is very much the accessory and power flows through her, but her father is definitely guarding it. Yeah. Rainey sees very clearly. She knows and sees how and where power flows and how to grasp power through, from, around men.

She's had to do it her whole life. Yes, that's true. She learned the lesson early. Yeah. Has had to navigate that and is like you know what let bayman go do his shenanigans and yep let him make a fool of himself yep boy he does well he does he really does around found out he really did though but he didn't i

think know what he was doing when he's fucking around and we'll get to that the lord of finding out how that i'm damn damn damn damn so let's climb up the dragonmont this was so exciting we head to dragonstone and we start off on dragonmont the volcano on the island and it is i don't know it's like such a nerdy thing for them to give to us. Thank you so much. First of all, you know, it's actually said that beneath Dragonmont are the deposits of dragonglass, right? So if you remember all the way back to season seven of Game of Thrones, that's probably where Jon is mining all this dragonglass from. But they didn't really care to show us dragonglass.

But Ryan Condal did. Yeah, he did ryan condell did yep and you know stannis and mel used to go there too this is where uh stannis and mel would go there are shafts they say and secret stairs down into the mountain's heart into hot places where only she may walk unburned it is enough and more to give an old man such terrors that sometimes he can scarcely find the strength to eat. Yeah, so Damon does not take any secrets serious. We don't have to do that, right? We don't have to sneak around. He just goes into the nest and we find the eggs. And I have a couple of questions, such as why are they so goopy? All right, why are they so goopy? What's around it?

That's the embryo, God. Also, I think it's very fascinating that they decided to build out that sort of biology around the dragon eggs, right? He doesn't just go in there and find the eggs there. He has to kind of smash them out of the hardened goop. And it actually reminds me a little bit of the process I guess for harvesting lava I don't know if any of you have ever

watched that video for some reason that was trending and showed up on my Twitter again and it's like you know it's like the silvery film over the red hot lava and the people they take the pick and they kind of like slide it like kind of tear off the opening the top layer in a way it looks like i don't know rubber like the rubber of a balloon as they like squish it off and then they gather the red hot lava and then throw it into a little bucket of cool water to cool it down anyway it fascinating, and I kind of wonder if that's where they took inspiration for the eggs. Wow. Wow, I'm watching this now in real time, everyone,

and I have to tell you this is insane. It's insane, though. It's very... And they're just wearing, like, fucking normal-ass, like, hiking boots. I'm like, wow, people are truly living on the edge i would hope they did look at some of this especially with obviously dragonmont being a volcano however i do know they talked about how they wanted it to be you know they were very inspired by alien oh yeah that's very much like alien the goo is almost exactly like alien however

they did want it to be their own thing so it wouldn't surprise me if they also looked at volcanoes and lava to kind of look at how they act, especially because dragons kind of like are that. That is them. That is they. They are lava. Yeah, I lava them. I do lava them. But yeah, I did kind of get a sci-fi feel from it too so the valerian boys are learning high valerian in the painted table room poor jace he is so stressed out he is such an error oh my god he's like having the most stress time ever uh ever and he's learning a phrase actually that stood out to me though and it reminded me of our good friend yogi yogi had said a phrase actually that stood out to me though. And it reminded me of our good friend Yogi. Yogi had said a while ago that he wondered if Agin would cut down the godswood possibly out of anger. And I was thinking, you know, like when the North joins the Blacks, for example, instead,

maybe he cuts down the godswood and the heart tree out of anger. But him saying Agin felling a tree, which probably does relate to Agin the first cutting down a tree, maybe a heart tree out of anger, but him saying Aegon felling a tree, which probably does relate to Aegon I cutting down a tree, maybe a heart tree, but made me think about what if? What if that meant something? What if it meant something? We just don't know. Well, it's fascinating that you say that it might have meant something because we find out that the root of felling is similar to the root for killing, which I did not look up the High Valyrian words because I am not trying up the High Valyrian words because I am not trying to learn High Valyrian.

And there are other people out there who can do that for you. For example, the Learned Hands podcast. So, but that is interesting if what you're saying about them felling like a weirwood because it is seen to be sort of this living network. But also, I mean, trees in general right they're alive so it's interesting they are living beings those plants yeah in real life blood they do not have their own blood in real life but they are alive well i guess so they have veins they have blood they have roots yeah they have roots and all that stuff and they got they're very cool trees we're about them but yeah i mean jace is stressed i'm also

kind of like did they not did they not speak with him in valerian when he was younger but and is he like just trying to learn it more formally now because at the same time like both parents like both laner and renera spoke valyrian so they could have started speaking to the children earlier on in valyrian same with daemon to make sure that they uh really knew it better but also it gives me some vibes of reygar being such a studious prince and I'm wondering if Rhaenyra has actually even passed on the prophecy yet to him is that why he also feels like besides wanting to be tied to tradition and knowing his roots right which is great we love Jace um yeah but and it also serves to characterize him as this like king who's very smart he's courteous he's

trying to understand where he comes from so that he can make better decisions for the future right and trying to understand valeria versus agan second who's just literally dicking around literally i'm so sad for jace right because he's obviously had so much put on his shoulders i'm curious too whether i don't think she's told him yet because I think they'd make a scene of it. I think they will give us that of her telling him of the prophecy. I think that would be such a great. I've been hoping they would in general, like since they put that cute little nugget of the air gets to learn about it from the the the king, queen, whatever. And she's not queen yet, to be fair. Right.

Yeah. So maybe she didn't think it was time yet but i would love after she becomes queen season two because i mean his death is what is his death's gonna happen season two yeah oh god a lot of people a lot of people are gonna die season two like i imagine right rainies would die season two rainies rainies rain ice every time i hear it i just think of the key and peel sketch you think of what d nice oh i uh the key and peel sketch where they misname everyone you know this and i think i've already shared it here i think of the the medieval land fun time world one of like good dude that's yes yes yes two perfectly canon thoughts in my opinion they can live alongside one another

yeah there's also there is something interesting that like they didn't i don't know they didn't teach it to him or try to instill more of it in him from a younger age and i think that does speak a little bit to some of the things that were a going on in their lives right yeah a disruptive um half decade there to decade and damon coming in too but it is disappointing i'm sad about that i had wanted i i feel like it does put him at a disadvantage like you already know that people at court are gonna whisper about how he's a bastard because he is because it turns out you fuck harwin all the time and lane or not so much so you know they came out as harwin so what are the odds what does that mean can anyone tell me yeah you're already putting them at such a disadvantage even

when they go to king's landing in the next few scenes like i feel so bad for them because they're ostracized at court yeah because she's also kept them away from court for six years that's true i i yeah i just don't really understand why he doesn't know it because if granted they don't know much about i guess child psychology and development but if reynira already knew and lanor already knew that they wanted their children to know valerian it's not like they're trying to keep them it's not like they're trying to be like oh we want you to assimilate into Westeros right then they should have been speaking to their children in Valyrian from the beginning absolutely because that's the best way to get kids to learn another language

right and it is important to them to keep their traditions and to keep the knowledge of the language so I'm just surprised that they weren't doing that earlier but I think that's just a it is important to them to keep their traditions and to keep the knowledge of the language. So I'm just surprised that they weren't doing that earlier. But I think that's just a nitpicky thing that I think about and notice as someone who is bilingual and like from an immigrant household. So I'm just surprised that that wasn't a choice that they made intentionally and did with the parenting. But I don't know if it's meant to speak also to like how it's harder as uh generations go like you know the further down you are with in the generations um to maintain the connection to your to to like your family's culture but at the same time valeria is gone yeah as we're reminded a lot in this episode yeah absolutely the cobwebs

strewn across his valeria like warhammer set and the the incense coming off of it telling you it's over it's burning everything's done old man and vaemin yeah like being like we survived it i mean if i had to give a whole theme to this episode, it was like too little too late, right? Everything, every single corner, any character turned around was something in their life telling them, well, this was too little too late. And yeah, it's interesting because coming from the exact opposite, right, of a one language speaking household, which was English, it was so fucking hard to learn other languages in my life later like it is literally easier to learn them early on uh and maybe he does know some and he just doesn't know formal you know maybe he just never picked up the formality whatever but I do

think personally I do feel there's some signs of like, on all sides here, that the grudge between their sides, the family has festered so much that it has stopped them from 100% doing the best job they could as parents. and also as you said right it might be that he knows it but doesn't know it formally for like writing and reading which is also true of yeah a lot of a lot of immigrant kids too so it's possible yeah that's very true um it's also fascinating that in this so damon and rainier agree that it's time to return to king's landing to check in on viserys right and deal with this whole driftmark thing as as we've been discussing and, right, and deal with this whole Driftmark thing, as we've been discussing. And it's also fascinating that throughout this whole episode, we never get wind of Viserys having actually disapproved of the marriage, or for it being the reason that Daemon and Rhaenyra stayed away for so long. Because that is, I think, a big piece in Fire and Blood of why Daemon and Rhaenyra together are estranged

from Viserys. So there's not really, I guess, a reason for it. And maybe that explains it is a shorter time span, right? It's six years versus the nine years that they're away from King's Landing in the book. Yeah, I actually am a little disappointed not to get any reaction to that, Yeah, I actually am a little disappointed not to get any reaction to that, right? And again, I'm trying to go along with the idea of these fleeting vignettes and looks into what happened over this several years to get us to the point which will be the end of this season, which is a different way to watch TV. It's not necessarily the most linear, but I do think like that needed a reaction a little more and it's a bummer to take him all the way into that territory so fast that's at its master class what the fuck they did with it I mean with Viserys in general in this episode I was like you know halfway in tears every fucking scene yeah where was the reaction that was kind of a big deal like everybody was like how could they like that that was like and i guess that's

part of the awkwardness of them coming there six years later now and it's really weird and everything's off where was the reaction i guess are we supposed to take it that as opposed to viscerys and sorry as was the daemon and reynera not returning to king's landing because of viserys's anger are we supposed to take it that they didn't go to king's landing because it was just such a hostile environment for them that at that point by then especially um you know with the whole scene of like alicent and the dagger and Rhaenyra, right? Like, they were like, why would we go there with these people who hate us and who hurt us?

And maybe that's supposed to be the rationale behind it. Yeah, if we're looking at the episodes linear as well, that's kind of how I'm taking it, is that that event and that obvious, like, oh, we're very alone here at court. And I don't know know there's something in the way that for example i love my husband very much and sometimes he enables me when i know i should do something and that i need to take care of something or that the right thing to do would

be to do something a certain way and i'm just not doing it and sometimes he's like okay with that and he's like baby i know it sucks you don't got to do all that. Fuck those people. And I think that's a little bit of what Damon and Rhaenyra do. Like that she's like, man, it would be really awful to have to go to court every day and face these people who are going to say that my sons are bastards. And it is awful. Like, I don't, I wouldn't want to do it either. But also you leave for six years, which means that the court can grow to be on someone else's side and other people get to rule in your father's name and the rumors about you can only spiral because

these people are feeding them and also your dad's been on narcotics for six years straight and you don't know about it until you get to king's landing yeah like that's the other reason there's no reaction is because viserys has been drugged for six years whether sometimes he might have known about it and the pain sucked so bad and they're preserving him the best they can but it wasn't all in good faith that's for sure yeah some of it was some it wasn't it's complicated having to decide you know when do you give someone painkillers when you not right what's for their comfort what isn't um and yeah as you said there's there's like they have no allies at court it's but the flip side to that is then they've ended up waning in power and influence right like it was bad that if reynira is the heir that she wasn't on

the small council and being part of the decision making yeah absolutely that is part of it for her like you're sacrificing that and i mean that's again like i said i understand it i do this shit all the time that it's like what if i'm just paralyzed with how upset i am about my life and i don't do anything and that's the choice they made And these are some of the results that they get in return. And I mean, they are, these results are really something. It's a, first of all, the decor is worse. Okay. That's I think the most important of the results.

They go to King's Landing and Darklyn announces them, but also the decor is worse. We're going to see some of the decor and where it's gone soon but first before they get inside stephan darklin announces them which i was excited about because we haven't seen him yet um a lot of people were wondering if harold westerling would take his place in some of the events in the story but now that he's appeared i definitely think that he is going to have his part of the story still and going to make off and help queen make and i love the shot of when she gets tang's landing the uncertainty and that feeling of like please don't fucking make me walk into this hellhole with these awful people and there's a lingering shot of her

in the courtyard where we last saw allison say goodbye to her father and in that one episode wow before uh olivia cook took over yeah yeah and there's kind of this lingering shot that really made me think about that damn that's big sad right because that's also like she's saying goodbye to her father in a way here too not in a way literally um literal goodbyes yeah and and uh the yeah we've seen the courtyard a lot of times before right it was also i think a place where we saw alice and edwin near his friendship as well so to see it so coldly done is uh yeah it's sad i know that um you know to briefly like do a fashion second fashion minute as opposed to a fashion hour um i kind of want to something that i've been kind of thinking about recently is we don't really see

reyniera in the nicest of coats and i know people wanted to see her in much more beautiful clothing she has her awesome dress this this episode but not everything she wears is bangers but i kind of am wondering uh are we supposed to get the sense of that rainera who's less interested in decorum things like that and having to perform in duty is she just someone like for whom she doesn't care about pat she doesn't care about fashion which is fine that's interesting i don't know i i still think she's fashionable i think that that's a subjective kind of opinion people are having because she's still really opulent she wears rings she's got really nicely embroidered clothing her jackets i

mean the other part of this is this is a pregnancy jacket yeah that she has over her dress. So I know it's potato sack-y, but like it is a pregnancy jacket and it's not necessarily always going to be the most fashionable. Unfortunately, maternity wear isn't always. Yeah. I don't know. I think also the other thing, and this is maybe a theory, you can play with this. This is a meta theory. The colors that they're putting the targaryens in especially that wear these blonde wigs they have to be careful to make sure that it doesn't make the hair look more of a certain color than another interesting because the wigs are you know they're basically blonde they're not silver they're not orange or yellow, but they're blonde.

They're like a white bleach blonde for the most part. However, they look yellow in certain coloring. So, for example, also they'll wash you the fuck out. But putting Rhaenyra in a lot of those yellow Cyrax colors probably also made the hair look less yellow. That's one effect I imagine it had. But also like they put her in some of these different gowns that were a little simpler with some nice embroidery, some nice scaling to kind of show some of that influence of Syrax or, you know, of House Targaryen.

Helena even is wearing similar fashion in this episode, I would say, to what young Rhaenyra would wear. So it seems like it was the style slash Rhaenyra wearing it made it the style at the time. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. I think her dresses are fine. I know people really wanted her to be all out and like some beautiful evil queen villain wear, get up with some crazy collars. But I mean, that's still to still to come yeah maybe she isn't a bougie bougie bitch yet have you thought about that or maybe she just isn't one right like she's dressing more for comfort as you said like she these are maternity wear but in general you she she balances both style and comfort which means she's not wearing things that are always extravagant for everyday living

right because it's just her every day and also in regards to the maternity wear as you're pointing out um and it is potato sake our friends mary and lo uh one of the i don't i don't remember which one but one of them pointed out that it might be uh rainiera kind of trying to hide her body because um it causes her discomfort in regards to her gender oh that is a great thought to kind of put out there yeah i never thought about that yeah i don't know i would also argue that her newer dresses like as an adult as grown-up reyniera have all been bangers and she started wearing a lot of different like color wise she wore a lot of softer tones in the earlier episodes as we kind of discussed where now in these later episodes

she's starting to get more into the team black outfits yeah more goss but not that bar yes she's definitely going goth i think that is well well is well no i do think that's part of it though is like also youthful innocence you know like she also looked youthful in those colors and bright and young yeah where now she's going to take into the darkness so then we have lord caswell greeting them because i mean we love lord caswell he's a real one he knows how his bills get paid first of all and then he does and also and then he dies uh but we did hear obviously that otto like purposefully sent lord caswell to bring him in so compared in a while to when vaymond comes in with a total fleet of high towers you're like oh i see fuck y'all um yeah and king's landing as you

mentioned is much more religious now as far as the decor there's definitely faith of the seven gear everywhere there's seven pointed stars on everything it's a little much it's definitely kind of a change you're like oh someone has taken a little power here. It's something that they also called out, right, in the behind the scenes that happens at the end of the episodes, where it's, Alison has kind of thrown herself into the faith to give her life, meaning especially after she's so stunned about what happened at Driftmark, like how could she do this?

And also in a way to try and bring some sort of structure to their family and it does not work as we see yeah you know sometimes you turn to god when you can't turn to anyone else to seven of them even yeah in this in the small council beesberry actually starts talking about how the faith is trying to spend tons of money on statues for the festival of the mother and he's trying to be like you guys we can't spend this money this is ridiculous and they all cut him off and they're like thanks for that exhaustive you know analysis um he had a point like people are hungry and starving that that money could go elsewhere why do you need new statues for the mother yeah it's kind of funny because when you call that that's what they've been doing literally

like that's what the high towers have been doing like literally every time we see them in the small council they're like i don't really know but what if we talked about doing the party instead yeah that's very true they did uh this one they strayed from it at least because they had other matters to talk about like whether or not reneara's children were bastards but but yeah usually they love to talk about the party instead gossip and party how can we waste taxpayers money there's this conversation that happens, which I think the newcomer to the council is supposed to be Iron Rod. It's supposed to be Jasper Wild.

But they don't see his name, which is a bummer. Also, there's still no Darren. Just putting that out there. Yeah, that's true. I believe someday they can pepper it in, and it won't be weird somehow that they never said anything about a fourth child. Iron Rod has a little conversation back and forth with everyone and Thailand Lannister pipes in. Or is it Jason? No, that's Thailand. That's Thailand.

Thailand Lannister pipes in too. And they say, the boy has been raised most of his life away from Driftmark. He can fly a dragon, yes yes but can he command a fleet ability does not alter his claim says beesberry the sea snake has never formally named him an heir if it comes to that the crown must choose what is best for the realm so you can already see the current small councils motivations and how they want to have some wiggle room around the things they decide and loopholes put into place. Here they are taking something that had been settled publicly, as Viserys soon will say, and saying, but what if, what if we took it apart one more time and

tried again? That kind of stood out to me, especially because these are the very claims they're going to be making next episode about Rhaenyra and being like, that's interesting, but what if Viserys didn't say she was the heir and it was so long ago that maybe he misspoke? Yeah, even though we all had that giant ceremony. And we were all there.

And you were there? Yeah. And you were there? And my brother was like really into her and was scolded for questioning that um yeah i that's a great point of like how the how the small council has been going about these things right that they're especially that line of the crown must choose what is best for the realm because oh how interesting that what is best for the realm seems to often coincide with what is best for the high towers specifically but it also kind of I

think shows a bit of a change right but for how Alicent used to approach that question in the earlier episodes um I want to say it was episode three, right? Where Alicent tells Viserys when he's deciding what to do about the Stepstones. And that's like the first big political influence that we see her having. And now she's here. She says, well, what would be best for the realm, right? Don't think about it about what it means for your relationship with Daemon. Like what's best for the realm? And it's kind of, I think, become a little bit distorted as it mingles with her feelings.

Like, in regards to Rhaenyra. There's a great shot of her later, again in that seat at the small council with Otto on one side, Vaemond on the other. later again in that seat at the small council with Otto on one side, Weymond on the other. Yes. And you can just see in her face, like, you got your seat at the table with the boys now, but your plate doesn't taste so good, does it? No, she's having a terrible time. She's kind of excited when it gets interrupted, I think. She's, like, been anticipating it. Yeah, well, she does say, too, she's like, I have guests to greet. So she was, I mean, she still was looking forward to seeing Rhaenyra after all this time. Oh, absolutely. That's how I read it.

But, you know, I'm biased. But that's how I read it. Yeah, no, agreed. And Sir Eric actually comes in to divert Alicent's attention. Yes, I was so excited. With captions on. Oh, my God. yes i was so excited with captions on oh my god i was i knew they had been cast so i wasn't worried but i just didn't know when to when to look out for them it was so exciting to see sir eric come

in and take her attentions and he kind of says we have an issue we have a code green on our hands so in fire and blood he's actually arik is actually who finds Rhaenyra and Daemon in bed together for the first time, and that causes that whole kerfluffle. And he ends up made Rhaenyra's protector after Harwin was sent away from being her shield. In House of the Dragon, they have Arik being Aegon's personal protector on the little hot D guide on the website, it says so. So I guess that's canon. Which, that's kind of interesting to me that

it would have made sense had they had time had they showed more of it for aric to have been her protector eric to be agan's protector uh but i'm interested to see where they take that element because we'll talk about the trailer later you can definitely see the cargyle twins in next week's trailer and it seems they play a very important role outside of just the roles they already play yeah and i do want to bring up this arthurian lore i guess are actually basically the inspo for the cargyle twins that are balan and balan they're tragic brothers destined to end up killing each other in battle. Balin lives a life cursed with misfortune. A knight who he's protecting is killed by an invisible knight. And when Balin attempts to avenge the death by tracking him down,

he gets involved in a fight, lashes out and wounds the lord of the castle, who is a king, with a sacred spear that had pierced the side of Christ. And that's a blow known as the Dolores Stroke, which lays waste to the land and makes a wound that can only be healed when the grail is achieved by sir galahad balan wins a second sword through chivalry and becomes known as the knight with two swords and is warned that if he keeps

both these swords he kills the man he loves most in the world and will bring about his destruction so by disbelieving this prophecy and keeping both of the swords his brother balin and himself uh their fates are sealed and he doesn't recognize his brother in battle and he kills him wow womp womp dang uh i i think you're right i think this is definitely the inspiration between eric and arik and um same as with balin and ballad i don't think it's going to make a difference how much we try to emphasize the difference in the letters i think it will still sound confusing when listened to um as to which one we are talking about i realize that now so well auric and eric i mean

it's you'll know that's what i'm doing oh i know. For me, it's hard to sometimes tell it apart. In the show also, like when they pronounced Eric versus Arik, they still said it in a way that I was like, they basically said the same word twice. They said the same name basically twice in a row. So, yeah, I watch it with the captions on because I need it. But, yeah. One of them puts his hair down more often than the other one is what I'm trying to figure out, I think, too. It's also like something else that is really becoming clear, right? That I didn't think about so much in Fire and Blood when reading it, but that becomes so obvious when watched is the prevalence of twins in this time period, we have the Lannisters we have the Cargill twins

we have Jaehaerys we have Bela and Rhaena who are not twins in the show but they're twins in fire and blood but if you go by even fire and blood there's still so many twins uh in in the in the series which really i think goes to highlight how it's it's just families turning on each other in general and this idea of that divide the splitting of houses and and you know that that duality that's going on within house targaryen well in a much gentler sadder scene because this was a very fast you know intro back to king's landing things move fast we break it down a little bit where renera comes to her father's bed chambers with damon and introduces her new children to him and to us thank god thank the gods i was so excited i'm obviously they can't really cut them

but i know that filming with babies can be hard and i was very excited to see i'm like living with them is probably hard too but filming with them my god i was excited to see aegon and viserys so cute daemon first thing though he pushes the lucerys issue for driftmark and it's uncomfortable like everybody renear is like oh babies yeah it does make it really uncomfortable and it kind of makes you wonder like to what extent like it it muddies you know the the interactions between damon and viserys in this episode is he doing it like out of love is he doing it out of um wanting some viserys something from viserys and it's possible that it's both right people are complicated you can have more than one feeling at one time but i do love that reneara cuts him

off by by with the phrase of there's someone i'd like to introduce to you i just love that that framing yeah it definitely felt like she wanted to cut him off. And she's like, no, let's not do it this way. And she felt dirty about it. And I think there's also something in that, like, Damon knows they are on limited time. Damon knows this war is starting, I think, before she does. I think that they're doing an interesting job of kind of softening Rhaenyra in some aspects. But, again, the book isn't really even canon because there's three different sources. So we don't actually know what happened.

But you can see where Daemon's experience as a commander in war is coming into play here, where Rhaenyra does not have that experience and does not see clearly what's happening, right? Like, especially in this episode, her and Alicent almost feel like, it almost seems like there's still redemption that could be had for them. But not, not in the eyes of their children. I mean, they built that grudge up too deeply. You guys might have forgiveness for one another, but everyone around you doesn't. exactly it right that's something that they wanted to portray as they showed in the behind the scenes and we'll get to that um in a second but yeah it's uh so when we're introduced to Agen and Viserys we

interestingly speaking of things that weren't adapted don't get wind of anything that's like what's suggested in Fire and Blood of Alicent taking insult to Rhaenyra naming the child Agen so that might just not happen in this version of the story but it also might just be like something as you said right like these are inaccurate this is much like something that could have just been made up and just like the way that stannis thought it was an insult to be given direct dragon stone um something that people just make up in their minds i also thought there was a little bit of neat foreshadowing in there because when they introduce Aegon and Viserys, Viserys says of

the child Viserys, all of the children look very little. They all look basically the same age, but Viserys is the younger. Aegon is the elder, especially in Fire and Blood. And Viserys says, oh, that's a fine name for a king. And I'm like, oh, what an interesting, strange thing for you to say, because of course, as we all know, Viserys would be the heir next in line to the throne. So it should be his name that is a fine name for a king. But because again, this is a spoilers of everything podcast. So if for some reason you're still here just i don't know tune out skip the next few moments but pretty much all of reynira's children die uh and though

this aegon does eventually get crowned king aegon the third this viserys does also become king viserys the second and crowned and the rest of uh the. But I mean, his descendants definitely become very interesting. Very, very interesting indeed. So Alicent has to go to deal with whatever Eric Aric brought her. And what she comes into with Talia, our good friend Rowan, it's literally her body double basically playing this role of Allison's head maid. Talia comes in to help at one point, but Allison arrives and there is so hard this entire conversation is it's just very depressing that allison has to look at what she's created out of her own pain

and grief like now you have to face all the shit you went through there are no consequences to be had for egan's actions even though she wants to give him real consequences i mean he's what they ride on for king they need him to be the king how do you punish a king and it's a classic conversation very chivalry right i believe you but what would others think it would be a stain for you it would follow you around the rest of your life there's also something interesting about her wielding the moon tea in comparison to how we leave young Rhaenyra with the moon tea after her night of debauchery, right?

And here she is wielding it herself, showing, like, I guess it's necessary. Yeah, it's a difficult scene, and I think they play it wonderfully as you said there's no consequences for egan's actions right it speaks to when do powerful men ever have to uh see anything for for the hurts that they do to people yeah and you upholding it you know she's in a place where she can't stop it. How do you fix that?

How do you fix that? Like, how do you actually fix that? Exactly, exactly. It reminds me of, a lot of it actually reminds me of the Harvey Weinstein stuff, right? And I recommend a really interesting book that's called She Said, which is written by the journalist who broke the case. But the lead defense attorney for Harvey Weinstein was Donna Rotino, who calls herself the ultimate feminist, right? And that's what Alison is doing, right? She's upholding the system and part of it is because the power that she has same as how otto's gaining his power it flows through allison

right auto allison's power is tied to both viscerys and to aiken that is true and so she has to put her eggs, her dragon eggs in that basket. And I mean, it's important. And that's why it's like powerful that she hugs her, right? Like, she truly does mean it when she's hugging Diana or Diana. Sorry, my American accent. She truly does mean it when she's hugging Diana, right? Because there's a reflection of Alison perhaps seeing the girl that she was, right? Who had no power and who was also raped because powerful men wanted that of her, right? And there's also, I think, a little bit of the aspect of like, when she says, what will people think? It's in combination of what people thought of her when she wed Viserys, but also in combination of the perception. She really is understanding the power of public perception, seeing what's going on with reneara and her children yeah it does feel very unfair right now doesn't it to her she's like god why can't your bastards just be less normal yeah like why are my kids the fuck ups right like your kids they're bastards but look at him

look at them they're wonderful they're just, but look at him, look at them. They're wonderful. They're just wonderful. And something that's interesting that my boyfriend pointed out was that when Alicent gives the moon tea, right, as you said, there's a parallel with Rhaenyra being given the moon tea. So you see Alicent not only just like upholding the system and wielding those systems of hatred, she's becoming that sort of a person right who who does these things that she thought despicable before um and and the erosion of her values but uh in a way diana my boyfriend pointed out diana should be relieved when they're giving her the moon tea because that means that they don't currently intend to kill her because um that's what it is but there's also I think an aspect that I see of it in which you know we we talk a lot about the Tansy in A Song of Ice and Fire when Hoster Tully gives Tansy to Liza to force the abortion right from from Littlefinger's I guess seed or whatever and

um Diana's bodily autonomy right her her agency is being taken away twice once by being raped by Agen and again by the queen saying that you don't get to control what happens to your reproduction. You must take this abortifacient. Yeah, absolutely. She doesn't get a single choice and there's something in it that echoes for Alicent not ever having a choice to have had it. The silencing. Yeah. I mean, Alicent didn't get a choice to, she didn't get a choice to not bury children. She to right that's and so she's trying to yeah absolutely kind of burst out of that um trying to you know she's in this position where she has to run this kingdom now all of a sudden yeah and run it she will because she goes on to agon's bedroom and gives him a good old slap second episode in the row that we're getting the agon slap all right

allison kind of kind of uh or is it the third i think oh god i can't keep up this kid's out of control it might be the third she basically grounds him for assaulting serving women and it's like now you won't get to be king until next episode you are grounded god and then helena oh my god this when helena walks in she straight up is like where's diana she's supposed to be helping me get the children dressed first of all showing us that her kids exist now jahara and jaharis at least um but also that like she walks in and she's just like where is she that's who he chose he chose the serving woman the one that is always helping them with their children disgraceful fucking disgraceful yeah it's it's absolutely disgusting and that egan has no remorse for it he doesn't even know like what's being discussed he doesn't care his name and he has no yeah he has no role in the

lives of his children um no longer do we have that kind of funny like that funny boy from a few episodes ago this is what he grew up into and it's very much like uh you know we're seeing we're seeing the consequences of something like a robert baratheon s character right like what do you get when you have someone who takes advantage of women and does not want the throne being shoved into it? And there's also like, and I'll come back to Helena in a second, but there's this line that Alison said

that I think we're supposed to really pay attention to, right? In terms of we've been talking about her perpetuating these cycles of how she was treated but she's much more i think outward in it because she's she's she's putting her frustration wherever she can and she takes it out on egan a lot and egan's not an angel i'm not saying he like does i'm not saying that he doesn't deserve it right but it's still like not doing anything but she says to him you are no child of mine which reminds me a little of the the dynamic i guess between tywin and tyrian now that i think about it absolutely but i mean it's kind of powerful i guess coming from alicent and a mother right it's one thing for a father to deny um and but like alicent knows

like you know this this kid came out of her like she was there right and but it's also another thing that's powerful when we have all these people right who are claiming like in contrast to the bastards right like how laner was like these are my children yeah you're not even proud of them you don't even want them to be yours because they disgust you that much and they're just an extension yeah i would be pretty disgusted if egan were my son too right i said if that came out of me i just don't know what i would do either yeah i will say at the very least she does not she does not encourage it she doesn't like turn a blind eye entirely to it she there's absolutely fault in her being complicit to it but i i i'm just the reason why i say that is because i read

this book called the last girl by nadia marad who is a survivor of the ucd genocide sold into sex slavery by isis and she remembers being like raped and gang raped in this one home and the mother of the the person who's raping her like didn't care and didn't see her as a person at all and was also abusive to her so yeah abuse takes many forms and anyone can be abused you know exactly you know perpetuating you know like patriarchal harms and misogyny in that way but helena interesting you know speaking of like diana and the serving women being people right and we discussed i think last episode how those bodies get used similarly to bodies being used for for covering up leiter's escape but helena actually does know the names of her serving people which is in contrast to

being like who the fuck is diana right when the name is put forth helena pays attention to that and that shows her own kindness and caring that she sees them as people yeah i mean it's only the people that get up every day and help you somehow get through the day and deal with your fucking crying babies like you can have a little respect yeah exactly respect and that she has someone to help with that right like i think i wonder if allison made sure someone was there to help helena with that and with the the crying babies and dressing because we see allison rushed to hold helena as well be like yeah this one is my child everyone this one is my child because it it also is reminiscent of the things that happened to her when she was forced to become a wife to a king. And then also, like, we remember, you know, those scenes where she's like, how do I calm down these crying babies that

now, like, have grown up into these, this guy who sucks? But. Oh, well, don't worry, because those kids don't get to grow up. Anyways, so. because those kids don't get to grow up anyways so um yeah yeah i mean allison's stressed about all this because she's like on today of all days it is a very important day allison has to show that she's winning the breakup oh my god when she's not winning she's not but she's not. But she's not. Are you winning, Allison? No. No. No. That's actually this whole series, isn't it? Like, this entire one. Are you winning, son?

No. Like, you could say that to Agen throughout this entire thing. No. Allison goes to meet up with her ex-girlfriend and her ex-girlfriend's new husband. Damon is pretty unhappy with how the Hightowers are ruling in both aesthetics, laws, pretty much everything. And he makes that pretty clear, where Rhaenyra is kind of left to be the in-between on this, right?

And soften what's going between them. Yeah. And I think she does a decent job of trying to soften. We're trying to be good here, you know, people. And there's, I think, you know people and there's i think you know we see the action of reyniera hiding her scar um which is a great reminder of it uh with the dagger shown in the last shot and i i don't remember you might have actually said this but now i'm like really thinking about this of like what if the dagger slicing reyniera was actually choosing her

kind of like the subtle knife in the historic material i don't think i said that but that's very interesting especially when you have the throne on the other side cutting them open yeah well i guess that's my thought now congratulations good job i like that well it does say from my blood right and i'm like what do you mean by my blood because it can mean literally fucking anything. It's definitely about blood. It's definitely about blood. Yeah, and cheese. Luke and Jake head to the training yard and they're so cute.

Ament has gotten better. He can even best Kristen Cole now. And he has this great line that this whole show that he put on where he just bested Kristen Cole. You'd think it would be for the crowd or for others but it's not it was all for his nephews because he turns with his one eye and looks straight at them and says i don't give a shit about tourneys nephews have you come to train this boy is looking for a rematch is what he's looking for yes he has got a fire in him if you will anyone feeling like they want to lose an eye today

yeah he's excited for that he really is uh he's like i understand him not letting it go i get that it's your entire fucking eye i wouldn't let it go either and realistically though i have to say he did such a great job this episode he was creepy he's huge that boy grew up that boy really yeah he really did grow up i was like wow in front of our eyes all of a sudden episode six came episode seven came boom episode eight amand you grew it works yeah i literally don't know where those genes came from, right? Like neither Jon nor Daenerys were that tall. None of these other Targaryens are that tall. Where did he get that height?

You know what? I've seen a lot of those memes talking about how he's, you know, really just socially aware. He's very much a socialist, very Marxist, I'm hearing, these memes about Aemond. And he's a feminist. And I'm wondering if the genes that are in him come from Maegor, another feminist king. Oh my gosh, absolutely.

Big and thick. So true. So true. Yeah, I mean, whatever the genes are that made Maegor, right? Like he was really big. He was a big boy. So that's still lying dormant in the Targaryen line along with, as you said. Yeah, you know what? Maybe you're... Radical. Maybe the boys, the Velaryon boys aren't the only strong ones in the family. My god.

Yeah, that kid's big, though. I was, like, very astonished by just how, like, the presence of his actor, just the presence alone of Ewan mitchell he has a big presence like that guy is like he's just a lad a strapping lad yeah he's very tall he's very tall i do kind of i mean obviously we cannot do this series with leo ashton i just thought he was adorable and so i miss him but i'm excited to see where

what is his name ewan yeah i'm excited to see where ewan mitchell takes us uh yeah i've seen him in a couple things i want to say he was in um he was in the last kingdom i know and he was in a world on fire and a couple other things that people have been on about. But I did see him in The Last Kingdom. I haven't seen that, so. Yeah, I think he'll do a great job. Welcome to this kingdom. Oh my god.

I'm sure he'll do a great job. I'm sure he'll do a great job. I just think it's, as you said, right? He struck that really great tone between, like, creepy and, like... Yes, yes, very creepy. Capable. Yeah. So, training is cut short by the arrival of Vaemond Velaryon, and he is actually, quite opposite of Rhaenyra and Daemon's entrance, escorted in by the Hightowers and a handful of other valarians with a pretty deep

crew he's rolling deep and the next scene that we get is otto allison and veymond meeting in the council room and they are scheming you know what they say about bitches bitches be scheming absolutely it's interesting that uh veymond does not arrive together also with Rhaenys and Bela. I'm curious. I'm guessing they didn't arrive with their dragons because we actually see in the trailer that they're still at King's Landing. At least Rhaenys is. Huh.

Interesting. I would take my pet with me everywhere I went, but that's just me. I guess if you have it locked in the dragon pit, does it fucking i mean that's literally half of the series of fire and blood right like we'll end up seeing all these people that their dragons are in the dragon pit and they can't get to them and one of them dies yeah but they were like in king's landing at that time so i guess yeah do they just do the dragons just stay in the dragon that's what i yeah and then they're stuck like i would not i don't like that granted maybe i would feel differently if i had a dragon and was like what do i do with this huge unwieldy creature but i personally would not go anywhere with aren't there parking laws about this i mean where's the king's landing parking

if you have a dragon you decide what the parking laws are yeah but you can't just leave it out all day in public because then it'll eat people and shit everywhere. Yeah, and we haven't seen dragon poop yet. Now that we've seen the goopy dragon eggs, now I gotta know. Now I gotta get the poop. I gotta get the poop. Give us a dragon poop. well so renees and reneera speak in front of the rearwood and reneera sends reina first to greet to greet renees i can't believe you keep saying it that way it's really gonna kill me my god i'm only saying it that way here because I'm mentioning them both in the same scene.

Because earlier I was saying Rhaenys and I was like, I guess it would be helpful to make it something distinct. Because I'm saying, I'm talking about Rhaenyra, Rhaena, and Rhaenys. See, and that all sounded so normal to me. So I don't really, I don't know. I don't know. I'm just built different. I know who I'm talking about. But yeah. I don't know. I'm just built different. I know, I know who I'm talking about, but yeah, but I'm just

like, I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be helpful, you know? I know, I know. I love that we're back at the Weirwood with them. I never thought that we'd get a Rainey's Weirwood scene. That's really neat. Yeah, it is interesting. Very striking. in this in this setting and we have we have renear us swearing once more in front of the heart tree um but this time i do think it is i find it to be true yeah i mean from the facts presented did not order the death of later or nor was she complicit in it yeah she definitely didn't lie which is good in front of that tree you can sense the awkwardness that she keeps bella or that sorry you can sense the awkwardness that renee and damon keep reina and that she keeps bella that there's a little bit of

just a a gap going on there not unlike kind of the tension with eric and arik that will be brought upon them in the future episodes i'm sure too of having the twins be separated and having to choose sides obviously if they go somewhat close to the book reina will be sprung free soon to go hang out in the veil with mourning and baila will be a ferocious dragon rider however you can just see that little bit of awkwardness going on there that Rainey's you know definitely hasn't gotten to see her fucking granddaughter in years yeah but I mean I guess they're not that far apart like they could go visit but I guess she's mad at them understand the point because because she thinks they killed her son but also

I I don't think like it makes sense to me that reina also does stay with like her father yeah she uh it's funny because bella seems the daddy's girl too you know but i also kind of like that bella is getting the grandma's girl treatment as a grandma's girl myself i am a grandma's girl and also her grandma's a fucking badass you know like that's you're getting she's getting all of the most ferocious tips and tricks from the dragon rider she is and i also am hoping that this means like reina and her father are able to reconcile more right like and they are able to to bond more yeah that's very true i hope that uh this has given them some good time to do that bonding now that you say that because obviously she felt really

isolated the last time we checked in six years ago a long a long ass time ago the other last thing i'll say about this scene that i really loved was that the storm that's going on throughout this entire episode there's a storm in the background we see it yes however it's happened it starts thundering behind rainies as she's speaking to raniera and the whole time i was like oh shit baratheon is fuck her's is the fury bring the fucking storm storm queen rainies oh yeah it was really going behind her you could just hear the rumbling of thunder and i got really excited interesting because like for me the rumbling of the storm i didn't notice it behind rainies um but the rumbling of the storm was interesting because and and to bring us into the next scene right the thundering and stuff as as uh rainiera talks about

like wanting help defending like her legacy and her children, etc. It reminds me of how very, very soon, probably the end of this season, I assume, right? The Thundering and the Storm playing a big role in Luke dying. Yeah, Storm's End is going to be a very, very dangerous scene if they pull that off this year. And it makes me think of that a bit too the storm that's beginning and masterclass just masterclass when you go back and re-watch it pay attention because you'll hear it behind rainies it just starts to begin but by the time that raniera gets here to her father's bedside it's full blown yeah full drama they did full

drama this episode and i'm here for it raniera tells her father by naming me heir you divided the realm i thought i wanted it but the burden is a heavy one it's too heavy she asks him to defend her and her children the next day at court basically and she prays and hopes it's a possibility. It's her last-ditch effort. Much smarter, right, than Daemon's tact. She has a little more tact than Daemon did on this one. Yeah, there's more tact, and it's hard to figure out how I read it. I do think there is a genuine feeling there, right? Obviously she's having a hard time. Obviously, like, she's been hurt by the things going on at court, etc. That's why she retreated to Dragonstone in the first place, right? She wanted a safer environment for her children to grow up in.

But, you know, like, did she want it? Did she not? This is something we discussed a lot in the previous episodes, right? And part of her does, part of her doesn't. And like, her pleas for her father to help, is it a, again, like, is it, is it like the love there? It's difficult to, you know, it's a complex scene again. you know it's a complex scene again yeah and i mean he speaks about it and also some of the showrunners and the writers and different people involved have spoken about it that viserys absolutely doesn't treat his other children right they're assholes i get that yeah they're little fuckers but except for one except for the one she's perfect. But he doesn't love them. He doesn't give them the same care. He loved Emma. And I do think there's some merit that like she obviously every slow-mo shot of Rhaenyra in this entire episode is like Emma, Emma, Emma, Emma, Emma looks just like her. The light shining on her looks just like her.

They look very similar. Casting department did their goddamn jobs. you fuckers you rock you're so good i agree with that i agree and even like when she comes to play with to viserys right her hair is down and it she looks like emma with her hair down like that when it's not in braids and as for how he treats his other kids like it's hard like is rainiera just like manipulating her father here i don't i don't think so i i i do and i don't because at the same time i understand as a child you go to your parents and if you have a good enough relationship with them and you trust them in that way and you're like help me please help me right i i sometimes will be like mother i'm having a hard time with this thing emotionally i'll be like help me and you know uh like the other day i was like very frustrated

about something and i like went to her room first and then like me because i'm at my mother's as a we record this specific episode and like i made her hold me and uh while i cried um but yeah like and and also like he doesn't treat his other kids he doesn't i don't even know if he knows his other kids names other than to yell at them like he literally called reynira his only child and i was like bro bro come on come on you literally have other kids and like later at the dinner he's like i love everyone here i'm like i don't think that i don't even know who they are in the seal blues i'm like i don't think that's true of you but okay sure sure viserys if you want to die with all these lies we'll just let you die with all these lies yeah again too little too late the whole episode right he finally

gets to wake up but it's only for one day uh if only i had woken up like two weeks earlier i'm telling you think of everything he could have gotten done he has a checkup with the maesters my only child otto attends the checkup and viserys tells him to plan a supper between the families and otto tries to give him more milk of the poppy and viserys declines it and says just plan the fucking dinner otto tries to give him more milk of the poppy and viserys declines it and says just plan the fucking dinner otto yeah it was great it was great just plan the dinner plan the goddamn supper it was it was great he's all like dude it's morning and i can understand why you know there's we're starting to see miscommunications from the beginning right we're starting to see miscommunications from the beginning, right? We're starting to see how Viserys's words aren't being understood by the Hightowers.

Well, not even that. I would even argue that Otto kind of tried to manipulate him a little, or not even manipulate, sorry, that's the wrong term. I would argue that Otto deliberately misunderstood him, and that's how Otto has been deliberately misunderstanding him for the last six years in order to manipulate and exploit the things that he asks him to do versus the things otto wants to do like otto immediately the first response he says to him which is probably understandable viserys has been drugged up for six years and doesn't always make sense because otto

continues to hand him milk of the poppy but like otto says when he says i'd like to have a supper he goes well it's morning you can't have supper you silly fucker it's morning immediately is the first tone he tries to take with them and viscerys is like i fucking know it's morning i wasn't finished with my sentence is basically the gist uh it's hard because i remember when my grandpa was kind of in his decline he would get angry i mean i get angry over little things when i have misunderstandings of people like that are related to the limitations of my body and my intelligence like i get it it's easy to get snippy but like my grandpa would get snippy when he was misunderstood because it's like i'm finally trying to fucking say

something and none of you are listening to what i'm saying so i found that interesting of that moment between them in this scene yeah i think a lot of people have part of what resonates with this episode and why so many people found it powerful is having experiences like that right with loved ones um who are in pain who are older and it's what you said regarding otto like and him getting snippy because he's like i'm finally like trying to do something but it's also like when you're in that amount of pain you don't use that many words because it is painful to speak like he's he's trying to keep the amount that he has to speak to a minimum because every word hurts and that's why it matters right and uh it is kind of gross how otto is infantilizing him in that way and as acting like he doesn't he's like oh viscerys you don't know

what's going on you're just so drugged up. But it's also kind of, go ahead. Over the last six years, this is probably how they've been treating him. And he's become kind of an accessory, a movable object of power, something they place around the building when it suits them. And they get used to treating him that way. That's very apparent, right? Like they, Um, and they get used to treating him that way. That's very apparent, right? Like they, there's something about autonomy, like you brought up with Diana. This is similar with Viserys.

Suddenly he's kind of speaking like he wants to be in charge of his own body. And they're like, what? What? Absolutely. And I think at the very least when Alicent gives him milk of the poppy, it is because she is concerned about his pain as opposed to Otto because it is it is a hard thing to balance like when you see someone that you care about in pain you don't want them to be in pain and that was like something that I had to balance like recently and you know something that I wrestle with is did I make the wrong call and giving too little or like using too weak of a painkiller because of my own like other experiences with other seeing the effects of other harder opiates. Right. And wanting to make sure that my grandmother was still like here mentally, but maybe like that didn't even matter anymore because,

I mean, maybe it didn't matter. Maybe what mattered more was making sure that she was comfortable. I don't know. Yeah. It's a difficult thing to determine. Well, and like quality of life, right? How do you know how somebody wants to live the remainder of their life and quality of life right how do you know how do you know how somebody wants to live the remainder of their life and quality of life right and what like what constitutes is living viserys in a fucking

hallucination coma for six years because of milk of the poppy is that living yeah um yeah and like what this decline was like how fast was it right did it Is that living? Yeah. Yeah. And like what this decline was like, how fast was it? Right. Did it, did it even decline even more because he was drugged up and therefore some of those sores, I don't know that all of them are like, I think we've been told somewhere from someone that it's leprosy, but like, are those, I don't know that all of those sores are from that.

Some of them like are likely bed sores from not moving enough, right? Like you keep someone still like that and you're not always able to clean it right away. And all those things, especially with like the, however hygiene was at that time. Like we see that they don't have the best maesters. Like that Rhaenyra has the more advanced maesters in Fire and Blood. I don't know. It just doesn't seem for them. It's obvious that they're using him as a prop in that way and keeping him alive and preserving him. Not unlike Eamon at the wall,

right? Maester Eamon in the cold reminds me of that, that they're like hanging on to him because there's this very obvious feeling in this episode that once this man, especially in the throne room scene coming up here uh once he's gone the dance begins as we know but also all of their power hinges on him every single one of their power and position hinges on that man so it's so important for all of them to keep him alive as long as they can whether he's actually doing things or not yeah well how about otto holding court go away i know

oh why is he he's just like so smug on that just smug you know when we go chop chop on him i'm not gonna feel that bad yeah apparently uh he's re reason evens i'm am i pronouncing that right i'm sorry if i'm not but apparently he's very funny he's the oh yeah absolutely absolutely on set i've heard yeah but uh i don't hide her sorry so then he's like baymond give his your petition and then reneera interrupts uh baymond's petition um and then Rhaenyra interrupts Veemon's petition. And then Alicent is like, you will get your turn. Right? And then Veemon

continues. And the Hightowers are feeling like, alright, we did it. We landed a home run. Especially as Rhaenyra has to sulkingly move over into the middle to go give her own petition. But then she's interrupted by her father yeah he drags himself out across the court up to his chair gets down you know otto get out that's right you didn't think he'd do it but he did he dragged himself in for his number one girl damon then his only child oh my god it's so cool

damon helps him when he stumbles and his crown falls which is very sweet because he thinks it's about to be one of the cargiles and he's like go away and then he's like oh my brother uwu uh also a little bit of a parallel to ranieraenyra in episode six, right, with Joffrey, with carrying baby Joffrey out to see Alicent, that it's so important that they see that he can do it all on his own. That is so important that, like, he cannot look weak in front of these people. callbacks damon crowning viserys right that just damon just wanted to be there and support his brother's role a lot of that time and and crowning him like in king of the narrow sea that episode and something something else that it kind of just made me think of and reminded me is uh so when jesus is walking with the cross he stumbles a few times on the way to Golgotha. Simon of Cyrene comes in and helps carry the cross.

So also makes me think a little of that too. Yeah, that's great because it's actually very much the supper is literally the last supper. Like they did actually try to stage it that way, they said. So that's great to view him as jesus in this and not only that but then there's that moment when viserys thinks that daemon has defiled renera and he kind of is losing it and he's like did you want my daughter or did you want my crown and he attacks him in the throne room on the floor this is the opposite of it right like this is what he wanted he didn't need your crown he just needed his brother he just wanted i mean this is what he wanted they could have had this family yeah but he did also want his niece

he wanted he wanted not the crown but he did want his brother's love and his niece's, uh, definitely love, I guess. Viserys does something really interesting in how he handles this. First of all, he says, we are discussing something that was already decided. Okay, first of all, jot that one down, but sure, we can waste resources and time and re-decide it then instead of using raniera's or vaiman's claim he kicks it to rainies who says that her husband wanted driftmark to pass through laner to his true-born son lucerys and then she unravels what raniera and her agreed upon in the weirwood that bella and reina will marry Luke and Jace, and that she completely and unequivocally has always supported this, which is so powerful because, like we mentioned,

she doesn't support this, but she sees this as her surefire safe way in this war. And it's just such a clever way of showing Rhaenys as a player and what she's choosing for her family and that she's making these hard decisions especially without corley's there she's not running any of this by him she's making the decisions and ruling as the lady of the house and deciding the fate of her family yeah she's deciding that um you know keeping the peace is the best way to keep them safe as opposed opposed to if, you know, letting a war happen, which as we find out, wars do not keep people safe. Wow. Shocker. But as you pointed out, right, it is interesting that he kicks it to Rhaenys because that Rhaenys and Rhaenys, and Rhaenys speaking for her husband's wishes holds a lot of weight when it'll be,

I guess, Alicent, right? Who as Viserys's wife, her opinion on succession will be the one that holds a lot of weight. That's so true. It's her word. And I think that's really what's being framed for Alicent, right? That it's going to be her word. Yes. also you know go ahead i had a different thought i also like this little detail i as we saw last episode right bella and reina get along quite well with jace and luke uh you know they they wake up luke they wake up jace when amand is stealing the dragon and bella also like holds jace's hand for comfort and so i i kind of like there's like this look that's exchanged from from them to from these like two little targaryen girls over to the valerian boys when they when they're uh betrothed those

nouns like like isn't this great they're very cute they're so cute it's a fondness vaimond doesn't think this is that cute though vaimond is like this is no meet cute for me he booms and says that is no true valerian and no nephew of mine add that one to your theme book right there no son of mine no nephew of mine. Are we tie winning, Vaemond? Vaemond wins it up by calling the boys bastards, and then he adds another charge up there and he calls Rhaenyra a whore, which Daemon was waiting for, and off goes his head. Yeah, so Viserys was ready to do it himself, I guess, using the dagger, which is interesting. And I liked the behind-the-scenes talks with Will Johnson, the actor for Vaemon Valerian, as well as the showrunners.

They gave great insight into how they basically envisioned Vaemon as, like, you know, you're not wrong, you're just an asshole, more or less. Like, that's basically how they described him and how weymand has cluelessly stepped into deeper shit than he knew right he's just only out here for for trying to look out for his own interests and doesn't realize that there are as as the showrunners describe deep feelings amongst many of the people here that this is a very touchy issue for multiple reasons like it's it's an issue of treason right it's not just about your house feyman it's about the throne and it's very cute also later on that like johnson adds that oh but damon he he killed me from the back he didn't have it in him to come at me from the front. That was so cute.

I love that. He was funny. He cracked me up. He went out like a good one. Yeah, he was. He was fun. There's something so great about Daemon slicing his head off and the guards all coming in and being like, disarm him and him immediately putting his hands up.

He's like, I'm good. I'm done. That's all I wanted to do. He's dead now. Don't worry, you guys. How Viserys was standing, like you said, him doing anything probably hurts right now, right? And so he was literally standing. He had pulled the dagger and he was going to take his tongue out himself. He was that mad. And Daemon was like, I've got it, bro. Don't worry. And Daemon took care of it. But I found that interesting. And that Daemon was like i've got it bro don't worry and damon took care of it but

i found that interesting and that damon was like why don't we just get rid of the problem instead of playing games brother yeah and then um yeah i guess it it's reynera who gives the order in fire and blood and i guess some people don't like that it's changed uh i don't think i don't know that they feel that it softens renear's character but i think a lot of people have been softened don't worry there are so many war crimes to come you guys i don't i think you should just settle down there are so many war crimes to come you're gonna get her don't worry don't worry you are gonna be able to put her in the fictional prison that you have made in your brain for her so no one get upset it's my psa so so yeah damon's also like all right everyone chill out chill because he drew his sword

this happens yeah all the time all the time i realized this is this is not the first time this has happened anyway um so something else that is in the books that we don't see here that i do think is interesting is no word of vaman's children right in regards to the claim especially because from one of those children they they do end up having their tongues torn out yeah the silent five if i'm not mistaken it's five or it's him damonion, and there's two more. Yeah. But they're, from one of them, I'm sorry I don't remember which one

anymore specifically, comes Daenara who ends up wedding Rhaenyra's son, Agen III. Sorry, one of them is Malentine, I want to say, and the other is Rogar. What an interesting thing. Yeah, it is an interesting one. And an interesting one and so

in fire and blood um there are six nephews that are pretty pissed and vaiman valerian is the eldest so he's the one that gets beheaded and the other five cousins that came along they all came to king's landing his wife and his two sons also came so they cut that which is fine it's not a big deal um i i do wonder how they're gonna they're just gonna soft reintroduce it say it was a what vaiman's daughter that would be funny yeah well i i don't know yeah i don't know uh i will say off screen while we didn't see it cyrax is now slightly less hungry cyrax is but i guess they're letting her starve here all women are queens vaimond yeah he doesn't seem to realize that like god something else that i

liked in the scene as it closes out right as we leave this throne room is you were talking about how viserys is probably like in a lot of pain even just sitting here and we see that right he ends up starting to like kind of slump over and i love uh the detail of alicent rushing over to help him like she does care about him she does care about viserys and now she says oh my she's she calls him like my love and like uh i don't know that she know that she like feels that way. She doesn't, she doesn't, right? Like, I mean, she's been with him long enough that she, I think, has forced herself to feel like care and love for him because she kind of had to, to survive. But, and then as Viserys is taken away, you know, we never really saw, we saw that like like, in promotional shots, the shot of both

Rhaenyra and Alicent looking in the same direction. We didn't know the context for it. But now I kind of like it. They are aligned in this and their concern for this series, that they're looking the same way. Yeah. And that's where Rhaenyra really sees how Alicent has been caring for her father. Rhaenyra's father,neara's father not right right not

otto but this is like such a turning point for reneara to realize like oh alison does care about him and she's not lying that he's weak and dying like she's not lying to me and i think she does feel for that and there is something about like after having watched some of my grandparents pass away and knowing that like my mom is probably the primary caretaker for my other two remaining grandparents as they go in the near future like it's sad because you have siblings that in a way like Allison's obviously his wife but in a way she's taken on something that like his whole family just left him there to rot and obviously it was an uncomfortable situation but alicent has been doing the brunt of it besides obviously the serving people obviously but she's definitely

doing the brunt of it and taking a lot of that emotional weight all on her own and it does remind me of my parents you know helping my dad's side of the family with eight fucking siblings. And he's the one kid that's actually doing something about planning the funerals and planning the estate stuff and this, this, this. There's a dark resentment that builds under that when you're the one doing that and no one else is helping you. And there's also a shame and a guilt when you're the other one not doing it, I think. I agree. I agree. You spot on everything that you said. They really nailed a lot of that in there's also a shame and a guilt when you're the other one not doing it i think i i agree i agree you spot on everything that you said they really nailed a lot of that in this episode i think this i mean this entire episode is westerosi hospice is what it is and it's very depressing

yeah i mean they they do lean into the whole soap opera thing and i don't think that's a bad thing we'll talk about it in a sec but yeah i speaking of the drama you know like we have then a shot of rainies watching as the macers and the silent sisters work on vaiman's body and orwell tells her that it's ill luck to watch the dead and that she should let them work she says that the stranger has visited me more times than i can count grand maester i assure you he cares very little whether my eyes are open or closed. She doesn't deserve that. She does not deserve it. It's so sad.

She's lost them both. And then she has to, what, lose him again when his dragon screams someday. And then she has to lose everyone else she loves. God, fuck. In her own life. And it's been happening forever. And it doesn't end until her life ends. Yeah. God. And for this one, I think it's been happening forever. And it doesn't end until her life ends. Yeah.

God. And for this one, I think it's particularly like for all of them, right? Does she wonder about her complicitness in shepherding these people to their deaths, right? Between their two families. Because she is in between the two worlds, right? She is a Targaryen as well as a Valyrian, even though they're basically kind of the same. With how many times they've all intermarried. But it pushes her to the edge because, like, she owns the sea right now. And they will have to make a choice.

Like, you can't not make a choice about this. And as we see, like, Vaemond going to the green side would have been over. If Vaemond had won today, that war when Viserys dies that happens would have been over. Just over. Yeah, it's such a crucial, like, and strategic seat, Driftmark. But yeah, you see Rhaenys kind of haunted of, like, the choices that she's making in service of this other family and like what it's taking from then her other family. And preserving what your husband wants. You're also kind of destroying his line. And we don't even get to the part of like the principal asset, right?

She doesn't particularly like Rhaenyra. She doesn't necessarily support Rhaenyra at all, right? But they can reach understandings as people have been and are in similar positions, right? When it comes to the entire concept of women being able to inherit the throne. Yeah. I mean, her husband's also wrong. It's a great point. Oh, yeah. Her husband is wrong.

You know, like Corlys is wrong, right? And she's is wrong right and she's like but here she is kind of going with his wishes that happens to the best and the worst of husbands being wrong all right let's go to family dinner let's just let's just open up a fucking brilliantly dysfunctional family dinner allison says a prayer at the top and david is like looking around he's looking around at everyone like what the fuck is happening here we're saying prayers now we never used to say prayer before dinner time and viserys then does a face reveal he's like because you're all my family and I hate you, I'm going to show you my real face. Yes. Yes. And, you know, he's missing an eye.

It's rotting. And, I mean, one of his sons, whether or not he remembers he has a son, is also missing an eye. And there's this great tweet that I saw earlier today. Oh, is it the one about the eye and the sitting? Yeah, like which side people are sitting on from mx bug slash ink bug fic is the at ink bug fic is the the handle it says viserys's face rotting

away to the bone on the side where the high tower sit and his good eye on the side where rainier and damon and their family sit delicious symbolism oh i i yeah i didn't catch that in the moment i almost missed a couple things actually during the scene because it was just so good including the pig i almost missed the pig yeah but um oh yeah i don't know what i was doing i always notice i always notice oh god it was delicious looking actually there's a lot been a lot of roast pigs now that i think about it because there was that roast pig the two-headed roast pig at the beginning for aegon too aegon the conqueror babes

birthday party uh like i said i always notice roast pig suckling they're delicious but yeah so viscerys this is this is not important but i it's important to me. Viserys makes a joke about how his face is no longer handsome and maybe he never was. And, you know, a lot of people talk about the attractiveness of a lot of the cast outside of their roles in House of the Dragon. And for obvious reasons, Olivia Cooke, Emma Darcy, and Matt Smith get a lot of attention. But I do, I just want to cast some light on Paddy Constantine. I think he's a little slept on. You know, you look at him in his interviews, like, smiling and in his cool leather jacket, and I'm like, okay, Paddy, I see you. He is handsome, especially without that wig, truly. I'm like, they should have gone shorter

hair, but I see why they didn't, because they wanted to make sure he could look gruesome. But very handsome, very handsome. I think everyone looks better without the targaryen wig except for like i don't know i guess the female presenting actors all look great with targaryen wigs usually but i just don't think the men always look great i'm sorry dudes yeah everyone is toasting one another at this meal and it's like it's really sad because it's hopeful at first like you're like oh there's a little hope between all of us reneara toasts allison because she's had to lay next to a corpse for a decade allison toasts her back everything is feeling really chummy yeah i think this scene shows that reneara can be courteous when she

wants to and knows how to lay aside pride for peace at times not always um or to get what she wants but also i thought you know in fire and blood they say that they have a couple of these dinners right um and some of them are called out where they say you know everyone must smiles but it was all just for show for viscerys who couldn't see it but what i like about this dinner is there is i think actually for a moment, there's absolutely genuine feeling and affection behind a lot of these words. I think it all came out very good faith. Like, all the speeches up till the kids were great. They were good speeches.

And also the fact that everybody was being kind of, like, everybody was being told to be honest and kind it actually did help in the moment but the scarring and the hurt goes too deep yeah as reneara's arm shows us actually though and and even as amon's eye shows us right like that's still there that's still like a sign of you know how how much can you truly fix things especially when the children haven't been encouraged to. Jace tries to for, like, a split second, but it's like, as I talked about in the behind the scenes, which I thought the behind the scenes for this one was really good, like, the parents see and the adults here, like, really see, you know, how deep this goes, but also they have that history that makes them want to

try to fix things especially between allison and reynira right they have they had a genuine love of and friendship and the children don't have that they've only been taught how to dislike one another well and not only that but they don't have any of the skills to clear the air with one another and they've been actively discouraged too because i mean the valarian boys were literally whisked away back to dragonstone this is their first time back and jace definitely has a ton of anger and resentment built uh agan goads him this entire dinner agan is saying gross asshole things to goad Jace kind of into into doing something in anger. And literally Jace gets so mad that he actually stands up in anger

and then he gets fucked into making a speech. And it's the funniest thing ever. He's like, damn it. Now I'm standing because I'm mad. And Amed is standing at the same time. He's like, is this it? Is this it? Are we going to fight? And Jace is like, no, here's a really great speech about how we could yet be friends and allies, uncles. And it's just like really cleverly done with that Robb Stark anger boiling up in him that he like stands up and he's fucked into making a speech.

It's kind of funny, actually, now that you talk about that goading because is that something they learned from kristen or something or like that they saw happen in front of them because harwin was the one who was goaded and that's what gave it away for everyone yeah the same thing happens honestly earlier with vaimond right uh saying bastard same way that kristen did say it say it i dare you to say it and he says it. But that goading, I mean, they do have a hot temper. Their temper already runs hot because of their Targaryen blood, of sure. But Harwin definitely had some hot blood in there. They're easily, easily, I mean, this is also something he's super-

Got even hotter. No, I was talking about him dying. That's not nice. But, I mean, medium rare? Medium? talking about him dying it's not nice but you know but i mean medium rare medium and he's already super tense and he's super anxious because they're in king's landing where everybody and their brother is calling them bastards and staring at them all the time he's on edge and aegon knew how to push him over yes aegon's really good at being a little shit like that now my personal favorite part of all this

is helena we get another helena prophecy which i'm not sure how i feel there's a couple obvious answers and i'd love to hear what everyone at home has to say i've read a few different tweets and different posts and lots of people saying what they think but helena murmurs before giving her own speech bless her soul she says beware the beast beneath the boards before toasting bela and reina for their new marriages i don't know is the beast beneath the boards blood and cheese is it some sort of dragon thing is it what do you think i don't know i was hoping you would have answers that's's why I came. I was like, Chloe will know. Some people say it could even be Laris Strong. I don't know.

There aren't really boards in King's Landing. It's stone. So it's just curious to me because it kind of like references floorboards of some kind of whatever. So it makes you wonder, like, is it actually somewhere else? Like Driftmark or a boat or I don't know. I don't know. Or, or is she speaking in figurative language again? Right.

Because her previous prophecy was hand turns loom, spool of black, spool of green. And that's very figurative. But where the beast beneath the boards. Could the board be something else? Hmm. I need to resonate on it longer than 24 hours, I think, is my whole thing. I think this one is going to be chalked up. Maybe next week we figure it out just in time.

I'm still thinking. Yeah, we will be back with speculation on that. I don't know. Blood and cheese feels too easy. It just feels too easy. But a lot of the other ones were pretty easy that's true too and we might not know for a while is the other thing even if it's a direct that's true so her speech to bella and reina i love it is she's just this great

character that is honest and you know interestingly enough i know a lot of people are saying like they wonder if she's on the spectrum a little bit which they saw a lot of my friends were talking about how they actually saw parts of themselves in her so honest she says i would like to toast to bela and reina there they'll be married soon it isn't so bad mostly he just ignores you except sometimes when he's drunk damn she read him like that in front of everybody yeah i'm like uh well i really hope the the other marriages are not like that but um it is reminiscent of circe and robert's dynamic oh yeah the series calls for music and Jace excuses himself to his betrothed and then offers his hand to Helena

to dance with her and Eamon and Aegon are both like what the fuck watching this Bail is a confident woman I think she's kind of if I were her I would be proud I'm glad to see my betrothed being nice to other people

and I'm here for for bella and jace uh for as long as it lasts season two uh not not very long but i support that but i also like this scene and it shows us that well like yeah jason helena also would have been a good idea way better for helena than aiken yeah that music is heart-wrenching during this i don't know if the the sweeping of the strings and the dancing if that got you emotional like it got me but i was just sitting there like oh man yeah this is all what could have been you could have had your happy family sewn together even with the greens even with alicent and them even with otto fuck we could have killed otto by now but uh you could have had your happy family had you just had your eyes been open yeah i agree he

could have had it both had his eyes been open and had he just you know been stricter and also like it's as you said the music is beautiful and the way that they direct it to like those like slow scenes and then for one second you see like this joy on viscerys's face and then the next he's like fallen because the the the pain is taking him again but like that joy and like i don't know it fucking fucking kills me man yeah it was so horrible the the light in the shadow is beautifully done though like because you move between the light of him and then it revolves and you see them dancing but then you also see the rest of the family and you already know what's going to happen the second he goes to bed and he gets carried off to bed which is when the real party begins and amand gives his own

speech and he says strong like 85 times and the boys start to fight yeah because again they weren't taught like that it could be better like i do think it was a genuine happiness for many of them for that for those brief moments and i also like dang damon you god damn it dang amen so you didn't have the guts to say it when dad was around okay amen so you didn't have the guts to say it when dad was around okay yeah he sure didn't and you can see that like allison immediately is like bro we just got somewhere we just got somewhere we were having a breakthrough with our families how stupid are you even she's upset with him and yeah she's like i was gonna win my girlfriend back i was about to really have it all uh amand is a tall motherfucker so it's not even a fair fight like i i must say jace is a shorty i did not know how much jace was a shorty until you put

amand next to him holy shit yeah the kids get sent to bed right like neither of them are happy with the behavior from the children uncle damon is watching amand though and he's like damn my mere presence has done this to this poor boy he wants to be just like me oh god yeah jace is uh jace is from the same john snow stock my god uh but i i get it now i don't know why I didn't think of this before. Maybe someone else has. There are, as everyone knows, many parallels between Amon and Daemon. But Amon kills his nephew just like Daemon kills his nephew. Oh my god. Nephew killers.

Kinslayers. Yeah, on dragons nonetheless. Yeah. I mean, let me just say, the pig was an unnecessary move. I don't even think that, like, they asked for it. That just happened to happen. I don't know. He seemed pretty pissed, and Joffrey and Jace and Luke all seemed pretty laughy about it.

Seemed like a little bully. I don't think they ordered the pig but i think they they bartender that's them all they'll have the pig i don't know i don't know i don't know i think i'm just projecting because i would have ordered a pig yeah i know you would have i know i'm like hell yeah um fun fact i literally just got a text from one of my good friends uh and it just says viscerys crying emoji sobbing emoji i wanted to bring in part of this interview from ew with with our director where they asked how sincere were those toasts for alicent and raniera she said that they were sincere, but they were still themselves. The goal was to get to that scene and understand how lonely each of them was and how they both missed each other in some way.

Ryan and Miguel and I talked for a year about how we've got to earn that moment. The idea was that we would feel it coming earlier in the throne room when they both see Viserys is vulnerable. Rhaenyra realizes Alicent wasn't lying to her and she was telling the truth that viserys was suffering and alicent really loved him so you've got this father on his deathbed and fighting daughters of his sitting on either side of him to mourn him and somehow the chemistry comes together it was hard because they never actually say the toast to one another they had to somehow do it in between the lines of them saying hurtful things it was one of the most challenging things i've been a part of as a director

i think i think they did it i think they did it really well and a part of it is because the actors have great chemistry together oh yeah emma and olivia are on fire i mean i like emma and matt's chemistry i think their chemistry is fine as far as dam Damon and Rhaenyra go, it's good. It does it for me. It's fine. I don't need to watch more. Like, you know, I don't need more than what they're giving me. They're doing great.

But Alicent and Rhaenyra's chemistry? I mean, my God. That is. Yeah, them stealing glances at one another and just like a, is this possible again? Absolutely. It's very much that. You can see that they're like, what if? What if?

There's a chance is what this knight said to them. And Rhaenyra tells Alicent, oh, well, I guess we should go home. Like, maybe this was a bad idea. And Alicent's like, but you only just arrived. And so Rhaenyra promises that she'd see the children home and then return on dragonback. And Alicent says, your father and I would love that. Yeah. And what she means is I would love that. They're finally really seeing each other as for who they are now all these years. And I love how Alicent like rushes over and you see Otto that someone else was like, oh my God,

not again. But like Alicent like rushes over grabs Rhaenyra's arm her other hand right and and strokes that arm um like they're she's like really stroking it you know with her thumb it's a very intimate gesture and Rhaenyra reciprocates that same gesture it's so it it's it was real you know um though i do wonder like is the i will return home on dragonback is that a threat but also not but also like it's the fastest way which makes sense but rainiera i think is being a good mother by shepherding her children home i feel like it's both too right like i feel like it can be and probably is both because for her that is somewhat of a threat. Like I could come back, but I will be bringing my dragon.

But also it's vulnerability because it's also the opposite, like we said. So she shows up, locks her dragon up in the dragon pit, and then it's just her. A, she's keeping her children safe, obviously. She doesn't want them to get King's Landing, as so happens to children there. But, you know, take them hostage.

Not going to happen to her. Yeah, it's like putting you into a position as the heir as well that you could easily be jailed. Yes, absolutely. Vulnerability. And because she does, she does want to be there to spend time with her father in those last moments you know and that makes that's so that's real it makes sense and she's it's important to her and and then yeah i think that's again like it was real from allison and there was a lot of i think hope there she's been so alone all these years. Finally, a breath of friendship again.

Misari is back, and she's wearing a daemon cosplay this week. She's wearing her Kermit hood. I think everyone gets one. Once you get to a certain level of intrigue in this show, you just get a daemon hood. So she's equipped her daemon hood, and Talia has also equipped her daemon hood and is in her employ

what a reveal what a reveal nothing deeper than that but i can't wait to see kind of what from the books becomes misaria's now question mark yeah i don't understand where we're going with misaria either i'm gonna be real i don't understand the vision yet but i trust the painters you know yeah they yeah they've taken us this far that true. They've done a great job thus far. I do think we might see her start to pull some of the darker things that might've been attributed to both Damon and Rhaenyra in text and make those her acts, right? Like who knows what sort of involvement she'll have in blood and cheese or who knows what sort of involvement she'll have in other things, but she's definitely going to be a conduit for some of these things to happen yeah

but then we go from that to i mean part of the heart of the episode right part of it was that family dinner this is the other one of viserys's last moments he mistakes alicent for reynera and tells her a half-assed milk of the poppy exhausted version of the prophecy that allison believes is about her son and then he takes his last breath another part of this ew interview it was a great interview where they interviewed the director they asked kind of the meaning about this scene of did allison deliberately misunderstand what the king meant when he was talking about aegon's ice and fire prophecy or is she embracing it because it's what she wants to hear? Or does she think he's delirious and that he thinks he made a total mistake and wants her son as heir? And the director

said, it's interesting you say that because that was my fear going in. The intention was that she genuinely thought he was telling her her son was going to be the heir. The only way to get even close to achieving that was to feed onto that vulnerability and innocence in Allison. We had to get less of the conniving and more of the girl that you grew up with in episode one. The fact you were even confused makes me feel good, because I liked that it was a high bar for us coming out of Miguel's episode seven, when she was last seen hanging out with Larry's. The joke is I had called Miguel and I was like, can you please do something at the end of your episode to help me a bit with Alicent? And he had said, nope, you're on your own, which is great because he does. He leaves off basically

with Larry's being like, haha, sorry, but you just committed this awful, horrible thing, Alicent, and kind of puts her into that position where she's desperate and alone and isolated. And this episode shows that she finally found a friend in those six years of isolation that isn't, question mark, somebody that's going to ruin her life, question mark, question mark, question mark, isn't question mark somebody that's going to ruin her life question mark question mark question mark isn't yeah she just wants uh they both just want to ruin each other in different ways and now that she knows like what do you do with that like i mean what do you do with that both of those things like knowing you have somebody that cares about you but then also thinking you know a prophecy or some sort of bit of magic that says that you should be doing something even if it's a misunderstanding i mean this is the most song of ice and fire shit in the entire series so far have we ever had a prophecy

on someone's deathbed question mark yes yeah that's another thing i guess that happens in the targaryen family a lot right like uh with amon i love that you you brought this piece in because i do think that they did a great job of executing that well and i know so i i do have mixed feelings on like how i feel about them doing this misunderstanding and uh with the prophecy at the end i don't know if like allison knows it's a prophecy or if she's just like all right this is what viscerys wanted and he's just like saying whatever considering that in the behind the scenes after the episode they said that they wanted this moment, they wanted to give it an element of tragedy, right? They wanted it to be tragic. And when they say that, I do think that they mean,

you know, capital T tragedy, Shakespearean tragedy, especially because it's what George was saying he got from this season. He said that he felt that it was very much a Shakespearean tragedy. And I assume he has seen the entire season because he is one of the producers one of the executive producers i think i mean like i don't know like i don't know if they would only give him i guess six episodes right but i think like because he's part of the creation and has been working closely on it he saw it and he loved it no i mean he did see Like, he has said so publicly. Okay, yeah. I just wasn't sure if I was interpreting that correctly.

No, he just didn't see- I'm not sure if I'm the one with the wrong prophecy. He didn't see, like, all the finished finished. He saw all of it, he just didn't see, like, final CGI and graphics. Got it. Got it. Which, it's not that necessary you know the acting like the heart of this part of the story is not the cgi you know it's not the dragons and if their intent is to convey something that is a shakespearean tragedy i do think that this scene um is a successful execution of that genre and I do think it works because a key facet of what makes something a Shakespearean tragedy that leads to that tragic twist, not twist, but like that leads to it is a

called the influential accident. It's one of the elements that a.c bradley points out in his scholarship of analyzing different shakespearean tragedies um and an example of the influential accident is for example romeo missing the friar's message about juliet's ruse and being like oh my god she's really dead and then taking the poison right right? Or Desdemona losing her handkerchief and then that being used to like manipulate Othello into being like, yo, she's having an affair. That is what's happening. And it's like, that is not what was happening. But these sorts of influential accidents are part of that. And I think that this scene works as that because it is an accident, right? It's a misunderstanding of that prophecy because he thinks it's Rhaenyra.

And then you have, like, I think a lot of emotion that's wrapped up in that of, as you said, right? Like, you were talking about how Alicent finally has someone. There's hope for her. There's someone to break her loneliness. And that's why I think it's important that when Alicent hears this, doesn't immediately say i understand she hesitates and she's thinking about it she's thinking about what viseri said and then she finally steals herself up to do it because she's just finally gotten like the first sunshine she like in this darkness of like duty that she is hold herself up in, right? She has removed passion from her life, filled it up with the faith of the seven.

And just when it's within her grasp, she has to, she does what she does, which is choose duty and sacrifice because she thinks that Viserys is bestowing this duty upon her to crown aegon and that's people don't unlearn their habits you know what what they've been taught to do like who they are so quickly and that's that's what she defaults to yeah and she definitely takes duty out of that right like she immediately goes ah i have duty to do here with this. Like it's not a choice that she's choosing out of her passion. She's choosing out of her duty. And I actually think there's been a lot of bad faith arguing going on around this because she's already been primed about this prophecy. He told her once when she was pregnant with Helena in front of the fire all about it.

So yes and no that she is choosing this to go along with it because I mean he already told her it was a possibility that he dreamed of a boy coming out with Aegon's Conqueror crown on it. And that all the dragons roared as one. I mean he told her that he dreamed that. Well what's in the trailer for next week but Aegon's crown? And that's what they're going to crown Aegon too with. I mean, this is a very big misunderstanding to then act off of. And it's not, I don't know, I don't think it's that surprising considering that conversation she already had with him to understand the prophecy in full 10 years ago 16 years ago yeah and i i agree with that like i do think that there is an element in which she is there is an element of choosing right in the in the way that we see with

every prophecy right when it comes to for example melisandre reading um the prince that was promised stanis reading things about who the prince that were promised was Rhaegar as well. All of these characters being like, oh, it's me, it me, right? Or like, oh, it's Stannis. And there's an element of desire that comes into play when reading the prophecies. And that's true of any text. I think that is true of when you consume a story in media in general, you bring yourself to it and you bring your life and that becomes part of how you consume the text and uh your own desires what you want to see out of it yeah there's choice but there's also not absolutely you know you know what i'm saying i

know you know i know you know what i'm saying yeah she's absolutely backed into a wall you understand me i mean what are you supposed to do when your quote-unquote love says some cryptic shit as he dies and you want to feel along with that you know she's torn of like rain era and her love for rain era but also her love for like she wants like you you you made that great comparison of like early allison being like i just wanted someone to say that they were sorry for what happened to me. And I think Allison also just wants to be acknowledged. Right? And to an extent,

for this prophecy to be about her son, maybe it wasn't all for naught. She wasn't just the king's bed warmer. Yeah, maybe birthing this asshole meant something. Well, I'm sure next week, we're going to find out more about this asshole, the prince that was promised. Aegon asshole, the prince that was promised.

Aegon II, the prince that was promised. And I want to tell you guys, this trailer is juicy. If you watch it, if you slow that shit down, oh man, I had to watch this one. I had to watch this one a lot to bring you guys this breakdown. So let's talk about this trailer. First off, the king's dead. We kind of knew that. We have a king's guard tending to his sword. Otto and Kristen are flanking a deeply upset Alicent. Alicent tells someone of Viserys's dying wish

that Aegon be king. Gold cloaks appear to be herding small folk in the street. I'm guessing they might be herding them towards a certain dragon pit where they're going to crown a certain king you know very trump style right like oh i had thousands of people there men are in the throne room in front of otto getting down on their knees otto is telling people presumably the small council that the doors are to remain closed until they finish their business we see amand and helena watching something in the throne room ato charges eric or aric one of the two with something and he says none can know who you are or what you seek rainey's struggles with her door

she seems to be locked in king's landing she is in king's landing and then there's a shot yes this is going to be juicy this is a very juicy change there's a shot of talia and other serving people and possibly a young boy that looks like a targaryen possibly baby jaharis maybe being taken down to the cells um i'm imagining maybe they saw viserys so these are people that have seen him dead and are being taken down into the dungeons until you know they clear everything up we see alicent at the small council asking what about renera we have a shot of a king's guard and a gray hooded figure by the shape it almost looks like it could be missaria. I'm not really sure. In an alleyway in King's Landing with an immense amount of small folk rushing near them. There's a very odd shot that's gray, foggy, smoky with someone falling through the air.

So it makes me wonder if it's someone mounting a dragon or something. Larius is revealing something to Alicent. And then there's a shot of a boy in this jail cell who has very very very very pale hair now i say he has very very very very pale hair because i literally think this might be game in pale hair and i thought i was kind of kidding at first of myself because i was like there's no way but i have prayed to all the different gods over the last few weeks that we're gonna see game in pale, and I'm starting to think I might have won. In the next shots, you have kind of some people fighting, punching, there's blood, but it looks like they're being cheered on by others. And they all look like small folk, possibly younger.

So maybe the streets of King's Landing, which Gaiman is very much associated with. And he's very much being revealed as some sort of plot point in this episode. This guy in the trailer, this kid in the trailer. The next shot, which makes me think maybe Eric or Arik are involved with Gaiman Palehair. You see Amon on the stairs wearing his full Damon Spirit Halloween getup. Happy October. Facing someone else who's in a dark cloak. Amund on the stairs wearing his full Damon spirit Halloween get up, happy October, facing someone else who's in a dark cloak. And the next shot you see Eriker Ark fighting someone in a dark cloak, so it makes me think it's that mysterious third person. Kristen pulls his sword on Harold

Westerling and the small council. Beesbury is not happy with committing treason. And then we have what looks like Aegon's coronation there's also a shot of aegon being dragged or chased through the dragon pit by one of the cargiles which i'm like you and i were talking is he really just running what a mood what a mood i think he's yeah i think he's trying to run away just hilarious i would run away from being king too i mean this is what viserys should have done just run yeah they pulled that council and jaharis was like maesters give me this piece of paper you definitely didn't forge and nobody voted for you know that viserys was like should i run should i just run i should run right emma he looked real happy could you run right there? He should have run, but he was like

He's like, we did it. It was me. They picked me. I was born with the penis. Good job, me. And finally, speaking of born with penis, we get a shot of the Conqueror's crown, and then Rhaenys asks Alicent if she's ever pictured herself on the

Iron Throne. And that is what we're going to see in the Green Council next week, which looks like a bottle episode. It looks like it's going to be full King's Landing. That'd be wild. That'd be crazy, which I think you're right. It makes sense. But yeah, I also think you're right that I think it's game

and failure. I want to believe. I mean... Kind of early, but it's good to start establishing it and also like showing things you know regarding aegon's activities well that's what i'm thinking is it connects perfectly to the last episode where we see that aegon is sexually assaulting woman constantly and alicent is just learning about one and it's kind of like bed bugs where there's one there's probably more yeah he is a little fucking bed bug it was agan right yeah yeah yeah it was rumored

that gay men pale hair was one of agan's bastards well it looks like a banger it looks packed we're very excited about the upcoming episode for a couple of other reasons that we'll we'll touch on next week but yeah keep your eyes and ears peeled for some updates there. And we look forward to talking with you next week. And, you know, like if you want to hear some of our thoughts, if you have thoughts that you want to tell us, you can always find us on social media at on twitter.com slash girls gone canon. That's C-A-N-O-N.

Or you can also send us emails if you have funny edits or if you have animals that you want to just share with us just because you can email us at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com yes make sure you're subscribed to us on your favorite platform to listen to your podcast whether that's spotify google play apple stitcher acast iheart radio yes and of course you can always find us on Patreon.com where we have these episodes as well as bonus episodes once a month for patrons in the $5 tier and above,

the Stranger tier and above. Yes, and if you're in the Thunder tier and above, you'll get access to weekly House of the Dragon discussions and voice chats as well as monthly brunch slash happy hour. That's over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon as always i have been one of your hosts chloe

and i have been another one of your hosts eliana chloe i sign off first no it's too late we've made our choices you're the prophesied one goodbye goodbye beasts beneath the boards