The Reel Rejects - REJECT RECAP: House of the Dragon 1x3 "The Rogue Prince" REVIEW!

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

DAEMON VS CRABFEEDER! Plenty of Dragon Battle Action in House Of The Dragon Ep 3 "Second Of His Name" Reaction, Recap, Breakdown, & Full Review as Rhaenrya Targaryen is courted by a Lannister, Aegon Targaryen is born, King Viserys struggles with his position, & SO MUCH MORE. #HouseOfTheDragon #GameOfThrones #HBO #HBOMax #MattSmith Become A Super Sexy Reject For Full-Length T.V. & Movie Reactions - INCLUDING HOUSE OF THE DRAGON WATCH ALONGS! https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Support The Channel By Checking Out Our High-Quality Merch: http://shopzeroedition.com/collections/reel-rejects-merch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-reel-rejects/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello there, citizens of the reject nation, and welcome to our House of the Dragon, season one, episode three, review our immediate thoughts upon watching the episode. It's been pretty insane to behold, honestly. I forgot how to talk for a second there. Yeah, just the amount of good grace this show has managed to garner among fans of Game of Thrones. I mean, so much as dropping the original theme back in and just seeing how hyped people got about that. it's been quite gratifying, you know, especially as pessimistic as some folks were heading into this. So, yeah,

if you'd like to join us for the experience, you can check out the reaction highlights over on our YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash the real rejects, or if you want to join us for the complete experience, bring your own copy, and join us on Patreon. You can sync up with the time code. That's patreon.com slash the real rejects. Got House of the Dragon Watchalongs there as well as a whole bunch of

other shows and movies with highlights as well as watchalongs included. It's a blast over there. Also, if you love the channel, you just want to rep some swag or support that way, check out our shop0.0.com store. We've got some cool stuff coming down the pike and some cool stuff in there right now. But for the moment, it is time to talk Targaryen. Let's do this. Wow. Cool.

Awesome. Wow. That was awesome. that was hard as hardcore well it just keeps getting better and better uh that was that was awesome what a great book in it's like the start of damon getting into the fight this is what it perceived to me as right because the guy who was suffering at the the guy was suffering on the ground at the beginning when the crab feeder was killing him yeah he was saying my prince will come and all that yeah but it's

And it seemed like, oh, my God, he's actually doing the fight, or something. Or you're saying something. Right. So that was the beginning of the war. Then this is the end of it. And I got to say, like, normally time jumps can actually upset me when I'm watching a series. There's a lot of time.

I'm like, I want to see the development of all those things. I want to see what happens in between. I want to see it grow out. And this is like the rare case where you're getting so many time jumps in between episodes. That I'm like, I imagine there's got to be a point. where we're not time jumping that much. Yeah. Like, okay, this is the next day and not.

Like a few years later. Yeah, months, years. Yeah, so I imagine we'll probably get to at that point sometime. Maybe, maybe not. But the way they handle is because they stick so true to the emotional core of all these characters. And the actors, I think, do such a good job at filling in the memories in between that we did not get to. see that you can feel the passage of time and you could feel the history and whatever either strain or awkward tension or conversations that have taken place or weariness.

And so everyone is doing such a good job and it's such a rare occasion to me to watch something with so many different time jumps and to still be fully engrossed right when you catch up to, okay, we're three years ahead and two seconds later. I'm like, it's just engrossed in what's going on, as opposed to, man, I would have liked to have seen some of this. It's normally where I'm at with the shows. That's the problem that I usually have with time jumps and shows. And this does not give me that problem.

And it's just a testament to how strong and rich, like everything just firing on all cylinders in every direction. And, yeah, good show. It's a good show. It's a good show. So, yeah, anyway, John. Like, I couldn't agree with you more. Talk about something specific, please. Well, yeah, no, I think it's hard to do this kind of time jumping in a show like this

because I think they're good at making it feel deliberate. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it feels just like, I don't know, move along. But, yeah, like, this feels like the most notable bullet points. Or, you know, like, if you're reading a history of something, these seem like the pivotal moments. And, yeah, I love the. way that they're able to balance this, you know, family trauma almost with all these politics. And they even come out and say it. He's like, I'm so tired of talking politics. And yet, you know,

that's inescapable for people in this position. And I loved the back and forth of the relationship between Vesaris and Reneira throughout this episode and everybody coming up to him and being like, hey, listen, you got to change. You got your son now. You got Egon. You got to change the whole, you know, way forward for, you know, your air and stuff like that, right? And watching the, you got to change. the struggle and watching him become more and more depressed on this ironic day of celebration and watching as everything kind of again seems to be deteriorating not only in his physical health and all that but also in the situations it's like watching as they bring in not the white heart but just a regular old stag and seeing the sort of begrudging disappointment like

i think the way that they're whittling away at his character is great because it feels very alive and natural, but I'm also kind of, I'm always unsure as to where it's going to go and what he's going to reveal. And then like you pointed out, like his back and forth with Millie Alcock, who's currently Renira, like she's so, she is so great and the two of them are such different characters. But yeah, that unspoken, both tension, but occasional understanding between them is really beautiful. And I think, you know, I mean, Game of Thrones world, you know, you come in associating with, you know, lots of interesting and large characters,

but I also feel like certain people need to bring out that intimacy. I think they do it really nicely with these two, you know. Yeah, and they're, like, they have these people, like there's people arguing that Damon should have been king just because, man, brother. And then you have the Agon, and I know the name Agon Targaryen. So, and unfortunately, it's a couple of years since I've seen, seeing Game of Thrones.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, okay, I don't remember the details. So is that confirmation that this child will be killed? Or is he just named after a previous Agon who was like, I know the name Ago? Yeah, yeah. So I like, I like that I haven't taken the time to like, let me go revisit all Game of Thrones. Because it helped.

I feel like actually kind of forgetting some, some details helps me just enjoy this experience for what it is. And instead of like thinking about what's going to come next, you know, and just taken like be in the moment with the show as opposed to where the destination is so um you have that with agon targary but they really show with that would renara ring i always get confused in how pronounce it ranera right yeah with ranara how she's the most capable one if anyone is to be heir to the targaryen throne it should be her because she's got the strategy down i mean she's they She's already solved, like, she can solve problems over.

Everyone else is like, I deserve it. Her Damon's just a wild, crazy liability. Yeah. And I love everything that they flesh out with her. Like, her performance carries so much weight in every moment she's on screen. So, like, everyone does an amazing job. And it's cool that the, like, the titular characters feel like they're Damon and Renera. and both of them

very different roles of all accounts and you know I think that we're supposed to be getting an older I think the one thing that IMDB kind of sorry if I'm

spoiling something here if you didn't know this so you can click off if you want but I think on IMDB they do say that there's going to be an older Rainera at some point based off the way the show is time jumping around probably going to get one

and it makes me sad to know that we're probably not going to be hanging out with her yeah she's so good she's so she's so awesome and i root for her so much and i feel for her so much that it's kind of painful knowing like oh man we're not just going to like hang out with her for like five seasons so like her show yeah yeah um but i'm sure that whoever fills in the the slot the seat for her will be great and and because every every every interaction that she has just carries so much history to it and the way they I think every actor does a good job

on where they're at at this point in here like Vassaris he has just got through the ringer that dude has just become more and more dejected as time has gone on and it's like he's gotten the thing he always dreamt of

and he just seems like he's in a worse place mentally and emotionally than he's ever been in his entire existence like I made a joke about it that it's only been three years but he's aged like eight he's like balding all up there

and it's like just it doesn't seem like he cares at all to like keep his face trim no like he he looks like unkem like there's a he just looks older

he doesn't look on camp nestor they look he looks a lot older and that time is really taking his toll and the stress has really weighed on him it's like when someone gets nominated for president and then they age like 20 years

and four years you know well yeah because it's got to be hard to be that position and too he's surrounded by so many connivors and so many

you know people who are actively trying to manipulate him. And so it must be you can feel the loneliness and you can feel the despair in him because of that. Well, he's surrounded by so much just cold-hearted politics and he's someone with a with a heart, you know, whether or not, whether or not you like some of the decisions this guy makes, and he's not the greatest father, he makes an effort. Yeah. Whether or not the word he lands is the thing you agree on, I wouldn't call the character unlikable, even though he's made a step or, you know. two that's not a real likable decision yeah yeah he's definitely not an unlikable character because

the guy really does care and it's like he he would like to find some type of reprieve some type of balance where he can be king do the political ship but also like i just want my daughter marry someone she loves and i just want to want to enjoy life a little bit i want to celebrate love a little bit and all we ever do is the political game of it and i thought like watching his dissent over his drunk like they even did a good job in the time span as he got progressively more drunk and more more more angry and then went into just very vulnerable and lamenting a lot of a lot of the sorrow and worry that he's feeling uh i thought he's such an excellent characters that's great great writing and acting and uh and that whole thing with the

what kind of animals it's a deer it is a deer essentially yeah they uh a heart a heart yes on the white heart shoes like the way that was contrasted was so well done oh yeah well and I love the way that that plays they have a couple discussions in this episode about different like bits of symbolism like I saw in a dream you know by this

child born with this crown or inversely you have or across the spectrum you have this ritual this sort of blessing from the gods of all the white heart appears and that's could just be the superstition of man but also it could mean something and then too

it appears to Reneira after this, again, like this really uncomfortable moment when they slaughter the regular one where you can just tell, it's just not, like, you can tell for Vesaris that just, it's just not working. And yeah, you watch his filter, descend, and it's such a well-drawn triangle

because there's so many characters, but I feel like the presences of the main Targaryens are really well done, and even on the opposite side of the spectrum with Damon, because it's like you get the most of Rainira and you get, you know, a lot of Viceris, and you see their relationship and their estrangement, though they are so close, but then you also get the estrangement from Damon, and the way they use him, I think, is really cool and really rewarding because in these two episodes

since the first one, he's in the first one a lot, but since he's been sort of banished to Dragonstone or has just sort of been ignored to be his own devices over there, like when he enters, there's just as much presence, you know, as if he'd been here the whole time. in every moment like I love the way they had him be so deliberate and stoic and it's like he gets this letter and he reads it he barely speaks and they play it so up close in his face like he's so I don't think he spoke one word whole episode yeah I think you're thinking back I think you're probably right and I love how gripping that is and the way that that character in just a couple moments like he gets the letter and you can tell there's there's a rush of things happening in some way you bet it's kind of a relief or that there's some kind of emotional pang to like all my brother's finally deciding to help but also on the flip side we've we've lost so many ranks and we've done all the hard work and now he's going to come in and help and make it some kind of victory like no i got to go deal with this myself and even though we haven't gotten like a lot of big exposition from him lately like his life and growth feels so vital even despite all that and even though he

is quite removed from everybody right now and uh yeah just the the whole battle that led to was incredible. Oh yeah. I mean the both battles at the beginning and the end, you know, they I think what they really do well with the battle sequences in this episode is they, they utilize their environment and atmosphere

very well. Like in the nighttime sequence, the way they have the dragon kind of be illuminated by just like everyone and everything is just kind of illuminated by fire. It's almost like Roger Deacons Esk. That nice orange light. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was great.

It was awesome. So the And so I was like, oh, this looks freaking amazing. It's beautiful to behold. And then, of course, in the final battle with, you could feel the ocean waves and the weather and the fog, the mist. And I love how all that was executed. So I think utilizing that and then it was all like scuzzy and up close and messy and times you can't even really tell what's going on.

And at times you catch it the last thing. I'm like, oh, whoa, that's what's going on. Oh, my God. You know, so it gets, it has this great pulsating punch to it. And then the crab feeder carried so much presence. And I do wish we got a little bit more with the crab feeder. That was as cool of a moment that was in a reveal, I was like,

damn, you've been like setting this home boy up since the first episode. Yeah, I want to see some kind of actual pulling back of the curtain on him or something. I don't know, like a scene with him. Yeah, I mean,

not that we needed like a crazy dialogue-driven scene, but just to spend more time with him due to the fact that whenever they cut to him, it seems like they had such a specific illustration, to draw and especially with their the way they captured it photography wise and just the mood and and the the the vibe of whatever he was there was so palpable it just gets you yeah and you're sucked into this gorgeous darkness this is very striking yeah so i wanted to spend more and i kind of wanted to see that like final battle you know like as much as i love it's a part of me that just

truly loves the way it was handled. Don't get me wrong. I really love the part it was handled. And there's the flip side of me. It's like, I just want a little bit more. It is the one maybe thing that feels a little, and I'll reserve full judgment until we see past this,

because you never know what might still remain of this group and what they do. You know, obviously the crab feeder has people who follow him. So yeah, it's the one thing, though, with the time jump and stuff that maybe does feel at this moment

just on first watch a little slight or a little bit like this seemed like such a vital threat and such a important piece that if it's just wrapped up now and we're not going to really ever think about that again I am a little taken aback by that but there'll be after effects for sure from the from the conquering of this

yeah yeah yeah yeah and I mean it's such an important you know strategic part of the realm and everything that yeah like there will be fall out from this but at the same time yeah part of me just as a genre viewer is like man I just want to see more of this grab garbage i mean the that was just all their people right um like damon and um yeah and the valerians valerians uh with them that was just their people yeah right it wasn't it wasn't

the reinforcements yeah they didn't show up see this was so smart about this was damon's most badass moment here was motivated by emotion yeah because he's like i'm not even going to wait for these reinforcements like thanks but no thanks let's just go in and take care of this. Yeah. No matter how hopeless this looks, we're going to do it. Yeah.

So this is awesome. Yeah. It's great. And then even with like, the way they've been fleshing out the Allison and like her, her relationship with Viceris, I actually really liked how she entered the room and it became about,

you know, the necessity to enter the battle and what that represents. And it wasn't about, um, whoa, I just already forgot it. Agon. Agon.

It wasn't about Agon Targaryen the way Otto wanted it to be. Yeah. Because Otto in a lot of ways seems like the little finger of this show. But he's definitely doing his own thing. Like you could see why he's trusted. And then in private, you're like, you're a sick son of a bitch. He seems so, like, you seem so believably compassionate and understanding. Yeah.

in a more public setting great false sincerity from that guy but in in um because yeah he's he's manipulating and using his own daughter it's disturbing it's it's disgusting it's really disgusting who's doing he's using his daughter yeah and he's the one who's like maybe ron eras should marry agon why not you know yeah yeah yeah well anything to get agon to be king yeah you know and and oh yeah and oh yeah on the guy of plays that he's in Halloween that's in Halloween that's that's He's the podcaster guy. He plays the lancer guy. I was trying to figure it out. It took me a while to pinpoint it. And I was like, yeah, you're the dude in the podcasting in Halloween. And he's American in that. No, he's British in that.

What is he? American British? I totally forgot, actually. He's still British in that? Because I think they're a little fish out of watery, but I'm not, I'd have to go back and look. Yeah, yeah, the Halloween remake, obviously, not the original. The Robzone. No, yeah.

2018. Yeah, so he was. Oh, not the remake, the sequel. God damn it. Yes, the official sequel, the real Halloween, too. Yes, so he

was fun to watch too, because, you know, he's like, yeah, is the Lannister all right. Who did you say his brother was? It wasn't Tywin. It was like Tygon or something like that. It sounded close to Tywin, but it was. Yeah. No, I love that too, because they're good

at playing on the fact that, yeah, it's like a Lannister or any other recognizable house. name shows up and you have like this preconceived notion and i love that i don't know this is a testament to the way they were able to build these characters where you're like this guy's definitely a lannister although you know he's not the slickest lannister out there seems like just kind of another one of their ranks and by the time you get to game of thrones you know a lannister always pays his debts and and with the lannisters they they are they are the top dogs right right yeah so at least once you get out there yeah so the lannisters are the

and and then you're hearing you're seeing this Jason guy be so submissive towards his king you know even when the king is getting upset with him yeah and how he's just like kind of backing away and he's either just striving for more power so I think they got all these wonderful chess pieces in play of I don't really know how is this all going to turn to the biggest pile of dog shit for everyone here else is going to torture what it's going to maim everybody yeah it just seems like this could go wrong this could go wrong this they're all probably gonna go wrong in some way yeah and that's part of what makes it so fun to watch the drama because the drama's never boring it's never boring it never feels like it's slowing the show down it's like great game of throne stuff because it there's always something deeper underneath what's being talked about and what's advancing in terms of plot and you always get the sense that there's there's some type of cunning behavior like the the lionel character looks like john bailey seems to be the one who really just wants to offer some good piece of advice i love good counsel on that guy yeah and i love that character too because over these three episodes

just seeing him in brief glimpses like that is an association that has for me kind of grown each time so like this time when when yeah visceris cuts him off i love the way he played that where he's like i i get i get what you're insinuating thanks but no here's an actually good idea and they're I think that's a, you know, you sit here watching this, and for me, part of my brain afterwards, it's like trying to figure out the alchemy of how they write like this. And I think they have a Game of Thrones,

at least the good era of Game of Thrones, and now this show, they're really good at both giving you these stakes, like these first three episodes, have had a lot of tensions and a lot of different stakes crashing together, and we've had at least a couple battles. But you can feel the sense

that this is not the end of anything. This is like the early squabbles leading to a much bigger conflict most likely. And through characters like all the different small table folks and everybody that we peer in on, they're really good at showing the direct link between the people and those motivations and these big situations of armies clashing and state craft and differing ideologies and all that. I think the reason they're so good at jumping back and forth between big battles and then big. drama is because yeah like they really draw that line between you know the whims of people and these conflicts and the way in which you know everyone's different

position in the class system and emotional experience all affects this I know they they seem really good at yeah kind of drawing never letting you forget about that so that no motion or action feels arbitrary yeah I love it I think it's great music is haunting yeah is gorgeous just music and I think the way they especially in the final battle the way how they captured so everything just so up close and personal all these like really intimate profile shots you know it's like the chaos it's the you really feel like you're there and you're in the chaos of it yeah this is awesome this is really great

and even the way they're fleshing out last thing I I mean I like the I like the Kristen character a lot too like she should be with him absolutely should but the even the relationship with Allison and Renera of how you could tell that there's even complexity there like she hasn't gone you know full you know cold queen in this you know she's very she she's still craves that connection with ronera and doesn't feel right about trying to manipulate at least right now cut to like four years later in the next episode you're going to say but um but alicent you know you could tell doesn't feel right about trying to oust an era from from the throne yeah and she's she could tell how

uncomfortable she is yeah by her position um so i don't know i i hope it doesn't just time jump so much every episode right now it hasn't lost me at all i could see a version though where i'm like come on let's let's just stay in this couple month period yeah i i hope that there is at least a very smooth transition point before we hop in. It feels like now would be a good point. Yeah, that's the thing. And I don't know. And hey, it's

all depends on how they handle the episode. But yeah, you feel like if you are going to jump enough time to get different actors, I think emotionally, you would want to feel like you sent off that iteration of the character or at least enough for that actor or whatever.

When it is a situation like this, where especially Millie Alcock is just so engrossing to watch and such great casting. Yeah, you know. Oh yeah, she's fucking brilliant. Yeah, and it's like, I love watching this performance and just having this idea that will probably

I doubt it's going to be like little fat jumps forward. It's probably going to be like a full-on jump forward and we probably won't see her again except maybe flashbacks. So that's, you know, they don't have to, but for me as a viewer, I'm like, I want to feel like I really got the richest amount of time with this

portrayal before moving on. done a lot of work holy crap yeah the first thing i'm seeing from her yeah i haven't seen any of these things she's been looking at her i'm db right now chepers oh my god lots to catch up on she has booked so many tv miniseries she's done so much that's good that's good so much tv she's like like a series regular on a bunch of tv shows pretty much since she started she wasn't far from house of the dragon she just got outaged yeah but yeah wow my god that's like want to check out her work i know she doesn't know seriously like there's there's a lot of great

casting on this show and there's a lot of satisfying performance work but you know yeah i think especially because this is the first time i've seen her i'm just like ah like i would watch this character across all the seasons in her hands not to slight whoever is taking over but she does have that really young look and she's like she's 22 and she i believe she was like 15 years old yeah yeah i think maybe in this episode she was on the verge of she was like 17 maybe but but yeah i mean we've seen her since she was at like at least 14 and i believed it each time yeah yeah um all right guys well thank you for being here um be sure to subscribe and keep a look out for our reaction to the next episode um i'm loving this show

i really am i'm loving it currently loving it more than another fantasy show oh no oh don't don't tell me what it is okay but this is i'm enjoying this one a lot more It didn't cost as much. I don't know what you're... I can't figure it out. It's a lot more interesting. Anyway, guys, we'll see you soon.