The Reel Rejects - REJECT RECAP: House of the Dragon 1x7 "Driftmark" - REVIEW!!

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

WHAT A CRAZY EPISODE & ENDING! House Of The Dragon Episode 7 Reaction, Breakdown, Recap, & Review - featuring an entire family reunion with Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), Rhaenrya, Alicent Hightower, King Viserys, Laenor, Aemond rides Vhagar, & A WHOLE LOT MORE! #HouseOfTheDragon #GameOfThrones #HBO #HBOMax #MattSmith #rhaenyratargaryen #daemontargaryen Become A Super Sexy Reject For Full-Length T.V. & Movie Reactions + 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

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Chipotle, for real. Reject listeners. Let me get ready to listen. As we talk about, How's the Dragon Episode 7. Let's go. Whose body did they burn? That's a good question. Maybe they grabbed one of those knights, or did his ward make it out?

Ward guy. He still be attracted to him even though he's bald? He could grow it back in a couple years, you know? That's all they got to do, and they got to not, you know, capsize and die. But, yeah. I think they got a shot. Man. How much did they squeeze so much into this one hour?

It's a rich. So much happened. It's rich and twisted. That's so much, so much happened. It's all happened in like 24 hours. Yeah, just over the course of one night. My God. One long night.

There is. Jesus. Did Miguel Sopachnik direct the really dark battle episode in season eight of Game of Thrones? I don't know. I wonder if they came back and he's like, I want to do this one all at night again, except I want to do it. A little better. You can actually see stuff. Let's talk about it.

Jesus. All right. So playing this back, it looks like the guy's bodies that got in the staircase who Damon killed. It makes sense. And all the skin, all the epidermis was burnt.

Oh, man. All right, let's recap everything that happened in this episode. All right, here we go. So one, the funeral. Two. Amen took Vagar.

Yes. And they fight with the children. Sure. And then they, Damon and Rainer made love. Damon and made love. I mean, that's small in comparison where it ends off with them. And then truth for coming out. She struck.

Allison struck. Rinera with a blade. And then Otto realized, hey, you got that ruthless. to send you that you clearly are uncomfortable with. But hell, we can use that to win. We need more of that around here. Things suck. You're promoted. And then they faked Laynor's death.

Yep. And now Damon and Renaro are married. That's a lot. And somehow did not feel rushed. Which shocks me because

this show really does have a tight grip on on the moments it chooses to capture and whatever emotion they need to evoke and connect with its audience because somehow it's so damn effective and I don't feel like I'm missing. The only thing I slightly feel like I missed out on was, you know, there's so much morning happening at the funeral. And I'm like, I wish I knew Alina a little better. Sure.

Only so I could feel a little bit more for this morning that everyone's going through. but it wasn't really about the morning about all the suspicious looks that everyone gives that's what the show's filled with its suspicion throughout and whatever conniving plans are percolating

everywhere and guards are also terrible in the show they always run away too late that's what everyone does the altar guards what is it supposed to be protecting the thing one job to do well you know

I don't go to your carding I guess yeah like you're supposed to be right outside the door right it's like i don't know maybe they figure the hall is empty or something like that uh you know it's it's the kind of system where you got to you just got to rely on hearing it down the hall i guess um but yeah a lot of these characters became so much more interesting who we didn't really get to spend time with and i like the compassionate touch they take with i mean i was i was doing wrong i'm down for anyone taking some type of villainous turn i don't give a shit i i'm all i'm all game for it so

if Rennara did end up killing off Lainor I'm going to like all right I'm rolling with it this is the Game of Thrones world right here sure you do she's there now

she's bad what are you going to do because as as like self-pitying and at time seemingly pathetic that Lainer can sometimes come across as

he's also a nice guy he's a good guy you know he's still at a heart and he was still trying you know and like I don't I don't think he's whole encompassing. I don't think pathetic is really the right choice of words for it. It's the way the optics I'm talking about can sometimes be perceived around the gentleman, right?

And I appreciated that conversation that they did have about trying and how Rennara actually didn't really want him to die. And there's also a demonstration of the kind of, I bet in the books she actually killed him off. I can see that. I get 100. I bet there's some change in the books they took, and they're like, we can't ever do that here. But I'm curious. We're going to ruffle some feathers by killing his actual lover unceremoniously,

like the second we meet him in that one episode. So let's, yeah, let's give him a happy ending. Let's let him go off and be with his new lover. Because I get tidbits of information, but, you know, I don't like to, even if I start listening, like Paul, heavy spoilers, amazing breakdowns and I usually will I might stop like towards like a few minutes forward at his videos end because I'm always a little hesitant of I don't want to hear anyone go into what's going to happen and he's pretty good about avoiding that

unless you're watching like a trailer breakdown but in terms of the episode breakdown pretty solid about avoiding that and so I don't I don't like I don't know what's going to happen I never know what's going to happen with this show but I know they will make some tweaks and for some reason I'm like I feel like in the book she might have done something messed up like that I could definitely see that yeah or maybe if it wasn't her but either way you can see yeah her wanting it to be that way and Damon just being like no kill

kill for real I mean it's there's so much grieving happening in this episode and it's like it and the other part of grieving is the phrase that comes to mind of the saying of good grief you know like that's just that's just what king vassaris reminds me of i feel like every wakey moment is good grief it just doesn't stop just a wamp wamp just a sad character all around you just wants the you want the best for him you know he wants the best for everybody and yeah it's just uh this guy is so put upon he's always deteriorating well i feel like the last

episode truly highlighted the standouts of were the setup of the you know, Renara and Allison were there at in this political war game and then here it was like every like so many more characters

really got to shine and like this was a true mastery of an ensemble piece I thought even the kids became interesting I know. Beyond Agon being a creepy tyrant that hasn't really been a tyrant lately just creepy he's really creepy amand

amand yeah agon was just chilling regular one creepy fin wolf heart is agon i think and yeah yeah amen is yeah yeah agon's a creepy one agon yeah no amand what do you mean

who charms the dragon and who gets his i could have i was talking about him oh sorry i said agon was creepy oh sure yeah i guess so and you corrected me oh i'm sorry i must find amad creepier Because I thought Agon was just chilling this whole episode Just be like, what? I just want to drink wine Agon's always a creep one to me. I don't know.

Amon doesn't really creep me out. He's got that malicious, like, vindictive look in his eye. I know I like that about him. Sure. Because, I mean, the way they set up his character, though, is he's bullied. Yeah, absolutely. And he's put down upon it.

Like, I hear the one without a dragon loser. Yeah. And now you've got the ultimate dragon. You've got the dragon with the most seniority. Because I like the way they did that, where he wins over Vagar, and it becomes this glorious ride through the seas. And then it instantly turns into just like, god damn, nightmares. Yeah, and they really are good at getting that sense of like, I don't know what's going to happen, but I feel like something terrible and like irreversible is about to come. And that's somehow surprising you with what it is.

like and it is that but it's not exactly I don't know I kept expecting someone to be like paralyzed or to die or something like that in that moment well there's such good framing in this show a phenomenal framing yeah like that shot when when Renera is talking with like that is such a painting when Renera's talking with Damon at the end

and she's saying because they both you know she's married to Valerian he was married to Valerian like the sister of her husband and then you see like we have to say goodbye like when you see in the distance the ship's sailing like we have to say goodbye to the sea we did to this bloodline and we have to we have to marry within yeah we got to make it even more pure yeah we'll keep these valerian kids you got but we'll keep these strong kids you

yeah yeah yeah exactly so i i just think that the way they they compose this episode just it's it was it had this fascinating pull where it starts off so mournful so sorrowful in the beginning like really deliberate as you're you're sinking into the tension and the mood of this funeral like this funeral should be all about grieving yet it's you could like that the thing this has such a great mastery of is there's always a goddamn political war game happening at every waking moment and sneaking suspicions and whenever there's a death it's like what's going to happen next to now. And then, you know, you're, you settle in with Damon and Renera, rekindling that love.

And then it kind of puts some other things in the clearer perspective from prior episodes where, you know, like when he first, like in the brothel with Renara when he was making the moves on her. But then he couldn't fully go through with it. And the way he was talking to her now, it seems so sincere of, like, you. he did seem like he you know he was tempted he wanted to and he is drawn to her emotionally and but he like he he wanted to originally marry her but he he couldn't he needed like he knew that they would pose a danger to her yeah and so i was like oh okay that makes a lot more sense

now like some of those choices that were made before because you see him here now where he is i don't know if the right word is subdued but he he's not as like he still has a ways where he'll start chuckling about a thing that you don't expect him to chuckle about or it'll be an asshole in a moment or or find something uh you could be kind of kind of gleeful over something that you wouldn't expect someone to be gleeful over but there is more of a sincerity i think to the way he communicates but especially with ronara like i i bought their i bought their kindling i bought their romance i do too yeah and i like the weird sort of back-and-forth push pull they've done with it where

yeah I mean you can tell that they parts of them really want this but also parts of them are sort of uncomfortable about it mostly because of you know the outside view and it's an interesting cornucopia of feelings we get to have because they're both Matt Smith and Millie Alcock and Matt Smith and oh goodness Emily Darcy they all have great chemistry together

and so yeah it's like it's easy in the moments where you forget the circumstances to be like, man, they really are kind of faded for each other in a way, but also this is, yeah, so conflicting and so kind of squirmy. And yeah, it's a wonderful portrait. And I love an episode like this felt more tense. Like we got really sort of on edge during the episode where they have the big gathering in the hall and all that stuff goes down and Kristen kills the lover and all that stuff. But here I felt even more tense because you are boiled down to these are like the main families involved with a lot of the ruling right now and they're all in a small room together and everyone's either grieving or furious for some reason or is standing on top of a mountain of like thinly veiled deceits.

And it's, yeah, I love that feeling of like anything could happen in this moment. And even when they were doing the, you know, the thing. with Lainor, I remember thinking to myself, like, oh, yeah, they're going to arrange so that he can, you know, steal away somehow and go out and live with his, because I, you know, we've seen this guy who he pays off at least one other time, you know, is sort of mentioned as a target of Lainor's affections or, you know, somebody he's been spending time with. And, and so, you know, as he's negotiating, I was like, okay, that's what they'll probably do. But then when they're actually doing the thing, I got so caught up in it, I was like, maybe they did just actually kill him.

and and I feel like that's a testament yeah to the overall sort of pall of uneasiness and anger and grief and tension like it's a great it's a great really uncomfortable and really sort of sad cocktail and I thought it was a great choice to shoot this all at night because it is the time like you know symbolically the time where everyone's a little more a little less afraid to bear their true nature or true you know desires and and and this, you know, be a bit more bold, undercover of shadow. And, yeah, like, I loved, I loved this sort of weird, not madcapness, but there was a sort of like, man, this is, there was so much happening over the course of this one night, but it, instead of feeling like just a whole, like you said, feeling rushed, it does feel just like a domino, a sort of like disconnected domino effect that eventually collides. One thing leads to the next quite naturally.

Yeah, and things that seem like they start off, you know, completely. disparate from each other yeah pretty soon tie right in yeah it's a fascinating chess game yeah i mean there's so much to interpret about how like everything that occurred at night because there's there's so much like things of lurking in the shadows the darkness within giving into those deeds all coming out and so that's what made that that uh argument and the debate in the hall about what to do with the kids you take this kid die and then alison exposing herself because there's so much secrecy is part of the politics here. There's so much things that have to be kept hidden or things you shouldn't say, things you shouldn't talk about. And so much of this was about

confronting truths. You know, even Reynus talking with, Blank, you know what's the king with Corlis? Talking with Corlis and him, it's like he always knew these truths, but it's the first time it would appear this is the first time any of this is being said to him. Like, you keep you keep justifying this pursuit of power to right to wrong that happened to me, but you want power. Yeah. And you got to face facts. That's not our blood, those babies.

There's no way. Those are ours, yeah. They're not your bloodline carrying on. And then even when it came down to Lainor, you know, like the truth of the matter is like he can't go through with this much longer. like he's deteriorating so it's it's that kind of thing where again it's not necessarily pathetic it's the fact that none of this is this is the most unreal for for anyone this is the most this is the biggest lie for anyone you know because yeah or an eric can put up the act of being in a marriage and a lie that these are you know his kids but in a day the truth is

Those are still her kids. She still has something. She's still going to be queen who inherits. Like, there's no, there's not much of a, like, she lies about who the father is. But for him, like, this is all a lie. He's got to, like, pretend like, yeah, these are my children. I love these children. I love my woman, you know.

There's so much he's got to do. And none of this is true for him, like, whatsoever. So him getting to sail off, I think, is actually kind of nice for him, you know. It's kind of beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, and in the greater conversation, it's like, oh, cool. Like, I guess we're not going to see him again. But, yeah, at least this queer character gets to have a happy ending.

Yeah, thank God. Honestly, Olivia, like, everyone's great. Emily Darcy is amazing. And you can feel that, I guess you could say you feel that drive and anger, the aggression within them, what I really love about Olivia Cook's performance. That's her name, right? yes who plays uh alison yeah i believe that is the older alison

well alison what i love about her performance is there is such a a chaos within her she's always seething yeah they're trying to keep a lid on that yeah there's like a floodgate waiting to open within her and and that's the thing that makes her performance kind of scary because i know

You don't know when the pot's getting boil over. I feel like every time her eyes well up with tears, I'm like, I can feel the cracks in the dam starting to form. And then even like the loyalty with the children, I thought was great. Like when Amon, it notices his mom is like, this could be bad for my mom if I confess that it was my mom who told me that those children are bastards. Is Agon.

He'll just get a talk it too. And the way Agon talks his way through that, like, look at them I loved that choice like a great morgue is early beginning stages at the Mori show yeah yeah right

let's get a test over here we gotta get a maister in here we gotta find some way to verify this but I love that he actually chose to do that and again in a room where that could

supers you get the real sense that that could actually supersede all the all of the pageantry and all the you know like the etiquette the cotillion of accepting these lives

we, you know, pretend to be truth is just because of the law of treasons and stuff like that. Like I love that he's just like, everyone in the room could tell it's the elephant in the room. Yeah, and then you have Otto who you can feel has a sense of vengeance

out as well. You know, someone who was wronged, who feels wronged. Yeah. And now he's got like a disgusting drive here. Because it's the same goal. It's the same angle but now there's like a sort of lividness to the way that pursuit is now and like we're

going to take this all down so it's like where's the war there's a war coming i don't know exactly where is it going to be valerians versus targaryans because it kind of seems like we're headed there yeah i mean i feel like they're all going to be pointed at each other after a certain point because all of these things are so tenuous and it's also regional and everything else well I mean, when you look at what happened with, my God, I'm blanking on all the wrong names right now. Corlis and Reynus, what's the surname? Valerian. Oh, it is just Valerian.

Yeah, there's Valerian, which is their family name, and then there's Valerian, which is like the old. The race. Yeah, yeah. So Jew is like a race and also a religion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. They're just, they're the Jews of this universe. Valerian? Yeah, Corlis Valerian.

valerian okay so there's valerian blood in in all these people deep down okay all right all right yeah yeah valeria that's right okay yes i remember we had to i need bism ship one the one episode yeah all right so when you look at them specifically corlis and reynas you know um reinus was already feeling like damon if if only like the part of her grief was the blame cited in that discussion of if Damon had brought her here, we could have saved her. Yeah. I blame Damon. Yeah.

And then even Rainer points out that somehow this situation with Lainor, they're going to blame on means in some way. Yeah. And they've lost both their children, and they're probably both feeling like they've already felt like Targaryen, House Targaryen has dicked them over a lot already. And now they're completely poisoned the well, yeah. Yeah, now they've lost both their children to them.

Yes. In some way, there's an association. Their loss is to them. Yeah. And they don't even, they get their two little girls, but they don't get really that perpetuation of the bloodline they wanted through Reneira. Yeah, it's wild stuff. And, God, I have no, I just have no clue what's going to happen.

You know, Vesaris is going to, they're going to give him a heart attack. Oh, he's on the verge of a heart attack. I mean, he's already had one, but he's on the verge of going into a coma. As of this episode, I think I'm just going to assume that he will live to the end of the season and just look more and more terrible doing it. Because the last episode and this episode and even that first one where he collapses at the time jump, I'm like, he's got to be dead now. He's got to be about to die or someone's going to kill him, but nope, he just keeps on going. And I feel like that's the true curse of that character is not only is he, you know, not really cut out for kinging, but also he's just going to like live the worst way possible for as long as possible before he dies. Well, he's such a pacifist and dealing with a bunch of people who are ready to wage war within their own selves.

And like, I love when he starts shouting, you know, I forget exactly what, but he's like, is your father, your grandfather, you're king. they're all shut the shit down shut it down I'm sick of it shake hands and say you're sorry I'm like we're all friends again okay

yeah I mean I just feel progressively bad for it yeah because he's dealing with this like leprosy issue but it does feel like at least with the filmmaking choice that it also is a representation of him deteriorating

on the inside as well as this situation crumbles so does the head of the whole thing him crumble as well externally it's like when they show you a picture of a president four years later and they look like their hair's all white and they've aged like 20 years it's like that and the longer he has to be king the more it's going to suck his soul out yeah and i i like the way alison because people at oh you know when this show aired i had a lot of people who are who are fans of the book you know um I don't know about a lot but the few I know who read the book would tell me like oh just wait at Allison I know it's the whole thing

it's episode one don't trust her and I think I don't know what it's like I mean the read from what I hear is often like multiple perspectives and that you're you know what

like a lot of unreliable narration a lot of gossip speak so with her You know, I wonder if in the book it feels a little more black and white with her. Because here, I think what makes her, while I'm loving the performance so much, is because you could feel that there's a good person in her, but the ruthlessness is slowly going to overtake this woman's soul. Well, because she's, yeah, because I think.

Because you can see she fears what she's becoming. Yeah. Yeah, and I feel like throughout the performance with both actors, there's often been that sense under the surface in the performance of like constant discomfort with most scenes we see her in most conversations we see her having to have most situations she has to navigate through and so I feel like that combined with the hurt is creating this void that yeah is going to swallow up those better instincts because yeah at least as of the show when they're younger and I think that's a nice part of it so effective because you watch their loss of innocence yeah exactly so I like the show doing it this way because at the top you know because people are forming teams you know team green or team

and I feel like from the top of this yeah you can see them both with their innocence and you can see how they are both victims of the situation and then you watch as they grow and take you know maturity and responsibility and how they wield that in light of all those things so I like the tragedy I think plays really nicely here because yeah you remember

that girl who did seem like she just wanted her friend you know and and you know with whom they could forget about all this kind of life-crushing, soul-crushing, you know, state craft nonsense. Yeah. Yeah, you feel the tragedy of her. And the further, like, the more confrontations they have, you feel the, the smaller and smaller those flames get of their former bond, flames fire, yeah, the smaller those get of their

former bond until pretty soon they're just going to be out entirely. Well, fire is, I, weirdly, like, they were talking about, they were specifically. I'm specifically talking about fire in this episode. Sure. And I was thinking about it too because whenever I do, like, work on a piece of fiction, I notice I'll end up implementing something that has something to do with fire. And I did ask myself, like, what is this fascination with fire that I think a lot of people have? Because it's dangerous.

It's violent. It can rage on, but there's something also beautiful and alluring. simultaneously about it, you know. And there are small ways in which you can harness it, but it can easily overpower anyone's control. It's, yeah, it's volatile. It could be volatile. It could resemble passion.

It could resemble fury. Like, there's so much to fire. It dances. Yeah, exactly. It can be unpredictable. Uh-huh. So, yeah, I think there's something, like, beautiful about it. It does feel like a fire

This whole episode is This whole show is like one big fire Yeah, it's like watching, yeah It's like watching a candle get knocked over And then slowly as it spreads And engulfs the entire house Yeah, totally And then you're left with a pile of ash

Yeah, no, 100% Somebody leaves it next to the wrong drape And then all of a sudden You're just in a pile of ash One castle, this one candle Just cause all this damage And I love too That like we leave

we left off with Otto Hightower in such a some in like a you know he's conniving but in a sympathetic manner where it's like oh damn he was just kind of telling the truth and then he got sacked for it and then I love on his return episode it's like no he's like

yes you have come over to my side so it's like it's a fun little flip of that table because yeah like as much as we are kind of groomed not to trust him at first they play you his as he exits the first time and yeah comes back fully well i not that way i think we've seen

so many stories where like sons become their fathers and it's interesting watching one where you're you're seeing alison become her father this is not something you really see a lot of yeah you're watching her near become her uncle the the more uh stern father figure in her life yeah no and and and what that blend will be like if any of that excess humanity will temper the autoness of how she's growing you know because there's so much of this I'm sure that has led her as a character

to look back and go damn my dad was right you know I should trust him all along anyway yeah this is wild yeah this is sordid and intense and I loved Laris just constantly like I love that he didn't really enter the episode

at all vocally but he's just always lurking and every time you see him you're like what is this guy's always got to be working on something dastardly man Allison man you're on crazy ass like he's the kind of guy to come back next episode

and be like hey I took one of the Targary kid's eyes because you know I thought that's what you meant when you told me not to do it I could see him being one of those characters I thought you were speaking ironically see I feel like Agon's the one out of the kids I feel like Agon's the one we're going to really hate

where Amen is the one who you're going to be like you kind of fear but you might be more compelled to watch him sure yeah yeah I mean he seems like he is growing into more of a bold character thus far and even though we saw him in a moment in that exchange like I like the exchange in the cave because you know they're they all have parts of the truth they've caught from the table above and you know they're all sort of you know they haven't fully come into the understanding of what all that stuff means. And so, like, the way that exchange is charged

makes a lot of sense. You can draw your own motivations as to who's in the right, who's in the wrong, when and how. And it all gets kind of ugly. And they're all just sort of like fighting and furious. But in a way where I'm like, I could totally see, you know, this is just another one of those formative moments where the next time we see the kids. And if there are more time jumps involving them, getting older, I could easily see how, yeah, like, maybe AIMD will come out as one of the more interesting or one of the even more copacetic characters in terms of like who you might root for. Because, you know, like,

Reneira's kids are going to have to grow up with feeling like outsiders and having people whispering them a lot. I can imagine they might become quite bitter. Whereas Amon, you're more in a position of, like, his kid's bullied. He's just gotten, like, a major boost with Vagar. So, like, just don't let that go too far to your head

and become, you know, like the worst version of the thing you used to be up against. But, yeah, like, even with them, I can see all this potential for interesting storytelling, yeah. Yeah, I think this is just great writing. because it's not just political warfare, it's also family drama. Well, yeah, and I think it still applies, but the further you go back in history, I feel like there's that. It's like you have warring clans and factions and regions, and you have, yeah, like big-scale war,

but you also have the wars within each organization and within each alliance and, you know, all the, you know, it's great. It's like all the different Venn diagrams that are overlapping in the big circle of a war. war you know and they're yeah they're really graceful about how they make sure that you're kind of abreast of all those different motivations and plot lines well damn what you guys think of the episode leave your thoughts down below um i i never leave euphoric i just leave with noticing i have more tension in my shoulders than i normally every time i leave f yeah i feel a drain this weird contemplation i have when i watch it because i'm like

like, oh, am I feeling stiff today? And I'm like, no, this show just makes my shoulders tense. I haven't uncletched my fist in six minutes. I've just, my shoulder just hurt. This is a show where I will forget myself sometimes. And then I'll be like, oh, oh, my hands are still up or something like that. You know, like some kind of a reaction. Yeah, we'll like push you into a rigor mortis for a while as you behold the horrors unfold.

All right, guys, we will be with you soon. Thank you for being here. Thank you.