The Ringer-Verse - 'House of the Dragon' Episode 8 Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

Time to hear your petitions and join Mal and Joanna for the biggest episode of 'House of the Dragon' yet. First, they give their brief overall impressions of this important episode (07:40). Then, they dive into the Dragonpit and go deep into the plot details and analysis of the episode (14:36). Later, they give out the episode's awards, as well as look into book spoilers and see what they can predict for the future (03:06:10). If you would like to email Mal and Joanna about the show, you can reach them at [e-mail]. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Addition Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen.

Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. face is no longer a handsome one, if indeed it ever was. But tonight, I wish you to see me as I am, father, husband, and your grand sire, who may not, it seems, walk for much longer among you. Let us no longer hold your feelings in our hearts. The crown cannot stand strong If the house of the dragon remains divided But set aside your grievances

If not for the sake of the crown And for the sake of this old man Who loves you all So dearly Into the Ringerverse Here on the Ringer Podcast Network I'm Mallory Rubin and it is my absolute pleasure To invite you

Not only to the throne room But also to join the throne room But also to join us on the Ringer's nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today so that we may express our wisdom in blinks and wheezes. It's my house of our co-host Joanna Robinson. Just a little behind the scenes of info is that Mallory and I listened to that opening speech from King Miss Ars and started crying. So in order to try to like swing the mood in another direction, may I present a speech of my own?

It goes something like this. Negroony, spaliato, with perseco in it. Oh, my God. Wonderful. Wonderful. You're living under a rock and you haven't heard Emma Darcy, the great Emma Darcy. Stunning. And Olivia Cook talk about their ideal cocktails.

Please enjoy yourself. I texted Joe and Steve in a fit of panic last night saying, I have never had a Nagroney in my life and don't know what anyone in the internet is talking about. But I do enjoy Prosecco, so I felt like that was helpful at least. We are here today to talk about cocktails, yes, of course, but also we are here. Dreams. Yeah. Exactly. We drink and we know things. Like Tyrion. We're here to talk at length to dive a deep into House of the Dragon episode 8, the Lord of the Tides, written by Eileen Schim, directed by Gita Vassant Patel.

But before we inch our way toward the microphones, waiting by the Iron Throne, Steve is there, just extending a helping hand. To put the crowns back on top of it. Yeah, to put the headphones back on for us. Saying, come on. Some programming reminders. Yeah. The Midnight Boys,

Poo-Pewo-Poo. We'll be with you tomorrow to break down and or episode six. Oh my gosh. Thursday, Ben Lindbergh and the Mint Edition crew. Stephen Jomey will be teaming up to break down the She-Hulk finale. Supergroup.

Wow. I know. It's all happening here on the Ring ofverse this week. including a house of our deep dive into the rings of power finale. That'll be this Friday. Cannot believe it's already finale time. So excited, but also devastated. Devastated.

Yeah, that's the word. On Saturday, Charles and Justin Charity will be chatting about the premiere of Chainsaw Man. Got a little bonus pod coming for you there. Okay. And then on Sunday, Joe and I will be back with Chris Ryan. for Talk the Thrones ever heard of it on Hot D episode nine. So there will not be a day where you don't have a pod on the Ringerverse. Joe, how can the people follow all of that?

I have a few ideas. Okay. What if, just bear with me, what if they just subscribed to the podcast on the podcast or if they're choosing but maybe make it Spotify? And then they just wouldn't have to guess. It would just show up in their feed. Great idea. every day because I guess we have a show every day now. So that's one idea. Follow us on social.

Jomi is not, you know, working his ass off for nothing. So, you know, follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, at Ring Reverse. We're all over the place. So do that. Think about doing that. And if you want to reach us, the two of us, directly, it's hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. You know it by now. Just email us, hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. We got so many great emails all the time. Incredible suggestions for the future bookstore that Mallory and I are definitely going to open someday because that's a sustainable business. Yeah. I'm hyped.

Yeah, we got a lot of ideas coming through. So, yeah, look for that in the future. But, yeah, but, I mean, go visit the ringer.com every day. What a great website. I mean, there's just like a million ways for you to know what's going on with this. We're everywhere. Yeah. We're everywhere, including here with you today for many, many hours.

How many hours? Time will tell. I don't know. We've got to do a long, slow walk to the conclusion. Oh, boy. Last reminder, before we kick things off. Bear in mind our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning, as always. You know the drill by now, but just to repeat it.

Today's podcast will feature plot details from House of the Dragons eighth episode. That's the episode we're here to talk about. today. Also, everything from Hot D to date, anything that happened in Game of Thrones is on the table. On the book front, we will be incorporating book canon from a song of ice and fire, from fire and blood throughout our chat today for historical context, canon insights, parallels, et cetera, but the bulk of the pod will not feature any details from the future of fire and blood. We will be saving that for a separate section at the end of the pod, a book look ahead, and you'll have another spoiler warning on the brink of that.

Okay. It is time for our opening snapshot. It is time to rally the realm. Joanna Robinson. What did you think of episode eight of hot D? Give us your quick impressions. I stoned in. I loved it.

What a masterpiece. I love this episode. I think this is far. in a way the best episode of the season for me so far and really showed me what the show can be in terms of my own emotional engagement with it, which has been something of a question mark. Like, we've been engaged, we've been enjoying it. But I don't know that it had sort of tapped into some of those more visceral reactions that I had with Thrones' original flavor.

but swinging wildly back and forth from laughing hysterically to like sobbing hysterically is how I viewed this episode. And I think this is the most devastating episode and also the funniest episode at the same time. And that's kind of, I think, the ideal of what throne should be. We've been talking all season about how we wish the show was a little funnier. It was missing that, like, Tyrion wit. And I feel like there was a lot of great lines on line delivery. in this episode. Oh, actually, sorry, I got an email from an actor who told me not to use that phrase,

line delivery. I would try to think of something I'll think to you, Steve. Anyway, a lot of great lines, well said by the performers. Big, uh, big, uh, big, uh, big finessem. Why not, why not line delivery? Apparently, line reading is something that, like, a director gives to, according to this email I got, a director gives to an actor when they don't want to let the actor make the choice. If I read that email correctly,

so it's sort of to call something a line reading in the profession of acting is actually to remove the actor's contribution from it when I'm trying to do the opposite, which is praise the performance. So a great script, well-performed. There you go. Mallory Rubin,

did you like this episode of House of the Dragon? I loved it. Yeah, it was also my favorite of the season for all of the reasons that you mentioned. I think we're very much on the same page here. The last two have been my favorite, and I think that the show is really finding itself, finding its voice, finding its rhythm, finding its pacing. I was dreading another large time jump here seeing in the teaser last week, like, even though

I'm excited to meet the new cast, because the time jumps have contributed to a lot of that recalibration at the top of the episode that has made us, like, need the time to acclimate a new. It just didn't feel that way at this time. We were right in the flow of things, and the episode start to finish, had, as you're saying, like exactly that brew, that signature brew that we love from Thrones so much. The wit had a lot of that like eat every fucking chicken in this place energy where a lot of the humor comes from this real derision and the emotional heft, the payoff of not only certain individual character arcs, but the culmination of certain shared arcs, Damon and Bissaris,

chief among them, but also nothing's neat and tidy. It's an incredible deeply heart-rushing Viseris episode, and we still end thinking about all the things that he did wrong in addition to this grand final effort. And that is Thrones to me. I just thought this was sublime. I cannot wait for the next two episodes.

I am despondent that it's almost over, but I just loved everything about this season. In addition to being my favorite episode, it had my favorite scene and my favorite moment of the season, so that's a good place to be. And the performances were outstanding across the board. But obviously, you know, we both want to,

would take a moment here at the top to talk about Patty, who could not have been more sensational across the season. And in this episode in particular, was just out of this world extraordinary, moving us multiple times to freely weep while watching it. It was just incredible. Give Patty as Emmy.

An Emmy for Patty. And actually, so I tweeted about this, and I was talking about how there were all these succession actors in his way in this category, because they'll probably submit him in supporting because even that's just sort of how the Thrones way, Peter Dinklage won in the supporting category again and again. But I was told by someone to HBO that Succession might not be out, Succession Season 3, 4, I don't know, what are we on? Anyway, we will not be out in time probably for any eligibility. So it could happen for Patty. That would be extraordinary. There's a great GQ profile about

Patty out that came out, I think, yesterday. And in it, he says that he got a text message that read, your Viceris is better than my Vassaris, and it was from George R. Martin. And I thought, that'll do it. Thanks for trusting me. That'll do it. I can hear Patty saying that. So, yeah, what an extraordinary performance and what an extraordinary complication on a character that could have been more of a caricature. You know, reading Viseris on the page, that sort of like ineffectual indecision, hates conflict, all of those major flaws are there. But the way that he's portrayed, maybe I'm being led by some of the drawings of him in the

Fire and Blood, but I think of him more as like a Robert Barathean Party King than what we got. And I love Bobby B. You know I do. And I love that performance as well, but there's just something so much thornier in place here. And for a show that is trying really hard to exist in the gray area, as you say, we're thinking about Viseras's flaws as much, even as we're celebrating him in this final effort that he made. And to watch this man die, like, not in battle or the,

and out of the other thing, but like to die from this wasting disease, but also from this monumental effort. Like, he surely accelerated his own death with that long walk. And not by much, but surely a bit. And so to celebrate something like that. He lasted about 15 years longer than anyone was expecting. It's true. It's true.

And I mean for Patty is the point. Ah, incredible. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative collaboration, symptoms, every choice matters. Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required.

Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease, and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible.

Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiator.com. Should we head into the deep dive? Should we head into the dragon pit? I love that that came with jazz hands today, Mallory. That's great. Thank you for that. It's like the first time that I've remembered the sound cue is coming and braced for it accordingly.

Boy, okay. Yeah. We are going. Once again, chronologically through this episode, there is so much to talk about. So excited to talk about it with you, Joanna Robinson. First of your name. Let's start where the episode starts. In Driftmark, where word of Corliss's injury and ensuing illness, the fever has reached Rainis. And one of the corresponding bits of news that reaches us is that it has been six years since episode seven. We are anticipating, Joe, that this is the

final time jump of consequence, barring a really major surprise we should be settled in now here. to a more leisurely pace through the rest of the story. I mean, very, very thoughtful of Rainies to literally open the episode by saying it's been six years. But for her to say not only it's been six years, the last episode, it's been six years since she's seen Corley's. Like, that's the very weird thing about these time jumps is like no one is seeing each other at all.

Reneer and demon never went back to King's Landing for a single, like, meal in six years. I have a hard time with that in particular. Obviously, a lot of strife. And we'll talk about some of the other things that might have been at play with keeping them apart when we get to the reunion. But to not visit a very heavily ailing Vassaris is just hard to. Coilis and Rainies, I can kind of get, you know, they lost two children rapid succession. And that, of course, we'll. And they had a real falling out, too.

And they had a real falling out. So if he's like, fuck, and I'm going off to war, I can't deal with this. I can kind of get it. But six years is a long time. You know, we say that they have one of the strongest relationships in the show, but truly the strongest relationship in the show is the one between the stepstones and this plot. That's the one you really can't shake. The triarchy and resurgence.

Oh, boy. So one of the things that we really liked about this episode structurally, is that this wound that Coralus has taken, this fever that has set in, this looming uncertainty around his fate, he's going to arrive back home in three days, they'll see how he's doing then. And in that intervening time,

a succession crisis of who will become the Lord of the Tides, who will inherit the Driftwood throne, sparks rapidly and spreads like wildfire across the realm. And this is a preview. This is a preview for the crisis. is to come when all of this politicking and all of this infighting unleashes itself across our primary character sets,

everything that we saw here gives us a taste. Zach Cram, our colleague in his wonderful write-up for the ringer.com, what a great website. Compare this to the rehearsal and running through and blocking out exactly what we're now going to see on a larger scale for the House Targaryen succession. murdery amuse-bush, right? I love an amuse-bush.

I also really loved the staging in this particular scene, the way that the camera, because we open and end this episode on black screens, and when we move into our image and the camera is like panning up and over the back of the driftwood throne, and we see this little silver-haired head prop there, and it's like, unmistak. Reynese and her unmistakable Targaryen hair. Yes. Even by the standards of this show, that is an unmistakable head of hair. And this unmistakable Valerian seat of power, this fabled chair from the Merlin King, as we've talked about before.

So it both represents House Targaryen's incursion into House Philarian, which is, of course, a theme of the episode from Vaman's perspective. And then also Reineas's particular positioning as, a character who actually does care deeply about the futures of both houses and is one of the characters who can try if the circumstances of the realm would allow it to advocate for more than one outcome. That old John Theon, you don't have to choose idea and how difficult that can be for so many characters to accept. How did you feel about the way she was sitting on that, Throne, Joe? I mean, I thought she looked incredible. And what I love is that it's the first of, I think three people sitting on a seat that, you know, maybe they should or shouldn't be sitting at, you know, because we see Otto on the Iron Throne and we see Allison and Bissarice's chair at the small council, you know what I mean? So these seats, these literal seats of power are being occupied by these various people. But I love the way it opened. And I think there's a lot of style and flare to this episode. So when it, like, visually. So I also want to shout out.

Gita Patel, who directed it, who directed this great film Meet the Patels, which stars her brother, Ravi Patel, who's a hilarious comedian. In all the behind-the-scenes interviews, she keeps shouting on her DP, Katham Goldsmith, who she calls Katie Goldschmidt. And so this combination of director and DP, I think, brought a lot of underrated flair, a lot of interesting. camera positioning in this episode. And I think starting with this is a real, real strong start. It's interesting, too, in the larger scope of the season, because, like, one of the things that we spent a lot of time talking about in the early weeks was that it actually, like, wasn't necessary. We understood the compulsion to introduce a battle and this, like, specter of a villain and the big bad and crabby, right? But then it wasn't my best friend, you cragous

crab feeder. Red Stry, Ha! The most important character on House of the Dragon. After Damon's beheading of Vamond in this episode, I feel even more cheated

that I already did over not getting to see him wheeled Dark Sister against Scrabby. But like, yeah, this episode and there have been plenty of other moments too that reinforced this, both before and after the Stepstone sequence, that like really reinforced

that so much of the true tension and beauty and awe and gravity in this show comes from just watching people look at each other as they're walking across the room. Like some of the best moments, not only Viseris' walk in this episode, but Allison's entrance in episode 5, et cetera. And this episode, yeah, really captured that beautifully, including, like, we're saying the way that people are sitting, because you have Rani's draping her arms. So with such an easy grace on the arms of the throne, but also, like, we always love to track how people

are sitting on the throne. She's perched forward on the edge because she knows it's not a seat that you're supposed sitting comfortably. We always talk about that with the Iron Throne, but it applies more broadly. Like, you can't get comfortable in a seat of power, and Renice is a character who understands that. You can, you see that rendered visually there quite effectively. You also, of course, have Bela by her side. We learn that Bela has her ward. We see a lot of very easy and organic support the way that Bela responds to Baman saying, my, my grandma looks pretty comfortable here. Like, she's got it, right? Incredible moment.

Yeah. she's standing next to her in the throne room petitions, et cetera. Vaman. Where's he positioned? Looking up at the seat that he covets. I love it. And I think, you know, kicking off with Vaman here, who is such a central, obviously, figure in this episode, this is returning to that theme of second sons, which we keep talking about and keep talking about it.

You rightly pointed out at the beginning of the season when Corlis is like, we are the second sons of the realm. And you're like, point of order. Corley, this is not the second son of their south. But this is the real second son, right? This is, we talk about how Amund sounds like Damon, but Vamond also is like in that Amund, Damon bucket of sounds here. And Vainman's not a huge character in Fire and Blood. The part is greatly expanded here.

And I think also some changes like making Bela, Rainier's ward, making Rainies a question mark in this episode when, you know, in the book, she's not. I think all of that is really interesting, an interesting way they took, like, again, like four sentences from the book and made a really compelling back and forth drama out of it, you know. Oh, boy. The second son's call is a great one, like thinking back to to Damon saying to Viseras of Otto, a second son who stands to inherit nothing he doesn't cease for himself.

And you feel that, that need to seize with Vaman. but one of the really interesting things about his character in this episode is that he points out other characters' ambition, including his own brother's Corlaces, as like a noxious thing. He's thinking about, yeah, the preservation of his house and his line. And one of the incredibly compelling tension points, not only in this opening scene, but then how it bears out across the episode, is that Vaman says to Reign Nice, you're only warming the seat. If Corlis passes, like, it's fine for you to sit there while he's alive. But if he dies, then the seat must pass. And this queen who never was idea then surfaces anew for us, the Lady of the Tides, who never was.

And when Renira later recognizes in that godswood scene, couldn't shake the godswood for long. Honestly, it was great to be back. I missed it. After all that. After all that, when Renira says, you know, oh, I figured it out, you're here to advocate for yourself. These conversations all push back to the fore. Reneas's personal history with the great counsel of 101A.C. Where Vassaris was chosen instead, what has she actually let go of?

And what does she still want? Because that was so central to her falling out with Corliss last episode. And now there's been all this time for her to think about it. And this moment here that forces her to really confront her own feelings about this anew. Her advocating, like, her advocating for Bela to take Driftmark is so interesting. And it, and it, like, it reminds me a lot of Alassane, who is Jaharis's queen. And we've talked a couple times about this idea that Alassane was, like, so pissed that women were put up for, like, the line of succession, that she just, like, left for several years.

So this, like, six-year gap in their relationship, you know what I mean? So I think Vaman's, and we'll come back to us again, I think, but Vaman's advocacy for the bloodline, and very specifically in the context of how this show is cast for House Valerian should be a non-white bloodline, like ignoring Baylorian. who's standing right there means that for all of his, you know, I am virtuous and upright

and I am right. And he is right in some ways. But like, but then why can't the throne go to Beela? You know what I mean? Like, where, you know, if you need someone who looks like you,

which I understand, why can't it go to one of these girls? So, yeah. And one of the things that he hurls at Vassaris later in the throne room, confrontation is that this idea that Vassaris has broken tradition by naming his daughter as heir. So the patriarchy remains very present.

And it was so fascinating to see because tracking across the episode how Rainies is leaning and what decision she ultimately makes, everything that she is saying to Vamond here, well, this is what Corliss wants. words are treasonous. She's in this position where she has to challenge not only the thing that she believes to be true, the thing that she fears, but the thing that she has stated overtly to courtless in episode seven and previously. And now she has to challenge it in order to avoid, like there's this real distinction between what is said in private when no one can hear you. And then what would be allowed exactly to be entertained in any kind of other sphere, sphere because then you're just allowing the fomenting of dissent. And when Vaman says to Renice, while I should like your support, I do not need it. That's a real slight too because it's like

hard to imagine that she's not then thinking, well, what is my future here in my own family and in House Philharian after Corlis does die if that's how this should go? And also it's like, guess again, buddy, Hence up. She's the wild card here, right? Yeah. And like what's, we've knocked Reneer a bunch of times throughout this season for her. Inability to form alliances, right?

If she were on Survivor Mallory, she would not go far, correct, having watched only one season of Survivor. But she sees what Vaman can't, right? Vaman, like, if Vaman had just sort of like tried to make common cause with Rainey's, and like, let's go in strong together. But it's Reneira who approaches her,

and it's Reneer who says, let's make a deal. And Reneer in that brief time that we saw her on the small council a couple episodes ago, we did see that she had a brain for politicking, and this is a politicking episode. Again, I mean, it's worn out to refer to succession every week, but I think of like Kendall or one of the other

Roy's like running around and being like who's voting together in a block do we have all the votes? Do we have the votes we need? You know what I mean? And Reneura realizing, zeroing it on Rainies as the person she needs to really and Vassaris ideally

like really get on her side I think is speaks very well to what she's learned politicking wise. It's a great point and like the Succession comp is obviously a great one in many respects, but I love the calling out, like, rallying the troops because so often those votes don't hold. And like, it's because there's this hurried, rushed scramble, which is also what's happening across this episode, not

the true allegiance and alliance that you can rely on. Like, those are a rare thing inside of both of these stories and trying to track what relationships are actually able to, like, stand up to the stress of the moment is something that's very keenly felt in this episode. As is the Stannis energy coming off of Vainment, he has this real mind-by-rights vibe that makes us think so strongly of Stannis who, no matter what happened and no matter what went wrong. And of course, there was the Melisandra, like, prophetic element of being this chosen one, but had such a strict adherence to the letter of the letter of the.

the law and simply could not abide the idea that something untured would be allowed to unfold around him once he had been made aware of this truth. And that's just very, very, very, very present here with Vamond. Were you thinking about Stannis as well? Yeah, especially like the way that Will Johnson, who played Vaman is, it was so thoughtful. I loved all of his like behind the scenes interview clips that he's done. And he calls Veman honest to a fault. And that, That's a very stanness description. Absolutely. Definitely.

The final words of this scene really struck me. It's Vaman saying to Rannis, but it's not the king who sits the iron throne these days, good sister. It's the queen. And there's just such a great irony in everyone, not just Vaman, everyone in this story, in this episode and beyond, acknowledging that Alicent is really the one in power. really the one wielding that power, while simultaneously continuing to insist that the realm is not ready for a woman to rule. How do you reconcile?

It's such a good point. It's such a good point. That distinction there. Is it that they can accept the day-to-day reality, but not the label and what that label represents for the patriarchy slipping through their fingers and the shield of the patriarchy and the control that it continues to afford?

I think you have to think about someone like Circe, where it's like Queen Regent is one thing, right? Like being, we can, if there's a literal male child running around somewhere in a castle, we can handle a woman or a pile of bones that is Vesaris. Like, we can handle while making the decisions. But once she has declared herself efficient, like once she tries to put a crown on her head, that's the problem. And that's, you know, that exposes the hypocrisy of the whole attitude. Love that point. Mali, what a pleasure it is to talk to you about film and television. Oh, I feel the same way.

You're my queen. My queen regent and my actual queen. When you talk about strong alliances, though, that are not, like, are not going to go anywhere. I'm thinking about what's going on at Dragonstone. Let's head there. Let's pan across the top of the castle. What an incredibly cool aerial shot, not only because we get this really neat look at the battlements of the castle that almost look like the jaws of a dragon,

these wading menacing teeth. That was so cool. But then we pan right into the steam and heft of the dragon mont. Thrilling. Just a delight to see and to go into. We do. We love a volcano. We love any glimpse into dragon cannon and to go down into this.

And you love a crevice. That's the other thing that I know to be true. You know I hate a crevice. Please do not slander me. I hate a crevice. This really stressed me out. And you know what I hate almost as much as I hate a crevice? Goop. Oh boy. Supernatural go. So this is a one to... So seeing Dave and go full 127 hours descending into a crevice toward a bunch of goo was not to your liking? James Franco could never, please. We should just say quickly, the Dragon Mont is the volcano on Dragonstone. the layer for dragons. You see all this steam.

This is a warm, hospitable place for dragons. We've talked before about the 14 flames, the volcanoes of old Valeria, the ties between dragons and the flaming volcanic layers, dragon glass deposits, of course, beneath the tunnels. It's a big deal if your seat has a volcano where dragons comfortably nest and lay eggs.

That's important. So it was cool to see that here. And it was also really cool to see Damon in full Super Targ mode doing this himself, like going to harvest the eggs. What did you make of that? Okay, a couple things. Number one, that Dragon Mount that volcano should stand and start contrast to the dragon pit, which as we learned about like, you know, not that much in this show, but as we learned about

in Thrones, we saw it in a crumbling ruin, like trying to put dragons in a peasant, hit like that is maybe not the best idea. Right. But this is the natural, the more natural, like, way in which to foster dragons and incubate eggs and stuff like that. I am obsessed with the fact that it on the behind the scenes making of, they discussed this as like Damon's hobby that like the care and, and curation of dragon eggs, he's like become a barbecue dad essentially, right?

Like he, he, like, he's got a smoker ready. He knows he's got all his rubs. Like, he's, this is his hobby. His, like, I have retired hobby, except not quite retired. Because what Ryan Condal said was that Damon is collecting these eggs as part of an arsenal for an upcoming conflict. That he's got his eye on a conflict, right? Coming. So it's not like a careful, a quiet retirement.

That being said, I just want to address. something really quickly. You got a ton of emails about this, and I've seen it all over the place because he pulls three eggs out of the goop of very familiar shades to us. A lot of people are like, are these DeNaris's dragons, dragon eggs. All things are possible in an infinite universe, but we should just say that in the books, the eggs that are believed to be DeNaris's are already out in the world earlier in history. So I do not believe these are those eggs. In fact, I think we're going to see probably something else from them.

But I get it. You're like, you see the iconography. You're like, I know what three eggs mean. Anyway, but I like when they talked about the hobby for Damon, I thought it was really interested in contrast to Vassaris's hobby, his model-making hobby, which we have talked about over and over again. And I love the way that Miguel Sopache. I don't agree with everything Michael Spashnik says in the behind the scenes of the reviews,

but I really like this comedy made on Vassaris' model making. He says that in building this model of old Alirah, he's, Vasarius is, quote, looking in some way to understand something he can never quite grasp. So to contrast that, like, stone image, stone dragons idea of Dragons Pass versus Damon's very active, I am birthing new dragons actively hobby. think is another great underline of what we've been talking about throughout, which is, as you said, Super Targ, Damon, active, heart of the beating heart of the dragon, Damon versus I'm afraid of my own nature of Asaris. And I think that's fascinating. What does your hobby, what does your hobby say

about you, Malloryman? Oh, boy, I don't know. That's probably for others to decide, I guess. No, I think that's a great point because it makes me think of Vassaris's line to Reneira in the premiere about how dragons are a power men should never have trifled with and is there a starker contrast than actually descending into

the abyss to try to unearth them and then use them for yourself. That seems like, I love to trifle. Loves to trifle. Love a trifle. I was actually just thinking about this,

Mallory Rubin, since you are a Lego builder by Nishir, this is your hobby. I do love Legos. I do not abselled down into crevices to pick up goopy eggs, but I am a barbecue dad. You know, is that, is this our dynamic? Is this our like brother, brother dynamic?

It might be. It might be. It might be. Next time we hang out, I will happily sit outside in the yard with you and assemble a Lego set while you... While I barbecue for you? While you fire up the grill and they make dinner.

What a great evening. Wow. Can't wait. Pencil me in for your next availability. One of the things that I love so much about this sequence was the moment when Damon emerges and we see the two dragon keepers waiting and I at least was bracing on the heels of episode two and the stolen dragon egg, the theft of the egg. you're almost bracing for conflict, but he hands them over so happily.

And you see this camaraderie. He's delighted to report that it's a fresh clutch of eggs for Syrac's, three new ones. Here you go. Let's get him into the fire. They've got a little team going here. And it's such a sign of his maturation and the settled state that he's in and how much really has changed for him, which you then continue to really feel between him and Renera and, and of course, him and Vassaris across the episode.

And the dragonkeepers are there to give him the scroll from Bela, which was lovely, too, because we see how loyal she is to Reneas, of course. But also this reinforces that she's very present to Damon's life and vice versa, too. It's not like there has been a rift between Bela and Damon. I will say, I wish I would love to know even more about the dynamic of this blended family. I would love, like, there's this one interesting moment later, I don't know, you might have had it this in the notes, but when Raina leaves the gauze was, and says princess instead of like, mom or even Rainera or something like that.

I wanted to ask you about that and how you read that because it felt like maybe there was not as much warmth there between them. And then also I would like to know Damon, like how Damon is with the boys. Like I don't feel like I fully know and I would love to know that. So maybe we'll get more time with that. But like, Bela. Also who suggested the word ship and when, whose idea was it, how tactical and strategic was it. I really hope that Roneer was like, we didn't kill your son.

But like, sorry your son is dead. Will you take clearly your favorite granddaughter instead? Right. You're the taller twin. I think that, I don't know, I just think it's, it's, if Bala doesn't send this scroll, then do Damon and Rinear even make it Kings Landing in time to block this? Right. Yeah.

Absolutely. It was a well-timed. Thank you, Bela. We go inside Dragonstone as well here. This was really fun. Renira visibly pregnant. So we meet the two other kiddos that Reneer and Damon have had. We'll talk about that later.

Pregnant here as well. And Reneer enters the chamber where Jase and Jaffrey are. And Joe, what do we see? The painted table, baby. But it looks super different than I did in Game of Thrones. And this is something if you go back to our interview with Claire, Nyah Richards, who is one of the set decorators, she was talking about how they really wanted to

really splash out with the painted table. So we see it here in the daytime. It's not really activated, but it's dragonglass, and it's carved into dragonglass, and that's really cool because in the original Game of Thrones, this was literally a painted table, which makes sense. That's its name, but like this is a carved hunk of dragon glass

that when it's lit up underneath by, which presumably we'll see in a future episode, like things are like moving and shining and glowing and all the stuff like that. And I can't wait to see it fully activated. But it was fun to get a glimpse of it here. Really exciting. It was really cool. Love a table. Love a table. Just like, just like Duran and Disa. You know, we love a table. And it was, it was very interesting to see that that was the site of Jace's lessons because the idea of living up to your forebearers, this very top of mind for young Jace, and he is conducting his studies atop Agon's Carved Table.

And what do we see here, really? It's kids in class. And, you know, you made the great point on Talk to Thrones about how you just feel the youth. You feel the youth with Jace and Luke across this episode. This also, in addition to that, it really made me think of Alicent and Renera and to call back to their youth and this moment of real friendship and deeply felt feeling between them sitting in the godswood, studying together, working their way through the text. And Reneira now is on obviously the other side of that watching her child relate to the weight

of history. And it's interesting that Jace is struggling with High Valerian here because Reneer was definitely fluid at a much younger age. So like who hasn't been teaching him? Or is this like, you know, one of those things that the grains would whisper about is like, interesting that he can't learn Valerian, like when a strong indicator of his family line or something like that. But I think I just have to say from like a storytelling recasting time jump point of view, this might be my favorite try to orient the audience is Jace saying to himself,

come on, Chase, come on, Chase, you can do this to like signal to the audience like, hey, this is Jace, it's a new actor. And then similarly when he calls over to Jopry, you're like a Jop. love that. It was amazing. It's like when characters call each other brother. Like it works in this context, but in like a modern show. Someone will be like, well, listen, brother.

And you're like, I, okay. Two people talk that way. Yeah. It's a great point. It did work for me here because you feel like the pressure that Jason is putting on himself to be a real Targaryen and live up to the weight. And he says, I know he's very sweet. He says, a king should honor the traditions of his forebearers.

And what is the translation, the high of life? in translation that he's working on. It's about Aegon in the conquest. Of course. The Conqueror and his sister sailed with a great army and landed at the Blackwater Rush, sailed from Dragonstone, Renera's current seat to take over and rule in the site that would eventually become Kingslanding, fueled by, as we know and Renair knows, a prophecy that Vassaris will accidentally start babbling about at the end of this episode.

But I was also interested because they could choose anything. Jace could be translating anything. So there's the nice parable. I love talking about the conquest, of course. I was really interested in the next part. Agon ordered that the tree should be killed, and then Reneira says, felled, it is a related word. What is the significance of that tree?

I was, I'm stumped trying to figure this out. Like, could it be, if it had been many, many, because I was thinking at first was the construction of the Agon for it, but the tree, is it like a specific thing? Is it about wherewoods? Is it indicating something about Agon thinking about the north?

I'm intrigued by this. So fun and interesting. I'm going to think about that. I assumed it. I assumed it as something to do with the where woods. But I like this idea. Intriguing. Damon then comes to tell Reneer about Bela's letter.

Joanna Robinson, the way that Reneera looks at Damon. Oh my God. The way that he rubs her belly later, like six years have passed. but these two are team incest clocking in, team pro incest clocking in for duty here. Continue to ship it. Tell me. I love that he just like, I mean, classic Damon to not say anything, but he like warlessly hands her to this girl. And then like what follows is a conversation where he was like, and he actually has the more optimistic outlook.

He's like, you know, I feel like Rani's would be on our side. Like has the Vipers poison spread, all this stuff. But ultimately, I feel like he's letting her drive the decision-making process here, where she's taking the message and then, you know, she's like to King's Landing, to King's Landing, okay. And like it, like, wife guy Damon, you know, so like, we're going to talk about getting this again some more, but this idea that Damon has always just wanted to be someone's right-hand man. And if that happens to be his wife slash niece, great, you know, and I feel like he's just her support, her ballast and all of this. And you love to see it. I mean, I don't want to overpraise Damny splits a guy's head open in this episode, but, you know, it's true. There's that, there's that George idea. Nobody adds, the characters you root for are going to do terrible things. And the characters who you despise are occasionally going to make the right decision and that'll be painful to. One of the things

that I love about this stretch between Damon and Rainira is that the threat is so instantly clear to both of them. Of course, the idea that Luke's legitimacy is being challenged, as Reneer says, and we talked about this, we talked about this last week, in terms of the, in the context of the Coralus Raineese conversation,

it would be a challenge to Jace, it would be a challenge to Reneer. The ripple effect there is very, very clear, but also that Vaman and the High Towers would be such a formidable alliance and such a threat and that they cannot allow that to happen. But this was also a stretch where, you know, you called out at the top of the episode, The Humor.

Steve, can you play this clip for us? Disagreements. She believes we had her son killed so that we might marry. Yes. And yet she's taken Baylor to war. Negroney. Funny. Spalliotto. Persecco. We anticipated that the Lainor plot would have consequences. We talked about this last week. And it did. And I was glad that this was acknowledged and very present in the episode.

It had to be. But for Damon to label this a disagreement and Reneer to say, disagreements, she believes in her son killed, was just absolutely delightful. Such a riot. I got such a kick out of this.

On to King's Landing. We go, Joe, to the Vipers Den. Anything else you want to say about this before we? I just love that she's going with, like, you know, we've mentioned a couple times. Allison has talked, you know, in her younger guys as feeling isolated and lonely and also in the older form. But just remembering Renira going to the hunt and being like no one's here for me,

you know, all of that, her side conversations with Damon again and again that she had here, there and everywhere. So to have him, like the true ally of her heart and all of that by her side to go visit her terrible family is a comfort. Yeah. It's a wonderful point. And inside that carriage in particular, because that much more so than when she steps out of the carriage at the hunt

and is surrounded by all these people cheering for Agon, the loneliness and isolation she feels inside the carriage with the people who in theory she should be closest to and feeling that support from was so heartbreaking to watch. And so to know that she's there with this family with Damon and the children too, to feel the strength of that unit is really wonderful. But it's so hard to go home again, like especially if she's had six years. again, it's hard for me to believe that she hasn't visited her father once.

But if she's had six years where she just gets to be a mother and a wife and, like, rule her own roost and not deal with the bullshit, you know, similar to what Damon was saying about being impetus. And he's like, great. I don't know what to do with the politicking. To have to go back to that, you know. Absolutely. And the, the heart-wrenching scene that we'll get to later in the, and the, you know, dead of night where Rainira is in tears imploring Vassaris to support her talking about the weight of this of this burden to be away from that to have a reprieve from that for any stretch of time

would be a blessing. Yeah. And to be called back into it by your enemies would be a terrible thing. They arrived Joviah ship and then carriage, not dragonback. Any thoughts on that? I have a book reader thought for later. But for right now, I think it is just less threatening to do that, I suppose. Showing up on Dragon, as Damon, of course, did when he returned from the stepstones. It's a menacing opening note. And this is a... But they would have one, two, three, four, five, five, right?

At least. Yeah. I mean, we, I guess we don't know if Joffrey is actively writing yet. That's the question about little joff. Yeah. But it's established that Luke is. Like his dragon's probably kind of small. Pretty tiny.

So, yeah. But, but, you know, Luke and Jason, Baila and Rineera, like Kyrraxes and Cyrax. Gliding in?

Come on. What a dream team. Anyway. No one is there to greet them. It's appalling. I cannot believe that Otto got away with it. Honestly. She's the heir to the fucking throne.

Yeah. And this is, This is an thing that's really fun to watch in this episode because, like, wherever you go, everyone is treating Amen and Agon like they are royal princelings and not treating Jason Luke that way at all. Who do the guards try to restrain during the fight later? I got so wound up and mad about that, I think. Chase is Jason Luke off. Yeah. Jesus is the air.

Anyway, it's wild that that happens, you know? And like Chris and Cole constantly saying, like, my prince, my prince, my prince, to these blonde fuckers, you know. But I just cannot believe. You know, we see Harold Westerling's, like, discomfort with it. Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, he's uncomfortable. As you instructed Lord Hand when Otto says, I trust they've been welcomed as befits their station. I mean, astonishing, astounding. What an unreal, fuck you.

Even Allison looked pretty uncomfortable. Appalled by that. And it would be hard not to. And you compare it to, you know, you mentioned the hunt already, the throngs waiting to greet a two-year-old child and compare it to this. A-Gone the Conqueror, babe. Hell hell. Hey, got on the conqueror, babe.

Incredible moment still. Obert, it's been too long. This is just astonishing stuff. And I love the moment when our guy, Lord Alan spelled Joanna, it sincerely pains me to inform our listeners. I badly wait. We should just call Chris after the pod to share this with him. No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, okay. I was going to say, I was going to do a thought experiment and say, think in your head how they might have spelled Alan.

No, no, it's not as, it's worse than that. A-L-L-U-N. This is wild. Swap out a vow that there's no reason to swap out. Double the consonant. Yatsi. Lord Alan Caswell rushes out to greet Reneira. Now we will remember him from their little moment on the stairs in episode six

when Reneira having just given birth is making her way toward Allison's chambers. And he says, if I may be of any service and she says the day may yet come, my lord. This is the same character. The way that he rushed out seemingly of his own volition, horrified by this display of blatant, astounding disrespect, decided that he had to go and greet the princess. Someone did. Thank you, Alan, with two L's and a you.

Oh, boy. And then, Joe, inside the red keep, we see the seven-pointed start everywhere. We are going to talk about this, and Allison's embrace of the faith later when Damon broaches it directly. But we will note here that Reneer calls it out and says I would say it's nice to be home, but I scarcely recognize it.

And Emma Darcy in the making of Goddy. Gordy, if you ask me. Oh, I love it. All right, Joanna, time for some Joe Robyso ball here because we got a bees scene. The Small Council snooze fast with your guy, Beesbury. This was hysterical. Please bring us in to Beesbury's, quote, exhaustive accounting. as Allison people sit.

Just fantastic work from Bill Patterson. Just like, would give us the driest, most boring droning on shit. We've gotten some great drones from bees, good old bees in the small council. And he's the only one. So besides Otto, he's the only OG member of the small council for when we started, right? And he's the only one who was, who served under King Jaharis. So still going. Good old bees.

And Allison's like, this is like, it reminds me of this line from much to do about nothing. When the character goes, all your tediousness on me. Thank you for your exhaustive accounting, Lord Beesbury. That's a great dig from Allison. I love that. Guess what? It's a hilarious episode. So funny.

Allison's facial expression here, auto legitimately falling asleep. Allison sitting in Vassarious's fucking chair. and she has her own small ball. Love a small ball. Love it. This was a really interesting scene not only for the comedy and Allison being seated

in that position of power and control and everybody, as we know, already being like, cool, this is how small council sessions work now. But the group's debate about the drift mark succession. It sets the tone for the debate across the episode,

but more broadly, it signals how the characters on the small council feel, feel about Team Green, feel about the weight of a stated preference. Joanna, might it be relevant how some council members feel about what the stated preferences and then what happens after that comes into question?

Here's the insight. My bush is so amused. Amused to bits and pizzas by this preview. Grammaster or a while, we'll just quickly run through this. He says, Corliss wanted Luke. Okay. Thailand.

I know you want to come back to Thailand in a second. He says, Luke can fly a dragon, sure, but can he command to flee? Okay. Beesbury says, ability does not alter his claim. Beesbury's like, are you trying to invent democracy? That won't be invented until later. Tiri is not hearing it.

I know. It is so tough. Who has a better story than Luke Vlarian? Oh, boy. Luke. Yeah, Bees is like, oh, if we were going by ability, none of these fuckers would be king, by the way. Exactly.

Exactly. And then Iron Rod. says the crown must choose what is best for the realm earning a little smirk of appreciation from Otto High Tower. Alicent looks kind of ill in the face of all this, which is notable. Let's go back to Thailand, stupid Thailand, Lanister for a second. Master ships, by the way.

So it makes sense that he would be focused on the fleet. He says, Luke can fly dragon, but he can't command a fleet. Do we think that Luke would be in charge of the fleet? No. Certainly not. Certainly not. That's ridiculous, Thailand. Well, the character's saying blatantly patently false and irrelevant things

because it allows them to operate under the guise of what is good for the realm will also be a through line of this episode. Allison says, I got to go. Gotta greet the guess. And has an interesting little moment in the hallway with a character who she thinks is Sir Eric. He says, I'm Eric. Your Grace. Should she say Eric? Should we say Arik? Like how? Yeah. How does she pronounce it? Aric, I think. Eric. Eric. Eric. Eric. I'm going to go with Aric and Eric. Because that's the only way I can make them sound different.

They really have to distinguish them. Do our best. Yes. We are the cargo. Cargol twins. So it's Eric with an A. A R-R-R-Y-K. Ridiculous. And Eric, E-R-R-R-Y. Joe, can you give people a quick rundown on who these characters are? You know how, like, terrible parents who have twin. No, never mind. No, no, no, no. I get in trouble judging parents. But I just think that, like, unless your twin is really into it,

dressing your twins alike is, I don't know. I don't think it's great necessarily. Naming them Eric and Arc worse. And then Eric and Arc are both member of the Kings Guard, so they dress alike every single day of their lives. Great stuff. And they've decided to style their hair and their beard in the same way. So that's great.

We see them in the background of they're fighting each other when Luke and Jace are walking around the courtyard later. And so we know that they are identical. These characters, we're just going to do the show a favor here. Similar to what Mallory and I try to do with, like, Laris and Harwin Strong. And just say, like, Eric and Arc Cargill are twins on the. the Kingsguard.

That's something in our, I'll all just speak for myself. In my informed opinion, I think maybe the show should have tried to make that clear to audiences earlier than this confusing tossed off line in this episode. But that's, we're just trying to do the show a favor and say. These are twins. They serve on the Kingsard. There's only seven members of the Kingsguard. And we know about Harold, Kristen, Eric and Arick.

And actually, Stefan Darkling, who introduced Renera. So that's five. There's only two question marks remaining. Fun fact, in Fire and Blood, Eric with an A. Eric. Oh, God. This is going to be a boy. Sir A, I don't know.

I don't know what to do here. Eric with an A is the one. Aric with an A is the one who found, who found Damon and Reneira in bed in one of the in Septu Eustis's telling in fire and blood. Yeah. Poor shit from Septuid Eustace. shocking stuff. Eric with an E is there to tell

Allison that there has been a delicate situation in Prince Agon's apartment. Everything that Gita Patel said about directing this episode, I found really fascinating. I think she's a brilliant choice. I think she did a brilliant job with this episode. And one of the things that she said that I thought was so interesting,

especially since I would have thought this was a screenplay decision, but I guess it was a directing decision, was this idea of having Allison learn about egg on being piece of shit. Sort of like while she's bustling between meetings. So to give her this real working mom sort of what the fuck now, you know, getting a call from the school.

Like your child has hit someone or something like that. Except way worse. And I like that. Just sort of like in, let's interrupt Alison in the middle of her day to deliver this news. I think that was sort of a brilliant choice. Yeah, everybody should check out some of these wonderful interviews that Gita has done. Like you said, it's just incredibly insightful and thoughtful, not only about how this episode was constructed, constructed and structured, but about the character arcs and how crucial everything that unfolds here really is.

Speaking of crucial, next scene is a, oh, it's a moving one. Reneira and Damon visit Viseris at last. It is like walking into a graveyard. Joe, there are a lot of really sad things that happen in this episode. I mean, it's sincerely when I say that one of the saddest me was seeing Viceris's Stone City, Old Valeria, covered in cobwebs,

the disrepair, the way that that indicated to us that it had been so long since he had the strength to sit there and tend to the central preoccupation of his life and that nobody else, crucially, was either interested in or capable of maintaining it, this thing that he viewed as very central to his pursuits and his legacy in his absence, really again, like a encapsulation

and miniature of what is to come. I just thought this was so sad. Talia, you can't run a feather duster over the model village. She's busy in meetings with Masaria. I hope the day never comes when I come to visit you. And there are just nothing but cobwebs on your Millennian Falcon and your Boba Fet helmet and all your beautiful creations. I will just... What a sad day that would be. I will weep.

I will weep. If that does happen, you'll probably find me in bed. I like to believe that Adam would just keep the home fires burning and keep your Legos polished to a high gloss. I think he would. I think that would be his way of honoring me after I was gone. Or as I sat in bed in a shiny golden nightgown, our first glimpse of Miseris is absolutely shocking. His teeth and his nails have rotted.

His flesh is graying and modeled and in many parts of his body just missing entirely. And where it is, it is like stretching over his wispy skeletal form. Half of his face is covered in gauze here. And yet, Joe, he still is wearing Emma's ring. How did this first glimpse of Vissaris hit you? I was really struck by the gold nightgown. And at first, my interpretation of it was kind of off because we've seen Viseras in his nightgown a couple times. But usually it's like a simple sort of like cotton, white, you know, dressing gown sort of thing.

The ruffles, the gold, the brocade, the flounces, like this. felt, this read very unversarist to me and so I was thinking, okay Allison's making the decisions I guess and she's decided like that this is what he a king should wear. Then he would have been in green. Yeah, that's true. Great point.

I thought it was an indication of his lack of control but in the inside the episode or in the making of the house of the dragon built they were talking about the mask, the cane that we see him using with the dragonhead on it. And they called them symbols

of Targaryen opulence that he had pulled towards himself to quote unquote not lose power. But he holds the dragon cane backwards because he's afraid of dragon power. But like these accoutrement, right, the mask, the cane. And I feel like the golden ruffles fall into that where he is like, you know, dressing himself in opulence to not seem like so cryptkeepery. Right. And yeah, it really stands out. Yeah. And also just to distract the eye from his melting hollowed form.

He is in a milk of the poppy haze as we learn. But he is also, even through that fog here, so happy to learn that it is Renira and Damon who are here to see him. The way that Patty wheezes out. Damon. Oh, Damon. heart-enching. The whee's work alone in this episode.

Oh, yeah. Like, all the shallow breathing that Patty does is just incredible. Absolutely, top tier. And Damon and Renera, like us viewing at home, clearly shaken by the state that they find him in. And you can feel the regret, and I think very much so on Damon's face throughout the episode as he looks at his brother. You feel the sorrow weighing on him that they have lost all of this time, that they lost so many years together. The way he looks at him and then often the way that he like can't even look at him. Yeah.

I think Matt Smith, Patty Constanine is incredible, but I think Matt Smith is also extraordinary in this episode. So good. So good. The eye roll during Allison's prayer when she mentions Vaman might have been my, might have been in the top three favorite moments of the episode for me. That was absolutely incredible. One of the things that we wanted to mention, you know, we've both noted already today that

It's hard for us to accept that Reneira wouldn't have visited Vesaris, especially in the state, for this much time. But one of the things that we did want to note, and we don't know if this is also the case in the show. But in fire and blood, in addition to everything that we witnessed at Triftmark and the real falling out between the members of the family, Vesaris is really pissed when he hears about the wedding. So Vassaris is not pleased. Do you think that that's also the case in the show and is maybe contributing to why it's been so long or not necessarily.

The world may never know. It would be nice to know. Yeah. Indeed. Obviously, we know he did not want them to marry in the first place. I mean, but that was before Damon murdered his wife. But that was before David cleared the board. Oh, boy.

And lost not one but two wives on his way to Roneira. You know, when we talk about the heartache mixed in with the humor, got to call out in the. this scene, the Stepstones Exchange, and Viseras, who can barely utter a word, finding it within him to say what every single person watching

at home is thinking, wait, we won that more years ago. I saw you drag half a crab corpse into the surf, man. I remember the entire internet, I wondered if you were going to have grayscale.

That war happened. The mission accomplished. banner unfurled, what happened? What happened? Damn it. I know you were struck by how abashed he seemed here. Looking down, choking out the words. He's embarrassed that he has to explain to his brother that this war is gone over.

It's like, it's really funny. And I actually rewatching the episode this morning, I rewound on that lie reading about five different times because I really feel like it's a great example of Matt Smith finding a lot of meaning. This is just an informational line. Right? Wait, we won that year, years ago. The triarchy is resurging.

And there's like definitely actors who could have said this. Who could have said the trieroy it's resurging in a way where you're like, what the, what is this? What is this line? Like, what is this line? The trierky. But Masworth infuses it with so much shame and frustration and like younger sibling energy. and all of like, just the way he chokes it out.

I just, it's funny and really sad at the same time. He is tremendous. The cast is so good. I mean, this was an unreal Emma episode, an unreal Olivia episode, just sublime performances across the board. We, our comprehension is dawning in tandem

with Damans and Reneiras in this sequence. And when Viseras asks for his tea, and there's this moment when Damon is sniffing it, We realize because Viseras voices, like, he asks if something's happened to Corlis, and they've already told him this. So we see, oh, boy, like, he's, he is not in full command here of his faculties. And we realize that there's milk, milk of the poppy in this goblet. He's basically on a morphine drip.

Damon's like, move aside, Detective Ned Stark. Detective Damon Targaryen's on the case. It's in place of a ponderous tome. There is a tiny goblet that has entered the gumshoe evidence set here. We'll talk more about the milk of the poppy accusations that they levy later in a subsequent scene. But it's important that they realize that this is what is happening here. And then we get this just lovely, lovely sequence where Reneira and Damon introduced Viseras to their two children. Again, heart wrenching to realize that he has not met his grandchildren.

He has not met his grandchildren who are also his nephews. Thrones! Thrones! Before the introduction, there's this just lovely little moment where Renira is has stepped away for some of the kids.

And Vassaris just says Damon and Damon says, brother, and I turned into a puddle. A puddle of goo that you can find inside of a dragon egg sack. That's what I was like

after hearing that, and you were as well. Vseris meets Ake on the Younger. He is genuinely confused. Agon. Another Agon. He won't be the last one in this episode who is confused in the face of multiple Agonne,

Joanna Robinson. Can you share you? You shared this on Talk to Thrones, but let's mention this again here because it's really relevant. The Fire and Blood Nugget about the naming annoyance over Agon.

Alicent is pissed. You can't do this. Reneer. If you have ever ever have any kind of intention of like amending fences with Allison, which she makes another attempt to do so in this episode, then don't name your kid Agon. I feel like this was Damon's idea. Oh. I feel like Damon's like, you know, we're really pissed Allison off if we also name our kid Agon. I love it. Queen Allison's grew most wroth when she learned the babe had been named

Agon, taking that for a slight against her own son, Agon. Which, which, which according to the testimony of mushroom, it most certainly was. That's the quote of our blood. Remarkable stuff. Yeah, I love the idea of that actually being intended to incites some sort of rage. What a family. And then, and we should note also that the book, the text notes, there's an asterisk on that passage and a footnote saying, from here on they will be referred to as Agon the Elder

and Agon the Younger. We will do the same, probably, is. You don't want to go with like Big A. Lle? Your old Dern approach? We're still working through the Cargile twins. Arrig. Eric. Yeah, I'm just going to ride with the elder and the younger here. In every single text I've sent you about the Cargill twins, of which I've sent you so many.

Yeah, numerous. I just call them the Cargill boys or the Cargill twins because I don't want to type out Eric and Arick. I just don't. As Tyman Lanister once said, I respect that. Okay, but so the other baby is named Viseris. It is so sweet. This is one of my favorite moments of the season. Vesaris says, oh, now that is a name fit for a king.

It's such a beautiful moment. And he's reaching out to him, like, petting him almost. He pets him, but what's so beautiful is, like, demon is also petting the baby from the other side. I know. I know. Like, nuzzling his little arm. It's so fucking cute. But also at the same time, the babies are crying and, like, Viseras, like, can't talk. But it's so painful because he's so overjoyed, but A, barely understand what's going on at all,

and B, just the sound of the babies, which should be a joyful thing, is like intolerable to him because of his frailty. Oh, boy, absolutely heart-wrenching. It made me think the, now that is a name fit for a king language made me think of the fabled Rhaegar line in Danny's house, the undying vision. What better name for a king? That is, of course, about Agon. but it felt like intentional language parallelism there.

Too bad obsessed with a song. Exactly. Hit us with some cause here. And now for something completely different. I put these in just for you a couple emails we got from listeners. This email comes from Claire. Side note for Mal. How much fucking are Damon and Rainer doing now that they are married?

They poked out 2.5 kids in six years, phrasing. In my head, cannon, it's nonstop. like the Grandmastership on Saccar, don't touch any surface on Dragonstone. This is Joanna now speaking. Certainly not the painted table. Painted with what is my question. Boy.

Mal, how do you want to answer this question from Claire? I feel like we can safely say that if Stannis and Melisandra were fucking on the painted table, absolutely two people with a vibrant and thriving sex life like Ranira and Damon have made use of every. And a king for all things, Targary. You want to fuck on Agon's ancient

Obsidian table? Boy, do I. I hope they did it regularly. We should say, though, the math is mathing out. One of the reasons in the books, like someone probably used us that prig, like someone implies that the reason Rainier and Damon got married so quickly and Insie Secret is that is essentially like a shotgun wedding because Reneer was pregnant. But it's been six years.

Yeah. Yeah. Classic Eustace, honestly. And it's been six years. And neither of those children are old enough for that to have been the case. So, you know. We also got a lot of emails from people last week actually asking how quickly Runeer had sex on the beach with Damon after giving birth to Jop. Because you should wait longer, I think, is the question a lot of people have.

that follow a question from Chase. Given how successful Damon has been at popping out airs, do we have any theories as to why the show made him impotent in the first place? You know, I actually want to thank you, Chase, for submitting this at hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. I actually want to ask you this, Joe, because to me it reads as further reinforcement that Damon has, before Renera with Lena, too,

settled into a more comfortable sense of self. Yeah, I mean, I definitely think in, you know, given interviews that they gave around the first few episodes when this was such an issue for Damon, first with Masaria, and then with Renera, that it was meant to be a physical manifestation of his internal psychological angst and conflict. And so, yeah, just physically separating himself from Kingslanding and the agony of being a second son, of being a younger brother. you know, he loves his brother, but like the shadow is just too tough for him to live under. And so, yeah, now everything's free and easy. And he's got, he's got himself four kids and one on the way. And three adopted boys, great stuff. Or step sense.

Love it. Huge family. Huge family for Manier and Damon. Routen for, rooting for everyone. For every single one of them. Ritin for that girl. And I'm sure it's all going to be fine. Everything will be.

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Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Borshead committed to craft since 1905. Okay, Joe. The next couple scenes are deeply upsetting ones. And the next one is Alicant after Sir Eric's summons going to speak to

a new character who we meet, Diane. who is inconsolable is on the ground in tears and in fear recounting what has transpired, recounting Agon's rape. I asked him to stop your grace, I did truly, you have to believe me. Allison calls her sweetling at the beginning of this conversation. We mentioned this on Talk to Thrones. It sort of evokes Circe in the way that Circey, would interact with Sansa calling her sweetling, little dumb, little bird, that kind of

language inside of these like very upsetting and deeply fraught conversations and circumstances. I thought I thought Maddie Evans who plays Diana here. I thought she was incredible in this sequence. I thought she was so good. And I think, you know, you and I weren't covering those of this time, but surely separately. We've had so many conversations over the years about sexual assault and how it's depicted on Thrones. And there was this like preseason conversation that struck, that sort of cropped up because of this Miguel Sapashnik quote that was in one of the THR articles, right? Where Sapashnik says about sexual assault. He says, we don't shy away from it.

If anything, we're going to shine a light on that aspect. You can't ignore the violence that was perpetrated on women by men in that time. It shouldn't be downplayed and it should be glorified. And this kind of got, I think, a little bit out of hand in terms of the way it started circulating on social media, and stuff like that without the full context of the quote. So much so that one of the producers, Sarah Hess, then gave a follow-up clarifying interview to Vanity Fair,

where she said, I'd like to clarify that we do not depict sexual violence in the show. Because, like, a bunch of people are like, oh, great, exactly what we want on Game of Thrones, more sexual assaults on our screens. and Sarah says, Sarah has said, I'd like to clarify that we did not depict sexual violence in the show. We handle one instance off screen and instead show the aftermath and impact on the victim and the mother of the protrader.

So that's this scene, right? This is exactly what she's talking about. And, you know, a lot of people have already covered this eloquently, but I will just say that for me, the hardest thing I ever covered on Game of Thrones was not the device of ending, it was the rape of Sonsa Stark, which was just a

taught me a lot, among many other things, taught me a lot about how people in general feel about sexual assault in television, how we can and should be more mindful about the way that sexual assault is depicted on television. And I just remember at the time,

the way that episode was shot, the camera is on Sophie Turner a bit, and then it goes to Alfie Allen, to Theon, and how, you know, the showrunners, the director of that episode were like, well, we, you know, we didn't want to, you know, stay on her, so we wanted to, like, see the pain reflected in him. But, like, that then centers some man's pain in this, like, woman. And so I've, ever since that moment,

I've always been really curious about where the camera goes in a scene like this. And what I love, I mean, I don't love this scene, obviously, it's very painful. What I love about it is that this girl's fear and terror is the center of this experience. And they didn't have to show us the thing in order to drive that home for us. So the reality is here, but her experience is centered. I thought the performance was incredible. I thought Olivia Cook's performance and response was incredible. And it would just make, you know, and this episode was written by a woman, directed by a woman.

as you pointed out time and time again, Thrones, you know, two different women have directed episodes of House and the Dragon that's already double the amount of women who ever directed Game of Thrones. You know, there have been three different women writing episodes that's already more than ever wrote episodes for Game of Thrones in its entire run.

And I think this matters. It mattered when Renira was sort of having her sexual awakening and it matters here in this context. So I'm very impressed with how this was done. I completely agree. I completely agree. And like you said, you don't need to have seen the act itself. You feel so keenly and painfully the horror here in this sequence.

And the way that Alicent responds in the moment to Diana is very complex. And we talked about this a bit on Sunday's pod for Talk to Thrones. Allison says that she believes her. Does seem as a person, as a woman, to feel terribly, but also shifts immediately into what others might think if they heard this.

And it is this pity paired with intimidation and management. Gaslighting. Yeah. And she's we see in the subsequent scene with Agon that she is genuinely sickened by what her son has done and what he is capable of doing, but also opts to protect him, to work to shield the truth here. And I'm curious, like, how you reconcile what we see from Alicent here with, you know, there was that interesting conversation in episode six between Alicent and Laris, obviously a very different context in that scene.

But Laris is saying it's a willful blindness, the king, you surely suffer. the same affliction if it came to, and he's going to say your children, clearly, right? And she says, I would not. And now, on the one hand, to be clear, she's not blind to Agon's nature. As we see, she's a scene away from telling him you're no son of mine.

But actually, that makes it more horrifying, then, that she can recognize that nature and still shield him from the consequences. And within that, I mean, the same thing happened within that episode, where she was defending Agon all over the shop in that episode, episode six, and then goes to yell at him in his chambers, a near identical, you know,

naked and bed wrapped in a sheet moment for both Egon actors. And in that case, it was a childhood prank, and now it is turned into something far more sinister as he has been allowed to grow into who he's been allowed to grow into. Right, absolutely. We then see Allison to give Diana money

and Moontee. Talia is there for all of it, passes over the tea. Talia then later, we're not going to spend long on Talia, but we'll just note here, because we're probably not going to come back to that scene, that we see it near the end of the episode, Talia goes to Masaria, setting up presumably the spread of,

you know, Masaria mentions what a night it's been at the castle, but presumably setting up the spread of this information of Agon and Allison's secrets in addition to other secrets from inside the castle walls. So the question of how, long Talia has been feeding Masaria information is top of mind. What other information does she have to sell?

What other information does she? And who is she selling it too? Because we've previously seen her giving information via her little birds to auto. Is that, are there other relationships that are at play here? Other people who she is trading those secrets too. Let's talk about the moon tea.

There are a couple things to hit here. Yeah. The first is that, of course, it makes us think back to Raniara, receiving the tea from Mellos, it makes us think from the Allison perspective of that, of her moment with Laris in the godswood, where we see her respond to this idea

of the tea and knowing what the tea is used for. Do you think that we're supposed to be thinking of one aspect of that history in particular? I was wondering if we were supposed to think when we watched, you know, because we had this debate, internal debate, about how would

Allison have responded if Reneer had come to her with the truth after what happened with Kristen Cole? Would Allison have had, you know, support and comfort and safety for Rainira? Or was Reneer right that that was an unsafe place for her to be honest? Now, that Alicent and this Alicent are, you know, almost two different women. There's, you know, a lot has happened. But, like, you know, what does this tell us about the way in which Allison would have responded? And also, like, what does this tell us about Allison's that cloak of righteousness, that hypocrisy of like so shocked and appalled by Rainier

and the Moon Tea, but ready to have Talia brew up a batch if it means covering up her own family secret hair. I hope that Talia is not brewing it directly because we know it's a fickle brew. And that gets us to the next thing we wanted to hit on, which is, so there's this exchange. Diana says, I wouldn't dream of breathing another word to anyone, your grace. I swear it on my life. Allison says, I know you won't. Now, a lot of the internet perceived that as an indication that potentially this was poison.

We did not think that, but let's talk about this for a second. You had some tweets about this. I know that this is a strange one, and we have some indications that this is not the case. I will just say this. So her saying, I know you won't. And then later we'll get into the next scene, like she hugs Helena, you know, and a lot of people who, I will say some of my tweets I think I was a little harsh on people because let's be clear not everyone like pours over every shot of a trailer every week the way that I do

so I knew immediately that that was Helena but maybe you didn't have enough context clues to know that that was Helena in the next scene and so a lot of people thought that was another maid and Allison was like oh I'm so sorry and people interpreted that as like I've I've murdered this other girl to me that's a wild character read on Allison though we are supposed to to be like, you know, in an episode where we're wondering, like, what's in the milk or the poppy that, you know, Vassaris is drinking? Like, sure, our suspicions are high. But Gita Patel, who directed this episode, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, said, I think we're all waiting for an answer on that in terms of what's, what's going to happen to die.

I think it's Deanna. Anyway, what's going to happen to this young girl? She said, I know showruners Ryan Condal Miguel Sopachnik were talking about Allison paying her off and she would disappear. And then she said the tea was definitely to prevent pregnancy, the same tea young Reneira got. But after this, I'm curious where we go with that character, does she come up again? So it's not poison it's moon tea, definitely for sure. Does that mean that this character is going to live forever? I don't, I don't know. But, you know, and Gita is not saying she's going to live forever. but Allison is not poisoning this girl here. Yeah, I think that in that moment

and across the episode and across the season, they are inviting us to wonder routinely what all of the characters are capable of, but I definitely agree that that... That this... It does not seem... That that would be the interpretation of this scene. Like something that Allison is doing here,

but also, like, it's just from a storytelling perspective, more interesting if Diana's alive and out there and we see Talia go to Masaria and like how might these elements come into play in the future. Also, why would she give her money

and then kill her? Like, what? I don't know. It doesn't make a ton of son to me. Anyway. Okay. So then Allison goes to scream at her son to confront Agan.

Yeah. Her disgust with Aagon is on a full display here, sets up this return to, Reneira, this toast later of how Reneira would be a fine queen, really genuinely reassessing across this episode the people who are at play in this story and what the consequences of certain advocacy and decisions might be. I think her disgust with Agon is huge to some of her conciliatory moves. Not only that, like her discuss with Agon and then also seeing how badly

everything goes for Vamond, I think that also is informing Alice's along with genuine desire to reconcile. I think it's all in the stew there. And the turmoil then that, like, she experiences later with Viseris when she's misinterpreting his words to imply that he wants Agaunt to be king because then she has to,

and we'll talk about that later, but move forward to advocate for... She's like, really, that guy? This disgusting person. A rapist that we've raised? Cool. And I want to say, okay, so tough look for Allison here.

not that I think that someone who has committed sexual assault deserves a lot of quarter, but like slapping someone saying, you're no son of mind, that's a Tywin line. And I just think that any time you're given a Taiwan line, you're not doing your best parenting, is what I would say. But I do want to amend something like I said on Talk the Thrones. I got a lot of feedback for this, and I think rightly so. It's not fair to lay this wholly unalicent because Viseris, as we later on this episode, he calls for near his only child.

Vezeris has been absentee at best as a father in this family. So it's not, I can't lay this all on Allison at all. But you're no son of mine. And then also we get this like very, I thought it was almost like John Snow moment from Agon when he says I did not ask for this. We heard John Snow say that again and again. And so like again this show is asking us.

to find some granules of empathy for someone who does a horrible thing. Yeah, I took that line and that moment from Eagon, and this is just my personal response to it as less like looking to find empathy and more as yet another reminder of the way that this new generation is so defined by the noxious state that preceded them. and like obviously nothing forgives what he did. And I think in some ways him looking to blame his parents for his actions is pathetic cowardice. It absolutely is except it's been consistently who this guy consistently is like,

I don't want to marry my sister. I don't want to do this. I don't like I just want to masturbate a window in peace. You know what I mean? And so like I'm not, Agon is a piece of shit and I'm not supporting him. But I'm just saying like all of these, again, to the earlier. point about like Jason Luke, all of these children read his children. I think Ryan Condal said in the behind the scenes that they're supposed to be in the age range of 17 to 21.

Please don't get me started on that. They've really botched the math on this and it's driving me crazy. I can't take us down that road. We'll add another 30 minutes to the pod. It's fine to move the start date of key events, which they've done, were depending on whether Jeharis took two years to to tap out after the Great Council were either in 131 or 133 AC already. But these kids cannot all be 17 to 21 now. That math does not work with when they were born inside of the show. And given the central focus on the passage of time, that's baffling to me. Anyway, not important.

Oh, my Lord. I, I, the one of my thing, you ever, you ever trigger one of your favorite people in the whole world completely unintentionally on a podcast? I've just been trying to figure out the math and it's just like 17 to 21. This reminds me of, I've told the story on the Better Call Sall podcast, but this reminds me of

I was doing a freelance piece for Vulture and they asked me to do a complete timeline of Breaking Bad and I rewatched all of Breaking Bad and noted every time someone it says, it's been a day since, it's been a week since, it's been months since. And I came up with this complete exhaustive timeline and it just did not add up.

And then I had someone asked Peter Gould, about it. And he's like, oh, yeah, we just watched that. And I had spent, like, so much time trying to precisely figure it out. And ever since that, I've been, I will always suspect that a show, that a writer's room is just sort of like, who's going to notice that? And the answer is Mallory Rubin. Well, when every episode begins with a character saying how much time has passed, it means it a little more difficult to ignore. All right. I digress. I think, you know, you noted the significant of the U.R. No son of mine, obviously, in a story about succession and tracking Allison's state of mind and who she is leaning toward and how she is feeling about the decisions of

auto, of their alliance, et cetera. It's hugely, hugely significant. I thought that also her comment to him, think of the shame on your wife, on me, how can you keep carrying on like this, especially on a day like today, was really awful. You know, there's a tenderness when Helena walks in and asks where, and it. is. She says that she's supposed to dress the children. So we, we learn, you know, not only have Helena and Egon gotten married between episodes. They have children now. And Allison hugs her. And that was moving because it's her daughter is another woman who is trapped in this shitty man's world, married to a monster. And she was one of the people who helped make that happen here, rejected

the Jace Helena marriage offer from Renera. We see them dancing so happily to get. I don't know. I don't. a glimpse into an alternate future. Honestly devastating. But so the think of the shame on your wife part. She feels protective of her daughter. Okay. On me, how can you keep carrying on like this, especially on a day like today,

to focus on the shame of the family and the reputation of Team Green? Again, very Tywin. Very Tywin. Classic Tywin. Okay. Anything else here before we move to Rainier and Damon? and Allison chatting.

What's wild about this is like despite all of that, those two scenes, I still feel like this episode is trying really hard to get us to empathize with Allison. There are more moments in this episode that there have been in a couple weeks, yeah, where you feel her inclination toward a more peaceful outcome, certainly. Because so in this next scene, when it's Rainira and Damon and Allisant, talking about Vassaris. Wonderful scene.

Great scene. We go into that scene being like we are entirely on Reneer and Damon's side. Kind of like them better anyway, but like we've seen what's happening with Vassaris as being like drugged up with Milk of the Poppy. All this stuff is happening. What an outrage.

How could this happen? Blah. And then I don't know. I emerged from that scene being like they don't know the context at all. of all the decisions that Allison has had to make. And they come in here with certain assumptions,

based on, yes, past history. But like, Alison, who's been here, speaking of where is duty, right? Where's sacrifice? Who's been here every day with the moldering corpse of King Viseras Targaryen while presumably Reneer and Damon are fucking on the painted table over Dragonstone, you know?

And that's at the heart of the acknowledgement in Reneer's toaster. You were the one who was here by his side the whole time. Yeah. That is the pathway back, acknowledging that truth. Absolutely. Did you think that, because when the scene begins, Reneera and Damon are together holding hands very sweet,

and Reneira is mentioning that she wants Mastor Giardis to look at Viseras. Did you think that was just a wink to book readers about this whole Master war that is now never going to happen on the show? There's this battle of whose Mastor could better care for Vassaris, and obviously he's dead at the end of this episode, so that's not going to happen. little book reader way. Okay.

Remember we had a whole debate at the beginning of Talk to Thrones about whether or not we could say that Vassaris is dead and then like you texted me while the show was on and you're like, well, they just say it. The end of the episode. I also enjoyed the close captioning

of breathing stops and the closing shot. Again, we do not have close captioning on our screeners. So this was such an amazingly rich intense scene right away. I love just thinking about the history between the characters in the first couple glances

because we have Allison looking at the scar on Reneer's arm and then Reneer's shielding that from view and we know they are both thinking about an eye for an eye and that display. But also this is the first time that Allison has seen Reneer and Damon together since they've all been in the same room since Reneer and Damon fucked on the beach, but nobody knew that at the time.

So this is the first time that she's seen them since they've married and forged a family. and we think back to the conflict and the falling out and how central the bowels of the brothel and the coupling rumors were to that. So there's just you think back to all of that in those opening episodes. Steve, can we get this clip?

Indeed. Your grace. They're not long enough to measure greeting upon our arrival. I'm sure the queen had. Pressing business, my love. What can either of us know of ruling a kingdom? I do not rule, as you well know. My father and I am a mere steward at the king's will and wisdom. And how exactly is that wisdom expressed?

Hmm? In blinks and weezers. I'd be surprised if he could remember his own name or if you could. This is a classic Damon moment where he's talking shit on Vassaris, but only he is allowed, you know, it goes back to like that scene with Corley's like several episodes ago where it's like, I'm allowed to talk shit on my brother, but no. one else is, and I'm so protective of him, but blinks and wheezes. So good.

This is just remarkable stuff. And I love that exchange because it just captures so fully how personal this is for all of them and all of the different and varied ties that bind. And when Allison points out, points to the treatment, the maister recommended treatment, Reneura voices the suspicion. The maestors, of course, it is they who keep him addled on milk of the poppy while the high towers warn his. is thrown. Now, book readers hear that and will think of a line from the text pointing to a rumor

about Allison poisoning Viseris, quote, the dwarf mushroom suggests a more sinister scenario. Doesn't he always, Joe? Whereby Queen Alesson hurried King Viseris on his way with a pitch of poison, etc, etc. And then it should be noted that mushroom is not in Kingslanding. So that the dragon stone died. So even within this passage, It's the casting aspersions on Mushroom's testimony, as always. But we should revisit quickly the Maester conspiracy maybe because, like, we've talked about this before, about this idea, the Grand Master conspiracy, this idea that the maesters of Old Town thought

the dragons and the dragon writers were unnatural and were secretly, furtively working to bump them off or, you know, diminish them, et cetera, et cetera. So could or while who we feel like as a step up from good old Magadie Melos, right? But like, is he working? Magity Melos! But is he working for Old Town and poisoning? I don't think so, but, you know, this is something we need to think about. Love a theory.

I think that for me inside this episode, it's safe to say that I do not think that Allison's is poisoning Vassaris. I think we see her tending and tending to him and doting on him, especially in that final scene, wiping his mouth, bringing him his tea, et cetera. But I think it is also fair to say that Otto is all too happy to keep plying him with Milk of the Poppy and keep him in this hay so that Otto can rule in his stead. This feels like more of an auto thing then. And Allison thing, but I'm glad you just mentioned Old Town inside of that Mayster conspiracy

because it brings us to back to the seven-pointed star and the iconography of the faith. The faith, of course, is headquartered in Old Town just as how Sight-Times. Tower and just as the maisters are, Joe. Damon continues to push here. He rolls his eyes hysterically as he says, Allison, I have no doubt it was an act of the purest mercy. But tell me, for the king's suffering, did the maesters also order the removal of Targaryen heraldry

and the installation instead of various statues and stars? Now, the Targ-orgy murals did linger on in Viceris' personal chambers, at least thank the gods, but gone elsewhere. We've got all of these. visual manifestations of the faith on Allison's person across the Red Keep, etc. So this is where we're going to talk for a few minutes about Allison and the embrace of the faith. What do you want to say about this, Joe?

We talked about this for a while and Talk to Thrones, but this does feel very central. Thrilled to have been right about the Targaryen murals and why they were there in the first place is so that Allison could paint over them when she redos the... And I think a reason that I thought that is that in that interview that we did with the Claire, she couldn't really furnish me with like a good reason why those things were there. And so I was like, it feels like maybe then for there will be like a future reason why they were there. And it's the absence of them is sort of the point of them. And which is why I look askance at those balls in the small council meeting and why I have questions about the future of the

model village, like all these like items, like what's going to, what's going on with them. But I think I think what's been really fascinating in listening to these interviews with Miguel Sipashtnik and Ryan Condal is this idea that like Allison has newly recommitted herself

to the faith post you know slicing open Reneira's arm or charging after a child yeah the way that she talked about how ugly that felt and how ashamed she was and that she has sought refuge in her faith after

and so she just like leaned into the faith and so we've always seen this in Allison. The piety we've seen a scene with her in the Sept. It's always been part of her character, but I guess I didn't realize until I heard some of those interviews that they felt like they wanted to underline that she had as a reaction to this thing.

Maybe also as a reaction to being tangentially involved in the Heron Hall fire. Like Allison's trying to cleanse herself. Yeah. I think that these are often the best storytelling choices across stories, but certainly inside of Thrones, these ones that give us this real rich character insight and illumination, something central to an arc,

but also open up some really intriguing plot possibilities in tandem. And I think that this one does that really neatly. You know, we talked on Sunday's show about thinking of other examples across the wider canon of how we see like a character like Joffrey in Season 2, redecorate this as a seat for a conquer, you know, what it means when somebody's putting their personal touch, not only in the throne room, but across the red keep, and how that really signifies instantly, as we see it does to run ear on Damon

when they walk in, who is in control? And with Allison, in conjunction with her embrace of the faith anew, there's also this, that steady rejection of what the Targaryan iconography

signifies. And some of that is how the Targaryen history and Valerian traditions relate or contradict with the faith, but also just more broadly, the way we've heard her say to Amen, like,

your obsession with these beasts, it's beyond understanding the way that she talked about the Targaryen's queer customs, et cetera. Like, it is a rejection of these ideals and tendencies that don't align with her worldview and that wholly define the way that Rainer and Demon conduct their lives and their affairs, quite literally. So it puts them in a really interesting position of conflict

on this, like, fundamental worldview level. You know, we noted on Sunday how Allison wearing this large emblem, the seven-pointed star, really literalizes that cloak of your own righteousness idea. Gaudy, gaudy, if you ask me. Goddy. I like that, too, you know, the idea that Allison is seeking refuge and forgiveness inside of the faith, but also that it serves as this cloak and vest. for this ongoing theme with her character, duty, sacrifice,

that these are the guiding principles for her life, and this fits really holy there. And then more broadly, when you look at the history between the faith and the houses, House Targary and House High Tower, you have Old Town as the seed, forging this long history, this longstanding history with the High Towers and the Faith,

and it makes this really formidable potential alliance that I think clearly Damon and Reneira suss out right away. What a threat it would be if Alicent had the faith on her side. And part of the reason that they would feel that so keenly is because of the bloody history between the faith and House Targary and the war with the faith militant, et cetera. And not just the faith itself, but the followers of the faith. You know, we can look all the way ahead in the timeline to the way that you'd walk through the streets of Kings Landing and hear the practitioners call Circe's children abominations,

the fruit of incest, et cetera. So bastardry in the faith is at play here, too, in terms of perception. Like, we talked about the kind of contradiction at play with Allison's allowing an incestuous marriage with her children with Agon and Helena. But she is doing that inside, at least, of the doctrine of exceptionalism that Jeharis forged with the faith. So she can position herself with the faith by saying, I am an adherent. And even this adheres to the letter of the law of the faith.

look at these two who are flouting the faith at every turn. And this is the question we've been asking is like this isn't, I mean, unless I missed some strong subtext in the book, this isn't really in the book, but that this could be a holy war, right, that Allison could wage here. But also that in contrast to Allison's born again, you know, situation, you've got Damon and Renira getting really into the sort of primal targi traditions and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, that each side has their own kind of faith that their North Star that they're following. Right. Absolutely.

We go out into the yard next. This is a brief and charming but also alarming little interlude, Joe. Take us through it. I know you loved this. Well, first and foremost, as we mentioned, Eric and Arik are sparring, so please take note of that really prominently. How could we not? In soft focus in the background. But what I love about this is so, like, Jason Luke, and it's really quickly establishes for us, Jason Luke, that they haven't been back in six years, who these boys are now, their dynamic.

Do you remember how you, you know, made this chunk in the walls? So it's like a beautiful little, like, relatable remember. this is where you broke your arms sort of like story. And I love all of that. I love how young they look. Don't try to talk to Mallory about how old they actually are in the show, but they've cast these actors that made them look really young. And as we talked about and Talk the Thrones,

you know, in Georgia's original story, yes, Aria is young as Game of Thrones starts on the show, But characters like Rob Stark and John Snow are supposed to be boys. And they cast mid-20s men in these roles. And that's great. They did a great job. But like all these kids were aged up. And I think it's really interesting here.

We've got Jace, who we don't think is going to be recast, who is heir to the throne after his mom at this point. And as she reminds him, I'm just like, what's there? Elegantly. Not so fast Prince Charles. But that he's a boy king, right? And Luke, who would be Lord of the Tides, would be a boy lord. You know what I mean?

Don't get Thailand Lannister started. So these literal children. And I've been talking to you a bit about the fact that the actor who plays Jace wasn't Billy Elliott, as was Tom Holland. And I just think he does give like really, there's this moment later when he gives his toast. and then he like punches Agon on the shoulder in this like, I fucking hate you, but I'm going to make it playful kind of way. That was really Hollandy to me.

Like I think they're really giving us that Billy Elliott energy with Jase. But I think it's really interesting that like we get the context that Luke now knows that Harwin Strong is likely his father. Yeah. And is aware of all of that. Painfully aware when it was totally lost on him what everyone was talking. about on Drift Mark. Yeah.

Yeah. And then, like, how does, how does Jace respond to that? Like, I think it was really interesting. Yeah, because there's this adjustment, there's this evolution for both of them,

where Luke is now aware of something he didn't understand before. And Jace, who was moved to rage by these murmurs before, and his moved to a temporary rage later in the episode as well before he regains his composure. He's the one here now who says to Luke, it doesn't matter what they think, which is what Reneera,

it's the kind of counsel that he had to receive from Reneera in prior episodes, both at the end of, six and then elsewhere in seven where she had to reinforce to him, this, this is how we need to move forward and conduct ourselves. So the fact that he has moved from being the upset child into the counselor role, that makes you feel the passage of time quite effectively, I think. But I think also, like, we're meant to think about the Saras in episode one of the tourney when, you know, fucking Lord Barathean is talking some shit. right? And Otto says you could have Baratheon's tongue for that. And Vassaris says,

tongues will not change succession, let them wag. Now, we know he's changed his mind about wagging tongues at this point. Can't wait to cut out tongues. Yeah. But it feels like an increasingly naive take from Vassaris and Reneira and now Jace. It doesn't matter what they think. It absolutely matters. The court of public opinion absolutely matters. Yeah. The way that those whispers and those those askew glances, it reminded me a little bit of Lionel in the wake of the confrontation between Harwin and Kristen saying like, every fishwife will know about this. You really feel, even though this is still at the Red Keep, you feel how this has spread so far. This is no longer a family matter. This is out there. This is everywhere. And it will not be something that they can escape. And nor will Amon's

watchful eye, Joanna. Okay. Oh my God. Okay. A couple things. Number one, what I love, okay, in the grand tradition of Eric and Arik, Cargill, we first see Aymn in soft focus in the background of this conversation between Jason Luke. He's just there whipping his blonde wig around, sparring with Kristen. What a cool way. This is, I think this is the coolest character introduction that the show has had so far, even though we met Aymn before. But like, this is an extraordinary intro. Ewan Mitchell, again, when we're talking about straining credulity in the ages of some of the characters, this is a strain.

That being said, he is so charismatic and compelling, and you just can't stop looking at him. He spires with Kristen, Kristen, you know, continuing his vicious lessons to these boys, saying, of course, my prince. And then just flicks that eye over to the. the boys and we didn't even see him see them. He just got them from his peripherals. It's a lot of him. Terrified of him. I love him. Genuinely terrifying. I think that the moment where Kristen's praising his readiness for tourneys and Amon says, I don't give a shit about tornees was really notable. Like, first of all, because it's kind of interesting and surprising parallel to Renera

when she put Kristen on the Kingsguard in the first place because the idea of torny experience being useless and farcical and like positioning Aymond to her. is a character who is thinking about something real and readying always for something real. You know, we have that overhead shot when everyone turns to watch Vamond come in and what's Aeman doing? He's grabbing another shield.

Like, this is a character who's always thinking about what's next. We see that so many times at the dinner scene when Chase pounce the table. It's not Agon. The recipient of that who stands, it's Aymus. He's just ready.

And he doesn't do anything in that moment. Comes later, but he stands up and he's like, are we doing? Oh, now? Okay, later? Okay, we'll do it later. This is a character who is preparing. Absolutely. Speaking of preparing, our next scene comes between Veyman and Otto and Alicentzance,

who are working to cement their plan. And this is a quick scene, but the thing that really stood out to us about this is that Allison is so visibly and vocally uncomfortable with what they are hatching here. I must confess a certain uneasiness now that this is at hand, he may yet live. I also love that he may yet live because certainly they're talking about Corlis, but it fits for Vissaris too in this broader way

that everything that they're talking about all of these implications that could unfurl here apply in both the micro and the macro. What does Otto say? He says, hold your nerve, my queen.

What we do, we do for the good of the realm. Joe, this is one of our favorite things to track. here participating in the proud tradition of Game of Throats characters using the realm as a justification, a shield for their ambition, makes us think, of course, of one of our favorite moments, Littlefinger, before the famous chaos is a ladder line saying to Varus, the realm, do you know what the realm is? It's the thousand blades of Aegon's enemies,

a story we agree to tell each other over and over until we forget that it's a lie. this is what is happening here too. Otto and Viemann are working to... It's so good. It's perfect. I mean, it covers and captures so much. And like you... It's impossible not to think about it here

because Otto and Vement are just working to convince Alicent that by turning this act of betrayal and treason into an act of self-preservation, the same way that Otto has been manipulating her the entire time. And the way that they're doing it is by saying, Otto says, the threat of war looms and may arrive on our shores when it does. Would you want a child at command of the greatest fleet in Westrose? There's that child lie again.

And Vaman saying the next Lord of the Tides will be deeply in your debts, your grace. Well, this is like the same thing that Otto's been doing. Think of the scene in the rain. Think of Allison saying to Agon, you are the challenge. It's that idea of take control of the circumstances, bring people into the fold, or they will. They will be used against you. And so the realm and the subjects, we hear Allison say, we must of course act in the interest of our subjects.

It's just the way that they excuse their behavior to themselves. And that the fact that Allison still needs that story, she's still, you know, Otto's daughter that he has to tell a story to in order to get her to go along with something. Which, again, should underscore for people that she's not the type to go around poisoning, you know, young women yet, you know. Indeed. Indeed. Should we go into the

Gadswood for a minute here? I mean, no better place to be. And this has to be an inside joke from the showrunners, the writers, right? That they put Rainis, Rainier and Raina. Yeah.

All in one scene. Because Bailey could have been there, but she's not. So it's just the Spider-Man pointing meme under the godswood tree. We'll have plenty of occasions across this episode to think about how these characters all have the same five names. This is certainly one of them. Obviously, like, we know the decision that Renice ultimately makes in the throne room, that she will side with

Reneera and Luke. But even knowing that that's the calm, there's a lot to parse in this exchange between Reneas and Reneer after Rana leaves. And there is a difference, there is a depth of venom and mistrust that Reneas feels toward Reneer. that is not something we can shake just because of the decision that Reneas made in the throne room. And it has been cleverly planted from the beginning that even when Reney was a kid,

Ranez is like, I don't really fuck with you, honestly. Yeah. I'm not really a fan, personally. Yeah, definitely. I think, too, like I was struck by the fact that when Reneer confronts her on the idea of advocating for herself,

there's this really, like, tragic irony at play there because it's, again, an example of something that in theory Reneira should support you, a woman at the seat of power, advocating for yourself. But because that comes at the threat of Reneira's own claim and own position, Reneer then has to advocate for the man, her son, instead. Oh, those tangled webs that these characters weave, loom, hand, loom, thread. What did you think, show, I'm curious about, this is also where Reneer or mentions the marriage, positions the, plants the seat of the marriage pact that Renice

will ultimately agree to in the throne room. And I'm curious of what you made of the, a generous offer or a desperate one. What does it matter? You're right in this. At least it does not matter exchange, because the idea of sniffing out somebody's desperation and then using that to leverage your own position has been a pretty present through line across recent episodes. How did you perceive that? Well, what I think is interesting is that this is the identical reaction that Allison had to Rainer's proposal that Jace Mary Helena, right? That's a desperate act of someone who's been cornered. Yes. And what Renice thought of Vassar's coming to Driftmark too. But while Rainis can see the larger picture and the larger benefit of this,

Allison was just like, I reject this, you know. But I honestly, would it not have been better for the fucking realm or whatever, whatever excuse we're making if it had just been Jason Elena from the beginning, you know? And so I think, I think putting those two women side by side, having the same, smelling the same desperation, but having a different reaction. That's always been Rainy's response to things. is like, I get the true measure of what's going on here, but what's the bigger picture? The order of things. Yeah. Yeah.

Also, just shout out. Shout out Rene's, like, cool grandma clothing that she wears in this episode. She's got, like, a cool velvet tunic and some boots, like, right? Like, she gardens, you know what I mean? Like, and she doesn't get, she's not wearing gowns anymore. She's like, guess what I'm a grandma now? So I'm just going to, I'm going to wear a. this is comfortable and I still look pretty slick.

Comfortable and fashionable. Ideal, absolutely. I think to the end of the scene really transition naturally into the next one because you have this, they will force you to your knees line about the high towers and their next move, this checkmate scenario that everybody feels is coming and this farcical petition sequence. And I must stand alone. And this sense of isolation and loneliness is also something that we've been talking about

across the season, and then where do we see Reneira in the next scene, going to Viseras in the middle of the night, imploring him to not let her be alone, to not let her have to face this den of Vipers without his support. She asks him about the prophecy. He initially thinks when she first comes to him that it's Allison, a bookend, of course, for his confusion in the inverse at the end of the episode. Steve, let's hear this clip. The song of ice and fire, do you believe it to be true?

You told me it was our duty to hold the realm united against a common foe. By naming me heir, you divided the realm. But the burden is a heavy one. Maui, did you do a victory lap around your room to have Rainier revealed as a reluctant leader? No, I thought actually this was, I put in our notes the song of reluctance and desire, because I think it's actually both of these ideas mixing together. there's a reluctance and a trepidation, but also, you know, I thought I wanted it.

Like, that has been true for her. And there's, both of these things are present in Reneer's heart at once, and I think that's such a quintessential George idea, you know, the conflict in the human heart that he always likes to talk about and quote Fokter. That's so, so, so palpable here. Absolutely devastating to hear Viseras

refer to Reneer here as my only child? Again, I have notes for a lot of the fathers in this show. I felt really bad for Allison and her kids here. Like, it's just, he has no, no relationship with them. As far as we can tell. Because, again, like, we talked about this before with Allison versus Renira. Renira, you know, Emma till the end for Vassaris. The biggest regret of his life is this, his biggest sin weighing on him, this woman that he loved, who loved him, etc.

And that's the sweetness. mixed in with the sorrow there is that like Reneira represents that great love to him. Yeah. So Reneira is the child of love, the way that, you know, the strong boys are children of love, the way that, you know,

little baby, Agon, little baby Vsaris are children of love. And Alicent, we saw what sex between Vassaris and Allison was like. And so her complicated relationship with her children, it's understandable. They're the issue of this horrible thing that she had to go through.

And Vassaris is like, you know, I don't know. It's, it's, it's, it's tough. And it helps us understand how Agon got how he did and how Amen got how he did. And maybe even how Holina got how she did. Well, and, you know, speaking of the relationship between parents and children, that's at the heart of what Renira, how Reneira positions this to Vizera. She says, if you wish me to bear it, then defend me and my children. And it's a completely reasonable thing to ask because her sorrow and her fear. are supreme here.

And as tenderly as we feel toward Vassaris in this episode, when he makes this great push in the throne room at the family dinner, it is also true that it is not enough and it is well, well, well, too late. So his desire to help to push himself to do this,

great. You know, we're going to head into the next scene in a minute where he said he rejects the milk of the poppy. He says he wants to have supper. Otto's like, it's morning. He's like, tonight, you asshole. But all these years have passed. It's just too late.

Anything else you wanted to say about the Reneira Vesaris chat in the Dead of Night Show? No, I really need to get to the next scene because guess what, Mallory, we see the model of Voleria and what is in the middle of it. Will rat scurrying? Rat watch 2022. Had to have it. Had to have it here. And the rat is, boy, it's a, a. Feast for the eyes for the rat here because Viseris is being tended to by the maesters who are

cutting away piece after piece of him. To recap, in case you guys haven't been listening to every episode we do, but there's this great theory, and it's not in the spoiler section because it's not in the book, so it's just a show theory. So we get to talk about it here. This great theory that Laris strong as a spymaster might be warging his self into rats and running all around the castle spying on people may also be spying on them through the wherewood tree. And we know that Talia on the lookout for Masaria. So like anytime you see a conversation in front of the wearwood

or in front of a rat or in front of Talia, you have to ask yourself who else could be hearing this conversation. Right. Yeah. Absolutely.

This is also, Joe, an incredible display of VFX and prosthetics and makeup. Oh, my God. He's skeletal, you know? This is very... Actually, I thought of this in the first scene,

when Damon and Reneera come in, Vassaris has some with the old, it's been so long the Peggy Carter line. And it made me think of that like very perfect VFX effect. It's a war with Peggy. So yeah, this is an incredible feat of VFX work. More impressive than any dragon, I think. Yeah. We've noted many times before that the extent of Viceris's illness and ailments in the show far outstrip anything that is described in fire and blood where he has gout, he has

just beens, the shortness of breath. But this, the extent here of this decay and this rot is new and we have astounding. Some questions about how some of the people responsible for the show are perceiving this particular disease. But I think this, Miguel Sopacian said basically something about how like every person who's nicked by the throne gets this leprosy. Yeah. And that is just so counter to anything we've ever read in Georgia Martin

that we have questions about that. But the idea of rot and decay like the Sarah's just falling apart is I think great stuff. And the way that that rot of his body reflects the rot of his family and the realm that part works quite well. To be clear, could be

the only reason why rats are everywhere. It could just be the rat. All right, Mallory, am I ready to cry on a Tuesday morning? We have to go to the scene of the season, the petitions in the throne room, before we get to the tears and the incredible entrance. A couple quick things happen first. Otto, couldn't be happier, Joe, to be sitting on the Iron Throne, telling everyone that he's in charge. Fucker.

You know, I really did have some moments of empathy for him when, like, his older brother was pushing him around. But this fucker in this episode, I am... It's not all unheard of for the hand of the king to sit the Iron Throne. We've seen Ned Stark on the Iron Throne. We've seen Tyman and Lannister on the Iron Throne in their, you know, guys as hand. But there's something kind of shocking and upset, like deeply shocking and upsetting. Like, Ned...

Ned hates it. ...looked uncomfortable. hates it. It looks so uncomfortable. but like also I'm like I'm not scared if Ned Stark sitting on the throne. Taiwan is a piece of work but like a national born leader. Otto get this guy off of the Saris chair. It's a great point because with Taiwan you're also like he didn't need to be on the throne

to make things happen that he wanted to happen. He was going to be the puppet master no matter what. With Otto there was a like, oh no, he's winning kind of solidification. And I think he felt that too when Vaman begins to make his petition. He starts by speaking of the shared history between, quote, Our Noble Houses,

referring, of course, to House Valarian and House Targaryen, but who's he saying it to? He's saying it to two High Towers. He's saying it to Otto and to Alicent. And so you really feel the extent of House High Towers takeover there in a way that was like stunning

and deeply upsetting. And Vaman focuses, as we have been primed for him to do since his funeral speech at Lena's funeral on Driftmark on bloodlines. He says, I am Lord Corliss's closest kin, his own blood, the true unimpeachable blood of House Filarian runs through my veins. Now, he is not honoring Corliss's wishes, as we know, but he is trying to protect his house from outsiders. It's complicated. Renera gets, she tries to interrupt him, Allison makes her wait, and then Renera gets her turn. Only half a sentence in to reminding everybody that they benthany and named her heir, calling back to the 20 years ago.

When the doors open and everybody turns, is that Patty of the Opera's music? King of Sariis of House Targaryen, the first of his name, king of the Andles and the Royner and the first men, Lord of the Seven kingdoms and Protector of the realm. Joanna. A secret weapon of both this entrance and Allison's entrance, the Ramin Javadi score. The score is... Shout out Ramin Javati. So good there.

Crashing it. Take us through it. The long walk, moment of the season. Okay. We have had moments throughout the season, many of them, where we've snickered a bit at Viseris losing body parts as he goes. The slapping sleeve. waving in the wind.

Yeah, all that sort of stuff. However, I mean, what's really true in this episode, what this episode really underlines is like, you know, as we saw in that sequence where his shirt is off and it's just bones, skin and sores and bones, right? Like, this is a man who's been in a horrible crippling pain for basically as long as we've known him, right? And so there is like, oh my God, what am I watching?

The gold mask is. there. It's this whole like spectacle. But at the same time as he keeps going, like you're just, you're seeing the effort and the pain and that I refuse help. I'm going to do it myself. And I just started crying. Me too. Totally overcome.

I love that Gita was saying, Gita Patel director of the episode was saying that like, yeah, he's headed towards the throne, but actually the way that they blocked it, he's headed towards Renera. I loved hearing that too. He's the goal. Ramira is the goal. Yeah, it made sense too

because you have this moment where he turns toward Alicent and Alicent looks really abashed and ashamed and then he turns toward Reneera and both the swelling of the score, the lighting. There's this like angelic halo effect in what he's seeing there

that really, yeah, really works with that explanation that he's marching toward his daughter. We hear him say so many times in this episode, I'm sorry, and also I need to set things right. and the march toward Rainira, this recognition that he had not done enough and had to try,

as he is unable to make a single easy step, was just like so moving and sad. And he rejects the helps of plenty of people, including either Eric or Eric, I'm not sure which one. And then the crown falls off. Someone's there. And he's like, fuck you, I don't want your help. And then it's Damon.

And Demon says, come on. And that Matt Smith line reading, we learned via one of the many great interviews that Gita gave to Entertainment Weekly that the crown falling off of Saras's head was an accident that happened in rehearsal. Remarkable reveal. Like, stooped down to get it. Like, of course, Damon was always going to come. and help. Right. But there was the last few steps.

That wasn't an accident. That wasn't improvised. But, like, the crown falling off was a product, you know, Patty just, like, stooped a little too stoopish. And, like, you know, the crown fall off his head. And they were like, let's keep it. And a great move. We got this email from James, who compared this moment, who compared this moment to Brian being knighted.

And I can't disagree because the brand being knighted, which I consider. like the emotional apex of Game of Thrones for me is a payoff of seasons and seasons and seasons and seasons of character work for both Brandt of Tarth and Jamie. Lanister. Now we haven't had seasons and seasons and seasons with Viceris and Damon,

but the volumes this speaks for these brothers and these brothers as, again, and a sort of like Microsmora Moose-Busch for Alison. Reneira, the distance between these men, but how one of them, Vassaris is constantly reaching back out to the other one. Sersis is constantly forgiving and reaching out. And with Damon, what has been consistently true for him is just wanting to be this by his

brother's side, you know, not in his brother's shadow or not, you know, not chided, not whatever, and not in last week's episode when Vassaris is like, if you need it, there's a spot for you. And Damon's like, I don't need anything. That's not what I need. What do you need? I want to do what you need. What do you need?

You need help up these stairs? Come on. Let's go. Well, and that is the thing that Damon needed, was Vesaris letting him be the one by his side, letting him be the one who helped. And like all the moments that we've seen with them in the throne room in front of that symbol of power

where it has been about how other people were driving. a wedge between them or where they were driving a wedge between themselves. And for that to then be the sight of this reconciliation was just so moving and beautiful. That come on was just, and the way that the Sarah's turned and looked at him. And the moment with the reveal of it. Yeah. Oh, my God. And like, yeah, the little dragon egg on the hilt that makes you realize it's Damon, that

symbol of Targary and heraldry, the things that they are removing from the rest of the castle. like it was just so lovely. And the time that they spent to allow this scene to play out, that's something else that Gita has talked about in the interviews was this like debate about whether they had the time to do it. I am so glad that they did this this way. It is, it is the time that is needed to show you the effort and the cost and what it is for and the tragedy of everybody losing all of the time up until this moment.

And then the tragedy of the coming. together just to fall apart again. This was just absolutely exceptional. And this is the, I mean, the runtime, like this is a longer runtime than usual. And something that I love, another thing, I think it was in that EW interview with Gita that she said is that in a version of the episode, something that they filmed, Damon gives a speech. We get a lot of speeches at the dinner later.

Damon gives a speech, and it's a beautiful brother reconciliation speech. And they cut it because this says everything you need to hear. And less is always more with Damon. And like the juice that Matt Smith can squeeze out of something like this. Matt Smith can give speeches. I've seen many seasons of Doctor Who, I've seen him give great speeches. He can do it. But like, that's not who Damon has been historically.

Damon's in the silences. Damons and the things you don't see, right? And so this is such a juicier squeeze of the orange than that. would have been, yeah. Just a remarkable sequence. Also, another delicious scene for reaction shots. When Vissaris first walks in, the way that Otto leans forward in the throne, found out and the thwarted the look on Allison's face when she realizes that they have lost, the

mistakes that have been made, Vaman's look, et cetera. Obviously, lots of other intriguing reaction shots coming next because when Vassaris finally sits and Damon has put that crown back on his head, he looks out and addresses the room and says, I must admit my confusion. I do not understand why petitions are being heard over a settled succession. It's not difficult to parse the subtext here.

If the vultures have come and are ignoring Corliss's wishes, what will they do for Viseras' own? He understands the stakes here, as does Reneera, clearly, as does everyone. And when he calls on Renice and says that Reneas is the only one who can clarify Corliss's state of mind.

This is not only in this scene, a big twist. We get the reveal that Rainies is, in fact, siding with Reneira and Luke, agrees to the marriage pact. It sparks everything that happens next with Vamond in the scene, but it also feels really big coming out of the final scene between Viseras and Alicent,

because we have precedent now inside of this episode for Alicent coming into the next episode, presumably saying, well, remember when Viseras sat in the throne, and told all of you that the only person who was able to clarify a husband of a Lord's wishes was his wife,

let me tell you the last thing he said to me he wanted Agon to be king. So this feels really, really consequential. Joanna, not everybody's pleased with how things are going. No. Viamen does not content. In a truly shocking moment, he says the following.

My house survived the doom and a thousand tribulations besides and God's being. See it ended. on the account of this head. Her children are born. She is a whore. Oh, wow.

The gasped. Gasp at the end of that soundlight. Okay. Shout to Will Johnson for putting all the pepper that he possibly could have in those final words. The way that bastards rings out in the hallway, incredible sound design. I do.

So Will Johnson, this actor, and in the behind-the-scenes, very briefly, makes mention of race in this conversation, like, super briefly. And as far as I've seen so far is the only person associated with the show to make mention of the racial element. We got a lot of emails about this, and I wanted to read this one email from David, who says. When you add race into the mix, this makes things very different than simply thinking about. about the color of someone's hair, especially thinking about the role that race plays within our own world. I believe a show as big as thrones owes a responsibility to get this right, or at least attempt to show nuance in these dynamics. What I saw was a white princess who, for whatever her reasons, decided to birth babies outside of her marriage with her husband, that is a person of color. The privilege lies in the fact that Reneura knows that she's wrong and refuses to admit it, and this means the doom of the house and the legacy of the one black family in the show.

The land, wealth, power, and prestige tied to this black family will pass to the white lords. And he, meaning Vaman, has almost no power to do anything about it. You know, so that's, that is, we talked about this a little bit up top. But I just think that that is, like, a key element to this whole dynamic. So as, like, as cool as it is, and it is undeniably cool for Damon to, like, whip out the Valerian Steel Sor and say he can keep his tongue. again, this is a show that is not making things easy for us

because Vaman isn't wrong in many different ways. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So, absolutely. Many of these characters make great mistakes and once again, we feel that Viseras is wrestling with how many he is made

because all of the commotion has him exhausted and collapsing back into the throne and saying to Aliphant, I will not cloud my mind, I must put things right. And he's carried off, and we get this closing shot in this scene of Alicent, atop the steps near the throne, and Reneira down at the bottom of the frame.

This is one of the earlier promo shots we got in the whole season was these two women. And, like, Allison, as we mentioned that several times, is wearing that massive seven-pointed star. She's in the green. Renera's in the black. And then also another image from the scene, which is just Damon with his head. hands on the pommel of Dark Sister standing behind it, that was a very early promo image for Damon as well. So I love that they knew what they had here in this scene.

And they're like, we'll just send in all these photos and let them guess. Now they can send in all of the video footage as well to the Emmys because this was sensational. Patty! Patty! Okay. Oh, my God. Very quickly, let's talk about this scene with the Silent Sisters preparing. Damon's body as Renice watched.

This was haunting. Beautifully shot, again, like, to talk about the cinematography of this episode and the way that the camera, like, frames Rainey, surrounded by all of these candles. Not since Halbrand, have we seen a character framed by so many candles, Joanna? Definitely thinking of our best friend, Hallibrand, in this moment. But I think that it's a really important moment for Rainies. You know, when Orwell tells her it is ill luck to look upon the face of the dead and she says,

the stranger is visiting more times than I visited me more times than I can count. Grand Mastor, I assure you he cares little whether my eyes are opened or closed. Man. Like, again. This hurt. This is painful. She lost Lena. She lost Lainor.

Now Corley's is on death door. You know, Vamond, who she did not get along with, but is still her family is, like, sitting here with his head wide open. Like, it's just... She's at the great council in the first place, this defining moment in her life because her own father, the heir to the Iron Throne, died,

and then her uncle, the next heir of the Iron Throne died. Like, her life has been defined by death. Yeah. We do want to mention really quickly, we debate about whether or not to, like, say this, but I think it's safe to assume that Vaman, nothing more is going to happen to Vaman.

This is a big difference in the book is that, again, this is like four sentences or maybe even just, like, two. But that Vaman protests Luke inheriting Driftmark, Reneer hears of it, has Damon, dispatches Damon to kill Vaman, and then they feed him to Cyrax or Dragon. So when we talk about the show, putting a thumb on the scale to make Reneira more sympathetic. This is what we mean. This is what we're talking about. Guess what she didn't do?

Tell Damon to kill Vaman and she did not feed him to her dragon. So yeah, but that's what happens in the book. All right, Joe. Let's talk about the Last Supper. Oh, my God. Sapach and Condal, we've learned in the materials around the episode, cited the Last Supper as inspiration for the scene,

a group on the brink of betrayal. We initially glimpsed this is another. visual that we had seen heavily featured in the run-up to the show. Allison and Reniro with this gap between them, this space that Vassaris has left between them. Of course, makes us think of the image of them nestled close next to each other at the sept at the beginning of the season, the way that this divide has widened between them. It's also straight out of one of the drawings in Fire and Blood.

Like there's a few times where they've sort of essentially recreated a drawing from Fire and Blood, and this is one of them. So they're not, they don't look as bitchy. Yeah. Totally evil. Super bitchtopia in that drawing in the book. But yeah, they look really devastated. Viseris is brought in here on a thankfully carried in this time.

He's made his big long walk. Now we can get some help mercifully. This is where we get the prayer and the Damon die roll, Joe. So good during the Vaman call out. I sent you video of it. I loved it so much. I just think it's incredible. I need to make a gift of it, just that I have it.

You should. But, like, Baceres takes the mass off. Yes. The full Anakin Skywalker, except it's not Anakin Skywalker beneath Vader's mask. It's Harvey Dent. A real mashup of our various nerd culture passions here. We can't quite see his teeth from outside his teeth.

We do get some jaws in you. So that's nice. That's always appetizing at the dinner table. Yeah. Otto's like, it's the morning. no time for Sine you. Anyway, a lot of people have noted that the rotting half of Vassaris's face is on the high tower side of the table.

But I think what's important is that the armless side is on Reneer and Damon's. So it's not like, it's not like the right side of him is all rotted off and that's on the high tower side. It's like we got wounds on both side here. We have no idea what other pieces of Vassaris are missing beneath the robes. We saw some chest of back. but like, is he missing half of his left thigh? Does he have a left shin or knee?

Who can say? Who can say? That's tough. It's really tough. The taunting begins here because Viseras is making this. He starts the toasting here by toasting Jace, Bela, Loua-Grena, and Agan is taunting Jace as this is happening. Agon just being like just like, I feel like not even Joffrey. If Tywin were giving a speech.

Joffrey went to sit down and shut up, but no. Viseris then gives, this is the speech that we opened the episode with, an absolutely beautiful, deeply, deeply sad, speech and implore, he is imploring his family to set aside their differences to come together. He says it gladdens them. The gladdens him to see them,

but also fills him with sorrow. It's just a reminder of the divide of how they have fallen apart over the years. And he says, my own face is no longer a handsome one. If indeed it ever was, Patty is just so exceptional here. But tonight I wish you to see me as I am. And again, we've talked about the way the camera is tracking everybody's response. You have to feel and believe that everybody at that table, not everybody,

but that the key, the adults at the table are so moved, are so touched and heartbroken by what they are hearing from him, that they are. willing to then stand up themselves and reach out to each other. And you do feel that when you look at Alicent, when you look at Reniro, even when you look at Damon. And the... Not Agon and Eamon, though. Crucially not. And Joe, I was like... Not those blonde bitches. Yeah. I was thinking so much about during this heart-wrenching speech, Viseras's conversation with Lionel in episode five, where he's asking,

how he'll be remembered and thinking about his own legacy and what kind of king he'll be. And he almost, he says that he like longs for and wishes that he had been tested, you know, that he had found out what type of man he was in the crucible. This is his crucible. And it always was. And one of the great tragedies of Vassaris's life is that he didn't realize it until it was way too late. It's just heartbreaking.

Absolutely heartbreaking. And I love the way that the, the, him saying, I wish you to see me as I am, turns around the Reneira Allison, eye for an eye moment. Now they see you as you are and makes it hear something that you should strive for to try to see each other clearly and recognize who you are, who the person across from you is so that you could find your way towards some shared understanding. And there's just too much in the way here already. Roast pig, many other things. Do you know what I mean? Someone's got to look at the menu more closely before this meal. Can't have it.

Can't have the pig at the table. I'm sorry. Who gives your favorite speech? Is it Reneira? Is it Allison? Is it good, good boy, Jace? Or is it our babe Helena? I mean, they're all great.

We could do a rapid fire through all of them. Reneer standing up and raising her glass struck me because she is the first to stand. And it's once again, once again, Reneer is the first one to reach out with the olive branch. Before, when it happened at the small council, she was the one, as Allison noted later, who, wary of the fox, she's in the position of strength now,

but still recognizes what is necessary and makes the gesture. Appealing to Allison's sense of duty in her words, knowing how meaningful that will be to Allison, who says, your graciousness moves me deeply, Princess. Allison's in the worst spot now, unlike in episode six, when she didn't return these words, but here now she does, saying, as we noted before, you will make a fine queen.

And we know that she used to believe this. She used to voice this to Otto. And guess what? I believe her here now. Me too. I believe her. And fueled by her just the way that she despises her own son. Yes, fueled by that.

Partially. Yeah, partially. But also by. this desire to rekindle this warmth with Renira, right? The adults have moved into a tentative state of harmony. The children, if not. I think that the thing about Jace's toast, since you mentioned it, is, you know, he's initially pounding on the table.

Good boy. Right. He can work his way toward covering up his rage and trying to be the conciliator. Viseras's praise, you could see on Agon's face. Like, I've never gotten that from you once. That was a boy. Again, I do think the show is asking us to find. Yeah.

Some teeny tiny granules of empathy for Agon. It's an easier thing in the context of this scene, I think, than the other one. Fair enough. Helena, though, let's talk about Helena, not only the toast, but the prophecy, Joe. I don't know what we can. Okay, so thus far, Helena has. said something cryptic and weird while clutching something. And I actually, is it a napkin?

Or does she bring one of her bugs to the table? I can't tell. I really hope it's the former. So her table bug clashed in one hand. In every episode we've seen her, she said something cryptic that book readers are like, at least one where like, we know what this one is. And then last week's we're like, we got theories about this, what this one is. And this is similar where I don't know what all we can say.

The way of the beast beneath the boards. We'll talk about it more in the book reader section. That's what I was going to say. I think the only thing I feel I'll say here is that it gave me a real telltale heart vibe, like a real po vibe, something lying in weight lurking beneath the floor and that thing being judgment. That was very top of mind for me there. Can we talk about Otto's response to her toast? The toast is both dunking on A-A-Gone.

No, we can't because I, of course, have to take a second to make a Buffy reference. just say that the final season of Buffy Vampire Slayer, from beneath you it devours is the main prophecy of the final season of Buffy. So this is a, you know, the first evil from beneath you, it devours. But where the beast beneath the boards. All right. Now let's talk about Otto. Maybe the funny, maybe the funniest moments of the love.

No, I love that because it was him like aping what Vassaris had done for Jace, but Jason genuinely done a great job. Vassaris is like, good, I'm proud of you. And I was like, I also have young relatives I'm proud of. My, I mean, I love Helena. I'm very protective of her. But like what she said was like, mostly my brother husband ignores me unless he's drunk. And then I probably voice himself on her.

Like, and Otto's like, good, good job. Good. Man. Otto. It made me wonder if that was a. indicating some sort of sincere affection between them or more pointing

toward the way that he is like positioning himself to manipulate Agon through Helena the way he manipulated Vassaris through Alessent.

I'm just, oh, it turned really suspicious of Otto. Vesaris asked for music, Joe, and J.S. Helena, remember, as we mentioned on Sunday,

this pisses off Agon. It's noted in the book that it pisses him off. I was struck here by the way that Agin turns and looks at Aemond. Again, like Aymond kind of positioned in weight always.

And this moment before Vassaris is carried out where he's watching Jason Helena dance, everybody's laughing at the table. Not everyone, not Eament. Almost everyone is laughing at the table. There's merriment. There's the illusion, at least, of peace. And Viseras closes his eyes and says,

you just, he feels like, I did it. I solved it. It'll be okay. I came out the other side of this crucible. It won't. But, like, a nice for him to believe that. Again, the camera in this episode and in this particular sequence, some of those shots of the Sarah's face are shot through Jason Helena dancing.

And it's just beautiful. The Dance of the Dragons, we know is what's coming. This is the name of the Civil War that is sparked off by all of this. But here we have Helena, just child, like, hopping around, sweet Jace. And, like, it's a great adapt. of choice because in the book, Jace asking Helena to dance and this pissing Agon off sounds like makes A, it makes it sound like AGO cares about Helena, which we know he doesn't. And B, makes Jace seem like a piece of shit. So to like have the same thing happen, but it's way different

circumstances. Again, thumb on the scale for the blacks. But like, I think it was great. And I love the way that Jace says, excuse me to Beela, right? Like, he's like, excuse me, I'm going to go do this thing. It's actually a very lovely thing for him to do. What a good boy raised by his mom who is offering all of branches left and right. But he's thought mindful of his betrothed. Sister cousin. I don't know. Anyway, sister cousin? Yeah, great. The little glimpse here, not only of Vassaris wrongly thinking that peace had been achieved, but of like this childlike innocence. Uh, absolutely heart-wrenching. Because the second he leaves the room, as he's carted out, the pig comes in.

The pig comes in. Ships in the night. The threshold. So apt. And we get when Luke looks over the pig at Amon and chuckles. And like, Luke, you got to be better than this. There's a lot on the line. You just got to be better than this.

Jace is trying so hard. And Luke, man. Man. We get Amon's famous three strong boys speech from five. and blood. And you talked already about you and Mitchell's performance. The waiting, the pause after handsome and wise before he says strong and the Allison's face, everybody whispers it. Strong. It reinforces how intentional it is. A very, yeah, like he's been waiting all evening to say this. Exactly what he's doing. And also like, this is of course, the mentioning their parentage,

wielding that against them was what sparked the fight on drift mark, but also it's the very thing they all just worked to move beyond in the throne room. And so it is this very deliberate regression and walking everyone back into a state of turmoil. And whether the adults would have been able to maintain that harmony, I have my doubts. But the point, of course, the key upshot is that it didn't matter. No one was ever going to get the opportunity to find out. because the kids were waiting, waiting, biting their time to stir shit up again. I thought that Allison going to Amund in horror and like the moment where she realizes she's been

fearing and taught to fear from Otto and others what others would do to her children. And the moment where she realizes that her child here is the one who has incited this, like the way that that is washing over her in that moment was just really something. And then, of course, the stare down between Amend and Dave. Damon. When Damon just sort of backs Luke up with like one finger, it's just sort of like, again, I would like to see more of their relationship, please. But yeah, and then there's stare down. We already mentioned it, but genuinely shocking the way the guards pull Luke and Jace off when Amon and Agon are the piece of shit insiders of all of this.

It shows you everything you need to know about the folks inside of that castle. And, you know, as we said, this is what this episode was all about. If this is what happens when Vassaris leaves the room, then what happens when he leaves this good earth? Joe, you read this on Talk the Thrones, but it is the most apt passage that we can share. Can you read the beautiful final passage from Ares of the Dragon, a question of succession, that chapter of fire.

You know, essentially we're going to get to what happens in the show. none of that stuff with Allison and the prophecy suffice to say is in the book. It's just Helena and her kiddos visit Asaris. He dies. And the line is, then the storm broke and the dragons danced.

Chills, baby. Oh, my God. Absolute chills. Man, incredible. Absolutely incredible. But House of the Dragon has something more complicated in mind here. Yes, it does, Joe.

We are saying goodbye. To Vassaris, the first Targary, and his watch has ended. But before it's ended, he's got one more thing to say. We pan into his bed over old Valeria, again, this manifestation of the legacy that defined his life, the way that he related to history and the idea of history. He is in anguish, and Allison brings him, the milk of the poppy tends to him. He thinks that she's Renera. The fact that he has mistaken them for each other feels so key.

It reinforces how linked they are. how close they have always been before this rupture. And that breadcrumb in last week's episode where he mistakes her for Emma, he calls her Emma. Yes. Yes. And in his final moment, he mentions Agon's dream. Steve?

If I believe it to be true. Believe what to be true, my king. Egon. Our son. His dream. The song of ice. Saw in the north. The prince.

Prince Egon. to him night the realm against the cold and the dark. It is you. You are the one. You must do this. Joe, Blinks and wheezes. Emmy award-winning Blinks and wheezes. You really feel the wheezes when you're just listening to the audio.

My goodness, that made me feel like I needed a hit of my own inhaler. Remarkable stuff. Okay. Alicent clearly perceives that as meaning Viseris is saying, I want Agan to be king. Yeah. Okay. A lot of people don't like this. Yeah, take us through it.

We should say. We've mentioned many times the Targaryans use of three to four names and two to three wigs between them and that's it. Never again while I make fun of the Lannisters for Kevin with an A. The fucking Targaryans could use a Kevin. Okay. But the people who really dislike this moment are citing one of the worst moments in recent pop culture memory, which is the Martha moment from Batman v. Superman, daughter justice.

Too harsh. I can't believe. I can't believe. I absolutely not. The Martha moment has been invoked. Oh, no. If you don't, if you want to wear Batman's mom's name is Martha. And Superman's mom's name is Martha.

And this is a confusion. Anyway, I don't hate this. And here's what I'll say. I want to see how it plays out in next week's episode. We got this really interesting email from Nicole, I thought. Mallory was drinking water. You really almost got her on that one, Steve. Nicole wrote, quote,

George loves his historical parallels, so I'll make my own. This series of events strikes me as similar to the circumstances under which World War I began. The murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is sometimes cited as the cause of the Great War that tore Europe apart. In all actuality, war between the Great War great European powers had been brewing for decades and was considered by many at the time to be inevitable. The shooting of the Archduke was an immediate catalyst to justification to kick off the

conflict that had been threatening to break up for many years. The Dance of the Dragons has similar origins, I think. Alicent will no doubt use what she believed to be Viseris's final wish to crown Agon, King, and Reneer's stead. But much like Europe in the 1910s, a war between the two branches of House Dargarian was unavoidable, regardless of whether Ellison was given this ammunition or not. I don't think it's poor writing or a cop out as some have claimed to give Allison an excuse for her behavior in the day in the days following her husband's death. I actually think it's a natural continuation of her character's core belief that the greens are the righteous warriors in the fight against the black's sinfulness and deception. This conviction has clouded her judgment on

several occasions thus far, demanding an eye from Luke, attacking Renera, etc. Why would it not extend to her interpretation of utter nonsense from a heavily drugged, rotting old man. So, great email. Love this. Completely agree. It's a confirmation bias, right? If you want to hear something, you know, if you want to interpret something something something something, I don't believe she understands the prophecy.

We discuss this on Talk to Thrones. We all agree that, you know, Malloy, forever fearful that Kristen Cole seeing a dagger in the fire is going to resolve. on dagger watch in that sense. They have the tagger now and Kristen has seen it. I said on Talk the Thorns, I thought there was maybe a four or three percent chance that she could figure this out one day.

And I will say, I still feel that it is not impossible that one day that clarity could come given that Allison is a student of history, given that Fasaurus has talked to her before in front of the bonfire in episode three about dragon dreams and the role of dreams in House Targary and how badly you want it to be a dreamer. And also while the Aegon, the conqueror show wrinkle with the prophecy is new, the prince that was promised, Laura has existed for thousands and thousands of years in the realm and that language might ping for her.

But right now, definitively, we are on the same page that she leaves that conversation saying Viseras's dying wish was for Agon to be king. And I found by my sense of duty as I have been. And I really agree with the way Nicole put it in the email, despite despising this kid, despite thinking that he is vile and not safe to understand. trust with this power must act on this. Well, I truly will act on this, but I am very curious to see. Next week's episode is called the Green Council. The finale is called the, no, I'm not going to talk about what the finale is called. But like, it's possible that next week is all green stuff and the finale is all Brennera stuff. That's possible.

Which would mean a lot of space for Olivia Cook as Allison to proceed through this decision. And to see her work through those conflicting feelings of Egon,

what a tremendous piece of shit I have raised. But my father's pressing me on this side and who knows who else might be pressing her on other sides. And not only that, but I have this cloak of righteousness. This is Viseris' dying wish.

Yeah. And I don't think it will be an easy thing for her or a thing that she feels good about it all, but I think she would feel compelled to act based on this conversation, says Sam, you know, I understand. And in terms of like what people don't like about this, I think one of the things that it has popped up a lot

is that it feels convenient, that it feels, feels convenient or lame that a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation would spark a civil war. And my feeling on that is twofold. One, what Nicole said in the email, which is this actually feels very of a piece with the way that these characters have wrestled with their decisions. It's the latest misinterpretation. Exactly.

And that's true on all sides, right? Some of it is with, with Alicent wrestling with and grappling with the burden of duty versus what might be in her heart. That tracks completely to me. And working her way back toward Renira, and Renera working her way back toward Allison, however fleeting it was, that actually only enhances the tragedy to me.

It's not like, oh, they came together just so they could be brought apart again. It's like, what a terrible thing to have a tiny brief glimpse of a brighter future to just maybe lose it again. And I think the same thing that is really true from Viseras' perspective.

Like, it feels so tragic and so heartbreaking that this character who was defined by hating dissension, by wanting to forge a legacy bound in strength and familial unity and made this Herculean final stand to try to preserve that or foster anew. Accidentally undoes that,

that is tragic, but also feels so true to form for Viseris, a character who has been defined across the season by indecision and indecisiveness It's that old sailing into the storm idea. And it just feels like the almost like perfect concluding note for him that his wish, his dearest clearly stated wish across the entirety of the season for Reneer to be his heir

could be taken away from him the second he's out of the picture because he didn't actually get his house in order. Rough. The only other thing I wanted to mention on this, Joe, because in the final, you know, we, Alison leaves, very heart-wrenching, Viseris. We see the tear roll down his cheek. He reaches up.

We see Emma's ring. The screen goes black. He says, My love interpreted that as he's making his way back to Emma, the defining love and his life, heart-wrenching. The only thing I wanted to mention to you,

that, you know, you read the very end of the passage about then the dragon's dance. I can't, like, read this in full because there are some things in it that are in the show that I shouldn't say, but broadly, you mentioned the grandkids

and he's storytime with the grandkids. I was revisiting this. I was really struck by something. I wanted to share it with you. His grace ellipsies here over something I'm skipping. Told the twins, this is Jaharis and Jahara

who have been confirmed by the House of the Dragon Twitter on the family tree. Now those are Agon and Helena's kids. The passage continues here. The story of how their great, great grandsire a namesake Jaharis had flown his dragon north to the wall to defeat a vast host of wildlings,

giants, and wargs. So the children had heard the story a dozen times before. They listened attentively. So the Aegon, the Conqueror prophecy is new to the show. But in Fire and Blood, the final thing that Fissaris does is talk about the North and Winter. Brilliant. Love it. Woo!

Let's make the eight, baby. What an episode of television? Steve, let's make the eight. Wigwatch. Best and worst. What do you got? Best, I mean, if the Midnight Boys disagree with me, please let me know. But I thought Raina's wig was extraordinarily beautiful.

And I can't wait to get more of her. I thought she was intriguing. But worst, this actually comes from an email we got from Kara, who sent attached a photo. And once I saw it, I could not disagree. If you look back to when Reneer's fam shows up, actually, it just might be a promo photo. I'm not sure we actually get this shot in the. But there's a promo photo going around of Renair and the whole fam showing up, right? Baby Jop's wig is like a full grown-ass man-adult's curly black wig that they slapped on a little kid.

Oh, boy. So it's Joss's very large wig. Great back. How about you? Best. I'm recanting a full season of Make the Eight picks. And I'm giving the best of Vassaris's little wisps here. Because him holding on to those final strands of T.

Blinks and wheezes and whiz. Silver is remarkable. And it honestly was incredible to see in the featurette the way that they talked about, like putting in each individual hair into the prosthetic because you have that, the skin and the, oh, amazing. Worse, I'm also going with one of the three strong boys. I'm going with Jace because. I know.

You don't like the mullet. I don't like the fashion mullet. The little mullet curls at the bottom. I like Jace's fashion mullet. I want more of the curly mop that Luke and Joff have going on. All right. Let's get the heroin hair there. Fit Watch,

best worst. Oh, we forgot to mention this overtly, but we mentioned it like in a sideways way. But Talia is like in Damon's murder cloak at a certain. And I'm calling that war. Me too. Don't steal Damon's signature look, Talia.

Dude. We don't share our awards picks with each other. I have Talia, ripping off Damon's murder cloak, get your own thing. We have the exact same figure. I love it. All right. My best, this might be controversial, but I'm actually going to give it to Allison's,

like her severe green gown with the seven-pointed star. Just because she's like making in another very strong fashion statement. I liked the sort of conservative severity of it. It's almost like corduroy, like thick green. Anyway, I thought that was a really cool look that told us a lot. you. I have to go with Viseris's mask. Oh, I have to. And the dragon cane. And the gold ruffles. That I'm not picking, but I'm going with the throne room arrival outfit. Remarable stuff. All right. Number three, they got bigger and bigger. Best bit of dragondom. Oh, it's got, I mean, the dragon egg goop. It's just slimy dragon egg. Chipping away at that outer shell and then pulling it apart.

It's not my close captioning, but I would use the word squelch if I... When wouldn't you? Squelchally, yeah. Number four. Yeah. The doctrine of exceptionally weird sex-stiff. Sure. How about the fact that two steps, double-step-sib cousin engagement, nary a blink, nobody bats an eyelash.

Not only that, everyone's frankly delighted. Everyone's delighted. Including the patron. A lot of happy smiles. I hope that they had a conversation with Reneira before she announced this. And I feel like, I feel like they did. They didn't look shocked. They were just sort of like, oh, that's nice.

Me like each other. Let's get married. You know, maybe Reneira had an exchange at some point where she was like, I spent a lot of my life rebelling against my father for using me as a bargaining chip in political marriages. And I need to do the same with you now. Cool. And so you remember.

a choice. We all become our parents eventually. All right, you mentioned the subtitles. That's next. If this show had Netflix subtitles. Okay, we had a great email from listener Kelly Noelle with like a bunch of a bunch of we asked for

basically wetly synonyms. We got an email. She sent a bunch. I sent it to Mallory, kind of late in the day, honestly, but I did send it to Mallory just for fairness. So Mallory has access to these synonyms that Kelly Noelle sent over. But I'm pulling one.

Okay. What do you get? Tong. Flops clamily. Oh. We once again went with the same general pick. I went with

rotting, rancid mouth sticks together gluily. Oh, wait, are you talking about Vassaris or Vamond? I'm talking about Vassaris. Oh. I'm talking about Vaman.

When I say tongue flops clamily, when the half of his every time he's trying to speak, but. When the half of his intact head hits the floor, the tongue flops. It does. Yeah. The whole bottom tooth line still intact.

Amazing. Who. Number six, Archbaster Ebrose can never. Best quote. Okay. I'm going to cheat. This is a tie for me. Okay.

Yeah. Go for it. A smuggle. And one of them is one word and one of those two words. And we've already talked about them. Otto's good. And then Damans come on. Come on.

I was torn between the come on and the say it, both, both Damon quotes. Say it. Tremendous. Yeah, I think it has to be. Come on. What a great one. Come on. Boy.

The way that Fissaris turned to Otto and said, I will sit the throne today. And Otto had to bow away. Your grace. Your grace. Amazing. Joe's most reliable narrator tracker. Oh, guess what? I have finally delivered on my promise and made a spreadsheet

and we'll continue to have a spreadsheet rolling for this. So I've put in, I've input every single moment from the text that, anyway, Mushroom is in the lead right now with 11 points to, I believe Eustace's 9. And Mushroom got two points in this episode alone. One is. Clarity on scoring. You're not deducting. Are you deducting or wrong?

I'm not attracting for wrong. only points for a right. Okay? So Mushroom gets a point for saying that Agon got some girls pregnant. I think that's pretty something that he did. And then to these strong voice quote. That's a mushroom quote. Mushroom with the like accurate quotes.

Keep trying Sir Lanar. Maybe you'll get one that finally looks like you. Like mushroom was with the like steno pad hiding under the tables waiting to take notes. Anyway, mushroom in the lead. Okay. Joe, I ask your favor. Who won this episode? I'm breaking from tradition.

Just an actor this time. No. Act. Patty and Vassaris. Yeah. I'm going to give Vassaris his minor victory of a few minutes of peace in the family. Hard-earned peace. Did it last?

No. Did he own goal his way out of the episode? Yes. But I just need to give him a victory here at the end of all things. So it's Patty and it's Vassaris. How about you? Okay. I'm giving it to Patty, obviously.

I want to give it to Miseris because of the extraordinary feats. But I'm sorry. The committee has to take the trophy back after you accidentally Babel the Song of Ice and Fire to the wrong person before you tap out and then everyone else has to deal with it. But I think it's like, it was a tough, it's a tough episode to pick a winning character because that's true for everyone. Everybody who's winning during the episode loses at the end there. And then everybody who's losing during the episode wins at the end there. I guess I would sort of use similar logic to your Vassar's logic for Reneira, I guess, like getting into that position

of strength, experiencing some tenderness with Allison having this beautiful breakthrough with her father, getting the Lord of the Tides petition ruling, et cetera. But obviously what happens at the very end is unfortunate for Renera. Still, I'm going with Renera. But it's really Paddy's win. All right. It's our death send-off. Steve, give us some Draccharis screeches for Vaman Valerian.

Dracaris. Ah! Steve, give us some Dracaris screeches. And perhaps the... the sound of stone dragons crumbling and perhaps the sound of Viseris, the first Targaryen moaning in his bed of pain for Viseras, the first Targaryen,

first of his name, King of the Anmills and the Roynar and the first men. You know it. Titles, titles, titles, as Bobby B once said. Thracares. Ah! Oh my God. Vesaris, man, he needed to go.

The dance needs to begin, but I'm sorry to see him go. He was amazing. What a character. It's time for our faceless man watch. Who you got, Joe? I regretted not giving this to the Night of Kisses the week that his face got punched off. So I'm going to give it literally to Vassaris.

Good old half face himself, Vassaris, Targaryen. Not in the way we mean it usually. I'm just going to give it because I cannot bear the emails of people are like, can't believe you didn't give it to Riseris. So give me it to Riseris. I'm just going back to Talia Corner here. and I will remain here for some time, I think. Bloody Talia.

Great pick. Great pick. Okay. It is time for our book. Look ahead. If you don't want to hear this, bounce. Thanks for hanging. If you do, stick around.

It's time for a dance of dragon dreams. Real-time update from George R. Martin while we're recording this podcast. Hit me. Let's start the book section with this. We got an email from Spencer. who sent an excerpt from George R. Martin's blog, which reads, and yes,

Allison gave a Sarah's four children, three sons and a daughter, their youngest son, Darren, is down in Old Town. We just did not have the time to work him in this season. So Allison's fourth child is a day. They just haven't.

I'm sorry. It's one thing to not spend enough time establishing Eric and Eric, to not mention, when Otto comes back into the fold, have him say, Darren's doing well in Old Town. You can give us a line or two to acknowledge that that kid exists. This is bizarre. I can't remember who sent this email, but someone was like, someone suggested like,

I wish my sweet Darren were here, but he's an old town. Like something. Something. You do it with two or three lines. That is just shocking. Okay. Good to know. So Darren exists.

Corey to George R. Martin. I assume the rest of that blog post is about. Daniel Jones and the New York football giants. Correct. No, it's about the time jumps and how he how he feels like they've handled it. Okay. Interesting. Yeah.

Speaking of handling things, Joe, the Green Council has a lot to figure out quickly and we know Vesaris's death is going to be discovered, kept a secret in order to carry out Agon's forced crowning. We see a lot of Agon fleeing in the teaser. Speaking of Dragon Goop. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The Sarah's going to turn to goo. And I mean, the question is like, so if Allison is reluctant, which I think she will be, this is Kristen Cole's time to shine, right? Kingmaker. Kristen, is it not, who is the real pusher of this agenda the end of the day? I mean, Otto, obviously, as well.

If there is a character who can appeal to the duty bound adherence to a vow, a marriage vow, a vow of the king star. Or the baser side of Allison. You know what I mean? It'll be Kristen. We see in this trailer, they just showed it. Beesbury dead on the small council table. A pool of a lot around him.

It's just in the trailer. Can't believe it. In the background of another shop, but it's there. A shot, by the way, of Kristen pulling his blade. It looks like at Sir Harold, I feel sure that Kristen's going to. No, positive update for you on this front. Really? promo photos or season long trailer shots of later episodes,

Harold Westerling is on the Black Council at Dragonstown. So he's going to escape. He's going to be the, I think he's going to be the Lord Commander for Reneira's Kingsguard. This makes a lot of sense. So we get Eric, right? Not Arik. Right. Arrick is, but Eric.

Team Green. Eric is Team Black. Stefan. Stefan Darklin. who showed up in this episode. And Harold Wessling, there were three Kingsguard that went with Reneer. And I think it's going to be these three.

And what I do like about this is that they established Harold's connection to Reneer from the beginning. He was her personal Kingsguard. I wonder who Chris is wielding his sword at in that shot then. No, I think it is Harold. And then he's just going to duck the blade.

Yeah, I guess. Kristen draws the line at sullying his white cloak by slaying his lord commander, but he'll fucking slip the throat of the master of coin at the small council table? I mean... Actually, that all tracks. It does.

It really does. So hashtag Harold Westerling lives. Hashtag they did not cast Graham McTavish to do nothing, apparently. That makes me feel good. Yeah, I'm really happy to hear that. Ironrod's strict approach being teased in this episode feels very important, obviously, given his role.

Anybody who doesn't want to do what we say is traitor. And, you know, before long, our guy, our guy Alan with two L's in a you, he's going to be paying for his loyalty to Princess Renara. Tough stuff ahead for a lot of characters. Which one do you want to hit next here, Joe? I mean, Renera is visibly pregnant with Vesania, and we know that, like, Vesignia's, this is part of why Reneira is not able to, like, be more in the mix of what happens with Viseris. is that she's giving birth, and it will be a stillbirth. It will be really sad.

And it will be such an, I'm interesting, might not be the right word, but like, I'm curious to see how this feels as a bookend to Emma at the beginning of the season, to end the season with Rainira having a miscarriage or a stillbirth. And then that leads us into Luke and Aman because we feel so sure that Shipbreakers Bay is the finale. So if Renierre loses one baby at the beginning of the finale and then loses Luke at the end of the finale, you know, that's just a lot going on. What about Aymn and Damon?

Just chills. I mean, absolute literal chills watching them, size each other up and stare each other down, knowing battle above the gods' eyes coming, knowing a son for a son in the more near term is coming. You've noted before the way that Aymid is like styled to look like Damon. and it's just like they're staring in a mirror here. That's going to be amazing.

Agon the 2nd's kids. You know, Helena, as we noted, mentions the kiddos here. I thought it was interesting that in the tweet with the family tree, Maylor wasn't on it yet, just the twins. That's like one of the things that when we were talking about how much time might still have to pass. That was one of the things on my mind. They have to get Maylor in the mix,

given blood and cheese. But could they do blood and cheese and just two of the kids? I guess they could. You still have the same choice at play. Yeah. Awful. Heraling.

Absolutely. And on the matter of Agon's kids, this teaser for next week, Joe. Yeah, there's a little blonde cherubic kiddo, you know, with a platinum bull cut in what looks like the bells of a pleasure, like in, you know, in the streets of King's Landing. Is this another one of Agon's bastards?

Is this someone that Talia and Masaria know about, what are we looking at here? Right. This line in the trailer of Laris saying that he has something he needs to reveal, and then I'm presuming that this is what Otto is dispensing. That might be a misdirect, but when... That feels like a misdract, but yeah. Like, because Otto's also dispensing Cargiles to go look for,

and they probably have to hunt down Agon because he's... I think they're trying to grab Agon. So there are going to be a lot of people out and about looking. Can I read this email with the Cargels? Cargoles for a second. So the Cargall twins, Arick, played by Luke Tintzer, and Eric, played by Elliot Tintenzer. And I like this, that they've cast real-life twins to play these guys. And I also love their long hair.

Like, I love this. They look like every guy I've ever known who's worked at a Renaissance Fair. I love their styling. But we got this email from On Hill who wrote, they're both heavily featured in the episode 9 trailer. One of the twins is seen wrangling a wild egg on for his coronation. One of both of them are fighting in the street of Kings Landing and both attend the coronation in the dragon pit. We've also seen a clip that we can now say with near certi shows one of the car girls presumably Eric, since he swore to Reneer in Byronblood, presenting Jeharis Viseris' crown

to the Black Council on Dragonstone. It does seem, however, that we're going to get a deviation to some greater degree from the book beyond Eric playing the Stefan Darkland role. We never saw Eric officially become Rainera's sworn shield, which already happened in the book, and curiously keeps both of the Cargill's in King's Landing while removing a compelling reason for one of them to be loyal to Reneira. In the episode 9 trailer, the inclusion of Otto's order, none can know who you are, what you seek, which is what you were just shouting out. To one of the cargoes is particularly interesting considering the cargo bowl timing and fire and blood is tied to the Greens retaliation to blood and cheese. So what reason would Otto have to serve?

dispatch one of the twins now with orders it sound like something he'd say before sending Aric to Dragonstone to impersonate his brother, or is that seen him sending Eric first as a green agent only for him to be a double agent for Reneer? Lots of great questions. My main theory is that that is Otto sending Aric to go grab Aragon from who the fuck knows where and wrestle him towards the coronation. And then Eric's going to grab the crown and go to What's his motivation?

We don't know it because we don't know him yet. But maybe he's just loyal to Harold. And Harold's like, get the crown. We're going. You know, something like that. Sorry, scholars. I apologize. Oh, boy.

I hope you can now read for us, Elena's prophecy again and that exact same Scottish accent, just for fun. Beware the beast beneath the boards. Oh, yeah, but where the beast beneath the place. Okay.

Let's talk about it here for a minute. Okay, we got an email from Madeline who says, I know I'm late to the book. She said she immediately thought her friends the castle rats. More evidence for Rat Watch 2020. Maybe Laris is at the dinner after all

totally going to sleep great tonight with that lovely thought. So are the beasts beneath the boards the rats? My first thought was blood and she's, right? Because, okay, okay. But I was talking to our friend, Matt, who posts his Joe Magician before the episode comes out.

We had a great, great old brainstorm about this prophecy. because I was like clearly blood and cheese. And he said, Joanna, they come from the walls, not beneath the floor. And I was like potato, potato. But it got me thinking like boards. Bores loosely means floor, floor boards. But there aren't any floor boards in Kings Landing.

It's all stone, right? So like it could just mean theoretically the boars, the floor, they're beneath the floor, blood and cheese or whatever. But I was like, what has boards? What? And then I was like, oh, a ship. And so she says her prophecy right after Jace gives his toast. And he says, and his men, I hope we may yet be friends and allies to you and your family's good health, dear uncles. So I was thinking, and remember that like the clothes when I came right after Aeman was like talking about getting a dragon.

It was directly related. So if this is about maybe the Battle of the Gullet and like we know that Vermax, Jace's dragon gets felled, it's not quite the whole. whole like scorpion Bastilla thing that that was in Game of Thrones but it could be because that technology existed in Dorn so like

it could be that from beneath below the deck of a ship emerges this scorpion that takes Vermax down and kills Jace that's my interpretation great one or it could

just be blood and cheese but Either way, Gold Star, sensational work. I love it. That's great. I really like that. Obviously, when we're being introduced to baby Agon, the younger, baby Vesaris, it's difficult not to think that we're looking at two future Targaryen kings, particularly when Vesaris says it's a name fit for a king.

Well, so then let's talk about this timeline question, right? Because we feel like there's going to be no more massive time jumps. But at the same time, so, like, job. is six, right? Seven, if we're being generous, but six. He's, so he's like 13 when he dies in the book. And he dies trying to mount a dragon. So we're going to watch like a six or seven-year-old trying to mount a dragon?

Or is the show just going to let these kids grow up as kids normally grow up and he's going to look like closer to 10 or 11 when he dies, presuming like there's a couple more seasons. Because they said like three or four seasons of the dance, right? They're not doing like eight seasons of the dance. They're doing like three or four seasons. The dance is only two and a half years long. Egg three and Vassaris, like, surely they won't be babies and toddlers during the battle of the gullet, right?

Because you need, you need egg three to fly off on his dragon. You need Vesaris to, like, hide his dragon, you know, like, you need children. And then eight three is 11 when he's crowned. Like, he's still a baby. So, like, I don't think they're going to do a decade time jump, but like... Yeah, we need to move through time. for kids more what's

yeah evenly like yeah I don't know once the dance begins how we could have another

episode where like we miss years it's another it's another thing with but the dance is going to begin at the end of this season and like what are they going to do

with these toddlers they got a bunch of toddlers I don't know what they're going to do with them so that's my question I don't know the answer it's a great question oh boy

great line from Reneira I'll return on Dragonback Yeah Yeah Which she does Sure does But not the way

That you think Oh boy That's amazing TV ahead of us Yeah Next week's gonna be a banger All right Hobbes and Dragons To gmail.com

If you have a solve for this toddler question I don't know I feel like the next time we see them, we'll just hear that they're between 17 and 21. Mallory, like, steam is going to come out of Mallory's ear holes. Like two dragon mounts on the side of your head, just like gushing out steam and drag an egg goop. Wow. All right.

Love to talking about this episode. Thanks so much, Mallory. Absolute delight. It both gladdens our hearts and fills us with sorrow to see this podcast end. Stu Vassaris is right here. But that's a wrap on today's episode. So thank you, as always, to our dragon lords. Steve Allman for producing this episode.

Our Jenram Gopal, for his additional production work on this episode, and Jomi Adoneron, for his work on the social for this episode. Joe just reminded you of the email address. Send us your musings. We will see you again on Friday for the Rings of Power finale deep dive. And then again on Sunday night, immediately after House of the Dragon episode 9 for Talk to Thrones. The Midnight Boys will be with you tomorrow.

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