Scary House of the Dragon season 2 premiere title, revealed

The first season of House of the Dragon ended with Lucerys Velaryon, the son of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, getting killed by his cousin Aemond Targaryen. In the book Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin, this turns an already tense situation into an all-out war. The Dance of the Dragons is about to begin.

Now, Redanian Intelligence claims to have learned the title of the season 2 premiere episode, and it suggests dark times ahead. The House of the Dragon season 2 premiere is reportedly titled, “A Son for a Son.”

What does that mean? We’ll get into it, but beware that there are SPOILERS from here on out.

The tale of Blood and Cheese

In Fire & Blood, immediately after the death of Lucerys, we are told that Daemon Targaryen, Queen Rhaenyra’s hot-tempered husband, reaches out to some of his connections in King’s Landing, where Rhaenyra’s half-brother King Aegon sits the Iron Throne that should be hers. Remember: Daemon basically invented the idea of the City Watch, known as the gold cloaks, the law enforcement arm of King’s Landing. He still has friends there. He also knows Mysaria, a prostitute who became a powerful information broker.

In the book, Daemon is at the castle of Harrenhal by this point. He sends a letter to his wife Rhaenyra: “An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Lucerys will be avenged.” He also reaches out to Mysaria. She hires two men known to history only as Blood and Cheese. Blood is a former member of the City Watch and Cheese a former rat catcher at the Red Keep. Cheese knows the castle’s secret passageways very well.

The two of them infiltrate the Red Keep and find Queen Helaena Targaryen visiting with her children, the twins Jaehaera and Jaehaerys and the baby boy Maelor. Helaena’s mother Alicent Hightower is also present. Blood and Cheese bind and gag Alicent and give Helaena a choice: which of her sons should they kill? If she doesn’t make a choice, Blood will kill them all. Agonized, Helaena selects Maelor. Blood kills Jaehaerys instead. He and Cheese then escape the Red Keep with Jaehaerys’ head in hand.

How will House of the Dragon change the Blood and Cheese scene?

So that’s intense. Things will have to go down a bit differently on the TV show. To start, Daemon isn’t at Harrenhal when Lucerys dies; he’s at Dragonstone. Word is that he’ll sneak into King’s Landing on a fishing boat and meet up with his underworld contacts at that point. Then he’ll move on to Harrnehal.

Also, so far as we can tell, Maelor Targaryen is not part of the show, or at least, we haven’t seen him yet. We have glimpsed the twins Jaehaera and Jaehaerys, though.

Assuming Maelor really has been cut, perhaps Blood will offer Helaena a choice between killing one of the twins, a boy and a girl, rather than killing one of her sons. Either way, this is gonna be brutal.

Finally, although we’ve heard that Daemon sneaks into King’s Landing in the premiere, there’s no guarantee that the Blood and Cheese incident goes down in that same episode. Personally, I think we could stand to spend a little more time with Helaena and her kids before her family is ripped apart.

Then again, it would make for a very memorable premiere. “[Showrunner Ryan Condal’s] decision was to give [House of the Dragon season 2] a good opening and a good ending,” director Clare Kilner said recently. Sounds ominous…we’ll find out more when House of the Dragon season 2 premieres on HBO and Max sometime in 2024.

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