House of the Dragon ties the season together in a thrilling new episode, "The Red Dragon and the Gold"

The second season of House of the Dragon has been solid so far, but as a viewer, I've been feeling a bit restless. Season 1 ended with Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) learning that her son Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) had been murdered. After buckling under the weight of the news, she stands, straightens, and turns to the camera with vengeance in her eyes. Surely, we think, Rhaenyra is done trying to keep a lid on the simmering conflict between herself and her half-brother Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), who sits the Iron Throne that is hers by rights. Season 2 will bring the fire and the blood.

But it didn't. Rhaenyra continued to try and play peacemaker even as peace seemed less and less likely. The season 2 premiere ended with Rhaenyra's husband Daemon (Matt Smith) sending hiring a pair of assassins who snuck into the Red Keep and killed King Aegon's young son Prince Jaehaerys, an event that readers of George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood were convinced would turn fans everywhere into inconsolable wrecks. But it didn't. The sequence felt muted and muffled; the acts were horrible but the emotional connection was lacking.

In last week's episode, Rhaenyra tries one last time to make peace with her rivals, this time by talking to Aegon's mother Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), her former best friend. Their meeting was fun but stretched; it was starting to feel like the series would do anything to put off showing us open conflict between the Greens and the Blacks. I felt strung along.

That ends now. The newest episode of House of the Dragon, "The Red Dragon and the Gold," is a shot of adrenaline straight to the brain stem. It ends with a huge battle sequence that doesn't pull any punches. No one is shielded from culpability for their actions because of a mistake or misunderstanding. House of the Dragon has left itself no option but to plunge into the brutality of war, and I couldn't be happier.

Review: House of the Dragon Episode 204

House of the Dragon set up this big battle last week, when Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) left King's Landing with a Green army at his back. He intends to march through the Crownlands convincing houses to bend the knee to King Aegon and putting to the torch any that refuse. Criston, easily the most hated character on the show, has been a highlight for me this season. His motives may be loathsome, but at least he's pushing the plot forward. In this episode he executes Lord Gunthor Darklyn (Steven Pacey) for refusing to forsake his allegiance to Rhaenyra. And Criston doesn't flinch. As he takes off Lord Darklyn's head, I believed that he was a man of conviction, which means he's someone to be feared. Criston may be an incel dickhead, but he's finally becoming an interesting incel dickhead.

Once he reaches the castle of Rook's Rest, the site of our big battle scene, Criston also reveals himself as the mastermind behind a very clever scheme. But let's save that for later. The Battle of Rook's Rest is the main event, but there are other things that happen in this episode, even if a lot of them work as buildup.

The exception are Daemon Targaryen's scenes in the crumbling castle of Harrenhal, which almost feel plucked from another show. Daemon is having nightmares, daymares and visions, something that House of the Dragon's predecessor show Game of Thrones almost never indulged in. Maybe that's why the Daemon's scenes were my least favorite of the episode; there's something about them that feels out of place in this universe. (And yes, I know there are dream sequences in A Song of Ice and Fire, but there aren't any in Fire & Blood and almost none on Game of Thrones. To go from zero to 100 like this feels excessive.)

Also, these particular dream sequences aren't particularly inspired, unsettling or deep. The episode opens with Daemon walking through the Red Keep to find a young Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock, once again reprising the role she played in the first season) sitting on the Iron Throne. She accuses Daemon of having only married her to get her hands on her throne, and then he beheads her and the head talks. Later, Daemon stalks through the halls of Harrenhal chasing a doppleganger of himself wearing an eyepatch, which recalls his nephew Aemond (Ewan Mitchell).

This is all a touch obvious. Clearly, Daemon is tormented by guilt; a part of him has always wanted to take over his wife's position as heir to the Iron Throne, hence the beheading. And the show has continually drawn parallels between Daemon and Aemond, who idolizes his uncle. Hence the doppleganger. But I think all of this works better as subtext. By literalizing these feelings for us onscreen, they become more prosaic.

Dreams even infect Daemon's waking hours, clogging up otherwise good scenes. I still enjoyed the scenes where he meets with Oscar Tully of Riverrun, a young noble who's not prepared to deal with a wolf like Daemon; and with Willem Blackwood, a fully-grown noble who's much more of a match for our Rogue Prince. But my favorite Daemon scene was the one he shares with Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin), Harrenhal's resident witch woman. She has a daffy, confrontational energy that puts Daemon ill at east, as if he wasn't off his game enough already. More of her, please.

Everybody Hates Aegon

In King's Landing, Alicent is contemplating what she learned from Rhaenyra last week: that she misinterpreted the dying words of her husband King Viserys (Paddy Considine) and helped install her son Aegon on the throne despite it almost certainly going against Viserys' wishes. Instead of taking responsibility for her role in the coup, Alicent has embraced a grim kind of fatalism: whatever mistakes she made before, there's nothing she can do to stop the war now, so she might as well fight for her own side.

That said, her self-loathing is not making her a good ally. When Aegon comes to her in need of guidance, she caustically tells him that he's a sucky king and that the best thing he can do is let his smarter, more experienced advisors run his war. Everything she says is true, but she doesn't deliver it kindly, and it's not remotely what Aegon needs to hear right now. Can I remind everyone that Aegon's young son was murdered not two episodes ago? Put on the kid gloves, people.

Aegon has been the most interesting character of the season so far. He wants to do a good job as king but is hopelessly out of his depth, making blunder after blunder. His latest is installing three of his drinking buddies on the Kingsguard; I loved the moment when they all try to leave a room at once and bump up into each other in their big bulky armor sets. Aegon's advisors know he's hopeless as a ruler but don't want to force the issue...but his little brother Aemond does. In one of the best scenes of the episode, Aemond wrests away control of a Small Council meeting from the king, exposing his ignorance of the High Valyrian language and generally rubbing Aegon's nose in his failures.

No doubt Aemond is getting some revenge on Aegon for mocking him in the brothel last week. And like Alicent, everything Aemond says is true, but it's all in the delivery. Feeling miserable, Aegon gets drunk and decides that he's going to take his dragon Sunfyre to the front lines of the war, wisdom be damned. This is a change from George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, where the plan was always for Aegon to appear at the Battle of Rook's Rest, but it's a change I like. It doubles down on the Green family dysfunction, consistently the juiciest part of this season, and sets up some exciting moments during the battle itself.

Fire in the sky

There are two sides to every battle, so it's time to check in with Rhaenyra and her Blacks. Actually, Rhaenyra is absent for most of this episode, returning from her infiltration of King's Landing just in time to send her cousin Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) to Rook's Rest so that she can meet Criston Cole's army in the field, burning them from from atop her dragon Meleys. Before Rhaenyra's return, her hawkish advisors are getting restless, and it's up to Rhaenys, her husband Corlys (Steve Toussaint), Rhaenyra's son Jacaerys (Harry Collett) and her step-daughter Baela (Bethany Antonia) to keep them in line. Once Rhaenyra is back, the episode kicks into overdrive.

The battle is set up masterfully. First, we get a montage of our combatants getting ready. Aegon and Rhaenys will try to kill each other in the air very soon, but before that, we see them nuzzling their dragons, smiles on their faces. House of the Dragon is always trying to sell us on the idea that war is a tragedy that must be avoided. Sometimes that's felt like empty words, but seeing these two people bonding with these beautiful beasts before taking them to war hits different. We like these characters and don't want to see them fight, but they will.

I also loved Rhaenyra's monologue to Jace. She tells him about the Song of Ice and Fire, the prophecy that King Viserys shared with her when he named her heir, the one that casts Targaryen rulers as protectors fated to unite the realm against some greater enemy to come. Rhaenyra needs to believe in some higher purpose if she's going to unleash dragons, basically this equivalent of atomic bombs, on her enemies. This prophecy means something to her, and as she shares it, the show seems to grow. The battle we're about to see isn't just about people grasping for power, or amazing special effects; it's about destiny, or at least that's what Rhaenyra tells herself. It may just be about hubris and self-deception. But it's about something, and that's important.

So those are the emotional and thematic stakes. The plotting is excellent too. It ends up that Criston attacked Rook's Rest, which is right across the bay from Rhaenyra's home base of Dragonstone, hoping that Rhaenyra would do exactly what she does: send one of her dragonriders to defend the castle. Criston is ready with one of his own: Aemond, who hides with his massive dragon Vhagar in the forest just out of sight. Vhagar looks great camouflaged among the leaves.

All of this makes Criston and Aemond look smart, which is great if you want your characters to seem like credible threats. But neither of them expect Aegon and Sunfyre showing up to the battle uninvited, which is where things get especially interesting. Aemond ignores Criston's signal and lets Aegon engage Rhaenys on his own, perhaps hoping that they'll kill each other and he'll inherit the Iron Throne from his older brother. And when Aemond finally does fly Vhagar into the thick of things, he has her spray fire at both Meleys and Sunfyre. We're miles from the season 1 finale, where Aemond lost control of Vhagar and she killed Rhaenyra's son more or less of her own accord. Aemond is trying to commit fratricide here, or at the least, he's entirely willing to sacrifice his brother for the war effort. There's a great moment as Aegon realizes what's happening and screams.

Aegon and Sunfyre eventually go down, landing with a thud on the forest floor. The episode leaves ambiguous whether the king dies; for my money, he definitely doesn't, but more on that later. Two dragonriders remain aloft: Rhaenys on Meleys and Aemond on Vhagar. They battle back and forth across the sky and it's thrilling.

It's also new for a Game of Thrones show. The original series was famous for big battle sequences like the Massacre at Hardhome and the Battle of the Bastards, but an extended dragon-on-dragon fight in broad daylight between characters we know and like is something fans haven't seen before, and House of the Dragon makes sure it's spectacular.

Writer Ryan Condal and director Alan Taylor find the right emotional beats, as well. There's a bit where Vhagar and Meleys crash to the ground, and everything slows down. The sound is muffled and the battlefield is covered in clouds of dust. Soldiers scramble in panic and get trampled underfoot. In the last few episodes, I grew weary of Rhaenyra and Rhaenys always advising caution and forbearance, but seeing the dragons unleashed, it's easy to see why they were worried. Words are wind, but you'll remember a dragon stepping on dudes like they're bugs.

And then there's the death of Rhaenys, whose dragon Meleys is just no match for the much bigger Vhagar. Actor Eve Best does a wonderful job in these brief moments. Rhaenys knows she's outgunned but keeps fighting anyway. Her resigned deployment of "Attack, Meleys" is tinged with sadness and resolve. You can see the same feelings in her eyes as Vhagar bites through Meleys' neck and dragon and rider plummet downward to crash into Rook's Rest itself.

Rhaenys dies just as she was starting to come into her own as a character. She shares an interesting scene with Corlys earlier in the episode where it's hinted that she knows more about Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim), who's sailed with Corlys on several of his sea voyages, than he thinks she does. Fire & Blood readers will know where that drama is headed, but House of the Dragon leaves Rhaenys' thoughts on it unsaid. That's smart, in a way: the show takes Rhaenys away from us right when we want to learn more bout her. I don't think losing Rhaenys will hurt in the same way that losing Ned or Catelyn Stark did on Game of Thrones, since we knew them better, but her death scene can easily stand among the best in the franchise.

Is King Aegon dead?

This is the first episode of the season to give the last word to someone other than Rhaenyra or Alicent, a sign of the show's growing confidence. Criston approaches the site where King Aegon and Sunfyre crash-landed. Aemond is already there; he draws his sword, apparently wondering if he should stab Aegon to death and blame it on the fall, but sheaths his blade away when he sees Criston. Sunfyre moves, so we know the dragon is alive, but the king lies still.

At the risk of SPOILING things for you, I'm pretty certain Aegon will live. For one thing, Aemond wouldn't be contemplating putting his brother out of his misery unless he saw signs of life. (That's three failed attempts at fratricide in one day; you're starting to look sloppy, Aemond.) And if you've read Fire & Blood...well, I don't want to say too much.

Whatever happens, it's a great grim ending to a great grim episode. It took a while, but House of the Dragon season 2 has taken wing.

House of the Bullet Points

• Alicent downs some moon tea, the Westerosi equivalent of the morning-after pill. She is not interested in having Criston's baby, I imagine for many good reasons.

Episode Grade: A

Episode Reviews:

• Episode 201, "A Son for a Son"
• Episode 202, "Rhaenyra the Cruel"
• Episode 203, "The Burning Mill"
• Episode 204, "The Red Dragon and the Gold"
• Episode 205, "Regent"
• Episode 206, "Smallfolk"
• Episode 207, "The Red Sowing"
• Episode 208, "The Queen Who Ever Was"

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