House of the Dragon | Season 2 | "A Son for a Son" | Recap & Review

*SPOILERS AHEAD!

A little recap since we saw the prequel to the OG Game of Thrones series. Rhaenyra secured the backing and support of Corlys Velaryon & the queen that wasn't, Rhaenys Targaryen. Rhaenyra also learned that her son had been killed not only by dragon, but by it's rider, Aemond Targaryen.

We fast-forward to the season 2 premiere. We see that Jacarys Velaryon made his travels to the North saefly. Jacarys is traveling to the wall- is it just me or did you want to see a time where the wall was in the process of being built? Scaffolding, ladders and men working everywhere? Anyway, we see Jacarys speaking to Cregan Stark at the wall. Cregan reassures Jacarys that Starks always remember and hold their oaths.

We also see Rhaenyra on a quest to find something, although we don't quite know what that something is. W elater find out that she's searching for closure about Lucerys' (Luke's) death. She came up apon some fishermen who pull a dragon wing along wuth Luke's cloak to shore. Although it's still hard for her to accept, this piece of evidence might have been the thing she needed to now begin to move on and plan a war.

Rhaenyra's husband (also uncle), is ready to just fly everywhere with a dragon and wage all-out war. He also tries to talk princess Rhaenys into flying with him to King's Landing to take out one of, if not, King Aegon's biggest and most powerful dragon to their cause. The princess thinks better of the situation and instead of acting out of emotion, suggests they wait to see what the queen demands when she returns.

As we saw in the OG series, there have been a couple of kings that just weren't ready for the seat, Joffrey in the OG and now Aegon II. Joffrey was more focised on teasing, BDSM with women and interesting ways to kill a person. Now we see Aegon, who's focus is kind of on his children, at least his son. Which is a drastic change from what Joffrey was, but they both had another trait in common which is just letting their hand and queen-mother try and make all the decisions while he fast-forward through proposals and claims.

What we also didn't really see in the first season of HoD was queen Alicent be romantic. There was that one time where the late King Viserys crawl on top of her. But in this season, we see her and Sir Christon Cole get a little freaky on a couple of occasions. This tells us that he definatley has a type- either a queen, future queen or a lady in charge.

As Rhaenyra returns to Dragon Stone, everyone stands at attention as they await her commend(s). Her [quite literal] only line in the episode is "I want Aemond Targaryen." This lone demand/command sets off a chain-of-events in which Daemond pays some men, one of which knows the landscape of the red keep, to sneak in and either take alive or dead prince Aemond. That wasn't really specified.

As the paid of nameless men slither through the castle, they come apon a drunk King Aegon and his friends and finally make their way to the "level where the royals" stay. By the way, what was the point of the dog? And more importantly, why did the dude kick it?? The two continue their search until the dude who kicked the dog is holding a knife at the throat of queen Helaena's throat. They demand to know which of the two children in the beds is the boy. One of these kids is obvioulsy not Prince Aemond, but more of a concolation prize as they know the boy is the future heire to the throan. The episode concludes with the queen rushing into Alicent's room where, yes she's getting freaky with Cole, and she explains "they killed the boy."

For this season two premier of HoD, I am teetering between a C+ and a B- grade. Yes, we are back to grading episodes of TV. I think I am safe in assuming that we are [eventually] expecting an all-out war at some point. It probably wasn't going to happen in the first episode, but in the GoT universe, anything can happen. The reason I am between those two grades is becuase, like most season premieres in the history of TV, we were most likely to see more storytelling than action. But also much like the GoT universe, we could see a city/family/population be wiped out in one foul swoop. For those of you who are saying this is a slow start, yes I agree, but give it time. especially if you are new to the universe.

We also hope to launch "The Dragon's Den' podcast on E5280Sports.com, as we follow along in this new, crazy adventure through the earlier days of Westeros! Please follow along on all of our socials for when that might be!