Spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon Season 2 through Episode 5.
House of the Dragon Season 2 delivered its first big battle in the fourth episode as well as the first death of a major character since Luke’s fall at the end of Season 1. Episode 5 delved into the aftermath of Rhaenys’ death, with Criston Cole dragging the severed head of Meleys through King’s Landing in front of the commonfolk while Aegon lingered on the brink of death with his own dragon possibly dead as well. Daemon was still in Harrenhal trying to convince everybody that he should be considered “King” instead of “King Consort,” while plagued with increasingly disturbing visions.
All in all, the Targaryen family tree is a mess, and readers of George R.R. Martin’s source material are undoubtedly keeping eyes peeled for what’s to come. A lot has changed from Fire & Blood to the show, and I won’t drop any spoilers just yet about the fates that may be awaiting certain characters, but Episode 5 sent me flashing back to a conversation that I had with director Geeta Vasant Patel, who helmed the emotional eighth episode of Season 1, the third episode of Season 2 with its brothel orgy, and the eighth episode of Season 2 that will be the season finale.
How House Of The Dragon Is Building Toward The Season 2 Finale
While Geeta Vasant Patel of course didn’t drop details for how Season 2 is going to end weeks early when she broke down details of Episode 3, I did ask if there was anything she set up early that will pay off in the Season 2 finale, and the director shared.
So many things! I feel so lucky that I got Episode 3, because first of all, we got to introduce Baela, and that was a really wonderful experience. Baela and Rhaena were, in my opinion, introduced in a large way in Episode 3. I workshopped with the two actors, and we improvised all of their history so we could find their characters. And the two actors were amazing in just figuring out their childhood, figuring out how they interacted with siblings. Basically Rhaena is someone who's always gotten straight A's, done everything right and yet never got a dragon. And Baela is someone who got a dragon just like everyone else, and has always been iconoclast. So Rhaena at this point [was] resentful, so we actually walked through their childhood where they were together and then they started falling apart and this kind of codependence that they have.
Baela and Rhaena had of course already been present in a number of House of the Dragon episodes before the third of Season 2, before and after the time jump. But we’ve started to see more of them as individuals rather than extensions in Season 2. As of Episode 5, they have very different tasks ahead of them… and Rhaena seemingly isn’t being considered as a possible claimant for Vermithor or Silverwing as two of the biggest dragons of House of the Dragon. (Vermithor briefly appeared at the end of Season 1.)
And based on the director’s comments, the story with Daemon and Laena’s daughters likely isn’t ending before the Season 2 finale. Geeta Vasant Patel went on:
The other thing I got to set up that of course will pay off later is Daemon arrives to Harrenhal, and this is a new chapter for Daemon. This is where he will shift. He will for the first time look within himself... Harrenhal is a metaphor for what's inside Daemon's heart. In Episode 2, Rhaenyra pushed him away, and Rhaenyra is the first person he's ever really let into his heart and let his guard down with, and when he did she hurt him in Episode 2. She basically told him he was worthless, and so now his armor is on as he enters Harrenhal, but truthfully within his heart, the armor is shattered. So that's where the setup starts, and it will keep evolving until we get to Episode 8.
Daemon’s spooky arrival at Harrenhal and first glimpse of Alys Rivers involved what was clearly a hook to make fans wonder if his end was nigh. The last couple episodes have just gotten weirder for Daemon in the cursed stronghold, with Episode 5 featuring a vision of Daemon in bed with his own mother, which… well, parent/child incest is taboo even among the Targaryens! We’ve already seen how Daemon’s story is evolving – or perhaps devolving – separate from Rhaenyra, and per the director’s comments, it sounds like payoff could be coming.
The second season has also drawn increasingly clear parallels between Rhaenyra and Alicent, with Alicent now being denied power due to her sex just as Rhaenyra has from the very first episode. Speaking to Episode 3’s reunion of the two former friends in the King’s Landing sept, Geeta Vasant Patel said:
The other thing of course is that this is the first time where Rhaenyra and Alicent come together this season, and that particular scene sets up the fact that Rhaenyra comes in wanting to make amends, wanting to know the truth about her father, and if he really changed his mind, and wanting to stop war, but unfortunately, she comes in with – in my opinion – a newly-formed ego that we see as she lets her children leave and says goodbye to them…. As Rhaenyra says goodbye to her children, the camera comes around and arcs and you see a shift in her. A very, very subtle shift, and you see that perhaps her ego is awakening.
Patel noted that she worked with cinematographer Catherine Goldschmidt for all three of her House of the Dragon episodes so far, and shared that they collaborated to “find a way to help people understand what was going to be coming going forward.” After speaking about the dragonseeds scene inspiration, Goldschmidt also told CinemaBlend that working on House of the Dragon means getting “all the scripts up front.” Patel went on:
And that ego [of Rhaenyra’s] awakens again at the end of Episode 3 as she's come to Alicent to say, 'Hey, let's make a deal.' And Alicent says, 'Okay, what are you going to give me?' And Rhaenyra says, 'Well, nothing.' And that's where we see that there's something not quite right in the relationship between these two people. That's something that will, of course, lead us to Episode 8 because the truth sends Alicent spinning, but Rhaenyra is now galvanized and ready to push the button.
Over the past two episodes, we’ve seen that Rhaenyra being galvanized doesn’t mean that Rhaenyra immediately turned the tide of war in the Blacks’ favor, but she certainly doesn’t have to doubt what her father had intended for the succession anymore. While Episode 5 was almost uneventful compared to the clash between Aegon, Rhaenys, and Aemond the week before, the stage is being set and I think that more deaths were foreshadowed.
So with that, let’s look at what George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood says – with spoilers.
What House Of The Dragon Foreshadows From Fire And Blood
Warning: MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD for Fire & Blood. Turn back now if you don’t want to know how HOTD will end for certain characters!
Fire & Blood is George R.R. Martin’s fictional history book of the Targaryen dynasty and draws upon sources that are not entirely reliable, so the show isn’t an exact adaptation from page to screen. There are some events that I think are too big to change too much, however, even after the tweaks to Blood and Cheese, and one of them was foreshadowed in Daemon’s vision in Episode 3 with Alys Rivers declaring that he would die “in this place.”
And depending on how broad we’re going to interpret “in this place,” then Alys truly was foreshadowing Daemon’s demise. Last chance to avoid spoilers! In Fire & Blood, Daemon dies after a spectacular dragon fight over the God’s Eye lake, when he leaps from Caraxes’ back to guarantee his quarry’s demise as well as his own. The God’s Eye is adjacent to Harrenhal, so Alys’ statement in Daemon’s vision could certainly be a sign that HOTD is following Fire & Blood for the big death.
I also think that a couple of smaller moments are hinting towards the other Targaryen death above the God’s Eye: Aemond. The uncle ultimately defeated his nephew not by overpowering Vhagar on Caraxes, but by virtue of having greater experience. Aemond chained himself to Vhagar for safety in the book, which we saw him learn the importance of in HOTD Season 1 when he nearly fell off Vhagar and we saw Rhaenys do in one of her final acts of Season 2. His death in the book is at least partly due to the fact that he couldn’t get away from his uncle when Daemon leapt from Caraxes to Vhagar.
Finally, in Episode 5, Cole’s decision to have Meleys’ head dragged through the streets of King’s Landing in front of all the smallfolk didn’t have the triumphant effect he intended, as the people saw with their own eyes that dragons aren’t gods, but just meat. I’m inclined to think that this is foreshadowing the Storming of the Dragonpit, which is going to involve a whole lot of fire and blood and mark a turning point for the war.
I may not be entirely correct that all of these moments have been foreshadowing, although I think it’s hard to read Alys in Daemon’s vision in any other way. Still, it’s safe to say that the early episodes of Season 2 have dropped some major clues for the finale, even if we won’t know what they are until that finale eventually airs.
For now, keep tuning in to HBO on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET for new episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2, and/or stream the full series so far with a Max subscription.
