House of the Dragon S1.02 — Dragon egg over easy

Spoilers below for House of the Dragon S1.02 — Episode 2

The second episode of Dragon takes place 6 months after the death of the queen and her infant son. King Viserys and Alicent Hightower have been spending an awful lot of time together and things are getting flirty (and gross tbh — that’s his daughter’s BFF). He even tells her not to tell Rhaenyra about their little “talks” (uh yeah I think they’re doing more than that but ooook). Never a good sign.

Lord Corlys, who is from the only other Valyrian house and is married to Viserys’ cousin who famously was not chosen to be the heir in the first episode, offers his own 12 year old daughter to the king to marry. That is truly disgusting and they show a very uncomfy “date” between the two of them. It’s obvious that he’s not going to choose her, but it’s more because he weirdly loves Alicent and less because she’s 12. Yeah, I said it, the Targaryens are weird.

Forcing his daughter to be a child bride is not the only thing on Lord Corlys’ mind, though. Briefly in the last episode he mentioned that a pirate nicknamed The Crabfeeder (because he likes to feed people to the crabs, duh) has begun wreaking havoc in the shipping lanes of the Stepstones area. I don’t remember the Stepstones as part of the map but apparently they are close to the Free Cities. Corlys is pissed because one of his ships was taken and Viserys doesn’t want to start a war.

Instead, he mentions that he is trying to get peace talks going. From the cup corner, Rhaenyra suggests that her father send dragon riders and everyone gets embarrassed for her. She gets sent away to choose her little crush Criston to be the new member of the Kingsguard.

In addition, Daemon has taken a dragon, his “common whore”, and a bunch of the City Watch with him to Dragonstone and set up camp, claiming he’s the rightful heir to the family seat and more. Then, he returns to King’s Landing and steals the dragon egg that was chosen to lie in the cradle with Baelon, the infant who passed along with the queen. He says he and Mysaria are going to get married the next day and she’s already pregnant (both untrue). That was a step too far. Viserys wants to go confront his brother but Otto (the Hand) convinces him to stay behind and he goes instead.

Otto, Ser Cristen, and a bunch of other soldiers show up at Dragonstone and face off against Daemon, his soon-to-be-wife, and the Gold Coats. It looks like the favor is on Otto’s side until Daemon’s dragon appears. But, wait! Another dragon appears and who is riding it but Rhaenyra, of course. She confronts her uncle and tells him to just kill her already. He obviously doesn’t (but he might have? Huge bluff) and he even gives the dragon egg back to her. Viserys is mad that Rhaenyra “deliberately disobeyed” him (Mufasa style) but he’s happy she succeeded.

The next day, Viserys calls the small council together and announces he is going to take a new wife: Alicent Hightower. Everyone is shocked, but Corlys and Rhaenyra are especially not pleased. They both storm out. Later, we see Corlys sitting by a fire explaining his life story to none other than Daemon. Apparently, the Velaryon family did not have the dragons to help them rise to power and had to do it the old fashioned way. They’re sea people (think: Greyjoys) and Coryls has been very pointed in his life choices. He is not looking to backslide now. He asks Daemon to go to the Stepstones and solve the problem, thus proving himself to anyone who might not think he is worth being the heir.

One final thing of note: in the first episode, they show that Viserys has a lesion on his back that won’t heal. In this episode, his pinky finger is necrotic, the flesh is literally falling off. They put his finger in a bowl of maggots so the maggots can eat the dead skin (extremely gross) as a last ditch effort to save the finger. Ok so obviously the king is not long for this show (they never are!) and this heir business will certainly come to fruition soon.

That’s all for this week — see you next Sunday!

Producer who loves TV, looking for my next opportunity to be creative & pet dogs. View all posts by lizziekreitman

Originally published at http://lizziekreitman.wordpress.com on August 29, 2022.