We recap and review Season 2 Episode 6 of HBO’s House of the Dragon, where the consequences of war affect more than just the blacks and the greens.
Spoilers below for Season 2 Episode 6 of House of the Dragon and “Fire & Blood”, obviously.
Creators: Ryan J. Condal & George R.R. Martin
Number of episodes: 8
Episode 6 Release Date: July 21, 2024
Where to watch: Max
Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) does not suffer fools.
That is one of the core lessons at the heart of House of the Dragon’s Season 2 Episode 6, “Smallfolk”, which sees the Prince Regent and heir to the Iron Throne flexing his newfound power in intriguing ways.
Jason Lannister (Jefferson Hall), Lord Paramount of the westerlands, sends a raven saying that he will not march his army into the riverlands without the presence of Aemond and his dragon Vhagar. “He dares to summon me?” Aemond growls to the king’s – now his – small council. Aemond rejects the request and instead tells Ser Criston (Fabien Frankel), his brother’s Hand and Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, that he will ride out to Harrenhal to attack his uncle Daemon (Matt Smith) on a second front.
It seems like this command is Aemond’s way of removing a potential liability – after all, Criston saw Aemond approaching his brother’s broken body after the Battle of Rook’s Rest, sword in hand, ready to finish what he started. If Cole hadn’t arrived when he did, perhaps Aemond would be king instead of a mere regent. Either way, Cole will be out of his hair sooner rather than late, despite the knight’s objections that he should wait for the Hightower host. As for the prince, he says, “I will fly out to meet you when the time is right. My uncle is a challenge I welcome…if he dares face me.” Time will tell if Aemond will get his wish.
Aemond dismisses the rest of the council but asks his mother, Dowager Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke), to stay behind. After several episodes of Alicent slowly being pushed aside and ignored by the men of the Red Keep, the inevitable finally occurs as Aemond dismisses her from the small council. Alicent makes one last ditch effort to appeal to the prince, mother-to-son; she caresses his scarred face, asking, “Have the indignities of your childhood not yet sufficiently been avenged?” He says nothing, unwilling to acquiesce that the answer might be, “Yes.”
When last we saw Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) on Dragonstone, she and her son Jacaerys (Harry Collett) had stumbled upon the possibly mad idea that the only way for them to have a chance against Aemond and Vhagar is to find highborn nobles of Targaryen ancestry to ride the unclaimed dragons that reside beneath their castle.
Rhaenyra presents this idea to both her small council and Lord Commander of her Queensguard, Ser Steffon Darklyn (Anthony Flanagan), who she has discovered has some (very) distant Targaryen ancestry. Her council members are incredulous at the idea that Ser Steffon could be a dragonrider, but Darklyn, knowing that to attempt to ride a dragon is to risk death, agrees to give it a try in service of his queen.
The dragonkeepers, the scarred, High Valyrian-speaking guardians of the dragons, take Ser Steffon to the dragonpit where Seasmoke, the former mount of Rhaenyra’s late husband Ser Laenor, resides. Season 2 Episode 6 director Andrij Parekh crafts a tightly edited, tension-filled sequence as Rhaenyra watches Ser Steffon’s attempt to mount Seasmoke with trepidation. Ser Steffon repeats the dragonkeepers’ Valyrian commands, and for a moment those present – and the audience – breathe a sigh of relief as it appears that the knight has tamed the beast.
But dragons are fickle, willful creatures, and as soon as Darklyn gets close, the dragon lights him and one of the dragonkeepers aflame. The dragonkeeper slits their own throat so as not to burn to death; Ser Steffon is not so lucky, and Rhaenyra and Jace can only watch as he succumbs to the flames.
At Harrenhal, Daemon is once again tortured by visions of his past. He imagines himself in the throne room of the Red Keep, forced to relive the moment where his brother King Viserys (Paddy Considine with a welcome cameo) disinherited him after Daemon mocked the death of his nephew Baelon, “the Heir For A Day”. “You can’t possibly still be angry about this,” Daemon mutters, but it’s a half-hearted rebuke; this moment was the beginning of the end for Daemon, the turning point that set him on his current path. If he had simply kept his mouth shut all of those years ago, who knows where he – and the realm – would be?
Daemon is awoken from this hallucination by Ser Simon Strong (Simon Russell Beale); Daemon pulls a knife on him as the castellan’s horrified servants look on. He accuses the old man of causing these visions and poisoning his mind, and Smith does an excellent job of showing the cracks in Daemon’s calm, cool veneer as he teeters on the edge of madness.
Daemon flees to the castle’s godswood, where the ever-enigmatic Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) awaits him. He tells her that someone has poisoned him and that all of her talk of curses and ghosts and weirwood trees can’t possibly be true, but he doesn’t even seem to fully believe it. Alys reminds him that there are things in this world that are unknowable and beyond their control and tells him, “You are not the player, but a piece on the board.”
Realizing she might be right, Daemon asks Alys for her counsel in dealing with the riverlords. She tells him that the riverlords are fickle and stubborn and will never raise their banners as one without the say-so of their liege lord Grover Tully, the old man who is too sickly to be of use to Daemon’s cause. Whether Daemon’s trust in Alys is misplaced or not, he listens to her advice to do nothing for the moment, for according to her, “in three days’ time, the winds will shift.”
Indeed they do. Three days later, Ser Simon tells Daemon that the old Lord Tully has succumbed to his sickness; not even the healing skills of their own Alys could save him. Daemon smiles at the news, but breaks down in tears when left alone. Strong had awoken him from another vision; this time, he had imagined a world in which he had comforted his brother Viserys after the death of his wife Aemma rather than celebrate his nephew’s untimely end.
Let’s put it bluntly: it’s time for House of the Dragon to do something new with Daemon. We have spent half of this season watching Daemon be trapped in a cycle of hallucinations, veiled threats and cryptic conversations with Alys Rivers. Give these actors something else to do! You have Tony Award winner Simon Russell Beale in your cast, and all let him do is wake Matt Smith up from his spooky little dreams? Smith is doing his best with what he is given, but it’s time for Daemon to be active as opposed to reactive and stop letting the ghosts of Harrenhal dictate his actions.
Back on Dragonstone, Rhaenyra’s councilor Lord Bartimos Celitgar (Nicholas Jones) oversteps, chastising Rhaenyra both for her dragonrider scheme and for encouraging Rhaenys (Eve Best) to fly to Rook’s Rest, which he refers to as the more “sensational approach”. She slaps him across the face, but privately confides in both Jace and Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) that she does not believe her council, or any man in Westeros for that matter, will respect her as their ruler. The signs of a ruler are shield and sword, she believes, and she can wield neither.
Still, as Mysaria has told her before, there is more than one way to fight a war, and the Mistress of Whisperers’ most recent plans seem to be bearing fruit. We last saw Rhaenyra’s handmaid Elinda sneak into King’s Landing under cover of darkness on Mysaria’s orders. While Elinda does not appear in Season 2 Episode 6, the details of her mission soon become clear.
Ulf the White (Tom Bennett), an alleged Targaryen bastard, overhears Dyana (Maddie Evans) and Madame Sylvi (Michelle Bonnard) talking about the lavish feasts and banquets being held in the Red Keep while the smallfolk starve. Ulf isn’t the only one who is discontented by this news, and soon the stage is set for the next part of Mysaria’s plan.
Lords Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) and Jasper Wylde (Paul Kennedy) tell Prince Aemond that the smallfolk blame him for their starvation regardless of it being caused by Rhaenyra’s blockade. Larys points out that Aemond needs his own Hand who will serve his own interests; Aemond, however, is not as easily swayed as his older brother and fails to take Larys’ bait. Instead, he tells Larys to send for his grandsire Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) to return as Hand, as his loyalty to his family has never been in doubt (unlike Larys the kinslayer). It’s exciting to see a slimy character like Larys put on the back foot and further demonstrates just how unlike his brother Aemond can be.
Speaking of which – Aegon finally awakens from his coma and seems to panic at the mere sight of Aemond at his bedside. Aemond very subtly presses his hand into his brother’s painful burns, and Aegon assures him that he “remembers nothing” of his brother’s attempt on his life. Still, as Lord Larys makes explicitly clear later in the episode, as long as Aemond rules in his place, Aegon’s life is in danger, and he knows it.
Lord Corlys (Steve Toussaint) once again returns to the docks at Hull to check on the status of his ship the Sea Snake. He offers his shipwright Alyn (Abubakar Salim) the chance to be his first mate when the ship sets sail, pointing out that Alyn saved his life in the Stepstones and he already has the respect of the crew. Alyn tries to reject the offer, much to the chagrin of his younger brother Addam (Clinton Liberty).
As Alyn sits shaving his white hair, (making it explicitly clear that he and Addam are Corlys’ bastard sons), Addam calls him for foolish for giving up a chance at all that he could have – the castle of High Tide, the lordship of Driftmark, the Driftwood Throne – even if it means that Corlys will continue to ignore him, the second son, as he always has. Alyn tells his brother that Corlys will never claim them as his sons, so he should stop wasting his life waiting for something that will never come. It’s nice to have the truth of their parentage confirmed, but it isn’t exactly new information for any viewer that has been paying the slightest bit of attention to Alyn’s scenes in particular throughout Season 2.
Yet there may be more revelations still to come with regards to these brothers. Seasmoke suddenly reappears in the skies above Driftmark, circling over Addam as he walks along the shore. Suddenly, the dragon swoops down once, then twice, chasing the man into the woods as if hunting him. When the dragon finally blocks his path, it comes towards him with something approaching curiosity rather than hunger, but the scene ends before Addam’s fate can be confirmed.
In King’s Landing, Alicent sits by the bedside of her son, the broken king, asking Grand Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan) what he will be like if he ever recovers; the maester either can’t or won’t say for certain. She holds Aegon’s hand and repeatedly tells him that she’s sorry, which at this point could be for any number of things.
As Ser Criston and Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox) are about to ride out for Harrenhal, Alicent pulls her brother aside to ask if he has heard from their father Otto, who hasn’t returned any of her letters. It’s clear that Gwayne and Otto’s relationship is strained, as he seems to hold some level of resentment for him bringing Alicent to court all of those years ago instead of him. Alicent asks about her son Daeron, who also writes to her less and less these days.
In a bit of awkward exposition mostly for the sake of the audience (who has yet to meet Daeron for some reason), Gwayne tells her that the now-sixteen year old Daeron is as adept with a lute as he is with a sword, and above all, he is kind, a quality which his brothers lack (Alicent’s words). Gwayne says that perhaps having Daeron ward at Oldtown was the better choice, as the Red Keep does not seem to be conducive to ingraining good qualities in young men.
“Was it the court or their mother?” she asks, mostly to herself.
“I am sure you did your best,” he says, and you can tell he means it. Fox and Cooke have great sibling chemistry together, and it’s a shame that we have seen so little of them together in Season 2 so far. We most likely won’t be getting too much more of them either, as Gwayne and Ser Criston ride off once more. Criston and Alicent share a loaded look before he leaves; hopefully that’s not supposed to serve as closure for their relationship.
Alicent goes to her daughter Queen Helaena (Phia Saban), who is examining two crickets in matching cages. “This one stopped singing,” Helaena points out, in case you didn’t get the metaphor. Alicent suggests that they go to the sept and light a candle and say a prayer for the king.
Meanwhile, Mysaria’s plan finally enters stage two. As some King’s Landing’s smallfolk try to scrounge up what food they can from the surf, a small boat appears, laden with food and bearing the red and black flag of Rhaenyra. Dozens more similar ships are making their way across the Blackwater. How did they make it there from Dragonstone without anyone to steer the boats? Don’t ask! (Please, please House of the Dragon, don’t start giving us “Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet” stuff).
The smallfolk are thrilled to be saved from the brink of starvation, but their joy soon curdles into violence. Before too long, the city starts tearing itself apart as its citizens fight over the provisions. The Kingsguard try to escort Alicent and Helaena out of the sept as the smallfolk hurl abuses (and dead fish) at them. One of them cuts the arm off a man holding onto Alicent’s sleeve, despite Alicent’s orders for them to sheathe their swords. A full on riot breaks out, and the two queens barely make it back to their wheelhouse as cries of “Long live Queen Rhaenyra” fill the air.
On Dragonstone, Mysaria gives Rhaenyra the good news that all went according to plan, but the queen is not as pleased as she might have hoped. Rhaenyra is not confident that she can win this war without Daemon, but whether he has truly turned on her or not, she must now consider him lost to their cause. But as Jace pointed out, they cannot possibly hope to win the war without Daemon and the riverlands. And even if she somehow manages to take the Iron Throne, how can she rule the kingdom when even her own son doubts her?
Mysaria confides in Rhaenyra that her father abused her as a child, and since then she swore not to trust anyone ever again. Despite that, she sees Rhaenyra as worthy of her trust and someone who is meant to be queen because she treats Mysaria as an equal, which no one else has ever done.
Rhaenyra rushes to Mysaria and embraces her – but suddenly that embrace becomes something more, with the two of them sharing a sensual kiss that is only interrupted by the sudden appearance of one of the Queensguard. The knight says that Seasmoke has been spotted over nearby Spicetown with a rider on his back. Unsure of whether it’s one of the greens or someone else, Rhaenyra takes matters into her own hands, mounting her dragon Syrax and flying off into the night sky to see for herself.
The cliffhanger feels somewhat false, as it is thunderingly obvious that Addam of Hull will be revealed as Seasmoke’s new rider, even to viewers who have not read the books. Let’s turn our attention then to the real twist at the end, which is the unexpected kiss between Rhaenyra and Mysaria (Rhaesaria? Mynyra? Whoever comes up with these ship names, get to work).
The show version of Mysaria has already been depicted as far more loyal to the queen than she is in “Fire & Blood”, but the intimate aspect of their relationship is an entirely new invention on the show’s part, and it’s a welcome one. There is a part of me that is skeptical that this moment is representative of Mysaria’s true feelings for Rhaenyra rather than a manipulation tactic to ingratiate herself firmly into the queen’s council, but for now, it’s nice to see Rhaenyra have someone around her that she feels like she can trust and actually listens to what she has to say. Also, it’s just refreshing to have House of the Dragon give viewers a canonically queer relationship involving its main character rather than simply hinting at it (we all remember Dany and Yara flirting in Mereen).
However, the kiss isn’t quite enough to make up for the rest of the episode’s shortcomings. Daemon’s Harrenhal arc, while initially intriguing, has fallen into a tedious pattern that does not fully showcase what its actors are capable of. Not only that, but it’s time for House of the Dragon to do a better job of weaving its wide cast of side characters into its narrative tapestry. Book readers know why Ulf the White and Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) have been getting so much screen time, but a working knowledge of “Fire & Blood” shouldn’t be required to feel like these characters are anything more than tangential at this point. Only two more episodes are left in Season 2, and it remains to be seen whether House of the Dragon can end this portion of its narrative by paying off its disparate threads in a satisfying way.
Season 2 Episode 6 of House of the Dragon, “Smallfolk”, is now available to stream on Max. Read our review and recap of House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 5 and join us next week for our recap & review of episode 7!
