Ollie Upton / HBO
Warning : This article contains spoilers forHouse of the Dragonseason 2 , episode 2 .
The second episode ofHouse of the Dragonseason 2begins , as it should , in topsy-turvyness . As the news of Prince Jaehaerys ’ murder spread throughout the Red Keep of King ’s Landing , layer maidens and castle workers are delay , all while Jaehaerys ’ don , Aegon II Targaryen ( Tom Glynn - Carney ) , tantalise over his Word ’s death , and extremity of his Small Council — namely , Alicent ( Olivia Cooke ) and Otto Hightower ( Rhys Ifans ) — brainstorm over how to respond to the tragic event . The Hightowers , as tricky as ever , decide to use Jaehaerys ’ blackwash to their political advantage by parading the boy ’s bushed body through the streets as part of a funeral advance and rat his murder as an turn of wanton pitilessness on the part of Aegon ’s rival , Rhaenyra ( Emmy D’Arcy ) .
Ollie Upton / HBO
Jaehaerys ’ decease naturally hangs dense over the entireness ofHouse of the Dragonepisode 2 , and director Clare Kilner repeatedly re - accent the grisly nature of his murder with close - up shots of his bloody bedsheets and the stitch that keep his severed head attached to his remains . Despite all of that , the episode , written by Sara Hess , greatly contend to navigate the inevitably sour climate prepare by theHouse of the Dragonseason 2 premiere ’s shameful ending . The episode , specifically , races through so many important plot twists and developments that it leaves you reel from the emotional whiplash do by its haphazard plotting .
There’s too much going on
House of the Dragon‘s late episode packsa lotinto its 69 - minute runtime , which — despite its length — proves to be too myopic . So much hap throughout the instalment , let in Jaehaerys ’ morbid funeral , Otto ’s remotion as Hand of the King , Aegon ’s execution of all of the Red Keep ’s ratcatchers , Criston Cole ’s ( Fabien Frankel ) confrontation with Arryk Cargyll ( Luke Tittensor ) and his subsequent requirement that Arryk dumbfound as his brother Erryk ( Elliott Tittensor ) and assay to assassinate Rhaenyra Targaryen . That , notably , is just what happens in the installment ’s King ’s landing place scenes .
On top of all of those beats , the episode also makes time for a tense argumentation and parting of the ways between Rhaenyra and her married man , Daemon ( Matt Smith ) , over his affair in Jaehaerys ’ execution , multiple scene between Rhaenyra and a still - captive Mysaria ( Sonoya Mizuno ) , and a affaire d’honneur between the Cargyll twins that results in the deaths of both . Somehow , in spite of all the import of grief and death scattered throughout the sequence , it then ends with Alicent and Criston sleeping together again less than 24 hour after their amour helped pave the way for the murder of one of Alicent ’s grandchildren .
The show’s real battle: plot vs. character development
To say that the latter view is an odd one for the episode to end on would be an understatement . It is , for starters , exceedingly jarring to jump from the brutal back - to - back death of Arryk and Erryk Cargyll to more increasingly callous and emotionally cold moments between Alicent , Otto , and Criston . Even more importantly , Alicent and Criston ’s climactic assemblage speaks to a bigger job thatHouse of the Dragonhas face ever since it premier , and which is suffocatingly evident throughout the show ’s most recent installment . The serial , quite simply , continues to have a hard prison term juggling the emotional needs of its many characters with the necessary advance of its plot .
The newfangled installment rushes through so many confrontations , death , and political twists that it does n’t give itself any way to explore the emotions its with child minute would ineluctably provoke . No one outside of Aegon and Jaehaerys ’ mother , Helaena ( Phia Saban ) , reacts at all normally to the son ’s midnight beheading . Alicent , Otto , and Criston , in particular , treat the event with a degree of disregard that is n’t just dismaying but which defies logical system . To be percipient , House of the Dragon‘s character can dead be villainous , but the show has to be careful not to tilt so hard into their share selfishness that they become one - billet .
The serial ’ latest chapter jam so much violent , brutal trauma into its runtime that it ’s insufferable to accept even two characters as self - require as Alicent and Criston immediately moving past Jaehaerys ’ horrifying murder and pass over right back into bed together . It ’s a storytelling decision that threatens to completely negate the initial weight unit of Jaehaerys ’ last .
Is House of the Dragon repeating Game of Thrones’ biggest mistake?
For most of its eight - time of year run , Game of Thronesmanaged to keep its overarching tale moving forward without ever pass on its fibre and their penury by the wayside . That , of course , changed inthe show ’s final two seasonswhen it began to prioritize its plot over its characters , butThroneswould not have gained the pursual that it did if it had always fallen victim to that misunderstanding . Up to this point , House of the Dragonhas never taken its hearing ’s intelligence for granted as much asThrones ‘ last 13 episodes did .
The show has , however , systematically scramble to bring its plot - laboured root stuff ( a fictionalize history of the Targaryen dynasty titledFire & Blood ) to the silver screen . That ’s a problem it will have to address sooner rather than afterwards if it wants to contain causing the same variety of intense emotional lash that it does throughout its newest episode , especially yield that the seed have already been planted for its dramatis personae to grow even larger this season and next .
Modern episodes ofHouse of the Dragonseason 2 premiere Sunday dark on Max and HBO .
