‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2’s Ending Is A Big Tease

One of the main talking points around the first season of House of the Dragon was that it was just setting up for all the exciting stuff to come. Having enjoyed Season 2 quite a bit, it’s still pretty funny that this descriptor applies to the finale, “The Queen Who Ever Was”, more than perhaps any other episode in the show’s history. It’s the furthest thing imaginable from an ending.

It’s great, though, don’t get me wrong. It impressively entangles multiple season-long subplots and builds to a truly momentous-feeling conclusion that promises big things for Season 3. But then again, the first season ended a bit like that as well, and here we are.

But it’s a more packed episode than usual too, zipping around between different locations and perspectives, and paying off longstanding arcs and dynamics that have been patiently developing over time. So, let’s break it all down so that when the war does begin, we’ll know who’s who and what’s what.

Mean Green Machine

Criston waits to unite with Aemond in the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale

Let’s start with Team Green since Aemond’s erratic reaction to discovering that Rhaenyra has bolstered her ranks with three new dragon riders sets multiple things in motion.

Predictably, Aemond sets about indiscriminately burning towns. After having ousted his mother from the council in the previous episode, he leaves her detached from the decision-making. Aemond intends to meet with Ser Criston Cole and lead their forces to Harrenhal in the hopes of crippling Daemon’s new army, and he’d like to take Halaena with him astride her dragon to wreak havoc on the Riverlands.

Alicent is dead against this but no longer has any political authority to stop it, so in a neat inversion of her secret meeting with Rhaenyra in Episode 3, she sneaks out of King’s Landing and heads to Dragonstone. It’s a testier conversation than the previous one – and very well-acted by Emma D’Arcy and especially Olivia Cooke – but comes down to a simple idea. When Aemond leaves, Alicent will convince Halaena to surrender the kingdom.

Rhaenyra has to remind Alicent that the only way the people will accept her as a victorious queen is if she publicly and pointedly quells the opposition. That means taking Aegon’s head, which Alicent, after a long moment of thought, quietly agrees to.

Daemon Bends The Knee

Daemon bends the knee after seeing the Song of Ice and Fire

Who knew that Daemon’s season-long vision quest at Harrenhal was building to Alys showing him the Song of Ice and Fire prophecy? She should have just done that at the start!

Either way, when Alys takes Daemon to Harrenhal’s Godswood, the weirwood tree shows him snippets of Daenerys Targaryen and her three dragons, of red comets and white walkers and Night Kings. He sees the future, and in it, he sees Rhaenyra as queen.

So, when Rhaenyra arrives having been tipped off that Daemon plans to turn his new army against her, he subserviently bends the knee – as do all of the Riverland troops. It’s undeniable at this point that this whole arc was a big narrative ball and chain around the season and kept Daemon from doing all the cool stuff he’s undoubtedly destined for, so it’s nice to see we’ve reached the end of this.

Stuck in the Mud

Corlys and Alyn share a moment

Speaking of narrative balls and chains, a big chunk of the finale is devoted to Tyland Lannister’s efforts to convince the Triarchy – the leaders of Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh, the Free Cities across the Narrow Sea – to pitch in with Team Green’s efforts to break the Sea Snake’s blockade at the Gullet.

This is politically important and will definitely matter in Season 3, but it’s weird to devote so much of the Season 2 finale to setting it all up since we’ve barely spent any time with Tyland, we’re totally unfamiliar with Sharako Lohar, the naval captain he’s forced to impress through mud wrestling, and the politics – the Triarchy have been harrying the Stepstones in a Dornish alliance ever since losing them when Daemon killed the Crabfeeder in Season 1 – haven’t exactly been fleshed out for the general audience.

Likewise, I wish we’d seen more interaction between Corlys and Alyn since they have a bit of a standoff in “The Queen Who Ever Was” as they’re about to set out to reinforce the blockade. Abubakar Salim has a really wonderful moment here but it’s wasted on such an underdeveloped subplot. With these two representing Team Black’s navy, and Tyland and Sharako leading Team Green’s, there could be a whole front of the coming war that nobody is especially invested in.

The Final Montage

Larys’s meddling threatens Rhaenyra and Alicent’s plans for peace

Helpfully, House of the Dragon Season 2 ends with a montage that reminds us exactly where everyone is at the end of Episode 8 – let’s just briefly go over that so everyone’s on the same page.

• The various armies all amass and begin to converge on King’s Landing. We have:
  • Daemon and the assembled armies of the Riverlands.
  • The Starks and Northmen.
  • The Lannisters.
  • The Hightowers.
  • The Triarchy.
• Larys has managed to sneak Aegon out of King’s Landing. This will prove to be a bit of a spanner in the works of Alicent and Rhaenyra’s ploy for peace.
• Otto Hightower is in prison somewhere, though we don’t know who he’s a guest of just yet.
• Rhaena finds Sheepstealer and will presumably claim him as her own.
• The Hightower forces include a blue dragon we haven’t seen before. This is Tessarion, the dragon of Daeron Targaryen. Daeron is the brother of Aegon, Aemond, and Halaena, and has spent both seasons off-screen, studying in Oldtown. Looks like he’s coming to join the battle.