Welcome, everyone, to the season 1 finale of House of the Dragon. Did this season’s finale disappoint? Were we happy with how it ended? Overall, was it a success? All of these questions will be answered and much more in this blog.
A moment of honesty. I really messed up by not posting this when I was initially supposed to. This episode aired in the midst of my bout with covid and it kicked my ass. I didn’t get all the things done that I intended to do. By the time I was healthy, I was trying to get other things done, which unintentionally fell by the wayside. My point is, I screwed up and that is why this is so late. My apologies to Chris and Jim, who obviously put a lot of time and effort into this, and also to the readers who have been asking me where the season finale review was. With that being said, all comments in BOLD are from me.
1. Heading into season 2, who is Rhaenyra’s strongest non-dragon ally? Who is Aegon’s strongest non-dragon ally? Please pick people, not philosophies or locations, just pick a person.
Chris: Heading into season 2 Rhaenyra’s strongest ally is House Velaryon. With the equivalent of the entire Navy to enforce their will over trade and the seas, having your two strongholds being on the ocean means you can always pack it up and move, which is something the land-locked lords cannot do. Aegon’s strongest ally is definitely his mom, since we have seen how she gets Larys to help. I can’t imagine him charging Otto the same cost. If he does, I hope I never see that scene. (Chris, you let me down with your first-half response. The House isn’t a single person, but you’re right. I can still be disappointed though. And now I kinda want to see Otto and Larys have a scene. Make it happen!!)
Jim: Heading into season 2, some Allies have made themselves known, and still others, we are waiting to hear their reply. If the blood spilled in the House of Baratheon causes them to feel they need to ally with the Queen, then I think they will end up as the strongest ally. Otherwise, the only true pronounced ally is Corlys and Rhaena. I don’t necessarily trust that they will stay through until the end (gut feeling, I haven’t read the source material) but they are the only true force that has currently allied. Corlys wanted to stay out of the fray completely, due to issues with both sides, however, Rhaena convinced him to ally at this time. (How are you gonna not mention Erryk and Darklyn here?)
On the other side, Aemon has declarations from the Lannisters, which even in its infancy, and not at its true GoT power, is a formidable ally (while also not always, or ever, trustworthy). Additionally, Harrenhall (Larys) is proving to be a powerful ally of Alicent’s, not necessarily Aegon’s. While I believe his mother will be using Larys to help the throne, it doesn’t mean that it necessarily will align with Aegon’s decree, if it is an idea that Otto placed there.
Kent: I want to say Rheanys for Rheanyra, mostly because I don’t know Corlys’ true state of health. Is he near death? Was this just a small bump in the road? Rheanys has also shown her gumption and smarts. She is my pick because I just can’t ever pick someone named Erryk as a positive. My second-place pick would actually be Mysaria. How much longer will Rheanys be alive, and is her power more to do with the dragon, her husband, or her smarts? Meanwhile, Mysaria could be the ultimate informant. Information from within could prove invaluable.
For Aemon, there are many options, with Larys, Lannisters, and I assume the Baratheons. I could be very wrong about that. But that’s what I am all about. We all know what Aemond did, and we will talk about it in the next question, but he has done stuff that nobody else has in this series. He has quintessentially stolen the largest dragon and made it his, and then he murdered Luke and Luke’s dragon. It has to be Aegon. If dragons are the ultimate weapon, then it has to be Aegon. He gets results and doesn’t have a foot fetish. Have I mentioned how much I hate feet?
2. Will Aemond own what he did to Luke? Even if he didn’t mean it, was this a good thing for the Green team? Will Otto approve?
Chris: Aemond has to own it. It’s obviously already known (by the ending we get) and will thus be unable to hide. No one will believe that Luke and his lil’dragon tyke provoked Vhagar to attack, and Aemond’s behavior in Storm’s End was already witnessed by a third party. He’ll own it, add it to his reputation, and Otto will be stoked. (I enjoy that you called it “his lil’drgagon tyke”. It feels appropriate given the absurd size differential.)
Jim: I think he will own the killing, but not necessarily the provocation of it. He may choose to lie, and blame Luke for starting the fight (only to be refuted by the Baratheons, which is why I can see the Baratheons siding with the Queen eventually). He wouldn’t want to own the cause as either him drawing first blood in the war, or Vhagar due to his lack of control. He also may spin Luke attacking to try and drum up more support elsewhere.
Kent: Aemond is gonna be an F’N gangster and initially own it. Otto will smile and be so proud of the grandson who actually gets shit done. Then Allicent will wipe the smirk off their faces and give them a reality check and then they will spin the story as much as possible. While Baratheon could clearly dispute this, I get the feeling that Otto will find a way to keep their mouths shut. This was a huge win. Rhaenyra is coming at this situation very emotionally charged, which makes her dangerous, but not cunning.
3. Corlys is alive and doing better than some people expected. Did he have a flawless episode?
Chris: I don’t think he had a flawless episode, but he definitely came off better than what I was expecting from him. He finally acknowledged to his wife how his ambition has cost his family. But his actual staffing of the Stepstones and vanquishing of the Triarchy is the thing that will allow the blacks to stick in the war at the beginning where they otherwise would have had to bend the knee. (The most important Black person on the show also happens to be on team black. Seems like a Tolkien move. Fans of South park will appreciate what I just said.)
Jim: I do think he played everything as best as possible. I am not convinced of the long-term support of Driftmark to Rhaenyra, because I know deep down, he just wanted them to sail away as the world burns. I was surprised with his quick return to health, and was happy to see, as he has been a character I have enjoyed. (I can’t tell if his allegiance was a move of desperation or commitment to a greater cause. I agree with you when you say that he just wanted to sail away from the BS and maybe one day accidentally meet his son.)
Kent: He was braless and flawless. He has very firm man boobs, or pectoral muscles for those who want to be that person. He basically came back from what sounded like near-certain death and seems to be doing just fine, all things considered. Then he realized that he was wrong and that his wife was right, and he wanted to go back to a time when he and Rhaenys were happy and on the same page. And he took over the Stepstones intelligently. This was good. Most importantly, nothing bad happened in his Hall.
4. Whose approach made more sense to you: Rhaenyra’s or Daemon’s?
Chris: Being a commoner myself, Rhaenyra. Sure Daemon burning King’s Landing would have been effective, in a way, but just like at Aegon’s Coronation, who would have died? Not the nobility and not the people who they are at war with but the common folk. Rhaenyra’s own inaction has led them to this point as much as Otto’s ambition or Alicent’s feelings of betrayal. (Dusty Rhodes would have approved of your thought process.)
Jim: The more logical approach of course was Rhaenyra’s, but sending others to speak with Allies rather than herself of course opens the possibility of drawing blood and triggering the war too early (dragon fractions as exhibit A). While Daemon had the potential of catching them off guard, they didn’t really have any army to speak of, so if more of their dragons fell than he was planning, there was no plan B. But it remains to be seen if the Allies she was trying to rally actually come through. If they do not, it appears that Daemon’s surprise attack actually would have been the best. (I thought Plan B was the tea that they keep serving the young ladies. You’re right in the idea of the risk of losing too many dragons is not worth it.)
Kent: I will say that both approaches were lackluster, at best. Yes, they both lacked a sense of luster. Rheanyra’s wouldn’t be so bad if she hadn’t sent her sons to do a job that she was more fit for. I understand her thinking, but it was very bad thinking. The type of thinking that doesn’t win a war. It hurts you, both short term and potentially long term. What is the best-case scenario for her side after the Luke situation? She gets to try to play the victim card…..again. She MAY get the Baratheons on her side. That’s a really shitty best case. It has a low ceiling. Daemon’s probably doesn’t work, but it would be far more exciting to watch play out. Not only that, but I can’t imagine him being dumb enough to send those boys separately. The thing is, Daemon knows that he can do some significant damage and have a great kill number and even take out some important cogs in the machine, but he can’t take them all out, and he doesn’t have enough muscle behind him to fall back on. That leads us back to Jim’s response about potentially losing dragons. It simply isn’t worth it at this time. Still, a surprise attack has higher potential so I side with Daemon.
5. Is this the beginning of the bad blood between the Targaryens and Baratheons that lingered all the way to the times of Game of Thrones? Do the Baratheons have a target on them now?
Chris: No more than it would have been for the Lannisters. Aerys did some truly horrific things, and the last straw for Robert was Rhaegar’s kidnapping(sic) of Lyanna Stark; that was what kicked that off. Knowing the carnage to come, this will be seen as minor since he did protect Luke within his demesne. (How many people reading this have ever used the term “demesne”? Just Chris? That makes perfect sense, but a great word for those who may not know what it means.)
Jim: It certainly seems like allowing Luke to die on their soil (sky?) is the beginning of the bad blood, but is it also possible that the bad blood is stemming from the future Baratheon losses in the war between the Targaryens, their people dying as a result of shady estate planning. (I admit that I read that as shady real estate planning and I was wondering where you were going with this. To read the statement as “their people dying as a result of shady real estate planning” is really a phenomenal thing to consider.)
Kent: I could see this as the first spark. I’m not even sure if this incident would get passed down in Baratheon lore as a big ordeal or not. But, much like the Hatfields and McCoys, it doesn’t take much to really get things started. By the way, that miniseries from 2012 was really fantastic. It had a solid lead cast of Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton along with a litany of other actors that you know by name or face, like Powers Boothe, Tom Berenger, and Mare Winningham. Furthermore, the song that they used for was “Bartholomew” by The Silent Comedy, which was also used in the trailer for Dark Souls, one of the all-time greatest video games ever made. Wait….what was the question again? This is exactly how Kenter At Your Own Risk ends up going off the rails. It was that easy. To answer the question, yes, but it probably wasn’t something many Baratheons cared about by the time that Game of Thrones took place.
The “Willem Blackwood Award for Momentary Brilliance” – Better known as what our favorite moment or most absurd or unexpected moment of the show was for the week.
Chris: Daemon. As Kent and I talked about in our podcast the whole choking moment makes no sense in the context of the scene. Rhaenyra is “like do you know about the Song of Ice and Fire?”. Daemon doesn’t but immediately chokes her. She ends it with he never told you. So Daemon chokes her over something he has no knowledge of. The showrunner has stated that Daemon did it because he was upset over another example of Viserys not considering him his actual heir. But based on what they show, Daemon didn’t have that knowledge and so shouldn’t have been upset until he found out what it was. It was IN character but the scene should have been reversed: Rhaenyra brings up the Song of Ice and Fire to Daemon, and he says what is that, she tells him and taunts him for never being told, then he chokes her. So I guess less to Daemon and more to the WRITERS.
Jim: While he’s not around to celebrate his award, I have to award this to Arrax. For once, I really can’t think of a human behaving ridiculously, but it appeared that Arrax decided to go rogue and attack Vhagar, a dragon nearly 4x his size. The inevitable happened, where one bite and the battle was over. I suppose a distant second to Daemon, who stayed completely away from his wife’s birthing (with good reason I suppose) and then tried to choke her when he didn’t agree with being put in his place. While I don’t think it qualifies as ridiculous, it was an unwise decision, as Rhaenyra may certainly turn on him as well.
Kent: The choking thing was just dumb in the way that they did it. Chris spelled it out so no need for me to delve further. Both dragons had their moments. And I really want to just yell at Rhaenyra a little more for sending her boys off the way that she did. Everything has been covered though. So here’s one thing that I found absurd. Aemond’s behavior toward Luke while visiting Storms End. Consider this. You have arrived there, you want to potentially charm these people into siding with you. Then you pull this super petty power play and want to fight this boy in front of these prospective supporters. The fuck? This is the stuff that makes Aemond amazing, but it is also a head-scratcher. By the time he starts his nonsense, it seems pretty clear that his offer was far better than Luke’s. Just walk away with your win. Anything that you do after that can only mess up your efforts. Even by Aemond’s standards, this seemed almost inane.
Bonus Jim Question: Do you think they chose a good moment to end the season on, or should they have gone a little longer or held off on killing Luke/Arrax?
Chris: No it was a shitty moment to end on and made it the weakest season closer in both series. Even one more line from Rhaenyra to actually give weight to what is coming would have been better. But as it is, it was a slow and mostly anti-climactic last two episodes, following two of the best in the series.
Jim: I truly think that they should have extended a little longer, and shown the retaliation by Rhaenyra. Because this was season-ending, it really leaves nearly too much anticipation, as to what Rhaenyra is going to do…. Personal attack, military strike, use the death to garner support, just a little more something before cutting away for the season. They also could have gone to black with Vhagar posed to bite, without showing whether or not the strike was successful. Knowing what happened, and seeing Rhaenyra’s face with knowing the next words feels like we were shortchanged.
Kent: Hell no! This was a moment covered in weak sauce. You could have ended it in many ways. You could have finished it with Daemon finding and recruiting the 3 big dragons, for example. Maybe do a final shot of all the dragons that they have. Let’s face it, a lot of people watch it for the dragons. That would have been a cool visual. You could have ended it with Aemond in pursuit of Luke and maybe the visual of the huge shadow above. You could have done a split-screen shot of Rheanyra and Allicent for like a minute of them doing something to get you amped But this…..not for me. Left a nasty taste in my mouth.
Additional Jim Question: How would you rate the season on the whole?
Chris: I’ll give it an 8.5. Episode 3 was ok for half of it; the back half sucked, which was unfortunate because that was the battle portion, and guess what, we should be getting a lot of them in the future. The showrunner who directed two of the best episodes for this season, and several of the best episodes of GoT has left. The back-to-back episodes of Where’s Waldo, I mean Aegon, and nothing happens until the last seven minutes, brought me back down, but at least the season made me care again, which I didn’t think was going to happen after Game of Thrones last season.
Jim: I would give it a solid 7.5 out of 10. While I would say the last 5 episodes were fantastic, the first couple were slower, and the repeated time jumps made it feel a little disjointed. It does make me excited for the next season, as the stage is set for what should be dramatic and action-filled. While I have had some gripes about the season, however, I would still argue it is better than most other television. I suppose it will never be the same as GoT, because the source material is told from a narrative perspective, rather than a collection of stories told from multiple different perspectives like GoT. I am waiting for a real surprise heel turn though, and I think it will be Corlys/Rhaena in my opinion.
Kent: I really liked the show, and yet my rating may seem contrary to that. I give it a solid 7.2, which is typically a very good score when I do my film reviews. Given the expectations and legacy, I definitely wanted some things to be different. Looking at IMDB’s episode ratings, it astounds me that the finale was the second-highest rated episode, currently at 9.3, yet I wouldn’t consider this in the top half of the season. I think my biggest criticism that I can offer is the number of time jumps, and not being more informative about them. That could have been handled better. I still feel that they could have done a 5 or 6 episode first season and then do the time jump. It would have had a better flow. Or even do the first 5 episodes and then wait for 2 months and play the following 5 episodes.
The story was there, the acting was really good. My rating comes down to acknowledging some of the pacing issues. Not showing us the Crab Feeder showdown. Not showing certain things and instead simply alluding to them. Giving us a taste when showing us everything would have been a lot more fun for most fans. You don’t show certain things in a show for a variety of reasons. It wouldn’t be exciting or a lack of budget. But there were no reasons to cut out certain things. They cut back on some good things. I feel that Game of Thrones rarely held back and that is why it was so highly regarded, until the end. I have also read a lot of people simply not feeling this one, and I hope the people in charge listen to the critics and try to correct some of the easy things. They have so much potential here, but season 2 is incredibly important. I think that for the show’s legacy, season 2 needs to be closer to an 8 or 8.2 to keep their current fans and expand the fanbase for those who may be willing to give it a second chance.
I want to take the time to say thank you to Chris and Jim for joining me on this endeavor, no matter how late I posted the questions or the blogs. I love these guys. They’re fun to work with on projects and it’s always a pleasure for me. I look forward to season 2. Thank you to any readers who took the time to read this or listen to Kenter At Your Own Risk. Over the course of a lousy 2022, this show and the projects that I did that were associated with this show were among some of the few bright spots of the year for me. We’ll be back in 2024, I assume.