What makes a good season finale? Since the days of network sweeps, the best season endings offer equal levels of closure and cliffhangers, in the hopes that those lingering questions would help a show get renewed, but that any resolution would satisfy the audience if the show didn’t return. In the streaming era, there’s less uncertainty, for better or worse; a series can end when and how the showrunners desire, but that takes the pressure of a season finale to wrap up loose threads.
“House of the Dragon” Season 2 , Episode 8, written by Sara Hess and directed by Geeta Vasant Patel, unfortunately has all the complacent symptoms of a finale where the show’s guaranteed return hampers its current momentum. It’s another hour of conversations and diplomacy and suggesting that things may happen — a promise that is never fulfilled. War is allegedly afoot and has been since 2022, and it will now likely be another two years before battle (re)commences.
The episode opens on one of its many misguided side quests: Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) appealing to Tyroshi leaders to lift the maritime blockade impacting Westeros. This scene is such a jarring introduction to a season finale when it would have been a legitimately exciting storyline to introduce early or mid-season. There are new faces everywhere and Tyland himself is arguably not a strong enough anchor to Westeros and the war to have earned such narrative responsibility. Abigail Thorn makes an immediate and enthralling impression as the commander Sharako Lohar, but you have to wonder, even at the five-minute mark: Where the hell is this going?
The answer arrives twenty minutes later: MUD WRESTLING. Tyland and Lohar get down and dirty in front of a cheering, jeering crowd, then shake hands and plan to go to dinner. It’s an entertaining sequence, often hilarious, but once again would have made more sense in literally any episode besides the finale.
Elsewhere, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) has laid waste to a town in his fury over Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) newfound dragon riders, a devastating carnage that takes place entirely off screen and picks up with brief shots of the town still burning while Aemond watches. Showrunner Ryan Condal is putting HBO’s VFX budget to smart and strategic use in “House of the Dragon,” and while there’s no need (and perhaps no room) to add a sequence like this on screen based on sheer cost alone, there’s also no need to include it at all. A lot of what follows in the episode — particularly the words and actions of Alicent (Olivia Cooke) — relies on invoking Aemond’s cruelty at Sharp Point, but it accomplishes nothing that wasn’t already in place from his attempt to kill Aegon, his destruction of Rhaenys, or even his battle with Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) last season.
Either way, the audience is supposed to believe that Aemond is evil and to understand why his own family members want him away from the throne’s power, even if it means temporarily tamping down their own house loyalty in the meantime. His scene with Alicent and Helaena (Phia Saban) feels repetitive before it even really gets started. Alicent says the attack on Sharp Point as driven by rage and humiliation, which is the same point she made a few episodes ago, when she asked “Have the indignities of your childhood not yet sufficiently been avenged?” After Alicent’s own journey in recent episodes, I wish she had gone as far as telling Aemond to his face that she considers him her greatest failure — if not now, when??
As with Episode 207, my feelings shifted around the halfway mark. Post mud-wrestling, Tyland gets clean and sings a song and feasts with the Tyroshi, and Lohar agrees to sail with him to battle, uttering six chilling words: “To the Gullet on the morrow!”
Friends, this is a spoiler-free zone regarding “Fire & Blood,” but I will just say that those words have meaning and that my already medium-large eyes got as big as dragon eggs at the thought of this episode tackling that plot point. The Gullet ? On the morrow ? With 36 minutes left?? Pour me some wine and get me a seat next to Ulf, cause I’m not ready to face that one yet.
The morrow is at least two days away, based on Rhaenyra telling her new riders when they have to leave, which is actually worse (33 minutes left!). But first she must confront the king (consort) of side quests, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), who pays a nighttime visit to Harrenhal’s weirwood tree and goes on an all-time acid trip (hopefully the last).
The details of Daemon’s vision tie in to “Game of Thrones” and even HBO’s upcoming “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” and warrant their own explainer — but what matters is that he sees the death and destruction of the Dance, the tenuous rebirth of his bloodline, greater threats to the realm, and the one who he must believe can stop it all: Rhaenyra. Six episodes after their fight, he bends the knee to his queen, and the side quest of the season comes to an end. Should it have been that long? Was it worth it? These are questions to answer for yourself, dear reader (no).
Season 2 has been light on Helaena after giving Saban some heavy lifting in Episodes 1 and 2, but she is simply too good at playing this character to be sidelined for long. Helaena’s mystical powers might be one of the best book-to-screen modifications in “House of the Dragon,” a creative liberty which strengthens the shows connection to wider series lore and lets an immensely talented actor stretch her wings (but not Dreamfyre’s). This episode shows a clear shift in how Helaena herself relates to these gifts since the beginning of the season; she’s completely composed as she addresses Aemond, accusing him of trying to kill Aegon and telling him that he will die and can do nothing to stop it. However she experiences her premonitions, she now knows after paying the ultimate price that she can trust them, and the fear she felt in Season 1 and early Season 2 is gone without a trace.
And as frustrated as I am with this episode’s faults as a finale, it’s character beats and performances like that one which kept me hooked while continuing to shout “THE GULLET IS ON THE MORROW!” It kept me going through Alicent and Rhaenyra’s final conversation, one which the actors and Patel definitely treat like a reunion of ex-lovers. From Alicent’s “I needed to see you” (it’s giving forbidden lovers), to Rhaenyra’s generally sassy demeanor and visible bristling that Alicent took a lover (she doesn’t name names, and who could blame her), to Alicent’s desperate if deluded “Come with me,” their history takes on new weight since the show made Rhaenyra canonically queer. They may never be together again, but we now know for certain that this friendship was never just a friendship.
The episode closes with a montage catching up with all our major characters and factions; Aegon fleeing King’s Landing, Alicent firm in her decision, her youngest son’s dragon joining the armies, and soldiers from all over the kingdom marching to battle. It would be a perfect Episode 8 ending — if we had an Episode 9, which we do not. To the Gullet on the morrow!!!…a.k.a. 2026.
Whispers on the Street
Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) was one of the episodes senseless side quests, but I wrote and deleted a whole paragraph about it because it took five scenes for her to find the dragon…and nothing else
Didn’t need to know that Aegon’s dick exploded but I can see why he of all people is thinking of nothing else
Ulf (Tom Bennett) hugging Jace had me screaming, but unfortunately he goes from fun pub guy to insufferable egomaniac pretty much overnight
Cole (Fabien Frankel) straight up sniffing Alicent’s handkerchief out in the open? While literally everyone watches?? (I do think that he already told his whole army that he’s sleeping with the queen because he couldn’t keep it a secret)
Another scream for “Would that it were so simple,” doesn’t Alden Ehrenreich own that phrase now?
Listen I hate Cole as much as the next guy, but Frankel gave easily one of his best performances in just the one forest scene this episode. Cole is a changed man after Rook’s Rest (and one week off the air), and knowing his own insignificance equally humbles and horrifies him. Is this…growth?
Caraxes lifting his head up to scream at Syrax and Seasmoke in Harrenhal like TG UR HERE GUYS IT’S BEEN A FKN SHITSHOW — wonderful
D’Arcy does some excellent acting with their eyes alone as Daemon approaches Rhaenyra in the great hall; it has flashes of Rhaenyra as a teenager, both intimidated by and attracted to this man, and she visibly stamps down the urge to impress him. Create a new category and give them the dang Emmy!
FANTASTIC work by Abubakar Salim in our one Alyn scene this episode, I only wish it were better placed to a time when more was happening with his story. That said, he and Corlys (Steve Touissaint) have had a nice evolution over the course of the season, and this leaves them in a promising position moving forward.
Is Otto (Rhys Ifans) in a dungeon?? We haven’t seen this guy and weeks and I thought he was just funemployed in Oldtown… another wild choice to include him in the ending montage when he was already out of sight and mind for most viewers. Is this supposed to stoke intrigue? Sure…
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