House of the Dragon: Rhaenyra the Cruel Show Only

June 25, 2024 6:30 AM - Season 2, Episode 2

As Otto schemes to turn the public against her, Rhaenyra questions Daemon's loyalty. Meanwhile, Ser Criston Cole concocts a misguided plan for revenge.

Queens Alicent and Helaena go for a little parade! Ser Cole lashes out about his infidelity to his job and sends a twin on a dangerous mission! Daemon broods! Aemon changes Hands! Mysaria's accent slips even further!

posted by Kyol (10 comments total)

Stepping in for Brandon here, although if anyone else wants to, feel free - I tend to not do the sorts of content heavy FF posting that shows like this probably deserve.

Seriously, if you rewatch the first season, Mysaria's accent is a lot stronger, a lot more mysterious. I dunno if the directors went "yeah ok but this season you're actually moving the plot along and people need to understand you better, tone it down" or if I'm just developing an ear for it?

Recaps:
Vulture
Slate
Entertainment Weekly
posted by Kyol at 6:35 AM on June 25

How the hell are these assassins getting from King's Landing to Dragonstone (or vice versa) in less than a day, without going by dragon? Fan calculations online put the distance at 420 miles with 2-3 days travel time under ideal conditions, but people seem to be just zippin' back and forth.

Is it just me, or does Cole become more of a tool every episode? He's one of the most unlikable characters, to me at least, because he just acts like more and more of a self-involved dick every time we see him. And now he's going to be Hand? Lord help us...
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:41 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]

All that, in addition to being the character that aged up the least from the first time we saw him in the tournament for Viserys' dead wife's whatever-the-hell that all was, back in Season 1. Like some people didn't really age up all that much because they were already middle aged, some people didn't age up much because they fell off the radar or died, but Cole has just had a haircut and a worsening attitude. Like, there's a story here that maybe he feels pressured to bone the Queen because if he doesn't she'll do something terrible to him, but they're not telling us it.

Also, I was kind of expecting Larys to be the new Hand after his little speech to Aegon the other day, but Aegon didn't take the hint.
posted by Kyol at 7:58 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

Oh yeah, the random non-aging of some characters is really funny. There was the one old bald Kingsguard from S1 who never changed his appearance after 15 years or whatever -- dude must have an amazing skincare regimen for a medieval society.

Also, Cole's plan really shows how terrible their internal security is in Westeros. First off, make sure that your guys and your enemy's guys aren't wearing IDENTICAL ARMOR -- at least give them a little button or sew-on patch to differentiate them. And if there are also IDENTICAL TWINS on opposing sides, maybe shave one dude's beard or something?
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:14 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

Cole is the sort of douche-y idiot who goes from high school football hero to a mostly ornamental role he doesn't deserve but gets anyway due to the halo effect -- he's fit, he's handsome, surely he should be in charge of something! Except that he's actually kinda dumb and not terribly good at stuff. (I'm pretty sure this was also Robert Baratheon.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:41 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

OK, look, I know that Daemon has a big red helicopter (the goodest and neckiest boy), so I'm not going to complain about his improbable and convenient travel times. But Ser Arryk just... takes Westerosi public transit all the way from King's Landing to Dragonstone in his King's Guard uniform (which he needs to impersonate his brother), and the entire way nobody notices this until Mysaria just happens to realise that she knows that guy? Nobody asks questions on the ship? Nobody is watching to see who gets off ships? Nobody takes an interest in the knight standing out like a sore thumb in a crowd of peasants?

This, together with the instant travel times, just seems like extremely lazy transposition of modern dense conurbation logic to a sparsely populated pseudo-medieval fantasy setting (and that's ever if we disregard the absurd canonical size of Westeros and assume that it's some kind of weird symbolic exaggeration). You simply cannot travel this quickly and uneventfully, or remain this anonymous, in this kind of settlement, and it really annoys me.
posted by confluency at 1:04 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I was _absolutely_ expecting something to come out of that, and yet nope! just a little moue and on to the dumbest possible twin battle. Because, right, "hey buddy you have an identical twin out there, we should dye your hair red or shave you bald or pin a little black dragon on the couple of kingsguards we got here in dragonstone" or something, anything.

Honestly I'm sorta rooting for Littlefinger Larys, just gettin' his Chaos Ladder on. Gonna fuck up all them snooty royals who look down on him.
posted by Kyol at 1:51 PM on June 25

"Abed", eh?
posted by lalochezia at 7:54 PM on June 25

"Abed", eh?

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what Danny Pudi's character from Community had to do with this show, before I realized you were referencing Cole's excuse for not defending the prince -- he was a-BED.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:48 PM on June 27

I think I'm gonna post the same comment every episode:

Eve Best as Rhaenys elevates every goddamn scene she's in.
posted by lalochezia at 7:43 PM on June 30 [3 favorites]