The mother knows. Do anything but what I ask and I'll bleed the whole lawyer.

Sh. Greetings and welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin.

Yeah.

And it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to the royal quarters, clearly nothing bad ever happens here, but also to House of ours newish podcast feed. Joining me today to remind us that the critical days since Viserys passing have, uh, not gone to plan, it's Joanna Robinson, first of her name, Joanna the Dragon Heart.

Titles, titles. Mallory, you know the dab was Joe.

We're back.

Yeah.

This is the stuff, as they say. As Viserys says, hot d. We love hot d. Season two is here. We have so much to get to today. But before, before we discuss the caprice of youth, some very quick programming reminders. House of our talk, the Thrones Midnight boys. We're on YouTube now.

We sure are.

Go to the Ringerverse YouTube channel. If you haven't yet, hit that subscribe button while you're at it.

Smash that bell.

Yeah, smash the bell. Give us the five stars. We're not too proud to ask, right? We're not too proud to ask.

The hat is out.

Kristen's hat.

Yeah.

Oh, boy. Full video. Pots of House of our talk of thrones and midnight boys coming all summer long on the new YouTube channel on Spotify. And you can still listen to us wherever you get your podcast. So that's delightful. What is coming very quickly on the programming front? Well, we've got a live show next week.

I'm so excited for that.

One week from today.

Thrilling.

June 25 here in Los Angeles at the El Rey theater. If you have not gotten your tickets yet, there's still time. Theringer.com events. Please join us. We would love to see you there. We would love to not see empty seats. Come join us.

Me, Chris Ryan.

Yeah, Chris the magnanimous.

Some pals.

Some pals also. We'll be back with you on Thursday, right here for our acolyte deep dive. And then we will be with Chris again on Sunday night immediately after House of the Dragon, episode two for talk of thrones. So that's thrilling. The midnight boys have an instant reaction to the first episode of Hot D already up for you. And they will be hitting the accolade and the boys in one mega episode on Thursday. So lots coming. Joanna. How can everybody follow along?

Oh, listen, why don't you just follow the pod? That would be a great idea, I think. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, as we already mentioned.

Do it.

Follow us on x, on Instagram, on TikTok, Twitter. I refuse to bend the knee. Do all that on peach. Whatever you prefer.

Love peach.

Also, email us hobbitsanddragonsmail.com. we got so many emails this week, we're thrilled to be back in the rookery. And yeah, that's fantastic stuff. That's the stuff.

You will also be back with everybody for trial by content on Thursday.

Yes, Thursday with Neil and Dave.

So that's thrilling.

Yes.

So much coverage coming. Check out theringer.com. riley cram bakes. Everyone is cranking out amazing pieces. It's just like Rebecca Westeros. A bounty of dragon goodness. Okay, last programming reminder. It's the same one as always. It's our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. Here it is. Obviously, we're going to be talking about quite literally everything that happens in this episode of television. House of the Dragon, season two, episode one. Anything that ever happened in Game of Thrones could come up today on the fire and blood front. As always, we will be incorporating quotes, details from the entire literary canon from fire and blood as we go for context for additional insight, we will not be talking about anything that is to come in the future of fire and blood, which means future of the story, until a separate, safely sectioned off spoiler section, a little mini book spoiler section that we're going to do at the very end. We will offer up a real time spoiler warning right before we start that. So you will have one more opportunity to bounce. If you don't want to hear that.

It'll be so clear.

I think that's it, Joanna.

Let's do it.

Duty is a sacrifice. Let's clock. It's time for the opening snapshot. This is not a sentence. A button on a. All right. We're talking about a son for a son. Season two, episode one. Directed by Alan Taylor. Written by Ryan Condal 59 minutes. Zippy a zippy Joe. We're gonna get to the deep dive in a few minutes. We're gonna go beat by beat. But just like a quick amuse bouche, little taste.

Yeah.

What did you think of this episode of television?

Yeah.

What did you think of this return to Westeros?

Thrilled to be back in Westeros.

Yes.

My boosh is quite amused by everything that's happening here. Alan Taylor directed this episode. Alan Taylor is sort of the producer director of the season. It was fun to watch all the sort of behind the scenes with him and his jaunty little vests, talking about everything. Great vests, talking about everything that he did for this episode.

Also, he specifically called out Kristen Cole as the worst character in the story, which is a huge moment for you specifically.

Really. He was like, this is the worst guy in Westeros.

Went out of the way in like a six minute inside the episode to say, let me just draw attention to the fact that this is the worst person's story. And I was like, Joanna is gonna be elated.

Dwayne, you were right. Chris and Cole is the worst. And I felt good about it and I felt Taylor and I heard and understood best friends, Thor, the dark world never happened as far as I'm concerned.

Underrated cinematic classic.

Great.

You know where I stand.

I know.

Shout out malady and the wrong side of history.

So I really enjoyed this episode. I enjoyed it more and more as I watched. And most of all, I think in a meta way, I'm just so excited to be back. Like, potting about it with you, doing talk of Thrones with Chris, consuming all the great written content on theringer.com. what a great website. But also just listening to our pals we've known for years who cover Thrones, listening to their pods. It's just really fun to be back.

This is how we found each other in the first place.

Listening to each other, the community of.

People who love thrones, who cover thrones, who get to talk about it with each other. It is just a joy.

Joy to be back.

Joy to be back. I loved this episode. I thought this was dynamite.

Joe, I loved it.

Joe, I loved it. I thought this was a fantastic season premiere. Obviously, this, you know, we're going to talk for a while today about blood and cheese. And for book readers, this was one of the most anticipated, which feels like a fucked up thing to say about such an utterly grim sequence, but it's one of the most infamous textual moments. And so we've been waiting for this for a while. Quite a move to start the season with this. I love it. It's a real, like, declaration of intent, a real tone setting move. And you pair the intensity of what unfolded in this episode with the fact that we are, and we talked about this a lot in our preview pods, widening the map. We're opening in the north. We're going to be in all sorts of different places. We're not just going to be in King's Landing, dragonstone, driftmark. No more time jumps. Right?

No more.

Oh, was this ten years between episodes? Was it six years between episodes?

Days?

We learned that Rhaenyra has been out looking for Luke, very sad for days. So we pick up, in essence, right where we left off, and we are going to move at that clip the rest of the way, not only this season, but, like, through the dance. So I think that is going to be very refreshing for some of the viewers who found the time jumps in season one not to their taste or liking. And so I thought, in just a number of different respects, this was a zippy, tight, incredibly well written, and structured and acted way to start the season, and I'm delighted to be back.

I almost entirely agree. I will say that the bulk of our emails, and I agree with a lot of them, had to do with, like, that's not quite what I expected from blood and cheese.

Oh, yeah. Well, we've got some takes, so we've.

Got some notes on that. And I will say that, like, something that we said in our preview when we were talking about blood and cheese is, I remember you literally saying, this could be the making of this show. And I don't think that's quite the case. You know, and in the behind the scenes, I think it was Ryan Condall was, like, hoping that Helena's flight down the hallway was gonna, like, live forever in infamy of an all of thrones. And I was like, I don't. I don't think they quite hit the mark there. I'm optimistic for them hitting the mark with some other big things this season, but, like, right out the gate, that was one where I was just like, it wasn't. We sound like utter sickos. I know we sound like complete sickos, being like, we wanted it. We wanted more.

It's been an interesting experience, both on talk of thrones, just in casual conversation with friends, and certainly over the next, who can say how many hours to have to confront the number of times that we say, I know this makes me sound like a sociopath, but.

Yeah.

And yet here we are. All right.

We can only be ourselves.

We can only be ourselves. That's the opening snapshot. Should we dive deep?

Let's do it. In the bowels of a pleasure den.

Oh, my God. The combo of. So this is the first time we've had the absolute genuine. It is a pleasure, truly, of hearing the bowels of the pleasure done. One of our favorite bits incorporated into the soundboard. Thank you, Steve, as always, wonderful stuff. What a gem to pair that with a dragon screech. I guess we knew on some intellectual level that that was going to happen, but you don't really know until you hear it do you?

It's a full journey. It's a lot. It's a lot to take in. If you guys are new to this podcast, that dragon screech is actually Mallory in the throes of anxiety in advance of last season. Yeah, we're going to talk about some.

Characters being in the throes of other things today, but that was the throws of anxiety there. All of our segments, we like to name them after things that are happening in the current season that we're covering. But for the deep dive, we can't leave. We had to stick with Otto's absolutely, like, instantly iconic season one vowels of a pleasure den moment.

Okay, wait, wait, Steve, can we get a, can we get a coupling? Coupling.

Coupling. I guess it's time for us to do some content coupling here.

Okay.

Because we don't call it the deep dive for nothing, Joe. We are, as always, going to go scene by scene through the episode.

Some scenes deserve more attention than others.

Yes. We will be spending, I would say somewhere between 50% to 60% of the episode talking about the Cargill twins.

Oh, when you started with a k sound, I thought for sure you were talking about Kristen Cole and his new duties.

We definitely have some kristin discussions ahead of us today. No doubt. Okay. But we have to start before we actually get to the plot of the episode with the new opening credits.

I was thrilled. I was over the moon.

Give me your emotional response to seeing this before we go through what we actually saw.

How did it make you feel rending my garments, pulling my hair out? You love a tapestry.

Here's a couple things that I know about. Yeah.

What do you know?

You love an ocean vista.

True.

You hate a crevice.

Abhor.

You love a tapestry.

I do love a tapestry. Listen, the opening credits for last season of Game of House of the Dragon were a misstep, and we all kind of agree. And I, Ryan Condell, gave some interesting interviews where he was talking about sort of like why they changed it. And he has, like, an in universe reason why he's like, well, we sort of ran out of whatever, but, like, what's true is that they just were not successful. Nobody could see anything. It was dark, it was confusing, blah, blah. This is so lively and fun. This, like real time threads of the tapestry, sewing the history of the Targaryen. So good.

Back to Valyria.

We're back to Valyria. All that. We're gonna talk about everything. It was. I do want to shout out one of our listeners. This is just like a not so humble brag we've got a medievalist professor listening to the podcast. Doctor Valentine emailed us about the. Thank you. Steve emailed us about the bayou tapestry, which Ryan Condel called out as direct inspiration. He told the Hollywood Reporter for this opening sequence here, but bayou tapestry, if you're unfamiliar, depicts William the conqueror's arrival in England.

So your guy, your guy, big bill.

Yeah. Completely unproblematic figure. So doctor Valentine says the biotapestry includes things like portents, a sign and a portent. A portent. Battles, negotiations in the crowning of William the Conqueror.

So many of our favorite things.

We love this. What did this make you think of when you first saw it? Were you thinking of anything in universe?

Yes. It made me think, in addition to all of the real world history, that.

I'm definitely super familiar with you, Billy the Conqueror.

It made me think of Helena, who we will be discussing not only the character in her deeply tragic role in this episode, but the little the mini dream dispatches that Helena is rebranding of.

Mini dream, an mdd hitting the news wire. Dateline.

You love a Dateline. You love a Dateline. And one of the many prophecies that we heard from Helena in season one was hand turns loom. Spool of green, spool of black, dragons of flesh weaving. Dragons of thread. Hand turns loom. Now, this is in the driftmark episode of season one. It immediately transitions into just a classic bit of brotherly banter between aegon and amend. And so even compared to some of the other. And amend's like, I wish I could, if mother would but ask.

I love her and all of her bug stuff. Thanks so much.

And so even compared to some of the other little dream dispatch patches, that one.

The mdds. Yeah.

That one felt like, oh, okay. What is the larger connection and what is the thematic resonance? And it was a really fun one to Parson, so I just like that tether.

And our interpretation is that she's talking about the different sigils, right. That we're gonna have, like a golden dragon.

Yeah. You know, what would Stannis and Renly say? Renly's got a lot of notes on this. It's obviously just terribly confusing. If we're all using the same banner out at war, would he be eating.

A peach when he said it? Who's to say?

Is he a ham? Game of Thrones. What a show that was.

What a show what show that was.

All right, what are we actually seeing in the new opening credits? Let's just kind of very quickly. Rapid fire. We lamentably don't have time to talk about the significance of all of these, but I think some of them will pop up contextually as we go today.

You can't wait to talk about Maegor as much as possible.

As you know, Maegor the cruel is a fave of mine. I love a maniac. Yeah, I love a Targaryen maniac. And we have no shortage in the story. And he is one of them. So great to see him here, Joe. We open with the valyrian freehold and the blood trickle stream deluge from the season one credits. The blood is still present here, you know, fire and blood. Like, we can't abandon this completely.

Absolutely.

The blood into the dragon in front of a humanoid figure definitely pinged the blood mage history of the freehold for us, which viserys, of course, calls out in the first season. He's much like our emailers, a scholar and a student official.

He's a history guy. He's a history dad. Definitely read Shogun for sure. 100% for sure.

What next? What'd you see next?

Oh, we're wondering if this is Azor ahai and Nissa Nisa, a sword thrust.

Into the beating heart of your beloved. It definitely pinged Nisa Nissa. So it feels like that's what we're meant to associate there. But who can say for sure? The next image seems to be Denis the dreamer, who's. I'm not sure if you've heard. The Targaryens, the dreams, the prophecies.

What is the power of a dragon.

Against the power of prophecy? I really went into Waldrick Poir. Decent pew. Er, voice there. This dream that ultimately led the Targaryen family to head west. To head to dragon.

Yeah. The Targaryens got the fuck out of there, but all the other dragon riders didn't because Danius the dreamer, like Helena, is someone who people don't listen to.

Yeah. Keep it to a tight circle.

Yeah. If she had been like, hey, if Helena had been like the rats and Aegon had been like, maybe we should put literally one guard on this bedroom, then perhaps all of this would not have happened. But no, the dreamers are doomed to not be listened to. But, yeah, Danius the dreamer.

What's that next?

The targ is going west. Dragonstone doom of Valyria.

You love the doom? I love the doom.

Who doesn't love the doom? How many volcanoes?

All of the dragons who died? When can we do a full pot on the 14 flames?

Okay.

I would love that. When will there be a spinoff series.

There are like 13 volcanoes. Not enough. And then we get the conquest, which we might get a whole entire tv show about.

Yeah, I hope so. I still have some thoughts on the exact sequencing and order of the overall house of the dragon. Bucketing. And if we're gonna eventually do Blackfyre and Aegon's conquest, and if we build eventually to doing Robert's rebellion and the fall of the mad king, should we not have gone and just reverse Kron? Or in chronological order? But hey, you know what? I love a spin off. So we see a few things in this conquest timeline, Joe. First we see Aegon and his sister wives, the Targaryens. They love fucking incest. Not sure if you've heard Aegon on Balerion.

We're not talking about Mormon sister wives. We're talking about sisters. Also wives who are also wives.

Correct. Sisters who are also wives. We see Rhaenys on Merx.

I forgot my spray bottle.

Can we see Vaseny on Vegar Vhagar.

Alive during the conquest? That's an important thing to remember.

Old and huge.

The Velaryon ships on the water.

Yes.

So the Velaryons were helping them out on the water battle front from the beginning. We get Balerion, the black dread, which is what I call my cat when she's misbehaving. Attack on Harrenhal.

Great stuff. And the field of fire kind of incorporated into this same visual where you can see the carnage, the burnt bodies. If you look closely, you can see the Lannister lion sigil. You can see the house gardener sigil.

And they're all like blacked, blackened.

It's tough field of fire. Strong and accurate branding.

This is actually my favorite tidbit in all of this is in the background. You can see Rhaenys on meraxes going down in Dorne in the background.

Hell, Holt. Yeah, another great name, George.

We named the studio the Hellholtz. I'm just thinking about it.

I like it, but. Yeah, I like it.

Meraxes is taken down by a scorpion. And we obviously see a scorpion in this episode.

We sure do.

Manned by Eric with an Aurik.

Arik with an a. We then see some bending of the knee. We see the errands. We see the Storks.

The Storks. We did so much accent work before the fox.

The Storks, the Starks. This is Torrin, who of course will be mentioned prominently in the opening stretch of the episode. And we get to see some Huli action here as well. So this is a thrilling stretch in the conquest to get to see this.

Incorporated, the Arryns and the Starks and the Storks have crowns. Totally. Not so much. Cause they were never. They were never kids.

They were like, if we bend the knee, you're gonna, like, improve our circumstances.

Great, great.

Amen. I'm in.

Then we get your guy.

My guy? Maegor.

Maegor the cruel.

Maegor the cruel. The sprawling expansion of the red keep. We'll talk a little bit more about Maegor's tunnels later. Wonderful to see that here. And then on the Maegor front, we do see him, Joanna, impaled on the Iron Throne. Now this is wonderful. We talked a lot as viserys. Various appendages were falling off last season, and the back wound first and then the finger cut. And on and on we built this idea of the iron throne holding you in judgment, but letting Aegon just sprawl.

His entire worthless body across the.

Who seemed more comfortable in their seat? Aegon on the iron throne hanging out with his mates, who, I know you have some thoughts on the name for that crew coming later or Chris Ryan on the talk of thrones set?

Oh, Chris. 100%.

Both remarkably at home.

Oh, just at ease. Like Bo katan in their elements. Yeah.

And Vermithor and silverwing are present in the sides of the frame as maegor is positioned in the middle. Those are, of course, the dragons of.

Jael, King Jaehaerys and Alysanne, who get.

A mention, who get a name check in this episode. And Vermithor is, of course, the dragon who daemons is moll abides at the end of.

So we've seen. So Veigar and vermithor still around.

Yes.

Still kicking around.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Great council.

The great council. Now we're up to content that we have seen shout out Rhaenys and Corlys, who look great in, in stitch work frame there. So like, Emma's there, you know, Viserys is there. We've seen. This is how season one opened. Then we get a fashion moment. Alison in her green dress, Renera in her black dress.

When you saw this in opening credit tapestry forum, could you still hear Larisson Harwin saying, no?

I leaned over to my sister and was like, do you know what color.

When old town calls, it's banast.

Then we've got the divided table, the greens on one side, the blacks on the other. It's reminiscent of both the wedding feast where this actual fashion event happened, and also that final dinner that the family had at the end of season one.

Viserys just drifting off. I solved it. I nailed it.

Are you excited for your future? I'm really excited for your future. When you gather your family and your friends around you and you're carried in on, like, a massive throne.

I intend to be brought to the bathroom for our first break via litter.

Okay.

Yeah.

Arjuna and Steve, I hope you have that waiting for her outside. Okay, so we have all of that. We get Aegon and Rhaenyra both crown. We start with Aegon's like the gold dragon sort of emblazoned on his dress. And that's a fit.

Loves a fit. Yeah.

And then what do you make? The hands.

The hands. So the ravens coming out of the team green hand and the dragons coming out of the team black hand. The envoys dispensed at the end of season one, this initial attempt to secure allies.

Do you think Aemond's pissed at the top race?

I think aemonds and Veigar. Have you heard of Veigar? Have you heard of a lot?

We got stormzed because of me, not because of some ravens. Thanks so much. Okay. But speaking of Veigar.

Yeah. Veigar chomping on my sweet, darling little air ax.

And Luke was also there.

And Luke makes it an intact humanoid form into the tapestry, which just one more subtle little way of reminding us of the unreliable narrators, quite literally stitching together Targaryen history and Westerosi history here, because Luke is inside of vigor's gastrointestinal tract. Period. Did you have a favorite inclusion here, Joe? This was loaded. I think we can. Based on Condyl's comments about the reason that the bloodline tact in season one had reached its end, the bloodlines are set. We want to be able to update and continue to incorporate new canon elements into the opening credits. So that's exciting. We'll see more. Just as we did with Game of Thrones as we go.

So exciting.

So do you have so far? Did you have a favorite?

I think seeing the Starks and the Tullys and the Arryns, the promise of the Riverlands and the north and all of that. I mean, we're about to talk about the north, but, like, and winter and it's coming and all of that, but having that representation was really exciting. Harrenhal on there was really exciting. And I am really excited to see how they expanded in future episodes. Like, how quickly are we going to update? Are we going to get blood and cheese? Like, is poor Helena gonna be in the tapestry next week? Tune in to find out.

I hope so. I think the real question is, will that poor dog who was so cruelly treated by cheese? Obviously that's the headline of the episode and the great horror that unfolded. Will that pup make it into the town?

Cheese kicked a dog and it was appalling. Not great.

Appalling. Okay, those are the opening credits. Let's talk about Jace. Jace treating with Kragan Stark in the fucking north. Winter's not coming, Joe.

It's here.

I mean, not actually. We do get a detailed conversation about where we are in the seasonal calendar. Jace is like, oh, this. What is this falling from the sky? That shivers me bones? Jace, like, briefly going into pirate mode there. It was so funny to me. I loved it. But we get to go through the north. We see Winterfell briefly, we go to the fucking wall. Before we talk about what actually happens in this sequence and what it means. What did this do to you in your body, in your soul?

I don't know if you've heard me say this before, but I'm of two minds inside everyone. There's two.

You're at war with yourself.

Two dire wolves. And one of those dire wolves, like, the eyes of that direwolf, started watering as soon as I heard this dark theme. What is it actually called? It's like, goodbye, my brother. Which is just Rob and John saying goodbye, season one. So hearing this dark theme, heartache, I was just like, ho, shit. And then we see Winterfell.

They're just instantly ported back.

And I was just like, very emotional. And then, you know, good old Craig Stark starts speaking and it's just like, ose duty o sacrifice duty o. That's all he's saying. And so then the other wolf inside of me kind of went like. It was like I'm being pandered to in this moment.

Did that wolf love it?

Did that wolf want to be pandered to? I think the first wolf they were ate the cynical wolf. And it did work on me, but there's a little part of me that I was like. It was so. It was almost north Winterfell Stark parody, you know, the number of times he said oaths. But I did love it.

We will talk about the larger significance inside of the.

You only have that soft, joyous wolf inside of you. And that's what I love about you, is that you're just sort of like, oh my. Yeah. You were just like.

This was such an uncomplicated couple minutes of just shooting sheer jubilation for me to be back in the north. I. As we've talked about many times in our various preview pods, trailer breakdowns, et cetera, in general Jace's mission to the Eyrie and three sisters, White Harbor, Winterfell. I just love that stretch of fire and blood, and we're just talking about a few pages of Jace at Winterfell, but it's like some of my favorite stuff in fire and blood. I just love it. So. I was so excited to see this. I am lamenting a little bit how quickly Jace left.

I agree.

Because, yeah, I would have loved for him to spend a little bit more time there. Though I understand why the necessities of the flow of the episode, getting it back for the funeral, et cetera, made that impossible. But it was wonderful to meet Craig and Stark. It was wonderful to see the wall again. It was wonderful to travel via ravenwing into Winterfell and just be in the north and hear that score and just remember what we love about thrones. It just felt good. It felt good and it felt right.

It felt mostly good for me. Primarily good.

And it does continue this tradition with season one after the great council prolog going into the card. We're now nine years into the reign of Viserys and the connection, 172 years before Daenerys wanting to draw.

Did you say that was fire and this is ice? Is that what you say? We did see ice.

We did see ice, dude. Kragan, just walking around with ice trapped to his back like it's nothing. It's like, do you know what I can squat. Do you know what I can bench press. Now, I am not. I do not know anything about beasts.

Probably not the right thing.

Probably not the right muscle groups to say.

Yeah.

But wonderful stuff.

No, I thought Jace's Paul Atreides curls looked wonderful.

I mean, you're our Wigwatch scholar, so this is big. We're going natural hair here.

Natural hair looks great. I mean, not on Craig Stark. Not Craig. No.

But Jace has left the wig behind.

Yeah. Rocking the curls looks wonderful.

Sensational stuff on the hair front.

I will say one other thing. I was listening to a bunch of other breakdowns and a bunch of people were like, oh, my God. And there's a girl in the winterfell courtyard with long red hair. And I was like. I was sitting at home going like, well, actually, Sansa gets her red hair from her mother, so why would there be red hair? And then I rewatch it. Her hair's auburn at best. It's not even, like, I don't think that's a Sansa reference at all. But anyway, I was just sort of like the tully red. Okay.

Anyway, you're in, like, a real littlefinger memorable shade moment right now. Bring you down the variance.

Never again compare me.

Pull up your heart to Baelish.

I would appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Okay, Josh, we have a lot to hit in this scene.

Yeah.

Who is Kragan? Stark. Who is Torrin Stark? Let's talk about Kragan for a minute to orient us in this scene, and then we'll pan back to history. And then we're going to talk about some of the, like, thematic significance of what we're seeing here. So Kragan, or Craig, as Christian calls him.

And it's catching up. It is catching.

It's catching Craig's turn and it works. The wolf of the north, though, if you were called the Wolf of the north, it's hard for me to call you anything but that personally. Lord of Winterfell.

Wolf of the north is hot. This is just delicious.

Absolutely elite.

Listen, he's a little lord. He was. He was only 13 when he got Winterfell.

And his father Rickon, we saw him very briefly in season one. He's one of the lords who bends the knee to do obeisance every time I come across ad environment. Interesting.

Sure do.

Obeisance to Rhaenyra. And I'm not sure if you have heard this about the Starks, Joe, but they.

The Starks, they remember.

They remember their oaths.

They don't forget their oaths.

Oh, man.

He had to basically fight his own uncle for control.

Familiar with a family squabble?

Helpful.

Yeah.

Bernard.

Do you prefer Bernard or do you prefer Ben Jacot?

What about Ben Jin?

Ben Jin?

Let's go with the classic.

All great, honestly.

Benny Stark, good old Benny Stark was not a great uncle and sort of tried to take over, but. So, yeah, so this boy, right, this boy king. He's not a king, but this boy lord of the north, has already had, like, lost his father, lost his brother, had to fight his uncle for his wife, lost his wife, had to fight his uncle for his seat. So he has already battle tested as a teenager.

Absolutely. That the death of his brother, which we learned about in fire and blood, top of mind in a couple reasons, in fire and blood. It's positioned as. That's part of why he and Jace Bond, because Jace kind of reminds him.

Of him maybe not just boys being.

Lads, lads being bros, dudes being gents. But also, of course, then in the show when we see Craigan receive the raven with the news of lucerys death. He has suffered this now, not in the early days of a familial war of succession where kin ate his brother.

Wait, I have a question.

But he did lose a brother. So another bond there.

How does Westeros feel about Kinsley? Are they down with it or no.

Man is as accursed as the Kinslayer. This is one of our favorite refrains. No man is as accursed as the Kinslayer.

You're the Kinslayer expert, and I love that for you.

Tough to decide what I like to say more. No man is as accursed as the Kinslayer or this is the stuff.

Lionel, two of my absolute favorite Kinslayer is a classic. Okay, Tornstark gets a name check here. Yeah, the king who knells.

Yes, and we see that again. We see that kneeling in the opening credits. Yeah, it's all here, Joanna. Yeah, the kneeling. This is the kind of stuff where he, as book readers are like, when Jay says, our ancestors treated in this very place, we're like, did they?

Well, actually, the red hair comes from the tillies. Yeah.

Because that's at the trident. At the Trident in the history. This is an example to me of a book to show change that I think makes perfect sense inside of the context of what they are trying to tell us about Aegon's dream, about the song of ice and fire, about this prophecy that is being passed down from targaryen, ruler to heir, ruler to heir. And so when we think back to the way that the kneeling, the king who knelt, it seems like a tough label to carry. Oh, you're the one. You're the one who gave up our independent kingdom. But I've always been struck by this passage from fire and blood. From that day to this day, Torrhen Stark is remembered as the king who knelt. Dot, dot, dot. But no Northman left his burned bones beside the trident. And the swords Aegon collected from Lord Stark and his vassals were not twisted nor melted nor bent. So that's not just a sign of allegiance, right? An alliance well struck in the context of the show. You think it indicates now?

I think. Okay.

So they're chatting about the real threat.

That awaits the Tornstar rolls up, and he's like, Harrenhal barbecued field of fire. That happened. Hot bummer. Not great. Okay. And so history would have us believe. He's like, what? What chance do my men have against all of this? Brandon Snow sneaks over into the camp. Brandon Snow's like, I'll kill the dragons. I'll do it. Messages flying fast and furious back and forth between the two camps before Torrin goes and bends the knee. So my question is, I mean, Dorne held out.

Oh yeah.

You know, oh yeah. Dorne never bent the knee. So like there is, so there's one version of this where you're just sort of like. He didn't want to lose more men. They had depleted the men at the wall. This is why our guy Craig is about to talk about this tradition that started after Torrin in terms of sending people to the wall. They depleted people at the wall. They had already borne the cost of the conquest. But I like this, it kind of implies here that perhaps Aegon's like, listen, Torrin. Yeah. You seem like a pretty cool bro. You're guarding the north. Let me tell you about this dream I had. Yeah. And I don't know that ice zombies.

I don't know that he would tell him actually that he. The details of the dream just because it does seem like it's such a tightly guarded thing. But I do think the show is implying just again by like positioning him as, oh, he went, he went up north. Which is just not the setting of this crucial moment in the text canon. I think it's at least I'm going to tell you that I understand.

I think it's at least why this is a thing worth asking. How much did Torrin Stark know and when did he know it and what.

Was passed down and then, so because the thing I bump on is like, then why? Where did that knowledge. But that's an exciting thing to think about actually.

I mean we've always asked like why must there always be a stark in Winterfell? Like, you know, there's lore around Winterfell that feels like there is some sort of indication of.

Still love the prophecy. It's quite literally where winter fell. Remember season eight, a Game of Thrones man?

The wall, we should say, was built long thousands of years before the conquest. So it's not like Aegon's like zombies are coming and they built. No, no, that's not what happened. But just sort of there's this. I think this indicates more than anything we've ever gotten before that perhaps there was some conversation, perhaps not. Maybe he didn't pull out his dagger and thrust it into a fire and say, look at these words. That explains it all. But, you know, maybe there was just some communication here.

I like it. I like it. It's fun to consider.

I'm into it.

There's a lot of discussion about duty which we sacrifice, feel clearly is meant to again connect to this larger burden that the Targaryens have inherited. Or at least think they have inherited. Steve, can we hear a little taste of this? Since the days of the first men, we have stood as guardians against the cold and the dark. Through its long tradition, the Night's Watch cultivated its strength from doomed men who had their life as their only possession. But my ancestor, Torrens Stark, began a tradition by making an offering. At the onset of winter, one in ten men from our household was to be chosen to fortify the watch. This is not a sentence, but an honor. A duty embraced by all who serve the north, even by mine own kin. That's how I feel about going from working remotely basically all the time to, you know, suddenly being on the 101 for 6 hours a week, coming to the studio.

It's not a sentence.

It's an honor.

Did bill overnight message you a little box, and you open it up and there was a black rock inside of.

It, and you're like, it's so heavily pinged. Survivor for me.

Oh, yeah.

I loved it.

Yeah.

Do you think that's what they're saying when they pass around the rocks up in Winterfell?

Outlive, outlast, outplay, outwit. What is it? Outwit, outlast. Survivor.

Outplay, outlast. You love survivor. Okay, Joe. Duty. It is a recurring refrain across thrones. Of course it makes us think of Jon. Of course it makes us think of the Night's Watch. It makes us think of Maester Aemon and Jon. Love is the death of duty. We talked about this throughout season one, but it also makes us think of Rhaenyra, because the season one finale, the throne has been usurped. Daemon's doing dragon math. He's ready. Heads on the spike before the fucking moon turns. And Rhaenyra says to him, you know, my oath reaches beyond our personal ambitions now. It turns out he doesn't. But the way that Rhaenyra thinks about duty, the way that Rhaenyra thinks about this larger pledge and obligation to the realm. We talked about this a lot last year. Egg on stream, not in the book.

Right.

So this is all new to us.

In the show, though. When you start to think about it and then you reread fireblood, little target decisions, you're like, yeah, okay.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I see why you burnt that down.

Oh, my God. No doubt. And it's actually really fun to comb through the text looking for connections to this idea. Viserys passing this onto Rhaenyra. Key part of season one.

Yeah.

Rhaenyra realizing that daemon not really ever embraced by viserys as a true heir of the loop. Not in the loop. Not a worthy recipient of Viserys mind of this information. So we've been awaiting what we assume will come. Which is this moment when Rhaenyra will share this with Jace, her heir.

Right.

This feels like such an intentional. Jace not only hears this from Craigen in winter. My duty to the wall is even more dire than the one I owe to King's Landing. Well, you think they put the 700 foot wall up for the savages? What does it keep out?

Death. The heart of winter.

Even just the way that Jace, his face and his voice change when he gets to the edge and out beyond. To be fair, proud tradition.

What everyone does when they get to the edge of the wall.

He didn't piss off the edge of the wall, though. He missed us.

That we saw.

You think? Right after he learned that his brother, he was like, let me just take a quick piss.

When am I going to get this chance again?

I'll be with you in a minute. Just need to take a quick piss. But. So, yeah, it feels like this experience will really inform how Jace receives this information from Rhaenyra. So I'm really looking forward to it. If we see her, which I hope we get.

Tell him we don't know that. But like, yeah, this idea of a monarch, or a leader, let's say, divided and divided by something that not everyone else is aware of.

Right?

I love those parallels between good old Craig and Rhaenyra.

Everybody holding your decisions in judgment without being able to.

Without having all the information.

What is guiding them is king who knelt.

And you don't know everything that Torrin knew. So, yeah, I love this. But Jace. Jace on this tour, with the curls popping sensational, and his little like, cloak, like, his little princely cape, he just. He fantastic envoy. What? An envoy. No, no disrespect meant to Luke, but.

You know, I mean, Luke got but one look at Veigar. One question about whether he was able to whip up a marriage pact and was dead, like, 45 seconds later. Jace had a better result. I think that's undeniable.

Delivers Winterfell big.

Get huge. Huge. The airy, wonderful stuff. I. Okay. You had prepared me. This was one of the things in our 900 preseason pods where I'm like, I really hope we get to go to the veil and meet Jane Eyre. And you're like, there's absolutely. There is not an iota, not a shred of evidence that we will have this scene in the show and I'm.

Like, but I want it. They have cast Jane Aaron, though, for the season.

I can't wait to meet Jane. I love the. But notwithstanding your mother's poor taste in consorts, she remains our rightful queen in mine own blood besides, and Aaron on her mother's side, in this world of men, we women must band together. Like, this is part of what I was really looking forward to. It's not only the eren blood tie. Emma Arryn, Rhaenyra's mother, but Jane Aaron cannot. I think it's more powerful. She's like, I want to support Rhaenyra, but ultimately can't support Aegon, and hope to keep her sight of the bandwidth. It's an interesting dynamic.

The yada yada over Jace going there. Jace comes back to Rhaenyra later, is like, I got it.

And three sisters and white harbor not even mentioned in the season one finale.

Shout out the Manderlys. Apologies to the man release.

This is like the one thing that we, as a song advice and fire lovers are going to continue to have to suffer through forever waiting and longing.

For the Manderlys real time with the.

Manderlys that we never get. We're just like, yeah, there's a manderly, like, sitting in the back of a.

Red wedding, I guess I see the sigil. That's a Manderly man. So, yeah, we just yada yada. We skip White harbor. We yada yada over the eyrie.

But, yeah. And then we go to forge the pact device and fire. Did you get the exact forging of the pact that you wanted?

No. I do.

A couple thousand greybeards.

Yeah.

This is another thing I know you love. You love an ocean vista. You love a tapestry. You love that the old folk in the north are just like, when winter comes around, the food we're gonna have to ration. So I'll just go die so that the young folk can have more to eat. So Craig is saying, take the old people.

It's a duty.

It's a sacrifice, really connected to that northern tradition in a way that I loved.

Craig tells a story about Jaehaerys.

You actually are going with Craig. I love this for you for now. What a win for Cr.

I will say I get a little anxious about pronouncing kragans.

Kragan, Kriegan. I used to think when reading it that it was Cregan. And then once they started saying kragan. And the Craig thing is helpful that way.

So, like, we call them Ned.

We call him Rob Nidumba. I know you meant Ned Stark, but I can't hear that in Nazi. Okay, so Jace is good at this, right?

Jace is good at this.

Jace is capable. I love how deftly he navigates this mission and these relationships. We'll talk about the return later. The heart wrenching moment with Rhaenyra. But one of the things I was really struck by is before they break down and hold each other and grieve.

The way he calls Craig and Jace.

Your grace.

I'll hold. They hold each other off screen. Right.

Do you ship it?

Yes. Or why not? Both. Because in the book.

Okay, yeah, I missed this.

Listen, in the book, two things happen. Yeah. One, Craig and Jay spent a lot of time together, just like, rowing out.

Right?

Then he also meets Sarah Snow, who's.

I'm sad this was cut.

I am Craig's sister.

On the one hand, I don't want Jace to be a fuckboy. I want him to have more respect for Bela than that.

Yes.

But I was. This was actually one of the unreliable narrator bits that I was most looking forward to seeing. Like, which account was accurate because they vary so substantially. So I'll lament the absence of Sarah Snow, though. I love this stretch.

If we had had more Winterfell. And we think we're pretty sure we're not getting any more Winterfell this season.

Okay.

Per Ryan Condoleezza.

Bummer.

This is it. Five minutes.

They're like, yeah, in the future, sure.

But this is it. So this is what you're missing out on show watchers only in the book.

Very dramatic.

Craig and Jace, turn to the camera. I learned that from you. They drank together, hunted together, trained together, and swore an oath of brotherhood sealed in blood. Okay, that's what Jason Craig were up to. Here's what Jason, Sarah were up to. Did they get married in the godswood? Did that happen? Did she give herself to him wrapped in furs amidst the snows as the old gods, those absolute perverts looked on. Did that happen? Who is to say? What did Jace do? I like the idea.

Jace is.

If you can't remember, Jace is engaged to Baila.

Yes.

So that is. I agree. Important to me. And when he comes in to see Rhaenyra later in the episode, Bayla, sportsman stuff like that. So that is like important.

Definitely.

I don't want him to be a fuck boy, but like.

I agree.

I agree. Maybe he just like, you know. How so, you know, I think that's like.

Again, like, I loved. I did love this scene, but seeing Jace just like be a person, a.

Guy, which we haven't.

We haven't gotten a lot of that.

So this is an email we got from Ryan.

Yeah.

Who said he was. He was talking about the oath sworn and the drinking and the training that Jace and Craig do together. And he says, just bros doing bro things like swearing eternal loyalty to each other. I redacted something, you know, like you do for your platonic bros. If the goal is to keep focus on the Targaryens, it seems weirder, yada yada, over the pact of ice and fire just to get to a big CGI dragon battle faster. So much of the best of thrones, and we always say this, and the best of House of the dragon was people talking in rooms around fires. And I can't help but feel like we missed out on some very interesting moments in that northern storyline, whether or not it proved that this queer fan's gaydar is working properly. So whether or not you ship Jason, Craig, Jason, Sarah, or just jace and more character development, we sort of rushed through that a little bit. Yeah.

I think the line in fire and blood that we get, clearly is when the Prince of Dragonstone took his dragon back into the cold autumn sky. He did so with the knowledge that he had won three powerful lords and all their bannermen for his mother, though his 15th name day was still half a year away. Ok. Prince Jaserys had proved himself a man and a worthy heir to the Iron Throne. Like that they nailed. I think we get that clearly. But the bro being a dude, just.

A guy being a brod, making a blood bond. Yeah. Just swear to north.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you mentioned the dragons.

Okay, Joe.

You love a portent. You love a sign. You love a sign. You love a portent. This story that Kragan, in the very limited time they have together, chooses to offer up Jaehaerys, Alysanne, their dragons were here. They did not want to go beyond the wall. Slight update here to book canon.

But that Jaehaerys is there.

Yes.

In the book, Jaehaerys is home and Alysanne is bored waiting for him. So she goes up to the wall. Right. She's just like kicking around Winterfell. She's like a bored. I'm gonna go to the wall. She writes him a letter.

I love Alyssane. I love these characters.

She's the best. She writes him a letter from the wall. And every time I read this, and I love this section. Do you remember when fire and blood came out? I don't think you were as much of a slave to content as I was at the time. But fire and blood came out while Game of Thrones is still happening. And it was a mandate from everyone who covers Game of Thrones. Quickly scour this book for any hints or clues that might pertain to what will happen on Game of Thrones and Alysanne and the wall was the number one thing that we all looked at. Okay. Alysanne writes home to Jaehaeryson.

Every time I read the rumors about Vermax sleeping an egg at Winterfell, that was also huge.

And in the stretch, very important. Alison writes a letter home to Jaehaerys. And I always read it as if she is like a confederate soldier writing a letter home. And that's how I'm gonna read it to you now.

Oh, my God. Okay.

She doesn't start it. Madeira's Jaehaerys, but let's pretend she does. She says, thora Saflu, silver wing, high above Castle black. And thrice I tried to take her north beyond the wall, but every time she veered back south again and refused to go. Never before has she refused to take me where I wished to go. I laughed about it when I came down again so the black brothers would not realize anything was amiss. But it troubled me then, and it troubles me still.

Just gonna request in real time a social clip.

We need context for that, please. Silverwing did not want to go beyond the wall. No, because guess what? There be zombies.

Yeah.

You know, Daenerys death. Daenerys pushed her dragons beyond the wall and that did not brutal go well.

Brutal Vermax, who we don't get to see in this stretch in the show, but we do hear about how Vermax is feeling about this in the book. Not a fan. Snow and ice and cold made Vermax ill tempered. It is said this is not a place the dragons like to be. And of course, for any of the Targaryens in possession of this great burdensome prophecy, seeing the dragons respond that way would only bolster their sense that something nefarious awaited, but also potentially heighten their anxiety about how equipped they would be to deal with it. So this is just delicious. I love this.

I love that Craig is like, thanks for not bullying me with your dragon.

That was so funny.

Unlike, you know, aemon taking Veigar to Storm's end. You know, I just think, I think this is, I mean, and this is the whole thing is like, we'll take our dragons and we'll show them what we can do. And Craig is like, actually diplomacy is working better here. Us being bros and pals together. Us hunting and climbing trees.

Yeah, and you may be fucking my bastard sister while the old gods look.

On wrapped in first.

Who among us that was? The north.

We did it.

What a scene.

What a five minute stretch.

What a scene. A meaty opening.

Me too.

Next, into the dragon mulch. I loved getting to actually see Maelys fly into the opening of the mont. Delightful. There.

I thought it was so interesting how they introduced all the castles. The raven flying into Winterfell, Maelys flying into dragonstone, and then the frickin hightowers galloping into King's Landing. Driftmark is a little different, but we get these three major castles with these ravens, dragons, fucking hightowers.

Driftmark. You're just oriented by blood floshing off.

No blood. Sure.

Desperate.

Raven's dragon. The fucking hightowers in blood. Sounds great.

Renice absolutely pooped from patrolling the blockade in the gullet solo.

Yeah.

And has one of the instantly memorable lines of the new season. Bailey's must gorge and rest. As must I. Damon is not particularly interested in this feedback, nor, frankly, in anybody's feedback. Wants to team up to kill Veigar. I cannot face that Horry old bitch alone.

Hori old bitch.

Constant reminders right out of her smite. Yes. It was great to get Hori old bitch.

In the show, Eve bus described this meeting between the two of them as a panther meets an electric eel.

Fantastic.

And I can't say I think she's the panther and he's the electric eel. Right?

Hmm. I am gonna flip it simply because of her association with a seafaring house snake.

Okay, fair.

And put her in the water.

The electric eel is, like, a little bit more chaotic and less controlled. And the panther is, like, prowling.

They both have better armor on than I think a panther or an electric eel could probably manage.

And her wig is fabulous.

I assume you'll have some takes on the improved wig coming later today in wig watch.

Absolutely.

Did you have a favorite set of armor? I mean, they're both wonderful.

I think hers looks.

That's great stuff.

Amazing.

Great stuff. So Damon wants a son for a son.

Yeah.

Now let's keep. Let's keep in mind later, because we are going to do some. Oh. We cut away from Damon's instruction to blood and cheese. What exactly do we think unfolded there and what are the implications, et cetera? Let's keep in mind that we hear him say this here long before Rhaenyra comes in and says, I want Aemon Targaryen. He's already on an I want a son first campaign.

That was permission.

Yeah, not that he thinks he needs it, but yes, a sanctioning the half a sentence. He is here, though, again, the team up to face Veigar. He is specifically indicating that he wants to target Aemond and Veigar.

Yes.

Renee will heed only Rhaenyra, which would that you were King Daemon.

Oh, a great line.

It is a command.

A great line that she said while walking away and just sort of like, blithely take, like, a moment for Damon to be like, so good.

It is a command. She's like, fuck off with it.

You were king. Nice try.

That feels like the kind of from just if we put ourselves in Damon's deeply insecure headspace. He's a character who we love, who is deeply flawed and troubled. That kind of a response from Renice feels like the kind of thing that would linger for Damon.

But that's what I love about Renee is she knows exactly where the bruise is and she's like, let me just casually, in a walk away moment, just press on that bruise.

I can't even be bothered to stand still while I insult you.

I'm not even gonna, like, raise my eyebrows. No, I'm just gonna throw this away.

I need to get some protein. I got a gorgeous complex carbs.

I need a dangerous gel. Don't get between me and my gorging. Okay?

So, yeah, I need an ice bath. I need a sauna. I don't know. I don't know much about exertion and or recovery, but as I understand it, you're supposed to do some sort of, like, hot, cold, ice and fire thing.

But, like, let's point out that Rhaenyes is, like, patrolling alone. Something that Damon could definitely help her with. Who's got dragon? Baila is young, maybe too young to patrol, but Rhaenys is just doing this solo, and Damon's throwing a hissy fit, wandering around being like, when can I kill something? And she's like, I'm actually just trying to keep us safe. So thanks so much.

And goes out of her way to say it's a good thing that Rhaenyra is not here. It's a good thing because Damon is lamenting Rhaenyra's absence, which I want to talk about more in a second, but just stick with Renees perspective here for a moment. This in particular is what swung Renis to Rhaenyra's side. The finale. Rhaenyra's impulse to caution restraint. Again, an example of where we have the context that not everybody else in the room does, of why Rhaenyra is thinking that way. Damon wants to go to war. Rhaenyra doesn't. And that is the thing that finally brings renees into the fold. It's hard not to think back to like, this was part of Reniece's character from the beginning, right? Think of attorney.

Bad wig, great scene.

Fistful of steel, balls full of seed. Joe. What else was going to happen but blood loss?

Yeah. We expect them to act with honor and grace. It's a marvel that war didn't break out at first blood. That's what she says about the knights of the turn. You have to be thinking about those guys when we later meet Aegon's bros.

Absolutely.

That's exactly, you know.

Yeah. Fitzgerald.

Full of seed. They do not know what you know. Green as summer grass. They don't know.

Nights of summer.

Yeah. Sweet summer. Children, they don't know what none have known. Real war.

Right. And Damon, in contrast, is a seasoned warrior. Chris loved the sepsis balsam.

We're not sure, actually. No.

He's got many children.

Many children.

But that moment in season one where Rhaenyra asks Damon if you could take the Iron Throne without putting Otto Hightowers head on a spike, would you really, like calls him out on this? Is it because of the outcome you're seeking?

For just petty vengeance?

Yes. Or because you want to beat this fucker who you hate? And that's just present throughout this entire exchange with Damon here, too.

Something we talked about a lot last season was this idea of, like when we watched Aemond riding Veigar and where is my water bottle? And the look on his face when he lost control of Veigar.

No, no, no.

Veigar. No. Damon is Rhaenyra's veigar. He is the dragon out of control. He is the dragon she cannot leash fully. You know what I mean? And it's just sort of like. It is dangerous.

Yes.

To have a. Have a veigar. And it's dangerous to have a daemon.

I love this. We talk a lot about the parallels between Aemond and daemon and helicopter as mirror foils. But Vhagar and then daemon is great. I love that daemon. We have a lot.

Seen a lot of battle.

Indeed.

And they're both like, kill now, chomp, chomp, kill later.

We have a lot of notes for our guy, Daemon targaryen in this episode. But. But I do have to say.

When.

Damon acted as audience avatar to once again remind renees that she exploded through the floor of the dragon pit, killing.

Hundreds of small folks for no reason, of innocent peasants. And then was like, the royal I want this.

Which was the low point of season one, to be mentioned as often as possible moving forward in the show. I don't actually want us to, like, pretend it didn't happen. I'm glad that the characters are talking about it.

That would be what? Deranged kinslaying. And I don't know what is more accursed.

The no man is more accursed than the Kinslayer. As you recall from the time. The thing that small folk slayer Damon scares about whether rendesce should have ended, Aegon's line is like, but exploding through the floor and killing all of the assembled, it's just no way to wrap your mind around.

She flings that in her face and he's like, and lucerys would still be alive, right? Luke would still be alive. And then she's like, let's talk about people still being alive. Let's talk about your wife. My daughter, Laina.

Yeah.

And Rhaenyra's husband, my son, Laenor. Both dead, as far as she knows. And those deaths she puts at their doorstep.

Absolutely. She despises Damon.

She shuts him up pretty quickly. It's pretty phenomenal.

It was so striking. It was so striking in the season one finale, when Renice arrived on Dragonstone to share, to deliver the news of Viserys death, that she only addressed Rhaenyra. Like Viserys was Daemon's brother, but she can't even bring herself to engage with him. She really despises that guy. Despises him. Now, she blamed Rhaenyra for Laenor, too. That was a shared blame. But the extra laina variable with Daemon. And so that made it particularly dramatically compelling for her to broach, to allude to this with him, right when she's talking about why Rhaenyra has to go do this. The confirmation closure that she needs. She is grieving, right? What is Damon saying in response to this?

That the mother grieves as the queen shirts her duties. Thinks I hate it. It makes us think of a couple things. It makes us think of Damon being at the war table while Rhaenyra is in labor at the end of last season, crying out queen.

And everyone's like, do you want to go check on.

And he's like, no, no, no, no. We got more to plan. Okay, hate. And then later, I mean, we know where he is? He's in King's Landing doing a crime. He's got his murder hoodie on, all of that.

Why go to Luke's funeral when you could go to Luke's funeral, wear your murder cloak?

Yeah.

Again, we can't, Damon.

But you can't wait a day. I know. I mean, I love Damon. V's an absolute piece of shit. Let's just be clear about it. So the mother grieves as the queen shirks her duties is one of many moments in this episode and throughout the the series in general, where this, like, you know, this gendered language comes in. Right. It's just sort of like the mother here, Alicent telling Rhaenyra that she's, like, leaking at the small council table. But then Alison feeling it in this episode, she's now the dowager queen and no one wants to listen to her.

Yep. Absolutely.

So, you know, these things are just sort of peppered in there. And Damon, as you point out, is like her closest ally.

This is what he's saying. What is everybody else going to say?

What is every other man on the black counsels in that?

Tension and anxiety for Rhaenyra was so palpable in the finale. And so to then feel that here and in this, like, just another trial, losing a child, losing now here, losing a child. Like, the grief is unrelenting, the loss is unrelenting. And Rhaenyra can't rely on the people who are, in theory, closest to her to just support the time and space she needs.

Except for Reiner. I'm like, I'm just really proud of Rhaenys here. Just sort of holding it down. She's like, we gotta wait for the queen. Excuse me. Also, we should say. I mean, we don't want to get too much into it because, you know, we don't want to get too far ahead looking. But we should say Rhaenyra is also slightly off the board in this moment in the book because of the traumatic stillbirth, I guess is what we call it, that she just had. That she is just like, can't ride a dragon. Physically recuperating. This is different. She's on cyrax immediately. Like goat flying around trying to find Luke's body. So it's slightly different. But they.

Yeah, and we were primed for that in the finale in a way that surprised us in real time. When she mounted her dragon toad to fly to the bridge. It's like, oh, they're not gonna do it this way.

But the impact is the same in that. Like, where's Rhaenyra?

Yes.

Right. Which is the question in the book and the question here in the show right now, Joe. Yeah.

From dragonstone to driftmark.

Let's bring on the bloody deck. Jeff.

Some barnacles.

Yeah.

The sea snake. The ship. The sea snake. The character Corlys walking out to the docks to meet.

Would you name your ship the Mallory?

I mean, I think personally I don't love the name Mallory, so probably not. Yeah.

The Reuben.

No, I don't think so. No. But I would name it Lady Joanna. Yeah, I would. After you, my great love. Yeah.

Not the halo. Is that like the little dinghy is the halo?

Oh, my sweet halo dove. He's the best.

Alan, we don't know what to say here.

Al yn. Great stuff.

Watch this space.

Alan is a new character who is introduced in this scene.

We'll talk about this more in the book spoiler section.

So it's difficult to talk much about Alan here, though obviously, this is. This is a full conversation. Like, this is clearly going to be a character in the show. Let's talk just about the Corlys perspective for a minute, because we learn that Alan is the one who pulled Corlys from the water. You know, blood fever, it's tough. It's just we're still grateful that Corlys healed and is back with us. Yeah, repairs, you know, Allen is working on these repairs. Corlys is like, completely wrecked ship, guys.

It's gonna be barnacle free in days.

Needed out there.

The front is a collapsed, burnt whole of a blockade.

Needs me. Alan's like, we've sent seven recently repaired ships out already. You don't. So you don't think that the ship looks ready? Close to being seaworthy?

No, no, not in my expert ship rate opinion, no.

As the master of ships of this podcast, you do not believe that the sea snake looks close to being ready to join the blockade and the gullet. Okay. Sad.

I love this job. The dagger, though.

Yes. Corlys receives this dagger that was meant for Luke, and he is quite emotional. The pommel, this little clam. Yeah, delightful.

It's darling.

Very sweet. Yeah, wonderful.

So for his heir, something that he had made for his heir, little Luke.

Yeah. And it's sad because, like, this is obviously the loss of a family member, but the loss of a child. Not the last loss of a child in the story. Not sure if you've heard of blood and cheese, but it makes us. It takes us back to that stretch of season one, which was the bulk of season one, where Corlys obsession was with legacy. And this was ultimately the rift between Corlys and Renice. And it's only when Corlys she's like.

Why don't you put the girls who are so obviously related to you, which.

We actually had a note about at the time from the Renise perspective, because it's like, these are your. You're gonna like, sacrifice your other. These poor boys. That was such a complex dynamic. But like, history does not remember blood. It remembers names. What's this coreless core driving force until the very moment where he's like, I'm good with this, actually. And then Renees is like, no, it's time to go to war.

But he's very mollified by Rhaena and Luke, who are engaged. So Bayla and Jace are engaged, and Reyna and Luke. And we get a little shot of Reyna at the funeral. ISO shot of Reyna being like, welp.

There goes my 13 year old fiance.

Guess I won't be the lady of Driftmark after all. To go to King's Landing.

From the docks to the ramparts. I regret to inform you that it's time to briefly discuss big crossbow, which.

Do you know, back in the day when it was first introduced on Thrones, on Storm war spoilers, we used to call it the dragonfeller. It's very dramatic. Something that fells a dragon, but also just sounds like, oh, that dragonfeller over there.

You mentioned Hellholt. You mentioned Mareks and Rhaenys. That's the history. Everyone in the story at this point, the story we were watching is aware of that history.

Yeah.

Information that we as viewers have that they don't is that we watched Euron Greyjoy use bigger crossbow to take down Rhaegal because Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet. Anytime I see a scorpion now on Thrones, even though scorpions are part of lots of great sequences like spoils of war, it just gives me that Euron Rhaegal PTSD. So I was like.

I just mostly blanked out that that happened. I just don't think about it at all. I think about the dramatic reveal of the scorpion, like in the bowels of King Landing.

So you then got to focus not on the memories of Euron and Rhaegal, but instead on being back with Eric with an a. Your least favorite Cargill. Twin of the two, actually.

He is.

Yeah, of course. I mean, how could we not be Team Eric? Eric was like, I swear to Walt the Quinn, it's great stuff. He stole Viserys crown, made his way to dragonstone, and then just walked into a futile and made it a coronation from Boston. Possible.

Wow.

It's possible.

Swear to what? The king of the harbor? Yeah.

Two things. One an observation, one a question. The observation. The fact that the scorpion is on the battlements of the red keep. They're prepping for a sign at any moment.

Great sign.

They're right. They're readying. I won't say they're ready.

They're readying for one kind of attack.

Yes. Okay. Correct. They've got the scorpion.

Their anti aircraft missiles are in progress.

No equivalent of some sort of security measure at the door of any members of the royal family.

Single guard on an entire floor of the red.

So I know I teased already in the intro, the great coverage on the ringer.com, but. But that reminds me, I just want to specifically, everybody should really take the time to read Riley McAtee's lore breakdown every week. He does a great rundown this week of all of the different alliances across the map, who's aligned with which. What does it mean for the map? Et cetera. But he did a fascinating little refresher on just how few Kingsguard Aegon has.

Really? Cause three fucked off sticker dragons.

Lauren and Stefan were already there. Harold's like, peace out. Erik swears to lord the queen like it's time to. Maybe Kristen should be assigning new members of the Kingsguard rather than instead of fucking Alicent. It's just a thought.

It's on his list. I'm sure he'll get to it after a haircut. Who's to say?

Okay, so here's my question. They're prepping for attack by dragon.

They're like, what's that? Dragon sky with giant, obvious holes in it?

So here's my question.

Swiss cheese wings. Yeah.

Who is more desperately in need of an eye doctor appointment, yours truly or Aric? With an a? Aric, who was basically in Vegar's jaws by the time he realized which. The oldest and easily largest dragon in.

The realm, the most easily identifiable by the massive holes in his wings. Here's what I would say. The stakes are higher for Aric, because if he makes a mistake, then he's like flambe, right? Roasted in his armor. I just have seen you squint at things that are right in front of your face, and I love and care for your mother. So I'm gonna say, oh, man.

Has she emailed you recently? Go to the iwa if I've gotten glasses.

She's always in my heart. She's always in my heart.

Okay, Joe, I have a question for you. Have you seen our son? No. Have you seen new rats? No. The queen, any notes?

Enduring mystery.

Any notes on interrupting, disturbing his cousin? All right, let's take aegon a moment to talk about Aegon. Oh, the dragon cock.

The dragon cock. The magnanimous dragon cock. Okay, so he comes into the nursery. Helena's there muttering to herself, uncaptioned, very annoying. Thanks so much, hbo. I care about everything that Helena is muttering, so please caption every single word. Thank you. Anyway, she's there, she's sewing, she's embroidering golden dragons, but also so probably bugs. Let's.

She's working on next week's opening credits.

Yeah, there's actually a theory. I saw this theory going around that she's like, she's making Jaehaerys funeral shroud.

I mean, that is devastating to contemplate. Also, real gold will be their crowns. Gold will be their shrouds. Circe, mags, prophecy tie there.

I'm just always thinking about Maggie the frog. Okay, circe and mags.

I have my old pal cerse and mags.

Okay, so Aegon comes in. The first time I watched this, I was like, wow, what a dumb father. Aegon's pr team has gone to the script writers and said, we need a refresh on Aegon.

Yeah, let's make sure everyone knows that Aegon is a girl, dad. Oh, wait.

Let's make sure that we know that Aegon is like, he's just a bro. He's just a guy. Wants to be a good guy. And I was a little, like. I was a little jarred. I was like, this feels like a slight retcon on a character, all to make us feel bad for him. When the kid, you know, they didn't spend a lot of time showing us Aegon the dad. They just had, like, two scenes, and then that kid loses his head. So.

Tough one. Yeah, tough one.

I felt a little like. I felt a little like maybe we could have laid some track for this last season. Then I was just thinking more about it and going back over and rewatching the end of last season, you have to think about that moment when Aegon gets his crown.

Oh, yeah.

And the crowd cheers for him, and he's like, oh, is this what affection feels like? Do you hear my shoulders just crack?

Good God.

Okay, so eye doctor one. Dentist two. Oh, man. Some sort of joint doctor. I don't know what you've been doing orpoptis. Orthopedist. There you go. Number three, otolaryngologist number four. So he's like, oh, is this what.

Yeah.

Oh, is this what it means to be liked? Because he's, let's be clear, never gotten that from his moldering father and never got it from Alicent. What did he say? Don't be an imbecile.

When he says, do you love me?

Imbecile?

She says, yeah. She calls him an imbecile.

Imbecile.

The moment the coronation call it is a great one. But even, like, the look, hair dried over.

Your father loved you.

And he's like, he didn't. He had his entire life to change his mind, and he never did.

And she's like, I got a dagger, baby.

She gives him the dagger. His response to that doesn't totally connect because it could just be something that Allison took, which it is, but he's like, oh, okay. This tie to a father who just was not involved in my life.

And so, listen, he had a giant lego to build of ol Valyria.

Let's just pour over the plans. The stonemasons do all the work.

He was busy.

My fellow Lego enthusiast, Viserys Targaryen. Season one. What a time that was.

This is the stuff. Like, it just makes sense to me that Aegon would, like, be demonstrably different this season because he's, like, completely. And, like, we'll get to the throne room scene, but still, like, even here, he's just sort of, like. He's just sort of, like, enervated by this. Like, I'm in a position, not just a power, but, like, where I can bask in the affection that I've never received from anyone in my life. Let's be clear. Aegon's a piece of shit.

Yes. He did terrible things that we are.

Not forgiving him for. Tom Glencarney is doing a great job adding some nuance to that terrible person that he is.

We are on the same page. It's a lot to kind of parse our feelings to Aegon. But I agree with you that ultimately, this evolution really does track for me, because even just the entrance and the stretch he goes over, he makes a beeline toward this silver headed child, and then he's like, oh, wow. He seems really interested in his kid. The second he clocks that, it's Jaehaera, not Jaehaery. He's like, couldn't be less interested, right? So it's not really like Aegon, the devoted dad. It's Aegon. The character, the king, who is now thinking, well, what is my legacy? And then specifically choosing to take Jaehaerys to the small council, saying, like, he'll be king. He needs to start preparing. Viserys never did that for him.

Exactly.

Not once.

No one ever taught him how to be king. Because he was never supposed to be king.

Exactly. All the confirmation you need.

By the way.

This was not the plan.

Rhaenyra was in the small council pouring wine from the jump, you know, despite.

Renice's ridicule in season one, a position of honor to be by the king. King's side like that. So everybody. Yeah, so he's kid. He's like.

He's like, I'm not gonna be building Lego.

Seriously.

I'm gonna take my every day is take my boy twin to work day.

Well, no longer.

Well, sad. Do you think he's gonna take your daughter to work day? I do not.

I do not think that he will be bringing Jaehaera to the small council. Ego not knowing where Jaehaerys lessons are.

The like as his customers. And there's a way.

And there's a way. This is so funny to me.

Tom Glencarney. Absolutely. No, I'm sorry. Emma Darcy is mvp of this episode because of all they accomplish with only one line of dialog. But Tom Glyn Carney is like number two.

I'm excited to talk about the throne room scene with the petitions because both in this stretch, bringing Jaehaerys to the small council, thinking more seriously about what it means failing and lacking in so many respects still. Yeah, but it's like it's just the switch and the shift from let me go. I have no wish to rule, no taste for duty. I'm not suited declaration to his brother Aemond, who said, you'll get no argument from me in season one, episode nine to I have thoughts on the sheep and the salt.

Why don't we give him all his sheep back? It's fine.

They won't. They won't know. Oh, man. What did you make?

They won't know. His whispered. They won't know. To Otto.

Incredible stuff. Okay, so Otto's like, quick aside on what it means to be king, by the way, that's so funny. Genuinely great stuff. Speaking of what it means to be king, what did you make of Helena here asking what if he does not want to be king about Jaehaerys?

Right.

Is this connected to this sense of what it like you. I don't want it. Is it connected to more of the, like, core gender politics of the show? Even, like, we go back to the Last Supper in episode eight, the way that Helena talked about marriage, a lot of the conversation in the wake of the episode was like, well, wait, why.

From.

From just the fandom, why did Helena actually make the choice that she made? Why did Helena give up the sun? Give up Aegon's heir? All of this stuff feels connected.

Well, I think. And it's similar to Alicent. Cause Alicent doesn't really care for her sons. Sorry, I never cared for job. Well, essentially is what Allison says, but she's very. But she's very tender about Helena. Yeah.

You don't think Alice would care for missing child, Darren? Dude, I know we're not in the small castle scene yet, but when Otto mentioned Ormond and old Town and the marshaling forces, I was like, we're here. It is. We're about to get it. He's gonna say Darren aloud, and then he didn't, and my heart fucking sunk.

Okay, anyway, let's talk really quickly about the Hightower Targaryen children. Because, like, on hbo.com or whatever, when you have the family tree.

Yes.

Alison's children are Helena. We know her. She's married to her brother Aegon. He's the king. He has another brother, Aemond. He has one eye. So one, two, three. Darren.

Yes.

The fourth child, who has a dragon, Tessarion, is on the family tree. They just have not said his name in the show, but he's there. Unlike Maelor, Helena's other kid, that kid does not exist.

Missing from blood and cheese, which we will talk about.

So I just need you guys to know that for two years, my slack icon was Lyman beesberry on the ringer. Slack. And over the last month and a half, or whatever, it's been, Darren, question mark on the family tree. Because that is what is foremost in my mind.

I'm holding out. I'm holding that hope.

But, yeah, I think that. I think it's fair to extrapolate that Helena might feel more tenderly towards Jaehara the same way that Alison feels more tenderly towards Helena. That the mothers might favor their daughters. And that perhaps she's worried that Jaehaerys is just going to be another Aegon. Who again, remember, she was like, oh, he's fine. He mostly ignores me unless he's drunk. Not great.

Not ideal. Not ideal. Speaking of Helena, an MDD. MDD.

MDD.

Time mini dream dispatch. This one foretelling blood and cheese. Steve, can we hear this?

I'm afraid. Don't be. There'd be fools to come with Veigar.

Protecting the city.

Not the dragons. The rats.

The queen is an enduring mystery, is she not?

By the way, it's the way he, like, looks around for the rats before he says that everyone handmaidens Aegon, everyone looking around.

That was so funny. Of course, this was something we were clocking and tracking throughout season one. Every time we saw a rat in the scene.

And we initially thought the beast beneath the boards was about blood and cheese.

Instead, it was about renice exploding through.

The dragonfly, slaying legions of slaves of a small folk.

Dude, hundreds is genuine.

Yeah, you're right. You're right. I'll join you in saying legions. Legions it is.

Oh, man. Okay, so how does this stack up to the other MDDs from Helena in season one? Which is. Do you have a favorite?

There's a beast beneath the boards.

The dragons of flesh weaving. Dragons of thread.

He'll have to close one eye. Cause that was the younger one. Okay. I think he'll have to close.

Yeah.

Cause that was the first one we were like, what?

I know. That was actually just like a genuine electric moment. That was great. That was so great. Right on the eve of ament, we've.

Talked a lot about.

Fantastic.

Who's paying attention? What is the true nature of Helena's dreaming? And who knows if she's a dreamer? We talked about Viserys.

Why didn't her father, who was obsessed with this one dream, he.

Once again, the Legos don't build themselves.

And the idea of being a dreamer. And I so wanted it to be true, to be a dreamer myself. And I so wanted it to be true, to have a vibrant ig reels presence with all of my Lego sets. Well, you achieved one of those things.

You love ig reels. Most of the world's on TikTok. Mallory's on IG reels. It's the best. Okay.

My favorite tradition is you'll send me a TikTok and I'll be like, I saw this on IG reels on Instagram.

We had a ton of emails from listeners about Helena and her dreamers.

I thought we might get a rapid fire multicaw there because you said ton of emails. You never know.

Wow.

You never know what awaits.

She wanted legions of cause, Steve. Sorry. Okay, so I want a little. Not a deep dive, mini dive on, like, what's the haps here? What's the official word? I think it's Sabin, right? Fia Sabin or Saban? Fia saban. Fia Sabin, who plays Helena in a sort of behind the scenes from season one said this about her dreaming, the nature of her dreaming. She can feel the future and the past on a level inside her. She knows things. She can't always literally turn that into advice. So it's like images and flashes and stuff like that. Something we'll talk about a little bit more in the book spoiler section is on the inside the episode House of the Dragon belt, not the short one, but the long one they put on YouTube. They talked about Helena's quarters because Helena is now living in the queen's quarters where Alicent lived. And they talked about all the set deck that they put in there. And there's like cases of bugs, lots of bug stuff, cages of crickets, lots and lots of bugs everywhere. But also, oh, man, great stuff. There's like chalk drawings all over the wall. Chalk and in her sketchbook.

And again, we'll talk about this in the book spoiler section. But they're all like images. And we book readers, knowing what's coming, can decipher what some of those images mean. But if that's how it sort of presents itself to her, often in sigils. So, like animals. There's a lot of animals and crowns and stuff like that. So it's like, for example, this I can talk about. It's a Game of Thrones spoilers, folks. If you see a stag with a crown, you're like, oh, Robert Baratheon. Right. But she just sees like a literal stag with a crown. What does this mean to this poor adult girl? Okay, the follow up question is dark.

Twist on our favorite tradition, Sigil spotting.

Yeah, that's true. The follow up question is, who knows? Oh, man. That she's a dreamer. And this is something that our pals at the history of Westeros podcast asked Ryan Condal.

Incredible.

And he said someone is. Is paying attention.

Dun dun dun.

All right, so someone is paying attention to Helena's dreaming.

Who could it be?

My number one suspect has to be Laris.

Yeah.

Who else is paying any attention to Helena?

Yeah, he's also like, is that a foot? He's one of those drawings. A foot.

Is that the rat I work into?

That was a good time in season.

One, that stretch of theory of theory time.

Great.

What if Laris figures out that Helena is a dreamer and Alicent maybe is the only other person who's paying any attention to Helena?

So, okay, this was something that I was really thinking back on in season one in the fabled bug stretch. It is beyond our understanding. That's what Helena said. And Alison's response was, I suppose you're right. Some things just are. And so Alison's. Not that this couldn't change, but at least what we've seen so far, the way that Alicent receives these tendencies from Helena is like, I don't really get it. Yeah, I love you, but I don't really get you. Not like, do you want to talk about what's going on? And it is so deeply tragic because it does connect to this larger idea of what these characters, who are a part of a story about a family that's tearing itself apart. That's why Viserys never may be talking about this with his actual daughter is so devastating to consider, and we have no reason to believe, believe that he ever clocked it or discussed it with her. And it's like, what could have been different if maybe he had? It's just. It is really, like, deeply, deeply, deeply tragic on that.

Is Laris paying attention to Helena front? I'm gonna zoom ahead to my favorite theory.

Okay.

Unsubstantiated theory. We know that Laris has replaced all of Alison's attendees attendance.

Yeah. Makes bath time tough. Yeah.

Has he done that for Helena as well? Because we see there's this. A lot of people have pointed her out because she's just these incredibly striking eyebrows. She looks like Bella Baxter from poor things. Like, 100%. And that's just what that woman looks like. She's a model. Her name is Shane Stevenson.

Incredibly, just magnetic.

So distinctive. More so than our favorite character, Talisa, last season. Right? And so if Laris has employed good old eyebrows, and I say that with a compliment because I love her eyebrows.

I'm not also, like, she's the one in the room with blood and just vanishes. Pieces out.

Vanishes. Deeply suspicious vanishes.

What?

Like, she knows back.

And then, like, a seven minute conversation unfolds, and she does not.

Does he alert anyone? Okay, so eyebrows. So if layers put eyebrows. And again, I say that with full compliment. I love her eyebrows.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Have a character name. I looked high and low. I would call her by her name if I could, but if I could find it. Anyway, if Larry's put eyebrows in Helena's room, then, you know, she might be like, hey, do you want to see her notebooks? She's drawn some stuff she keeps mentioning.

Would you slap? Oh, poor Helena.

Yeah, Laris, he's got, you know, he's got eyes everywhere. So that's. That's just like your fave face on nothing other than distinctive eyebrows.

I love it.

And that very suspicious, like, blood encounter.

She just.

Poofs. She's just gone.

Yeah. Now, I mean, maybe that's a normal human response, but, like.

But he looks away for a second, and then she's just gone and she's nowhere.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, unless she's like, there would simply never be a rat catcher up in these quarters at this hour. And she does say, like, I'm not supposed to go up there. It's different. Rat catchers. Maybe she knows them all and she's like, something's up, but then she doesn't go tell anyone.

Well, what I love about that is that blood doesn't know how to set a trap.

He's like.

She's like, this guy doesn't know what he's doing here for the. He's never eaten a piece of Manchego in his life. He doesn't know.

Okay, it is time to talk about a genuinely crucial scene. This was my. At the time of my fucking life, doing talk of thrones with you and Chris again. I sent you guys, like, 500 text messages after we finished. I was like, we've got to go back and record again. We didn't talk about Kristen and Alicent enough and have spent the ensuing couple days waiting to talk about this with you. First of all, because it is just, like, titillating and wonderful.

Is it because I sent you a meme at 1155 last night?

This killed me.

Oh, my God.

That was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Absolutely exceptional, wonderful stuff.

Do you want to describe it for the people?

It's oral Fran. Warging.

Warging.

And then Alison also with, like, her eyes rolled back.

They're all looking up as they did when they would warg. They would warg and their eyes would go white. And so it's like the overhead shot of Olivia cook with her eyes rolled back in her head, and it's like, ooh, Alison's a warg too.

Yeah.

Wow.

Instead of morging into a wolf, she's connecting to a piece of human garbage. Kristen Cole.

Gods, he's Dornish dawnish.

Okay, so this is. This is, on the one hand, kind of like a holy shit moment, because this relationship is not confirmed canon. So this is new.

Not even, like, really speculated on it?

No, not in the book, though. This was gonna be. What I asked you is like, was this just a pure, oh, my God, what a shock moment for you? Or were you, like, you know what? It felt like they were building toward this in season one, because the godsies Dornish initial response from young Alicent and, like, kristen Cole, handsome guy. Piece of garbage, but handsome guy. The. I mean, well, we're going to talk about the Rhaenyra parting of the ways in a moment here, but from the moment where Alicent stops Kristen from killing himself and he is then in her employ in her camp, her sworn shield team green all the way, there's the moment where he sees Laris staring at her and is like, he won't stop looking. Just like a jealousy and one that feels just perfectly connected to Kristen Cole is a jealous guy, but also. And there's a possessive quality to it, but also, it was like, oh, does he have a deeper feeling? And then of course, there is the moment where Alicent leans into him and is like, everything you feel for me as your queen. So there are some breadcrumbs laid here.

Absolutely.

Kristen Cole, Alicent leaning back and digging her nails into the void of a chair as Kristen Cole goes down on her, was new. And boy, was this something. We see Alicent before we realize it's Christian. Did you immediately know it was him?

Yes. P's because I hate him and I.

Need to spy him.

No, wait. Okay, so Lauren, we got an email from Lauren. And I should just say, lauren's email. Nothing in the email has to do with this. She just titled her email smart. Kristen Cole's new hat.

Good strategy. Good strategy. And his new hat would be Alison's vagina, correct?

Yeah, I do think there have been breadcrumbs. Olivia Cook said in an interview that there were some, like, other longing looks from season one that were cut. And we got several emails speculating, had you asked for it?

I did.

You got it? Yeah.

This is a story in many ways about tempting.

Be careful what you wish for. Okay, so how long have they been doing it? And a lot of people are speculating. Well, where was Kristen Cole when Luke took Aemon's eye out?

Right.

And Viserys asked him. He's like, excuse me, where were you? And Kristen being the piece of shit that he is, he's like, well, we never thought we had to guard princes from princes. He's an absolute piece of shit in that scene and always again.

Have you heard of Maegor the cruel?

But Olivia Cook said that this, the official word from Olivia Cooke is that this only started up after Viserys died. That's.

Honestly, you don't believe it? That feels right to me. Oh, yes.

No, no, I believe it. But I would say three days after, like, quickly great stuff. It's only been a few days.

Remember Tywin and Cersei discussing the appropriate amount of time before a new marriage? It's like a fortnight would be. That would be fine. Alison's like, as long as we can no longer smell the stench of his bloated, rotting corpse. Let's get down, my man.

Okay, but that takes a while to clear.

It's true. And he stopped because they were keeping him secret.

And they don't wild like. No.

No, they don't. I think this is definitely post viserys. But the fact that it happens so quickly. You're right. Because only, you know, only a few days have passed, and so this is already at.

This can't happen again.

Yes. So they beg doing it. And that doesn't last long.

That pledge sure does.

That pledge. So couple things here. On the alicent front, I want to talk about Kristen's hypocrisy in a second. But on the Allison front, I will say we would like more for her than Kristen. But it is. I was like, get it, girl. No, no.

I want this for Alicent.

Her relationship to sex in the story that we've seen so far.

I would have loved this for Alicent from the jump.

Yeah. She can actually find joy, except. And pleasure.

It's not. Oh, but it's Kristen Cole. It's. Except she made Rhaenyra's life a living hell. This is the thing for the same thing. Yes. Judgment endangered. Those boys, like, she, like, you know, like, embarrassed. Made their lives, like, all the shit that she did around. Rhaenyra's absolutely consensual. I married a gay man. He's got a boyfriend. I have a really nice, really nice guy who's now dead, thanks to Laris. They had an arrangement. A polycule. They were an american family, okay? They had just, like, figured it all out. They were hurting no one. And Allison decided to make it her and everyone else's problem. And Kristen's like, rhaenyra, that spider, that slut, that horn, you know, even before.

That, like, the way that Alicent responds to the murmurs that Rhaenyra and Damon had gone to the bowers of a pleasure den. Like the judgment. We talked about that a lot. Because part of what made episode four so effective in season one was, do you feel for Alicent because you see that Rhaenyra is taking her pleasure and Alicent is literally pinned down by duty?

Yes. Is that what we're calling Viserys now.

By the festering flesh sack embodiment of duty.

Yeah.

Aversion of love in their marriage, but she wasn't finding pleasure in it in that way. And so for her to get that here is nice. But I agree with you. The hypocrisy from Alicent is palpable. And then speaking of hypocrisy, it's worse for Kristen. This is just like, absolutely beyond the pale. Kirsten and Renera sleep together in episode four. Very dramatic sequence where he's, like, folding his white cloak, putting it aside, at war with himself. At war with himself over what to do. And then in episode five, and listen.

I have a lot of. There was all this conversation around the time where it's like, could Kristen even consent? Could he even say no in that circumstance? And I agree with plenty of that. Absolutely. That is a fucked up situation for Kristen to find himself in. And then.

And then in the next episode, he goes to Rhaenyra in the wee hours of the morning is like, you're up too. Gotta pitch for you oranges. Oranges, cinnamon. Leave your name, your crown, your birthright, your family and your kingdom behind and come marry me across the narrow sea. And when she's like, I am the crown, my guy, but we can keep fucking. He wails and screams and cries and says, I took an oath as a knight of your kingsguard, an oath of chastity. I've broken it. I've soiled my white cloak. It is the only thing I have to my fucking name. And then he's going down on Alicent, the dowager queen. She says, we shouldn't do this again. And he's like, I'll be back tonight. Can you just pin this white cloak on in the.

Can you just. Can you just hook this on me? Thanks.

This piece of shit.

Kristen believes, and I just need this to be underlined. Kristen believes that every woman is an image of the mother to be spoken of with reverence.

One of the best moments of season one and my least favorite episode of season one, because that line is iconic. And of course, the line that leads to that reply is Amy, for counting Aegon, gifting him this first trip to the stream of silk. And then he's like, said, time to get it wet.

And thrones, to be very clear, Chris is wearing that fucking hat throughout the whole thing.

Great stuff, Allison.

And Kristen, that conversation where he calls Rhaenyra a spoiled cunt, and then Alison looks at him and he goes, that was beneath me. Your grace, I apologize. And she says, I have to believe that in the end, and honor and decency will prevail. We need to hew to that and to each other. But like, indeed, we're better than Rhaenyra. We're more pious. You know, we would never sully ourselves and sully our names. And here we are. Season two, episode one. Again, I want Alicent to same, have whatever she wants sexually. Same is the hypocrisy. This is making me absolutely. This is what she says about Rhaenyra. She expects everyone in the red keep to deny the truth our eyes can plainly see. And the king, her father, he knows. Of course he knows, or did once, but has convinced himself otherwise. He'll do not but make excuses for her. The princess Rhaenyra is brazen, relentless. Oh, no. That's when Cole says the princess Rhaenyra is brazen, relentless. Spider. He loves calling her a spider.

We'll do it again in this episode.

Let it go, Kristen. Anyway, I just.

Very fragile ego.

I have a lot of empathy for Alicent. I have very little empathy for Kristen Cole. And this just boiled my blood. But again, I'm like, I'm pro sex. I want Alison to have this same, same.

And again, dramatically, it's incredibly rich. Should we go to the small council chamber? Should we follow Alicent and Kristen into this chamber together?

One last thing. Her putting the cloak back on. And by the way, Helena has like.

A clip on tie.

Yeah, the little hooks. I liked it. Helena has moved into Allison room. Allison's room. That means Allison has moved into Rhaenyra's room.

Yeah. Kristen's like, I've been here before.

We're gonna talk about that a little. I mean, when they fucking the bed, like.

Yes.

It's not just. It's the same bed. I looked. I went back and looked because remember when Alice. Alicent was sleeping in Emma's bed where she, like, miscarried, like, died, essentially, and they couldn't get Alison a new bed. I have notes again that she has moved in Rhaenyra's room and she's sleeping in. It's the same headboard, bed post. It's the exact same bed.

They needed Tyrion Lannister at this time. Cause like, the moment he got to the tower of the hand, he was like, ned Stark slept on this.

Absolutely. Not a hit, not a nightmare, not a one. Very a one. But it made me think about Alicent in terms of Alison dressing someone she cares for in that room. She dresses Rhaenyra in season one, episode one. That's right before she's named so that people can in that room so the.

People can then do obesity.

I'm so sorry. You gave me so many opportunities. Say it.

Say it.

Do obesance. Obeisance. Okay. What a great word. All right, Joe, small council.

We're following Alicent and Kristen into the small council chamber. Do you think anyone's gonna notice that we're all arriving together?

This is a literal text message I got from our friend Kim Renfro when she watched the screen shout out, Kim the best. Love, Kim, the best. She says, do you think Otto smelled Alison on Kristen when they walked in? And when you rewatch that scene with that in your head, it's like, I believe he is wafting something.

So we briefly talked about. You made a reference on talk of thrones to this. It was an important thing to get on the record. On night one, the midnight boys had a lengthy and riveting discussion about. But post coital hygiene. It's difficult for me, in moments like this, not to think of our dearly departed Ra's and her vag bowl, you know, a little splash after her dalliance with Pycelle.

Okay.

I noticed this as well. Like, they're changing, but Kristen's not.

Like, he doesn't give it a rinse.

Let me just rinse.

Just a rinse.

Just a rinse. Pass the listerine.

Yeah.

Anyone have any gum?

They have no lysol or listerine, but he could at least splash some water. Oh, man.

Yeah.

Or, like, spray some perfume to try to, like, mask something.

Everybody in Westeros smells, right.

Yeah, but.

But the royals, you know, again, like, there's a bath in this episode. A lot of bath time in general. But Kristen, he's in the armor. I bet you there's, like, a pretty.

Rank, ripe aroma coming from inside the shell. I don't know.

I don't know if Otto would clock it, but it does seem to be the collective response that he's like.

Cause. Yeah. You didn't think that Otto had.

No, though, after you mentioned it, I was looking for it, and he's definitely like, yeah, though I just, in real time, read that as Otto's like, why can't people show up on time for my meetings?

Also a strong possibility.

But just because Kristen is Allison sworn shield. So the fact that they would be together is actually not remarkable.

Correct.

But if they've got, like, tousled hair.

And a special aroma, a sheen. All right. Oh, man.

Okay, so I have a question for you, and it's an important one, and I want you to consider it in a way that is worthy of bees Bray's memory. Would you?

Yeah.

A member of the green council. Keep the small balls on the council table. After Kristen Cole basically just pushed Lyman's head down and the ball went through his temple like a butter knife.

Like a knife through butter. Yeah. Hot knife through butter.

Cantaloupe. That had been out in the sun too long. Wouldn't you get these out of here?

First of all, please do not besmirch my guy, Lyman beesberry, by comparing his head to a overripe dude. Cantaloupe.

Genuinely, one of the best parts about rewatching season one. Everyone with bees is just something to cherish and adore. But that end stretch where he's, like, chiming in a few minutes late on everything, and they're just so mean to him, but then when the moment counts, he gets up and he's like, this is seizure.

Did you notice in the. I'm sure you did. You notice everything in the tapestry and the opening credits.

Love it.

They have sigils listed on, like, each side. Team green, team black. Beesberry's firmly on team black because, let's be clear.

Oh, yeah.

Lyman may be dead, but that's not the end of house Beesbury.

No, it's not.

No. Okay. Not only would I don't think they should have small balls on their table, I think maybe we should have them on talk the threads.

Yeah.

Actually, Dave Gonzalez is like, why don't you guys have the small council balls? I was like, what do you mean? He's like, oh, I'm sorry. I live in Colorado, where, like, gemstone balls are like a dime on the street corner. He offered to get us some Dave.

He'll ship him over from Colorado. I love it.

Yeah.

Who is gonna be the first one to suffer some sort of grievous injury on set? And. Okay, well, we know the answer. It's me. What episode?

Yeah, I gave you till episode four before you injure yourself.

It might be that they arrived in episode three, so I didn't last very long.

I mean, it's probably too late for.

Them to get here for.

Let's be real. You're gonna slip on, like. Like your drop chapstick or like an errant Kleenex that you've left on the floor, and then it's all over.

I need everybody to know quickly what true friendship is. Before we recorded, I dropped my chapstick.

Open onto the bathroom floor at the office that's gonna be burned later. Cause it rolled.

It actually rolled all the way across the floor under the sink. And I was actually in a state of panic because you were having a full blown. I was like, I can't do the pod. Steve was like, who can go on a run to, like, a Walgreens or something?

Yeah.

Joanna had a spare chapstick and she.

Gave it to me, and now we have matching chapsticks, and I find that charming. All right. Oh, boy. Should we do a quick, small council lineup? Refresher?

Refresh us, please.

Okay. Hand of the king on Ohitower.

I've yelled at them.

Well, it's Jasper, iron Rod.

Yeah. Wild for the thickness of his member.

Master of laws, or the rigidity of.

His legal stance, either. This is canon.

Thank you for keeping Beesbury alive. Do you think that Jasper gave himself that nickname, Iron Rod? I think he did. Definitely. Okay.

Without question.

Grand Maester Orwell.

Yep.

Pretty. Pretty good dude, all things considered. Of all the people on the council, I like him most. Tylen Lannister. Incredible scene for Thailand.

Just an incredible scene for Thailand.

No time for amusements, Thailand. All right, so Tyland Lannister, Master Coin. His brother Jason tried to propose to Rhaenyra, and he's.

He of the hundred, lord of Casterly Rock.

Right, okay.

Yep.

Alicent, the dowager queen, who shouldn't really have a seat, but I support her having a seat. But I'm saying that's not a. Yeah, that's not a seat. That's usually given. And then Lord Commander Kristen Cole watching over.

Yep.

And then aemond.

Aemond shows up, and Alison's like, please leave. Why are you here? You're invited.

You don't have a ball. What are you doing here?

They don't yet have master of ships. Some discussion in this episode about this very thing.

No master of whispers either. And that's something that people get confused by, because in the book. At this point in the book is Laris, master of Whispers. I think he is. And in the show, he's just the Lord Confessor.

Confessor?

Yeah.

So, like, let me tell you about all the people who I killed because they betrayed us.

They don't have a master of whispers right now.

So Aegon is too distracted by his darling little son, Jaehaerys, as we repeatedly mentioned in the preview pods. Six in the book. Only four in the show, according to conduct.

Wow.

Okay. Part of why Maelor apparently couldn't make it.

Does that make it? Because if you'll recall, in our preview pods, Mallory's like, children die, old, die.

I was just.

He's six years old.

Parsing.

He lived a rich life.

I was just parsing, like, the word baby a little bit. I'm like, he's six.

If he's four, is he a baby?

I don't know. Walking. He goes to school. He's got his customs that could be interrupted.

So let's go.

So, for the record, I'm not saying it's okay to kill a four year old. That is not what I said. That is not what I'm saying. A foul act. A vile act. But, like, isn't a baby, like, one?

That's all. I agree. Sixx is a little too old to say baby, but I've heard, like, certain people refer to, like, four year olds as babies.

Yeah, okay, sure. I don't have children, as I'm sure it's quite a parent right now.

Ego is still your baby.

That's true. He is my beautiful baby boy. Okay, so Aegon, speaking of beautiful baby boys, just wants to bring Jaehaerys here in theory to train him to be king, but really, just so they can fuck around. Jaehaerys steals Tylan's little small ball. He's playing with him. Tylan's pissed. Aegon's like, is the heir to the iron throne bothering you?

The look. Jefferson hall, dude, amazing scene.

The look when he suggests. When Aegon suggests the pony ride. And Tylan's like, uh, yeah.

And he's like, seriously?

There was just that little moment of venom there. Like, oh, no, I actually am in control. Don't forget it for a second.

That was a Joffrey.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Oh, yes. No time for amusements.

Dylan.

Steve, we need to add that to the soundboard so that every time we're running long, you just come in with no time for amusements.

Yeah, if we do like a. If we do a chapstick, like a lip balm.

It's great news. When Steve's looking at the runtime later and he's like, what can I cut? It's just like, 45 seconds on chapstick.

That part.

And now ten more when we're talking.

About it again, that part where they touched their chopsticks to each other. Other. No free ads. No free ads.

Yeah, blur out the brand.

Yeah, blur out the brand.

So they're going through potential allies.

Yeah.

Eamonn and Kristen later will have their map, which they're using coins on real, like, rich kid stuff from Eamonn. Let's just use my money to mark. But Otto has his. He's pulled in the dry erase board.

Okay. They spent a lot of time on this, on the house. Of dragons build video where the woman who made it, she was like, I wanted this on the table. Let's be clear. I wanted this horizontal on the table. Ryan Condal was saying, too many of our maps are down on the table. I don't feel you get the full scope. He's like, I kind of wanted more of like a world war two sort of like war map on the wall so people get a better sense of geography. And it's true, because, like, the painted table, as cool as it is, I don't think looking at it, you get a great sense of the geography.

Your main marker for the geography is you're like, right, which castle did Stannis and Melisandre fuck on top of? Yeah. Okay, now I have my bearings.

That's it. But yeah, it's supposed to be made of ivory. Sections of ivory. So like, why don't. Can we get a whiteboard made of. Not of ivory. I don't believe in that. Yeah, but in like, fake ivory. Is mother Pearl something we can do? Is that.

Sure?

Probably. That's bad too. Okay, nevermind. Let's just stick with the regular trainer.

We'll just use Google Docs.

Okay. So imagine how much I free we would need for your show notes.

Oh, man. Oh, my goodness.

We would.

Panels upon panels.

We never would.

They're going through the rosters here. Right? Who has aligned with which side? Choose a side. No reply from renier. A shocker. It's not going well. This effort to repair the realm thwarted. Iron Rod Lippy. Too much feedback in this scene.

An apology for her dead son. Let's just remind everyone that in season one, episode nine, Alison said to Iron Rod, one more word and I will have you removed from this chamber and sent to the wall.

Seemed like he really. He got the message.

Alison, you gotta follow through on your threats, or else they're just empty.

Yeah, you think? Where's Arwind? Yeah, you think he should just be like, meeting up with Craig's kin up there.

That guy with the bowl cut right in the winch.

Yeah. Oh, boy. That haircut. Sheesh. Okay, rapid fire.

Remember when Tyrion said Janice lint to the wall?

Remember Janos final moments man game with her? Sam saying that he found Janos in a puddle of his own making was one of my favorite moments. Truly great stuff. Everybody laughed. They all chuckled. Okay. No reply from the valor in the north. We know why Jace got him. Jace, our guys.

Sorry. That's a quote. I don't use that word.

Oh, man. Before we did talk the thrones, Chris was like, is it okay to say this for, like, quoting? And then I think he maybe said it once and we've definitely said it, like, 40 seconds.

Is it better? Okay. Chris said, is it better if I say cuts with air quotes? And you and I were both like, that's worse.

That's worse out of it. They think they have storm sim.

Okay.

Not a surprise to us after what we saw with Boros at the end, but. But Eamond Flores, betrothed.

This is.

We can't overstate what a colossal loss this is for the blacks. And this was a big conversation for us at the end of season one. Like Rhaenyra not tending to squandering the alliances that were taken for granted, like the baratheon are kin to Renise. Renise is on Rhaenyra's side.

When Rhaenyra went on her bad loss, when Rhaenyra went on her engagement tour, she made enemies of a lot of people, including Boris Baratheon, who can't read, I think. Anyway.

Jason Lannister amassing forces in the west. As you noted, golden Tooth gets a shout out here. So this is a. The fact that this was specifically mentioned felt intentional. Key position. This is the easternmost point of the Westerland. So it's like, between the Westerlands and the Riverlands. This is a key strategic position. But also, when we were breaking down the trailers, we're like, what is this other light, stone, tan structure? That doesn't seem to be the other thing that we talked about a lot in those trailer breakdowns. This is it. Hearing it here, I was like, oh, that's got to be.

That was something. We thought it might be because there were tooth beat early, there were Lannister soldiers around. Yeah.

Ormond marshaling forces from Old Town as mentioned. I have to hope and pray that while Darren couldn't read a mention here, our guy, Freddie Fox, Gawain Hightower will be with Ormond. When we.

Didn't he say he was sallying fourth? How long does it take for one to Sally?

Great question. Great question.

Fourth or otherwise, Dalton Greyjoy.

The Red Kraken.

The Red Kraken.

Wonderful stuff. I'm sure this will be fine.

What could go wrong?

And then Aegon wants to fly to Riverrun. And we would just be remiss now and always if we did not take a quick opportunity to mention that at this moment. The Tullys of Riverrun. Grover, Elmo Kermack. Come on in. Eventually. These characters are named after Muppets. Muppets.

And they're hoping that they'll do obeisance? Is that what you're saying?

That's a big word for Elmo. Wonderful stuff, obeisance.

Yeah, literally. Grover, Elmo and Kermit.

Sensational.

George.

The best.

Really? On one.

Okay, so, Jo, we didn't love episode nine of season one, but we did like the fissures inside of the Green Council. Seeing the tension inside of one faction. That is very apparent here as well. Nobody's on the same page. They're bickering over mishandling Rhaenyra. They're arguing over the blockade's impact on King's Landing. Aegon now wishes that they had killed Rhaenyra, and that was, like, basically the only thing that the great race to find Aegon in the penultimate episode hinged on, which was Alison getting the opportunity to say to him first, don't kill her. The side eye that Otto casts at Alicent, which will be the part of what prompts their conversation later about how to get along in front of other people, he's like, it's too late. We must play the board before us. And then, as we talked about, alison doesn't want Aemond here, but Aegon does. Aemond is my closest blood and our best sword. I welcome him. I wanted to ask you how you.

He's my hound. Loyal.

That's loyal. How this reception for Aemon struck you? Because Alicent makes a remark at the table about it. Right. Retribution for the death of her son and kind of glares over at Aemond. But broadly, there's kind of a hand wave inside of team green. Otto says errors were made. That's how he sums this up.

Elsewhere else, the caprice, which is just.

Insane in fire and blood. Here's the passage.

Yeah.

Aemond Targaryen, who would henceforth be known as Aemond the Kinslayer to his foes.

Accursed. Rough.

No man. This was accursed. I've heard. Returned to King's Landing having won the support of Storm's end for his brother Aegon, and the undying enmity of Queen Rhaenyra if he thought to receive a hero's welcome. He was disappointed. Queen Alicent went pale when she heard what he had done, crying, mother, have mercy on us all. Nor was ser Otto pleased. You only lost one eye. He is reported to have said, how could you be so blind? Now we talk all the time about the unreliable narrator, nature of fire and blood, so, like, there was no reason to expect that it would go exactly this way.

But Ewan Mitchell in an interview had to. Entertainment Weekly had said, eamonn's gonna come back, and he has a choice. He can either look the fool or he can pretend that he meant to do this, that it was an intentional active violence or aggression or whatever. And he implied in that interview that, like, he would. He would be. So I actually wonder. It's either something that we're gonna see later or if there was a scene that was cut.

Interesting.

You know, maybe there was a scene that was cut where we got the actual fallout with, like, Alicent and Otto and Aemond. But, yeah, here it seems like there's this line later from your favorite character, Mosaria, who says, frankly, how dare you? To Damon, you're like mangor the cruel. I'll own Mosaria. No. Messaria says to Damon, you only blame me. Well, she doesn't say it like that, but, you know, she says, you only blame me because your true enemies are out of reach. And this is just like, this is what's true. This is what Damon is doing when he's like, radius. It's your fault that this happened. It's Rhaenyra's fault. Cause she's not here, you know, casting about for people to blame. And then meanwhile, on team green, everyone, like, that small council scene is such a feast because Alison's, like, passive aggressive comment, look at a min and Otto's are like, Otto's like, mistakes were made in the aftermath. And looks at Alison, you know, we're just, like, casting blame around wherever we can because we can't actually, like, reach. And this is these fissures I want to do a signs and portents things.

Fissures and fragments inside of these very team black and Team Green is part of the story that we're gonna see going forward because, yes, we're in a civil war inside of a family, but inside those factions are further fracturing.

And that's the most interesting part. Ultimately, if everybody in team green and team black is aligned and they're just battling each other, they're just at odds with each other. That's not necessarily that dramatically compelling. When they're at war with each other and at war with themselves and we get these delicious foils and dark mirrors or direct mirrors of each other, then that's riveting. So aemond, in this stretch, talking about Harrenhal, talking about how crucial the Riverlands are, not just making the same pitch that Damon made back in the season one finale and continues to make, but.

Using the same language, literally using the same language.

Toehold we got that from Damon in the finale. Damon uses it again in this episode. Amon says it here.

They've been circling each other.

Oh, man, I love this.

Season one, episode eight in the throne room when they're just sort of like looking at each other and it's like, pretty sure Damon's like, did you steal my look? I'm the Legolas hair guy. Why do you think you're also the Lego lost hair guy?

So I feel like Amand could just reply, you had a lot of different wigs and see someone it's hard to.

Give changing your hair. It's hard to keep track. Dragon math. Yes. We love that.

Another tie, of course, but not just between. This is really an aegon and aemond tied to daemon because like the dudes want to go to war. That's really the key.

Absolutely.

Alicent is in the Rhaenyra position in this episode. We heard in the finale Rhaenyra really cautioning restrain as we already talked about. Alicent is the one here who says Rhaenyra has dragons as well. It's that old. The other minister, like the other side can do magic too idea. Right?

And minor bigger.

Yeah. I have some questions about Aegon saying minor bigger. Like bigger. Yes. But if I were to gone, I'd be putting a little more stock into the numbers that the other side has. But we love a dragon math. Yeah.

So the dragon math scenario on team green is that they have sunfire, which is Aegon's dragon. Helena has a dragon, but we've yet to see it and we don't think.

We'Re probably shout out Dreamfire ever going.

To see Dreamfire because Helena is quite traumatized from blood and cheese. Right. So veigar huge and Daeron.

I mean, this is part of why Tessarion and Daeron not being in the story is just genuinely so confounding. Well, without getting into any of the particulars, like a whole dragon being off.

The board, it really tie their hands anytime that they talk about dragon math on team green. For them not to say, oh, and we have another dragon.

Yeah.

Yes, let's the blue queen somewhere and.

In a different part of the world right now where you could have then that like strength.

Another toehold.

Another toehold. It's a very strange, strange thing to think about. I did notice just while we're doing dragon math here that. Well, I thought I noticed. I'm not sure if this is confirmed, but it seemed under the beds, under the twins beds that they had the dragon egg offense.

This is another frantic text we received from Mallory. I forgot to say that it looked like there were dragon eggs.

It did. Look. The egg in the cradle is a dark family tradition, but it did look like they still had.

Sorry if I just blew up the furnaces.

Now, the kids, being younger, I guess, could align with this. But does that mean that Shirikos and Morgul aren't.

Probably.

And this is dory.

Probably.

Okay. All right.

Okay. So Alison's like, hey, Kristen, you're good for a lot of things.

Yeah.

But in this moment, can you please stop my idiot son from being such an idiot?

He's such a tongue to do some talking, my guy.

And, like Kristen, Aegon is so easily pushed and pulled in one direction or another. And so Kristen, using, like, the old, you're the king. You can't go. Yeah.

This is what Otto did to Viserys when he wanted him to not go to Dragonstone.

Yeah, it was pretty funny. Laris, take it away. Love of my life.

Thrilled for you.

Absolute piece of shit.

Thrilled for you. Couple fascinating scenes of Laris just overtly manipulating other people in this episode.

So he's waiting for Alison after the small council.

Your handmaiden said you were indisposed. Your handmaiden said that Kristen was bringing you to climax.

I looked for you with a tractor. Oh, my God. That made me laugh so hard when I saw that in the notes. Anyway, so Alicent already. At the end of last season, Alicent was like, I would rather not with this.

Yeah, it's a lot.

And now he knows that he's been, like, very much replaced by, like, he knows about Kristen.

Oh, definitely.

100%, no doubt. Absolutely. So he says that he's gotten rid of all the people in the household who were spies. I've rooted out the spies, have gotten rid of them. And that means, my friend and yours, Talia Rip, who, if our listeners can't remember, was a redheaded serving woman who was Messaria's agent inside the castle.

Yes.

And also Miguel Sapochnik's wife.

Yes.

And we're pretty sure it was only in the show so that Miguel Subochnick's wife could be in the show. Anyway, she's killed off screen, along with Hobert Hightower. Tough. Tough Vitalia. Tough Vitalia. And Larissa's gone ahead and replaced every single one of Alison's, you know, people with his own people.

Yep.

Great.

Yeah.

Terrifying.

She then has to immediately dismiss them all from bathing her.

Yes.

Now, I would not want Laris's spies bathing me either, but it raises a couple things. One on the thematic front, it just heightens again how alone Alicent is. Like she has Kristen for some stuff.

But when Viserys, her vague bug daughter, sweet Helena. Yeah.

When Viserys sent all of his bathing assistants away, Alicent was there to tend to him, even though that was probably not how she would have ideally been spending her time. Right. Sore, dabbing. Nobody's here to help Alicent. And it makes us think of that connected to Laris, that really unvarnished moment of truth where she was, like, in all of King's Landing. Is there no one to take my side?

This is after her dad had been sent away. And even now, her dad's back, and her dad is what? Undermining her at that table, cutting them out. Okay. We got this interesting email from Alex because Chris is really focused on the scrubbing of the shoulder, and we talked about this. We had our. You were talking about the Viserys callback. I was talking about Laris replacing all her handmaids. But I really like this email from Alex, who said when Alison began obsessively cleaning her arm, it took me back to season one and her picking her nails and those interactions then with Otto and his disappointment in her, the repetitive cleaning made me think. All of this time, Allison has been masking her anxiety, OCD or whatever Westerosi doctors would call it, and doing so in a way her father couldn't tell. She used to pick at her fingers until they bled as, like, a manifestation of her anxiety.

And then when he would see it, he would be like, you're the most comely girl at court. Why do you destroy yourself instead of being like, are you okay?

Right? And so this is like, her. Like, I'm sure. I'm actually very confident she did that to her entire body. But, like, the, like, repetitive scrubbing, the, like. I think we got another email from. We did. We got another from a listener who did a Lady Macbeth sort of out, out, damn spot sort of comp, for sure. But I like that callback to the nails. And this is like, it's a great call. Compulsive Alicent behavior.

That's a great call. Great email from Alison to Rhaenyra.

Yeah.

Rhaenyra finds the story would say, the cloak of her dead son and the proof that, in fact, lucerys is dead. My read on it is we saw poor Arrax, shredded, gnarled wing, and I wept.

I wept. Joe, that's tough.

A moment, quickly.

Yeah.

Just of congratulations to your co host and our pal Dave Gonzalez. Because we got a dragon dismount.

Oh, my God.

I mean, you guys are gonna talk about this on trial? We do.

Renaissance also gets off, like, at the dragon dock. They have, like, a docking scenario. Yeah.

Are you happy this is here?

I mean, it wasn't the best visual effect we've ever seen on the show, though. The behind the scenes did show them doing this practically with a stuntwoman. So, like, they did, you know, try to make it look as real as possible. Not our best visual effect, but, like. Yeah, Dave, if you guys aren't. If you're listening to this and you're not trialed by content listeners. Dave was harping on this all of season one, where he was like, they'd show them landing, then they would cut away, and then the person would be on the ground. He's like, show me a dragon dismount, you cowards. We did see Daenerys do this on thrones. She sort of did a walk down a leg or whatever. This was a leaping dismount. But she's in a hurry.

Yeah, absolutely. This is very sad, because not only does Rhaenyra now know that her kid is dead and she's weeping, but Cyrax cries out.

Our listener, Ian, was asking if Cyrax is Arax's mother. This is a really fun theory. There's no confirmation one way or another, but it is plausible. Cyrax had a clutch of eggs.

Clutch of eggs.

Yeah.

So it's.

Yeah, it's definitely possible.

And even if that's not the case, which I like to think about that possibility, even if it's not the case, it's, like, one more moment where that connection between dragon and Rider, between Rhaenyra and Cyrax, and more broadly, dragon and Rider, is just, like, reinforced for us. We think back to the stillbirth, the cuts from Rhaenyra crying to Syrax.

But also season one, episode one, at her mother's funeral, when Cyrax is there. Dracarys. And Cyrus. Dracarys. Dracarys.

Very dramatic.

Dracarys.

Yeah, that was a dramatic circumstance. Okay, Joe Aegon the magnanimous, we'll see you now. Do you know what magnanimous means? Nobody knows what magnanimous means.

Well, I do.

That was so funny.

We did get an email from listener Brad, who attached a screenshot of the Google trends on magnanimous, and there was a huge spike in the Google search for what magnanimous meant after this episode.

Which is great, great stuff. Are you digging Aegon's bros? The heralds this is what we need. When we come into the studio, we need the Steve.

Can you just. Steve and John Rajuna to follow us in and just say titles, titles, titles. Yeah.

So.

I love that you called out the Aemon Damon parallel of literally saying the same word. The toehold in Harrenhal, the two entrances of the monarchs, because we get this Aegon entrance with his bros, which we'll talk about in the second titles. Titles, titles. Rhaenyra gets the same titles, titles, titles. When she walks in, but she's just storming in. And this is when she's about to say her one line, but, like, the camera follows her in to the painting stable and the council and stuff like that. But I love the contrast of the two. There's a herald saying lady of the Rhoynar, all this sort of stuff.

The other contrast that really struck me is, of course, when we last saw a Targaryen king walking into the throne room. It's Viserys long walk, and it is striking speed and vigor with which Aegon makes his way toward the throne, walking right past the statue of Viserys the peaceful. As his legacy crumbles in real time. Like, that was little things like that. The show does really well, I think heroes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Martin Rain.

Yeah, you love a rain.

We clocked that sigil in the trailer. Oh, yeah, that was fun. The random Casimir red line. Martin rain. Good old Marty. Leon. Estermont. Leo. The estromont sigil is a turtle.

Great stuff.

This is one of George Rr. Martin's favorite sigils is the estromont Sigil.

It's great.

And Eddard waters, a bastard. How progressive.

Nobody in this family has ever had a note about a bastard being at court. So.

So Marty, Leo, and Eddie.

Yeah, I love it.

Okay, this is the trio of bros. We see them later drinking around the throne with him, but not Vlad.

So it's a different group of characters in the stories.

I decided we could call them any number of things.

Yeah. What do you got?

I want to go with pussy posse.

I love it.

And Steve, our producer, suggested that I explain to our listeners, who may not be. I don't know. Is this a. Oh, I don't know.

No way. That makes me feel like it might be slightly generational. Wow.

But to be clear, pussy Posse is what Leonardo DiCaprio and his pals, his other actor friends in their youth called themselves.

That's right.

Nancy Joe Sales wrote a great, one of the best articles of all time about the pussy posse. Again, this is not a word that I love to throw around, but it's just iconic in pop culture that Leonardo DiCaprio in his youth, it's great stuff. Along with Tobey Maguire, among other people, call themselves the pussy posse. So this feels like Aegon's pussy posse. Marty, Leo, and Eddie, I have no notes.

Great on the moniker front.

Yeah.

Do you have any alts that you'd like to throw out for Aegon the magnanimous? Aegon the dragon heart? Aegon the dragon cock.

I did not have my ivory whiteboard to brainstorm.

I just want to toss out for consideration for the room. Egg on the window anchor.

No, the alliteration of it is just immediately appealing to me. I do like it. Okay.

Oh, man. Okay, so he makes his way to the throne. He's got the conqueror's crown on. It's that idea from fire and blood.

And although we talked about last legitimacy belongs to him. The next line also is like, plus, he's a dude, and that made him qualified in most people's eyes.

Not ideal. Yeah, not ideal.

Great.

He hears some petitions.

I loved this scene.

This was great.

Top to bottom.

Okay, what percentage of your response was, wait, could Aegon be good at this? Does he have the capacity to maybe be good at this? And what percentage of your response was, why does this dipshit not know to say out loud, I intend to burn the blockade. And also, wait, do people. Is word gonna travel? If I try to just make one exception?

But.

But the way he interacts with Laris will invoke this to kind of manipulate him in the next scene. But they won't know. They won't know. They won't know the podcast, for one. Even though we know it's a tactic from Laris. He is right, actually, to note that Aegon has a touch with the small film.

Well, again, this stems from that validation he got from the coronation, and he just wants to be magnanimous so that this shepherd or this smithy or this guy with salt will think of him as a good guy. Gerard. Hugh.

One of the things that when we over, kind of overhear when blood and sheesh are walking through the throne room later and Aegon and the pussy posse are getting wasted, one of the things, there's the little. Like this is when they're talking about the nicknames. But then which would your grace prefer to be loved or feared? And he says, I need to be both. Why not both my mother and grandsire mind me like some helpless duckling. I need to be both. Like, it of course, makes us think of the Daenerys and Viserys conversation about, like, you know, nobody ever gave me what she got in there. So.

Yeah, I think that there is one learning in real time moment that we have, though, because he says, he says all this stuff, and Otto is just like, let me walk up the stairs and just like, tell you, tell you.

Can'T give the sheep you need them for your.

But then at the end, when he says something, having learned from Otto that when the king speaks, everyone listens, he's like, he's in the middle of something. He sees his grandfather coming up the stairs to tell him he can't do this thing, and he implements that feedback in real time.

Yeah.

And then he just sort of, like, makes a proclamation that makes Otto turn right back around and be like, well, I guess I gotta give him this one, you know? Yep. Fucks me.

Some coin for the Smiths for their scorpions. A request from Hugh.

Just a guy. Just a guy being a smith, I think.

Anything else on this scene, Joe?

No.

Back to Laris, then pulls Aegon.

Yeah.

Compliments him. Here's how you remind me in a good way of Viserys before I tell you how you remind me of Viserys in a bad way.

By the way, the old king, it's your dad's hand.

Okay? The use have to of the word pliable was just chef's kiss. Delicious. From Laris here.

You love Laris.

As you know. I do love Laris. I think he's a wonderful character. Every now and then in season one, especially the early moments with Lyras, I was like, is this too? Oh, here's this story's little finger. And just like, shouldn't the characters feel how they're being. Being manipulated by him? But something like this here, you resent the fact that your father didn't take you seriously. Don't let the people who led him astray do the same to you. Is perfection.

Yeah. Plus, you get to pick who your hand is. You don't have to just take who your dad's hand was.

Yeah.

Don't let your grandpappy tell you what to do. Oh, grand sire, speaking of grandpappy, Alice and Donato.

Yes. Otto, who is being dunked on by Laris here.

When?

In episode nine of last season. Oh, Laris is like, yeah, we talked.

About this in talk to Thrones. Laris is just playing all angles all at once, all the time.

Constant.

Yeah, he's not switching sides. He's just playing all sides all the time.

Every door opens yeah. Every door open.

Okay. And seeing Alicent close a door on him is. He's like. He wanders directly from there to the throne room, essentially.

So.

Yeah. And we should mention. Cause I don't think we have yet. We see cheese in the background multiple times in this episode, passing by the door.

The open door of the throne room was the one that gave me the biggest chill. That was like, whoa. Family time. Alison Tonato just sitting at dad's table, reading his letters.

Oh, am I not supposed to read your email when you're not in the room, Mallory?

That's so funny to me.

Don't leave your laptop unattended then.

That was genuinely my thought. I was like, I feel like I would put this shit away.

Yeah. Right on a lockbox. Yeah.

So Alicent is annoyed that dad kept her waiting, and she has some notes on how things have been going for them, which is a series long proposition at this point.

Yes.

What did you make of this scene.

When she says that he's cutting her legs out in front of a table of men? Was the most overt. Fuck the patriarchy, I think. Moment of the episode that I quite like. But also, if you undermine my voice, both those boys will grow deaf to it. And he sort of, like. He hears her. He's like, I hadn't seen it that way. However, they both have a completely incorrect read of these boys.

Totally, right? Totally. Yeah.

Aamon, fiercely loyal. Absolutely not. Eamon and Kristen just like, having their own little bro sesh.

Yeah. And again, when they were having a bro sesh last season, running around looking for Aegon, all Eamon talked about was.

How he was a better fit to.

Rule than Aegon was.

Right. And then. And then them saying Aegon's gonna get bored. That might be true, but I think his interest is gonna last longer than they expected. Right. They don't understand the amount of validation that he's getting from this.

Well, and that's. That fits so perfectly into this family dynamic, because underestimating or just simply not.

Paying attention at all to what makes the other person tick.

I loved that moment in season one when Alison finally called out Otto. Right. Cause he's like, well, if that is true, then I made you queen of the seven Kingdoms. Like, would you have wanted it any other way? And wouldn't she say, how could I know? I wanted whatever you impressed upon me to want. And now the debt comes due, a debt you are happy enough to pay. Like, her low point in season one, from her perspective, is an eye for an eye. She is appalled by what she proved capable of in that moment. And she tells her father that, and he's like, where's Judy? Where is sacrifice?

Pretty little.

She tells her father that. She's like, I'm ashamed. Everybody's gonna think I've lost it.

And he's like, he was like, that was hot. Actually.

I didn't know till right now that you were ready for the big league.

Yeah. Like.

For the way that Alicent is thinking about and looking at and considering her children to mirror the thing that she resented about her own father is, again, like, tale result is time. These cycles repeat. You pass down that learned behavior. But it is just one more aspect of this tale that is so deeply tragic.

Messaria, time.

Let's just get it out of the way.

The accent's way better.

Better.

Just way better.

It's better.

Simply better.

Going back to season one to confront that accent again, the improvement, this is demonstrable. Is notable.

Yeah. Notable. No. It's, like, borderline incomprehensible in season one.

It's astonishing.

So you and I were wondering. We were like. We were curious at the time, because when the fire happened at the end of season one, we were like, are they just gonna get rid of Messaria?

She gets a call back in the previous Leon.

We were like, are they just gonna get rid of Messaria? Because his character is just not working. And we knew that she was involved in blood and cheese, but we were like, are they just gonna, like, work around it? Like, what are they gonna do? And as it turns out, they just fixed her accent. Great stuff. I thought she was great in this episode, honestly.

I agree. These scenes were really good.

We had a lot of confusion from listeners because. So Eric, not Arik. Eric was his brother. Eric, who does not have a different trim on his cloak because now they wear the same armor.

Dude, stealth candidate for moment of the episode. I don't actually mean this. It's a bit, but kind of.

Oh, last time I saw, there were two of you.

Last we met, there were two of you is fucking hysterical.

Okay, so Eric, not mine.

Last we met, one of you had a slightly distinct piping around your clothes.

Aric is with Aegon.

That's right. The ace.

Eric is with Raniera.

Correct.

Okay.

Correct.

I mean, I was just trying to give a mnemonic to people, if they cared.

Okay, so finds her sheltering with a goat. With some goats.

Yeah. As one does in a boat. And a lot of. Of our listeners were like, was she headed to Dragonstone? I'm so confused. This is part of the blockade. She was headed, presumably to Essos or somewhere. She was just getting the hell out of dodge. That's what I'm sorry. I wanted to do.

Yeah.

And she was stopped and taken to Dragonstone.

Yes.

What is Eric's job description, by the way? He's, like, star the ground. Starships in the blockade. And also.

And I have to assume that the only reason that he was the one who found her is so that we could get the comedy of when we last we met, there were two of you. And, like, if that's the reason, I'm honestly fine with it. Even though it makes basically no sense that he would be aboard the velaryon ships finding.

And so then Damon, who's been a picture of restraint and polite decor throughout the rest of the FBI, as he does everything. Yeah.

A character we adore who makes lashing out.

It's Rhaenys's problem. It's Rhaenyra's problem. It's Messaria's problem.

Yes.

It's her fault that all of this happens.

Yes, you already mentioned the great. You only blame me because your true enemies are out of reach line. I loved. Did you think I would wither in your absence? Like, she is calling him out?

I'm no longer under your shirt shawl, Damon. That's a really good one. Too brutal.

You know, that shook him. I shook. He, like, immediately was like, okay, how about a transaction? But he was shook. He was shook.

I love that in our notes, you called out season one, episode nine, when Messaria says to Otto, when your plots ripen and you install your grandson on the throne, remember, it was me who put him there. And when I have to tell you.

Something, this is a true story about this. Takes us back to accent quarter for a minute. Sometimes, instead of just transcribing a full quote, I'm like, I know I have this typed out. I'll open my notes from season one. I'll just copy and paste it.

What did you.

This is what I had written in my Google Doc. I wrote, when your blood is a weapon, question mark, bracket. Genuinely can't tell. Have no idea.

Cause we didn't have screeners. We have titles on our screeners.

And I, to your point, could not figure out what she was saying. So when your thoughts right back when.

Your blood is a weapon.

Could have worked.

Yeah. Okay. So she tells. She's like, otto, I put him on the throne.

Yeah.

And then she's like, Damon. I didn't put him on the thing.

I was just profiting from the thing.

That happened out in the same scene, she says to Otto, I could have killed him as easily as a wasp on fruit. And then, you know, she's sending rat catchers into the red keep to do. Do a murder, man. Anyway, I loved all of this, you know?

This was great. What'd you think of Eric with an e, going out of his way to follow Damon down the hall to be like, let me vouch for her. And then Damon's like, eat shit.

You and I both have the same exact thing in our notes about this moment.

They make you swear and swear.

They make you swear and swear where he talks about his brother, and he's like, we're supposed to defend the whole royal family. What do you do when we turn against each other? I also do. I did, too. And it reminded me of that dumb Kristen Cole line when he's like, we were never told we had to defend princess from princess, like, yeah, okay. Yeah, all right, Kristen. Sure. I agree. Saved by the cyrax.

Rhaenyra back. Wonderful Cyrax title to alert everyone.

The little, brief little head nuzzle.

Head nuzzle from Damon. He's like, did you get what you need?

Okay, this is something that Emma Darcy said about Rhaenyra and Damon's connection, which is, they said, husband and wife, who.

Were also uncle and niece.

That's all part of it. That's all in the mix.

Yeah.

They also have two children together.

Another aegon has the family learn nothing. And viserys. Oh, that is a name over a king.

Oh, my God. The listeners are never gonna go back to no video once they've seen you do that. I just loved that scene so much.

I genuinely did.

It's a darkness that Rhaenyra shares with Daemon. So in that moment, that little head nuzzle made me think of Sean fantasy, aka the Nuzler.

I wanted the nuzler to catch on more than it did.

But we can bring it back.

Let's not give up.

Okay? You and me, we'll make it happen. So to be clear, let's write it down. It's Craig Stark, the pussy bossy bossy.

And the nuzzler. Yeah. Okay, good company.

A darkness that Rhaenyra shares with Damon. And so when she. Rhaenyra says, I want Aemon Targaryen again. Her one line of the episode.

One.

And he's. He's like, well, fuck, yeah. Now I get to go do a murder. My favorite thing to do. Where's my. Where's my cloak? Right? But also, it's like this. In this moment, they're on the same page, right? Damon's about to skip forward.

Yeah, a few chapters. A couple chapters.

But right now, darkness calls to darkness, you know?

Yeah. So he loaded the wrong book in the Kindle.

It happens. To the best of us.

It happens. It happens. So the other moment with Daemon and Messaria is on the other end of this. Rhaenyra return and declaration. That's where it gets to throw.

Blood is a weapon, Damon.

When your blood is a weapon.

Mark.

Okay, so we talked about this a little bit on talk of the thrones, but the fact that it feels important to note that Daemon has some knowledge of.

He knows the tunnels, and the tunnels.

He gave Rhaenyra the little map he.

Can get from Rhaenyra's room to the bowels of the pleasure den.

Sure can. But he doesn't have everything that Messaria possesses. He has got a different kind of currency from her.

He knows blood.

Oh, yeah.

She knows cheese, commander. She knows cheese. That's.

Yes.

And that's. Cheese is who they need to get where they need to go. Okay.

Definitely. Speaking of Rhaenyra.

Yeah? If you don't.

Let's talk about this. And the funeral.

And Jace's return.

Jace's return. Rhaenyra's funeral for Luke. And then the way that this is intercut with alicent lighting candles at the SAP, this gorgeous sequence ignited in their distance.

That thing about renear only having one line. When I saw people comment that after that, I, like, had not clocked that. And when I saw people comment that after the episode, I was like, well, surely she says something to Jace. And then I rewatched the Jaycee, and I was like, no, just that embrace. And so, like, again, we cannot say enough about Emma, Darcy and, like, like, their work in this episode. We already talked about this on talk, the throne ones, where we said there's very little Rhaenyra, but Emma's doing so much with her face, et cetera, et cetera. But, like, one line and implanting this, like, false memory, my brain. There had been more dialog.

Because those moments are so impactful, convey so much with plants. That moment with Jace was so gut wrenching and moving. And again, it's another contrast because Alicent is sitting with Otto, talking about how can we control our children?

Yes.

And. Excuse me. Rhaenyra is just, like, wrapping Jace up in her arms. And then Jace is holding Joffrey as they each put something on Luke's funeral pyre. Like, that contrast was so palpable. Even though this is a scene that's meant to remind us of the connections of the ties. Because when we see Alicent lighting the candles at the sept and we'll talk about who she lights candles for in a second, we think back to her taking Rhaenyra there in the second episode of the first season. And even though the plots and the schemes and the schemes and the plots were already underway at that point, there was such a genuine bit of outreach and friendship there. Like you were in mourning, you were in grief. You have lost your mother, but also.

Your father loves you. That scene is so beautiful. Watching that scene in light of this scene, I was just devastated again by the distance between these young women who.

Once didn't have to go the same.

Way, just loved each other so much. She's talking in that scene in season one, episode two, about her own mother, Alison's own mother, and lighting a candle for her mother and feeling close to her mother and the mother, which is also there, different thing. And she lights a candle for her mother.

And then Viserys and then lucerys Velaryon. This really got me again. It's too little, too late.

Olivia cook.

It's too little, too late. But Alicent, the warpath that Alicent was on, on. It's an insult. Like, maybe one day you'll get one that looks like you, Laenor, over my cold, dead body. Viserys, will you proceed in this way and to the graciousness, even though it is too late? It's actually quite, I think, reminiscent of Viserys in episode eight. I can do this thing. And you're like, well, but the gesture of acknowledging, like, this is who Luke was to Rhaenyra and himself and his family. And I can at least grant that. Like, there's a version of the character arc where Alicent says, luke strong. Luke Strong. And that would be terrible, but that's not what happened here.

That would be a wild thing to do, to, like, because Olivia light the candle. Olivia Cook is like, doing such a good job, like, showing, knowing Alicent, just struggling through her emotions there for her to be then strong, which just wouldn't.

Make sense, but it was. Yeah.

Luceris Warren. Yeah. Yeah.

Any other thoughts on the funeral? Again, Damon not in attendance, so that's tough.

Again, that shot for Reyna and the moment with Bayla. Bayla and Reyna don't get a lot to do in this episode, but just sort of like their connections. Bayla's connections to Jace M, his connection to Luke. Jace hoisting up little Joff.

Very sad.

And Joff putting, like, the toy that we saw Luke play with in season one into the fire is devastating. Harry Collette as Jace, just. Just making a meal out of everything he has.

Also, anytime we see a little toy by a fire in a plotline about a dead kid in thrones, it just makes me think of Shireen. Shireen and Davos. Shireen crushing.

Tough. You've got a question about Shireen?

I do. Okay, so we're gonna go a little bit out of order for the last few scenes of the episode because we have the Damon, let me sign you up for a quick gig scene with blood and cheese, but we're just gonna bundle that with the actual sun at the end. So let's talk about Eamon and Kristen. Chris plotting and scheming plots and scheme schemes. I'm not sure if you've heard, but they're the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Auto fraction, can you.

Yeah.

Can you stop scheming? Can you please inform the hand if.

You'Re scheming and also go directly to your post, sir? Kristen, do you think that's what he did? What do you think the guard duty plan was that evening is my question.

Well, again, they just simply do not have enough members of the king's. That's bullshit, because.

That's bullshit because in the book, it's just a guard. They did not say Kingsguard.

There would be a guard. They could definitely come up with a different security measure.

I love the king's guard math. I think it's very important. There are other guards, for sure.

Stick.

Those two Hightower men we saw riding into the castle outside of Atlanta is.

Criston Cole a good lord commander? The king's guard is completely valid.

Yeah, so is his job. Standing outside of Alison's door until they can no longer bear the sexual attention, and then he goes insides and fucks her.

How do you think she signals that she's ready? Does this door just kind of creak open?

Or does she take off her clothes in a loud enough way that he can hear the like? I don't know. Anyway, so is his post outside of her door, or was his post outside of Helena's door, and he decided to go to Alison's door instead? He's her sworn.

He is. He's her sworn. Protector.

Protector. So he should. So there's just no one on Helena's door?

Just doesn't.

It's preposterous.

Roth. Roth.

I'm happy to just blame Kristen for that.

It's gonna be a tough performance review for Kristen.

It's a bizarre. I mean, we're about to talk about blood and cheese and the changes they made, but I don't understand why. Because blood and cheese just killed the guard. So I just don't understand why they.

Would have a guard. There's gotta kill a handmaiden. They've gotta kill a guard. There's other characters they have to eliminate in order to have this clear pattern.

Why don't you just have a guard there? Which would make so much more sense. And, like, kill him. I think that's a note.

Of course. Before Cristen is tied up by the Dowager queen's legs, he's tied up plotting with Aemond.

Seamless transition.

Thank you.

This is why you're the professional.

Shout out, Rossby. Shout out, Stokeworth. Look at all Wallace and Braun. What could have been.

Yeah.

So Aymond really goes, this is another.

Spot where he's just.

Which is like, full daemon energy. We've wasted precious days in this war of quills and ravens. You love the war of quills and ravens. Language, words, or wind, you should be leading the van and I should be flying cover on veigar. No castle would dare to raise Rhaenyra's banner against us. We could bring the whole of the Crownlands to heal in weeks. Daemon in the season one finale. Now we need a place to gather a toehold large enough to house a sizable host here at Harrenhal. I guess would've been.

We got all. I don't know.

I don't know. We cut off the west, surround King's landing with dragons, and we could have every green head mounted on spikes before the fucking moon turns. And then Aemon seamlessly transitions from mirroring daemon, a character, I would say, well known for saying. Why didn't you? You never asked me to be your hand. Why am I not your number one? And then constantly trying to undermine the people who are nominally closest to him. A little bit of that here, too. He's just taking another shot at Aegon like he was in season one, episode nine, saying he's hostage to my grandsire and mother. Hostage. Which stands in stark contrast to how Aegon is speaking of Aemond in this episode.

Oh, loyal. My best.

My best sword, my blood.

Loyal's a hound. Okay, listen. Aemond, as we noted in the trailer multiple times.

Yep.

Calls his mother Alicent.

Yes.

Wow. He also calls her her grace, but calls her Alicent. Then he says she blames me for starting this war after she plotted with my father's counsel to usurp his throne.

Yes.

Her grace speaks with two tongues now.

You can't mention tongues and Alicent around Kristen.

I think that's why he went directly to her chamber when Otto said, go to your post. And he's like, oh, I know. Do you mean the bed poster? I'll be right there, but amen. Calling her Alicent is wild. Ayman's saying usurp, but yes is absolutely bananas. Right? We got an email from our listener Colin, who just called out this usage of usurp because Aegon has a bot into the propaganda. Aegon's like, oh, my dad didn't me and changed his mind and I should be king. And that's great. I got a dagger. I'm in like, oh, we stole this fucking throne, by the way. We usurped. You know what's struck me about this.

Is that, like, in season one when Aegon is the one who's like, this is like, just not a part of my life for my reality. Amand was the one who was giving us a, oh, team green loyalist all the way vibe early, like when they're kids in driftmark. At the funeral. At Lena's funeral. I remember us discussing this at the time when. When they're talking about Helena. It will strengthen the family, keeping our valyrian blood pure. That's what Aemond says. And then Eon says she's an idiot, rude. She's your future queen.

Oh, yeah, we did call that out.

Yeah.

True. Great. Love that. I still think he knows that. This bullshit that Viserys changed his mind.

I do. Honestly, though, I mean, as you know, aemond. I mean, I love Damon. Eamond, my favorite maniac. I just love Eamonda. I love them both.

Okay, rank for me. The maniacs. Oh, man. Aemon. No, no, no. Aemon. Damon. Maegor. And I'm putting Laris in there. What do you rank them?

Just in terms of my favorite characters through this point in the show. Damon.

Yeah.

Aemon.

Yeah.

Laris.

Yeah.

I probably have to put mayoralhouse because it's just like, stitched into the tapestry. I do love.

Maybe just Lale.

I like Eamon calling Alison to here. Oh, yeah. Like she blames me for starting this war after she plotted with my father's counsel. Yeah, now, she didn't plot with her father's council exactly. I mean, she did on the aegon front, but she was also like, you guys were plotting already before that. I was brought into the middle here.

Without me.

Cool. Sar did not get that Cal invite. But I like him. I mean, obviously, what Aemond did with Veigar and with Luke. We've read the passages from the book before. There's no going back after that. It's done. But he's right to say that the.

But this is.

The threads were being stitched into the tapestry long before that happened at Stormzen.

But these are fractures, infections inside my right. So he's like, I'm just gonna make it happen. He's like. He's just saying it's her fault.

Yes.

She's like, it's your fault. And Otto's like, it's your fault, Allison. You know? So it's Kristen's reply to event of the woods by seeing Sondland. Okay, go ahead.

Kristen's reply to Eamon taking a shot at Alicent I liked, because, of course, there's this interesting question of. All right, he's lord commander of the Kingsguard. Where's his horn shield? He's plotting with Aemond. Yeah. Where will his loyalty eventually be? He sure is.

He's like, let's turn this on, Rhaenyra. The way that he.

This is the spider.

I know how to pivot. It's my favorite song.

Allisoned into her web, intoxicated her. It is not your mother's fault.

Like, he's definitely talking about himself.

He's just projecting so fully his own feelings, which, again, I guess that's part of what he. And that is kind of the source, actually, of his bond with Allison. So it tracks. How did you feel about how Otto navigated this scene with Aemond?

I don't know. I feel like this is just Otto showing that he's not quite on top of his game anymore. Yeah, because he said he's flattering aemond.

Yep. Ogar, the greatest single power in the realm.

We talked to Chris about this on Talk of Thrones. Like, why would he do this? And it's like, because Aemond has veigar, and he needs, like, Veigar is. Veigar is their WMD. They need Veigar to win this war, but they need control of Aemond in order to have control of Veigar. And Otto probably walked out of this patting himself in the back, being like, job well done. Me.

And also everybody involved in this is missing the point completely, which is Aemond can't control Veigar. That was the lesson of season one. This is the lesson.

But they don't know. They don't know the whole story from.

The beginning, the idea that we can control them, it's an illusion. Great stuff. Blood and cheese.

Damon recruiting blood and cheese.

Yeah. Commander Damon being instantly recognizable in the murder cloak is actually great. It's so funny.

This is the last email we have in the non spoiler section, which is Molly, who wanted to let you know that Damon needs to bring back his XXL murder cloak from season one because this updated one does not have a hood nearly large enough to cover up all that targ blonde.

My counterpoint is just this does actually look more like just a cloak you.

Might wear and not like the most insane garment we've ever seen.

I'm about to crush my white underwater horse.

I think we decided that the reason the cloak looks so insane is because there's, like, a horse stunt involved and they need to hide the, like, stunt person and the xsl cloak. But it's still absolutely wild.

But, yeah, great stuff.

The murder hoodie is out and about.

Damon.

Yeah.

Back with the gold cloaks.

Yes.

Never forget when we saw him mutilating.

I think that's why we had that scene. Many criminals before this payoff.

Yes. Yes, indeed. The prince still had friends in the low places of King's Landing. Fire and blood. And followers amongst the gold cloaks.

Do you think George RR Martin is a big Garth Brooks fan when he writes that Damon has friends in low places? That's my karaoke song, by the way. Yeah. One.

We should do karaoke at some point.

Live in all of my roots.

Let me tell you something. Going to karaoke with Chris Ryan is genuinely a life altering experience.

I demand a talk of the thrones cathartic karaoke after the finale.

Joe, who's blood?

Oh, blood. Real charmer. Former sergeant of the city watch, drummed out of service for beating a sex worker to death while terrible. So in the book, he is an ex gold cloak. Yes, because once again, he beat a woman to death when he was drunk. Here, he's still gainfully employed by the gold cloaks. Commander. Standards are slipping.

Cheese. Rat catcher. It's made clear to us here that he is a dog kicker, which is horrible. Appalling.

Yeah.

He is a gambler.

Yes.

This is part of how Damon is tempting him with this coin purse here in your debts. He is happy to continue to snack throughout this entire conversation, which I just think is remarkable. Daemon Targaryen, the prince of the city, is here to ask you to do this horrible thing, and you can't put your nosh down for a moment.

Well, since no one ever calls him cheese, I feel like Alan Taylor, Ryan Connor are like, let's just have him eat a lot of cheese. The actor who plays cheese is like, I ate more Manchego, by the way.

He was fantastic.

He was great. A b. I love that they gave him Manchego. A great hard cheese. Great choice. But he's like, I ate so much of that while we were doing this over and over again also.

Really? That's what Kristen says.

He sure does. Do you think? He says, I know them better than the shape of my own cocktail. About Maegor's tunnels.

Great line. Great line in the book. We were thrilled to see it make it to the show. Just to remind everybody that one of the bits of book canon that is tells us really, honestly everything we need to know about Maegor. There's a lot of other horrible stuff that earned Maegor the name. The cruel but red keep constructed secret tunnels, secret passageways, passages and tunnels, tunnels and passages and construction rocks. And then Maekor had everybody who had worked on it killed. Everybody who had worked on it killed so no one would know the secret.

So no one knows all the passageways. Like, Damon knows some, but, you know, I say eyebrows knows some others. That's what I think.

Eyebrows.

Okay.

Rhaenyra was very specific with her request.

I want Aemond Targaryen. My autocorrect always makes it almond Targaryen, but it is Aemond Targaryen that she wants.

The one I have the autocorrect, and the Google Doc says Thailand always goes to Thailand.

To what?

Thailand. Thailand. Lobster goes to Thailand. This doesn't happen to you.

I was like, what's it? Thailand? And then I changed the spelling in my head. Okay. Yeah, no, I get almond Targaryen constantly.

Great stuff. Could have put an almond in his eye, but instead he went for a sapphire.

Opportunity. Missed opportunity. Okay, so what does Daemon say?

Steve, let's hear this.

You're to find and slay the prince Aemond Targaryen. He has silver hair and one eye. Should be easy enough to find, but I understand that he's quite good in a fight.

You'll want to take caution.

It's one half. If we get the other one, it's done.

All right.

What if we can't find him? Dun dun dun.

The clipta is played differently now that I have almond dark array here to find and slay the prince. Almond darker.

Sorry, I'm not.

Oh, man.

Okay, so, Joe, we talked about.

We cut away dramatically. Takes you right back to air for a day.

Air for a day.

What is your reading on what Damon says next?

I think it's important to note.

Yes.

Blood later says, a son for a son, he said.

A son for a son, he said.

You love imitating blood. Commander, commander.

So funny to me that it's like.

Commander, commander, it's you and your signature.

Dark shit about the fucking eye tower.

A son for a son, he said. You make him sound so chipper. Anyway, a son for a son, he said, is more what it sounds like. Okay, so a son for a son is definitely something Damon said also. No head, no gold.

Yes.

No body, no crime. No head, no gold. Okay, so Damon says, a son, give me any son, right? Give me a boy's blonde head in a bag, or no gold for you. That seems to be instructions not go for the toddler next, right?

It's like, did he say, oh, well, then, actually, just go get Aegon's heir to the Iron Throne. Or does he just say, anyone will do?

To be fair, yeah, there's only three kicking around the joint.

So, an aegon, interestingly, is the alternate theory in fire and blood. Some say they're quarries. Was the king himself. But Aegon was accompanied by the Kingsguard wherever he went. And even cheese knew of no way in and out of Maegor's hold fast. There's my guy Maegor making an impact again.

His legacies.

The Tower of the Hand was less secure, so.

And by less secure, in this case, we mean. Well, they're not in the Tower of the Hand. But if they were, the royals sleep up there. Literally no one's guarding the entire floor.

Oh, man. So we don't know exactly what Damon.

Said because there's a rainstorm, by the way, I loved the rainstorm. Also, if you watch the House of.

Dragon, it really helps you understand how much of the castle is just open.

Yes. But if you watch the House of Dragons build, I thought the rainstorm was really cool and all the, like, you know, quasi one shot moments that they have in that whole set. Because that set is like a complete set. And they built it out for season two. I think they said, like, 400% more. So there's just like, a lot more. So they're just like. It's a full set. You wander around. You wander into the throne room. You wander up the stairs, around the courtyard. It's so cool. There's a healthy section of the house of the Dragons built. That's about them building the sewers. And they're so proud of the way they built the sewers. And guess what? They looked fantastic.

Tremendous.

They look fantastic. But the guy who built the sewers is like, there were no leaks. And that never happens. And the guy who does the lighting is like, the firelight looks so good on the water. We didn't light it at all. We just let the torch just do all the work. So, like, sewers looked beautiful. Great. And it did feel. Whatever questions, comments, concerns I have about blood and cheese in the execution, the journey through the sewers, like up the.

Ladder, dog kick aside. It was too much. Yeah, but yeah, it was really good. The score, the tension building. Like, my heart knowing what was going to happen. My heart was racing. It was really, really. Well, Corey graft. So, okay, we have our deduction about what Daemon said. We don't know exactly if Daemon was like, you know, what any of them will do. Just make sure it's a son. Then. Does this fall to you? Because it is still not what Rhaenyra wanted.

Yes.

Even if it falls under, like, that would have been an okay outcome for Daemon.

Right.

Does this fall into the bucket of what is really at this point, a well entrenched and established, like, central thesis of the show? Which is that, like, part of the horror and the lamentation and the tragedy of the dance is like the number of mistakes or misunderstandings or miscommunications that unfolded between these characters, where if just one little thing had gone differently, everything could have changed. Amos not being able to portray the.

Science mistakes of misunderstanding.

Alison thinking that Viserys meant their son Aegon, on, of course, aemond not being able to control Veigar, which is part of that, like a power we ought not to have trifled with.

This is heavy on the mind, I think of book readers especially, right, that they're just like, all these direct acts are being turned into oopsies of some kind or another, and there has been some, like, negative pushback on that. Yes, I would say I've been thinking a lot about this, and I really like it. And the reason. A reason why is I like that the aemond that we meet at the end of season one wouldn't do that. But that doesn't mean that the Aemond going forward, I feel like you and I love a character on an arc.

We love a character on an arc.

I feel like it's important to meet these characters. Rhaenyra's like, I just want Aemond Targaryen, but is she gonna stay in that space? Or Alicent is like, oh, I swear, Viserys said this, but is she going to stay in this place? Are they all going to be pushed into more and more monstrous acts? As we go forward, when we meet, Alison Hightower has the biggest sort of makeover for the show because she's just this horrible, scheming, bitchy queen in the book. Thanks, George, for the nuance. And they did a lot of work.

You would say that it's his commentary on how the histories are told.

Sure. Okay. No, I mean, partially. But this show has added so much nuance to Alicent. And so thinking about the Alicent we met at the beginning of season one and the Alice that we know at the end of season one. So we're watching these characters be pushed into more and more extremes, more and more monstrous acts. So it makes sense to me that they wouldn't just start there, that they would. What? You have a look on your face.

I just love this. We're in completely the same place because I think the initial. Oh, wait. Should these characters should. Confusing egg ons or trying to fuck around and take an eye and scare your nephew. Should these things be the seismic. But it does feel. I love what you're saying about how that then builds and a thing that maybe was not your intention then becomes the defining thing in your life.

I don't think that the whole dance should be a series of accidents. No, no, no. But I feel like this idea of rational people pushed by, and especially pushed by their own errors into more and more monstrous actions is a much more satisfying story.

I totally agree. It feels very human. We can't relate to being closer to gods because of our dragons.

But, like, be for yourself.

Making me sticks. And again, I mention this all the time, but it's in the series premiere for a reason. That viserys speech to Rhaenyra. The idea that we control the dragons is an illusion. They're a power men should never have trifled with, one that brought Valyria its doom. If we don't mind our own histories, it will do the same to us. And so you can apply that at scale. You can zoom in and apply that inside of an individual relationship or decision. The hubris of control. And all of these characters thinking they're in control or can be, whether it's of their relationship with their own children, the bond with their dragon, whatever the case may be, they will continue to err. And I really am compelled by what you're saying about then embracing that.

Right.

Who says it had to be an error? I can make that my power. And that's like. That's the. That's like a thing, love, in these stories. Then you get fulfilling prophecy. Yeah.

And then you get, like, calcified into this role. Like, when we think of one of our all time favorite characters in all of thronesdom, which is Jaime Lannister.

Yes.

Like, Jaime Lannister killing the Mad King. You know, we find out in one of the best scenes ever written, committed to television of all time. Fantastic. I mean, Brianne and Jamie, like, you know, this is something that he did to save, burn them all. Like, he was doing. Like, what is he. What is he supposed to do in this moment? And then he gets this reputation, and then what does he do? Lean into it for a long time. When we meet Jamie, season one, like, beginning of season one, like, pushing Bran out of a window or dueling ned in the street, like, that is him being like, yeah, I'm the Kingslayer. What up?

And then the fact that he has to confront, okay, this defining moment in my life, this thing that other people have liked for me, you know, my name is Jamie, right. Is part of why we love Jamie so much. And then when he rides back into King's Landing and he looks down, the person closest to him in the world, the person who he's saying the things I do for love about, when he pushes Bran out the way window, what does she do? She burned the city that he gave his reputation to spare from that exact fate.

I don't want to talk about the bells.

No, I mean, Cersei blowing up the.

Oh, yeah, blowing up the bat.

Yeah. So, like, for that to be. For that to be okay, you can. You can. You can resent it, then you can embrace it, and then it's still gonna be something that you have to confront. The best. A son for a son.

Okay. This is when we go into real sicko mode and are like, blood and.

Cheese was kind of tame.

Blood and cheese is kind of tame.

Objectively horrific.

The foley, the sound of the song on the four year old neck.

The song was a lot. The song was a lot. Obviously, it's a young kid who was killed, Helena, the mother, being there to not just witness it, but have to. To be a. Made. To be a part of it. In terms of the pointing, all of that is awful. We're not saying that this was, like a cheerful, chipper scene. That is not what we mean. But take us through, if you will. Why? This is because blood and cheese, I think everybody's individual mileage may vary on what the most horrific thing in the world of ice and fire is, but I would think a lot of people would nominate blood and cheese for the. Among the most.

Yeah. Because of the children involved. Right. Like, versus the red wedding, which is infamous in television and book and history of Westeros, et cetera. But there were, I mean, Talisa.

And they go the other way with, like. I mean, red wedding is obviously horrific in both book and screen, but, like, to. They almost ratcheted up in the show.

I was talking to someone about this. I was, like, with the stabbing of the, I think Weiss and Benioff, for all their. I mean, and they have so many talents and some flaws.

Danny kind of forgot about the iron fleet.

That's tough. They got this real sicko edge to them.

Oh, yeah.

That. I just don't think. I just think Ryan condal is just, like, a nicer guy, and he's like, we really went for it with blood and cheese. And I'm like, you did not.

This was slick.

Okay. Which is. Okay.

Dialed down.

Yeah. Blood and cheese. Like, the red wedding. Mm hmm. I'm gonna think about for the rest of my life.

Same.

And I was just, like, horrified.

Unbelievable.

When that happened.

Yeah.

And when you think of, like, Michelle Fairley screaming, you know, like, I think about that all the time. Right. So, mother, I don't know that I needed. I didn't need Helena to scream. She screams in the book. I didn't need her to scream. I didn't need that. But I just needed. And I really like Fiesta Ben and Saban, the way I don't know how to pronounce and the way that she plays Elena, like, I like all that. I didn't mind. Her reaction was kind of muted, but there was just, like, something about it that felt just, like, slightly inert to me. But I think this is a real divide among book readers and non book readers, where, like, if you went in not knowing what was gonna happen in this episode, and you're like, yeah.

So, like, Alison's not in there. It feels different.

Yeah.

The fact that there's not an additional level of killing. Yeah. The catching. The fact that this is, again, I sound like a. I sound like I need to be institutionalized or put on a watch list for saying this. I'm sorry, but we are just doing a head to head comparison here. The kids aren't awake. It is little things like that. But this is a nighttime ritual where Helena brings the three kids. Three in the book, which we'll talk about in a second to visit with before bed. And it's their custom, and. And the children are awake. And every second of this horror that unfolds, they are processing. So it's like, I'm sure for many people, it's a relief that the kids are asleep until the moment where blood goes over to Jaehaerys and wakes him. And he knows that moment of sheer terror before his head is sawed off with very detailed sound design. And then Mellor, Maelor not being the.

Third, there's a two year old that's supposed to be there. And Helena is made to choose between which of her sons is gonna die. And she chooses the one who's not the heir.

She chooses Maelor.

She chooses the younger one. She's like, Aegon cares a lot about his heir, Jaehaerys. I'll choose the younger one.

Perhaps she thought the boy was too young to understand.

Yeah.

Or perhaps it was because the older boy, Jaehaerys, was King Aegon's firstborn son and heir, next in line to the Iron Throne. You hear that little boy? She's whispered to Maelor, your mama wants you dead. And then he cuts off Jaehaerys's head.

Yeah. So they kill the other one.

That's like a different.

She picks the two year old, they kill the six year old, and whisper to the two year old, your mama wanted you dead. Now, I still say. I still maintain the two year old's not gonna remember that particular whisper, so.

Okay. The thing about it that sticks with me, though, is that Helena. And again, Mailer's just not in the show. So I don't think this is a spoiler to say, but in the text, it describes, like, she can't look at him.

Oh, yeah.

That kid is alive.

Yeah.

And she can't look at him because she is so consumed by the fact that she named him for death. Like, there's just a level of trauma from that that is.

Yeah. There's, like, threats of sexual assault, as you mentioned, a dead guard, a dead maid. There's just, like. There's. It's just.

Yes. It's one of those things where you read it and you're like, how was a person capable of thinking of this? Let me do a little head to head for you.

Sure.

Which was worse? Give me a little horror scale here.

Yeah.

Cause we talked about this a lot on our preview pods. The question of, would this be the thing that swings some people to team green? We're gonna come back to that, actually, in a second. But we got a mailbag question. It was one of our book spoiler questions, so some people might not have heard us discuss it on one of our preview podcasts. Pods would blend and cheese be too much for some people to handle? And we talked about the long history of horrific things that have befallen children and thrones. Now, there are too many to possibly go through in this pod, but just, like, try to slot and cheese and.

Show lands, it's mattering smattering for me.

I'm gonna try to slot blood and cheese.

Okay, this is what happens when we podcast for 3 hours.

Blood and cheese in the show. Or Jamie starting the series by pushing bran out of a window.

Which is more horrific? Yeah, blood and cheese.

Okay, blood and cheese. Or the mass slaughter of king Robert's bastards?

The mass slaughter of Robert's bastards.

Okay, blood and cheese. Or Talisa being stabbed in the pregnant. Pregnant belly.

Talisa being stabbed in the pregnant belly.

Blood and cheese. Or Shereen Baratheon being burned alive, blessed by her own parents. That's number one episode.

Also came out on father's day, as did this episode. Dude, by the way. Fucked up sicko behavior. Fucked up sicko behavior.

I think Shereen is worse.

Shereen. Shereen is worse.

And then blood and cheese. Or Ramsay feeding his own baby brother to his dogs.

I don't know. Blood and cheese.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks for chiming in.

Thanks for playing that game.

All right, so what would the impact of this be? Play it forward for us.

Yeah. Yeah.

Two questions. One in the world of the story, but two among the fandom. Do you think that more people are going to be team green as a result of what Damon has done? And then same question, but inside the world, like, what will the impact be on.

This is a pira nightmare for Rhaenyra. But on the Pierrot front, I also just don't understand why Aemond the Kinslayer isn't like. Like, why that isn't being paraded through the streets of King's Landing. Like, the PR team on Dragonstone really dropped the ball on, like, really pushing this aimond. I totally agree.

Stuff going on in their morning. But yes, they could have been. They could've been working that angle more in the press. I did want to quickly clarify, actually. Cause I said on Talk of Thrones, Rhaenyra wouldn't have wanted this because Helena is her half sister, which is. That part's true. But just specifically, to be more precise about it, Aegon and Aemond are Rhaenyra's half siblings too. That's all kinslaying. Like, Rhaenyra's saying, I want Aemond to gray.

That's still a Kinslayer, but it's accursed.

No man is this accursed. As the Kinslayer. I have heard Helena Jaehaerys, their innocence seeking retribution on Aemond for killing your kid would be perceived differently than what happened here. So I just wanted to draw that distinction a little bit more clearly. Clearly.

So it's gonna be a tough look for team black in the show. I don't think viewers at home are gonna blame Rhaenyra.

I don't think they're gonna be team green.

For what? It all depends on how Rhaenyra reacts to David.

I can't wait to find out. Should we talk a little bit about the very briefly here about the trailer.

Yes.

That we saw for the rest of the season.

It's this season on trailer because you.

Neil, and Dave will be talking about this in more detail on trial by comics content, follow on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's just each do, like, maybe our favorite thing that we saw. Cause there was a lot of new footage in here that wasn't in the trailers we had previously seen. What was your favorite thing and why was it Kristen's new haircut?

It's Kristen's new haircut. Cause it looks so dumb. And I have so many questions.

What we must do is terrible. Will you preside over it? Do you think he was talking about the haircut?

Fabian Frankel's wearing a wig in this episode. Like, that is true. So I don't know if he just, like, I don't know what happened. I would like the full story.

Oh, it feels so like roman empire coded to me.

Yes.

I can't wait to see the exact moment where he gets that gut. I can't wait.

Megan O'Keeffe from decider says she interviewed Fabian Frankel and was given, like she said, I had 20 units of Fabian Frankel, Matt Smith, and someone else divided among other people, and I asked him about their. So decider.com will have some answers about Chris and Cole's journalism.

Boots on the ground. Boots on the ground.

What was your favorite part?

All of the Riverlands action. We've been talking about this since last season. We talked about it a lot today. We got so much Riverlands. In this glimpse, Kristen saying the Riverlands are the key of the war. Harrenhal is the key of the Riverlands. Damon at Harrenhal again, this is like, just they're just. They're showing him there.

Yeah.

The Blackwoods, the brackens. Jace.

At the jace, we have the twins question mark. We don't know. We, as book readers do not know.

Oh, man.

We know that, like, jace is out there recruiting. But Jason, the twins is not something we ever.

Is he going to be meeting with Forrest and Sabatha? Is that. Who's sitting with him? Forrest Frey? I'm super excited.

The twins. It's so cool.

And then your guy. Your guy. Simon Strong.

Simon Russell Beale, who's a tremendous actor, shows up as Simon Strong.

Delightful.

So it's just like Harrenhal.

Basically a Riverlands trailer.

I'm stoked. I'm really stoked about Harrenhal.

Anything else?

The last thing we want to mention is that there is a mysterious woman, hooded like, with a red hood on, looking like she's in King's Landing. Right. Would you say that that's where she is?

Or seemed to be doing a lot of, like, let me look over my shoulder to make sure I'm not being followed as I suspiciously make my way about the Capitol.

I believe we're allowed to say this because we both possess schnozes. Mal and I were on schnoz wash. And we believe that this young woman might be Alinda, which is Rhaenyra's handmaid.

Looks like her hands.

I really think it looks like her.

Yeah, it definitely looks like her.

Yeah. So Alinda, Rhaenyra's hand, who you will remember from when Rhaenyra gave birth and then walked bloody through the castle. She's been around a while. So what is Rhaenyra? We don't know. What is Rhaenyra?

Genuinely? No clue.

We don't know. Handmade doing in not quite a murder cloak, but a red cloak. A lot of people were like, is that Melisandre? Like, a younger Melisandre. And I'm like, your eye just twitched. Alinda, we should say, is a character in the book. Her father is on the black council. So I don't think Alinda is Melisandre is gonna happen or something like that. Like. But what is an emissary of Rhaenyra doing in King's Landing? Is this something like Massaria has said? Like, what's going. What are we doing there? What do we want in King's Landing that we can't get ourselves?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Why is Jason the twins? Why did Kristen do that to his hair? Oh, man. She need a trial by content. We won't be talking about this more.

Speaking of hair, it is time at last for or wig watch TM with Joanna Robinson. TM, will you wear wigs.

All right. Vast improvement on the wig front this season.

Happy. I'm happy for you.

Vast improvement. Not you, Craig. Craig Stark.

Yeah. I remember the first picture we saw, you were like, oh, boy, hide this wig. Yeah.

Listen, I respect the fact that the Starks have not changed their clothing in over 100 years.

I like the wolf bit.

I respect that the half up pony with the pieces down is still the look. Okay. I respect the fact that they only were shooting five minutes of this actor, so they felt like they didn't have to get him, like, a really good wig. But if and when he comes back, I'm gonna need a lace front for him. The, like, the.

Okay.

The hairline here was bizarre. Anyway, that's for Craig. Reyna's dragon patrol wig. Incredible. Rhaenyra's iconic.

No longer looks like she has, like, a pineapple on top of her, but.

It was all, like, sort of coiled and, like, really business, like great stuff. Looks like it could, like, sustain a lot of wind and still look great.

Yeah.

Speaking of wind swept, though, Rhaenyra's fucked up grief wig. Iconic. Wonderful, tremendous, wonderful, wonderful. Loved it. Jaehaerys and Jaehara, we have some notes. No.

Oh, man.

You liked those little blonde wigs.

I thought this was the closest they'd gotten to nailing the color. Jaehaerys hair looked.

The color was good silver to me. The color was good.

It was hard silver.

It was just like.

I was like, is this kid gonna have. It was just purple eyes. Like, are they gonna do it? Finally.

Is a four year old capable of growing that much hair? If you go your whole life without a haircut at four years old, I don't think you have that much hair on you.

All right. That's fair.

Okay.

I mean, again, once again, I do not know, but it's a great question. Okay.

Wow.

What a wig. Watch that was.

I know.

I mean, we're back. We're back. Okay. It is time for our quick little. We'll do this every week, because we do it every week. We don't go through every single thing that's gonna happen in the future, in the books. Just some of the things that really caught our attention or piqued our interest. If you don't want to hear us talk about things that are going to happen in the future in fire and blood, and that thus may happen in the future of the show, this is where you leave us. Thank you for spending multiple hours with us today.

Okay, no time for amusements timed.

It's time for the book.

Look ahead.

All right. Rapidly fire maegor on the throne. I got.

You're all in on this. Yeah.

Because we've talked a lot about whether Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra's takeover of King's Landing would be the logical endpoint for the season. But what if it's not just taking over? And we've talked about this since dating back to season one.

Yeah.

What if it's the sitting on the throne for the first time and then getting up and the trail of blood because the throne has rejected her? Like, this feels like almost.

Promise you're in on that. I'm out on that.

Yeah. Yeah.

On this. We are divided. And that's okay.

But which is so funny because I was the one at first who was sure we were gonna end on Gullet, which is just obviously not the case now. I don't think you were the one.

Standing without gullet, but that was my take.

Why can't they just switch to the order, Mallory? You're right.

And I was like, you're right.

Why can't they just.

But I'm just saying season three. I think season three is gullet and King's Landing.

But then where does the season. Eh. We'll talk about that. We don't have to do that now.

You've got some seeds to sew. I don't know. I was wondering.

Yeah.

By the way.

Yes?

In case you don't recall or haven't read the book, they call Rhaenyra Maegor with teats. It's not great, but it is a thing that happens. So that whole, like, Maegor, the cruel Rhaenyra, the future of Rhaenyra. I'm not looking forward to that nosedive and her reputation. Also just a reminder of how much the small folk will suffer during a targ civil war. Maegor is a good reminder.

Very much so. They're also going to have a lot of thoughts on their. On their taxes. A lot of thoughts on their taxes.

Winter wolves and the hour of the wolf.

Okay, so my question to you is a simple one here. It seems clear from the interviews after the premiere that Cregan is not coming back this season.

Yeah.

Are we going to have to wait for the hour of the wolf for Kragan to return or are they going to sub Cregan in in for some of the other northern plot points?

That's what I would do.

Why just have the winter wolves when Kragan.

That's what I would do. I mean, like, he did just say.

I'm just sending you back in season three.

But he's like, I'm just sending you some graybeards. Not myself. So, like. But I think it would be silly to not continually check on him.

I also think that they're gonna see the fan response to the opening scene and be like, we gotta get him back 100%. And that would be the right read.

I really agree. Starks, don't forget. They're also. And we should just. I mean, what Jace does here, getting the Starks. I should have been expecting that, but.

It really surprised me for some reason.

We've been doing this for so long. The Starks and the Aruns that Jace just nabbed are going to win the war for them. At the end of the day, it's just Starks don't forget their oaths.

I also thought that Kragan was quite charismatic and compelling, but you still got enough of them. That strict rigidity here that you need for the hour of the wolf.

Oh, yeah.

Like, he has to come in and be fiercely team black. But also say, I will not leave until we find out who's responsible for the poisoning that hit the other side. It's such a fascinating stretch of the book he read.

And, like, some guy is gonna come out and be like, corlys honor family, duty on sacrifice.

I cannot face that. Hori all bitulin.

Well.

I don't know. I'm not sure there's a. There's so much I'm looking forward to the next few seasons about whether there's anything I'm looking forward to more.

The battle of the gods eye. Aemon versus daemon. Veigar versus caraxes. Over the gods eye. Where they both go down even more.

So good.

Urgently. Yeah. Do you think rhaenys will live to regret not taking out Veigar aemond when she had the chance? Yes and no.

Yes. Yes and no. Because, like, she'll regret it while she's dying. That's the thing. It's like, oh, boy. Maybe if I had listened to Damon, but, like, if you want to listen.

To Damon, maybe that just happens sooner.

You know? I will say, like, I'm not not, but the whole thing. Ready to say goodbye to Renee.

I know.

Soon as we're about to say goodbye to her, like, so many of the trailers were built around Rook's dress. Like, it. It's just. It can't be more than a few episodes away.

It has to be midseason and, like. But that's the other thing, is, like, rhaenys, they're doing okay. I'm gonna. Yeah, it's the next one seed setting, dude. Hugh Hammer.

This shocked me.

Hugh hammer.

Alan mentioning his brother, Adam. Yeah.

They're putting the seeds in early.

Yes.

And this is so smart. So we're gonna get. One has to assume a lot of reasons to miss Renice over the next couple episodes. Right? And then we're getting the seeds. The dragon seeds again. If you're listening to the spoiler section, you haven't read the book. Adam and Alan. These brothers are corly bastard sons.

And therefore, yes, Adam will be riding sea smoke.

Exactly why Laenor's not there, who knows? Hugh Hammer.

This was wild to me. Not only that, Hugh was here from the beginning.

They've also cast his wife.

Exciting. So we can't get some, like, hey, let me have a relationship moments with Jace, but we can get them with Hugh. Interesting. Maybe we will get them with Jace. I don't know. I'm excited. Find out. Not just that we met Hugh early and that we're setting. We're seating for the seat.

Yeah.

He is in King's Landing. He's petitioning aegon. He's saying we're, like, rooting for you. Rooting for you against Rhaenyra. So it sets. I mean, I have no idea if this is exactly what's going to happen, but it feels like it's setting up. That one of the two betrayers is going to have a betrayal before the great betrayal. That a turn cloak is always a turn cloak.

Is that why Alinda is in King's Landing? To round up the dragon?

So my question is, like, why would he be susceptible to being snatched? So Aegon promises him the coin here. And if he doesn't follow through on that because of Aldo's control or anything else, then maybe he was like, fuck this. I'm gonna go to the other side. Yeah, right? And I do like that they're. Maybe they're recruiting for the hair.

Messaria is like, oh, I know everyone in King's land who's a bastard.

I have a full catalog of the silver haired.

Have you heard of seeds? The whites?

Oh, man.

Okay.

I can't wait to meet Ulf. So, yeah, that's just exciting, because, like, you know, the betrayals from Hugh and Ulf are so intense and awful. So, like, to set up that this is a character who would say something and then switch sides before the key moment is really exciting. Really exciting.

Scorpion.

Okay. So do you take the attention drawn to defending the city against dragons to mean that the attack on King's Landing happens this season? Or, again, you're saying no, it's just not happening.

I'm happy to be wrong. I don't know.

I mean, neither do I.

Okay.

I have no idea. Aegon saying fools to Helena. They'd be fools to come with Veigar protecting the city. That felt, again like setting. It could be till just for the beginning of next season. But if Aamon leaves for Harrenhal and leaves the city vulnerable. Any rabbit Kraken thoughts you want to share?

I'm just so excited.

Good stuff.

Okay. Erica. Narc.

I.

There's a really rare Mallory Rubin typo in the notes here. You never make a typo. It says, eric and Arkie. You never typo. And I do all the time.

Archie. Oh, my God. Should we call. I was gonna say, should we call them Eric and Arky from now on? But, you know, they're not gonna be with us that much longer because Cargill bowl is nearing what's next.

If you look at the bullet point of the dance, it's like blood and cheese.

Cargo bowl very soon, right? Seeking retribution for what has unfolded with blood and cheese. She is. This was a more effective use of the Cargill twins to me. Just like a quick but impactful little moment with Erik. I liked it. Blood, gold cloaks. Loyal to daemon. Still, the gold cloaks are going to be a key part of how they eventually take King's Landing. So, again, feels like we're building toward that. But when? Who can say?

Rooks rest. I said it so you don't have to thank.

Go. Whenever that episode is unfucked. Rook's roost. As I insist on calling after roost. And it's like completely illusion. Our host growing as we advance. So this is what they're planning. They're planning Rook's rest. Aemon and crystal. Exciting.

Helena the dreamer. This is the last thing we want to say.

Take me through it.

We have a last email from William. In terms of Helena's calm during the blood and cheese, he says, jaehaera, that's the girl. One is ultimately going to be wife and queen to Aegon III. And Helena may know this part. Her daughter is going going to play almost Hatterak golden path behavior, but for casuals. I wonder if this is an odd motherly scene to dissect, even considering the already strange motherly character. But, yeah, this idea that she knows Jaehaera is gonna be queen, she's already stitching Jaehaerys funeral shroud. If indeed that's what she's doing. Blah, blah, blah.

That would be really sad to me. If she was like, well, it's faded.

It's done. It's done.

That would be awful.

One last thing, on Helena's drawings, again, if you go watch the house of the dragonbuilt, they have slow pans across the wall and stuff like that. And it's just packed with stuff. Asheah from history of Westeros tweeted these out. And I was like, where'd you find these? And then I watched the house of Dragon belt. Ryan Connell in that video says she has graffitied her walls with her dreams. Absolutely beautiful.

And again, no one in her family is like, what's up?

What's up with the drugs? Highlights. Here she writes in her notebook, the goose kills its reflection and both die. And the cargill sigil is the golden goose. And then there are these sensational, these two geese sort of reflected, one facing up, one facing down next to each other. That's cargo bowl, right? Headless, dire wolves, which could be Ned and rob or, you know, here, shaggy, shaggy dog.

Here, shaggy dog.

A woman on fire, which could be. It's a naked woman. So I was like, maybe Daenerys, but also maybe Rhaenyra.

I like Dany.

A rat with a knife. Blood and cheese, a boar. I was thinking about Robert Baratheon.

Yeah.

A baby being burned. Visenya, a direwolf with a crown bran, or Jon, if you prefer, a stag with a crown. Bobby V. One last thing. I'll say here that I meant to say in the non spoiler section. It's not a spoiler. I just want to mention it here. The fact that Kristen and Allison are fucking Rhaenyra's bed, I really.

I genuinely love that this is, like, so deplorable. You.

The production designer, Jim Clay, who's the best in interviews, he was like, we made it. We specifically did not change the furniture because we wanted Rhaenyra's presence there. So the fact that, like, I like this idea that, like, very upsetting that, like, Kristen is, like, fucking Alison and Alison is fucking Kristen. And, like, whether or not you buy into this whole, like, Alison and Rhaenyra queer reading, this idea that, like, really they're there with each other, but really both of them want Rhaenyra. Whether it's, like, romantically, sexually, or whatever, platonically, the fact that that's all embodied by them having sex in the same bed where Rhaenyra lost her virginity to Kristen Cole or coerced her employee into having sex with her is troubling. House of the dragon. We're done. We did it.

Oh, my God. I had the time of my life.

This was delightful.

I could honestly, I'm sure that.

But I have no idea what before.

Jon and Steve were like, guys, what the fuck? That was the length of all of season two. But I gotta say, I had a blast.

We were like, we'll be done 45 minutes ago at the latest.

We've been off by more than that before in our time estimates. For what it's worth. For what it's worth. All right.

I should have done the Chris Ryan move, which is close to the laptop, like, seven sections.

Meleese must gorge and rest, and so must we. Thank you to our small council, John Richter. John Richter and Steve Ullman for producing this episode. Yes, this is John. John did the acolyte last week, the video edit. This is John's first. Like, oh, boy, we've got a three in front of this experience. Jon, welcome to the team.

Welcome to the party, pal. First, but not the last.

Arjuna Ram Gopal for his additional production work on this episode and Jomia Deneron for his work on the social for this episode. We gave you the programming reminders at the top. Get your tickets to talk of thrones live. Please check out the YouTube channel. Give us the five stars on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for spending an astonishing amount.

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