Well, I thought I paid attention really well and I did NOT know that was Laenor with a shaved head until I read a recap.
I assumed Laenor's "friend" was going be offed on the way to the escape ship as a way for Daemon to close the conspiratorial loop.

But that meshy, gauze-ish darkness: fuck that shit.

I thought he was asking between Aemma and Viserys.

Who are also cousins. The only one not related is Alicent and Viserys (though Viserys before he goes to sleep calls her Aemma in this episode because he's losing it)

I agree that the majority of the characters are detestable or weak in some way. I do feel like Rhaenyra concocting the plan to let Laenor live his life as would make him happy and NOT kill him puts her slightly ahead of most of the other characters. Daemon going along with the plan and not killing Laenor showed a glimmer of humanity in him. It's hard to really "root" for any of the characters like we did for the majority of the Stark family in GoT. There's very little honor in any of these characters.

The only likeable character in the entire show they recast....Milly Alcock. Character had potential when she played her but now they added that beat in about letting Laenor live because they release there is nothing likeable about the characters. It's not in the books at all. VinVega is right little honor or anything else in these characters even when you try and add stuff to make it seem there is....sadly.

I thought it was a clever way to put in something that would not be recorded in a history book (which is what the source material basically is) and yet fleshes out the characters a bit more.

And the recasting had nothing to do with how likeable a character is if their actions would've been the same either way.

Cinema has existed since the 1890's but HBO apparently doesn't know how to shoot properly lit night scenes.

I don't think it's that, I think they shoot it in the daytime and then use post processing to make it seem like night, and that's messing something up with some modern tvs.

Wrong it's just fine on an OLED. And so was The Long Night episode. But this one did seem different or badly done even compared to The Long Night.

Even with letting Laenor live, they murdered some other random person to have a body to throw in the fire.

In GoT, we had the Starks (& Jon Snow), Sam, Tyrion, Brienne, Daenerys (for most of the run at least), Jorah, Davos and I'm sure others I'm forgetting. All were shades of gray and imperfect, but fell far enough on the side of right for the audience to root for them. I feel like HotD would really benefit from introducing some characters to give the audience someone to care about. Even if they were minor and/or eventually suffered terrible ends, it would make it a more engaging story. At this point in the show, I'm indifferent to the fates of pretty much everyone on screen. If most of the audience feels that way, I'm not sure the show can keep viewership up over multiple seasons.

MEANWHILE: ‘Do NOT buy that book’: Why ‘Game of Thrones’ fans plan to boycott George R. R. Martin’s new novel (msn.com)[img]data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkYAAAAAYAAjCB0C8AAAAASUVORK5CY II=[/img]

The Game of Thrones franchise has been having a positive resurgence lately thanks to the release of the prequel series, House of the Dragon. And the franchise’s creator, George R.R. Martin has no plans of stopping as his upcoming new book will showcase more of the Targaryen history.
However, fans are not keen on this book’s release. Not because they’re tired of hearing about this fictional family and their interest in incest. But rather, it’s the co-authors that worked with Martin on the book and their supposed history of writing allegedly offensive and racist posts.

I dunno, I think it's fine as is. They are making a concerted effort to tilt the audience towards Rhaenyra's side but still leaving enough crap on both sides (ie: Daemon) to see why both sides want power and doesn't want the other side to have it. I don't think you need a Jon Snow of sorts to root for but maybe we get that in the kids when they age up. The bulk of this story (for the next few seasons) is going to be after this next timeskip so this is mainly a prolonged introduction.

Harder than watching the invisible scenes is keeping track of how all the damn kids are related to each other and the rest of the cast.

Just want to say I may as well be watching this with shades on. Looks like shit.

It looked fine to me. Dark, yes, but my TV can handle it just fine.

I'm sure it looked muddy as hell on a cheap set though.

I mean there's two white white haired kids and their sister, a couple of brown haired boys and their baby brother, and two black white haired girls. Now that one of the white white haired kids has an eyepatch, they should be easy enough to differentiate, I'd think. The only reason it's hard to tell their relation to each other is because of all the incest.

Yep. This was fine on my LG C1. I can only imagine how it would look on some sets, as The Long Night was pretty muddy on my ancient Sony HD LCD set when I first watched it. It's all about contrast and black levels.

I was distracted by seeing obvious shadows during the scene on the veranda. That could have easily been set during golden hour/sunset as opposed to twilight. The beach and dragon scenes made more sense.

Well, the dark haired kids are the least related of all of them.

Is blondie's brilliant plan in marrying her uncle to have a true Targaryen (hey, spell checker knows that word!) son so none of the bastards will ascend to the Iron Throne?

I don't think she's trying to throw her own kids under the bus like that. Part of it is desire (I mean the show is called HotD) and marrying her uncle fulfills that. It also unites her own house and gives her a spouse that isn't afraid to do the dirty work (as nice as Laenor was in re pledging himself to her nobody really feared him or what he might do).

She knows the Hightowers are going to challenge her claim to the Iron Throne and Daemon will be much more valuable than Laenor.

Not really...? Two oldest boys are Allicent's as is the girl who likes bugs. Two oldest girls are Daemon's. Two youngest boys and the baby are Rhaenyra's.

The oldest boys are the youngest boys' uncles and Bug Girl is their aunt. The trio are Rhaenyra's younger siblings.

The two older girls are Rhaenyra's uncle's kids, so they are Rhaenyra's cousins.

^Now all I need to do is pause the show and read that paragraph you typed out each time they wander into a scene.

Of course in an episode or two they will all probably be portrayed by different actors.

They will be portrayed by new actors next episode. But that should be the last time skip. Luckily one of them has an eyepatch so you can't miss him.

Yeah, many of the scenes looked like they were shot day for night, but something got messed up in post IMO.

No, let's call them what they are. Cheap TVs.

That said, HBO Max should be doing a better job at keeping this kind of extreme lighting to an absolute minimum.