dex14

TGM

ooooh Solid Snake gonna mess shit up

csant

Great episode and holy shit the season finale look crazy.

MrX

Good episode,

More confirmation Helaena is a Dreamer with her “beast beneath the boards” line which I assume was Meleys.

redrum

The tension was real in this episode. Good stuff.

Draven

Ending was cool but I’ve pinpointed why this show does nothing for me - every character is a terrible person. At least GOT had some glimmers of noble characters. Everyone in this show is a total shitbag.

I know it would never have happened from a story perspective but I would have cheered if the whole family had been hosed down.

I don’t watch the previews but I suppose I’ll finish it out.

lwhy?

Well Rhaenys could have ended things by just torching the Hightowers. Anyone else think it's weird that Otto didn't seem to age while his contemporaries did? Also, since they didn't show them dying, I assume the White Worm and the brother of the Kingsguard knight that freed Rhaenys is still alive? Also, the I'll kill for you if you show me your feet aspect of the Queen and Lord Strong's relationship is freaking weird.

I hope we get to see some Starks in this show. I would assume they side with Rhaenyra since they bent the knee for her?

Hokeyboy

Phenomenal episode. This was almost a perfect episode. Almost Hitchcockian in how they kept ratcheting up the tension and suspense. The entire time I had no idea where they were taking the story, and I was in it 100%.

Until the ending.

Not that it was a bad ending, but I felt it was, while quite visceral and intense, still unsatisfying. If for no other reason that Rhaenys could have saved the lives of thousands just by saying "Dracarys". But then maybe she respected Alicent enough, as much as she reviled what she was doing.

The character I find myself drawn to is Aemund. Ostensibly being set up as a future "villain", he is better suited to be king, and he doesn't seem to be driven by cold ambition. At least, not entirely.

MrX

FWIW, Rhaenys was at Driftmark in the book when Viserys died and Aegon is crowned so the ending was created by the TV writers I’m guessing just for the spectacle.

ben12

Totally agree. I thought we had the old magic back, and she was going to roast the entire royal family, completely upending the show. The Red Coronation, we'd call it! Or maybe the Crispy Coronation. But instead they pussed out like normal shows do.

According to MrX, they didn't really have a choice. They shouldn't have teased like that, though.

windom

Why did the old lady kill a bunch of innocent people if she wasn't gonna do anything to the new king any way?

fujishig

Hey, Otto AND Cristen Cole don't age. Maybe being a jerk gives you immortality.

The after show explains that perhaps the reason Rhaenys doesn't torch the coronation is because of the talk she had with Alicent earlier and that she feels some empathy for her position as a mother, even knowing that she could easily prevent a ton of bloodshed with one fire breath attack. I kind of wish that carried across in the show because I thought that but it wasn't too clear especially when she had no problem laying waste to all the innocent people there.

The other thing they talked about was how they wanted this tension with both Alicent and Otto trying to find Aegon first so they could influence him, and that to me fell really flat because they're on the same team, and the main point of contention between them (ie: what they should do with Rhaenyra) wasn't even addressed before the coronation. I did like Alicent's disgust that they planned all this stuff without her, I just didn't get the power struggle between her and Otto because it didn't seem to make much difference.

I thought it was cool to have a whole episode without Rhaenyra and now I'm wondering if the finale will be all team black. I also liked that Alicent knew exactly how to handle the sicko, but also that Larys revealing that info to Alicent and making it seem like he's doing her a favor also worked in another way because I'm sure Otto wasn't too happy about the White Worm either and also wanted her torched. Otto's "I'll remember" wasn't exactly what the White Worm wanted, I think.

windom

Didn't the king die right after the dinner in the last episode? Rhaenyra and team are already gone? I figured they would have stayed overnight at least. I kept wondering why they didn't show what they were up to.

fujishig

They showed them last episode about to depart with Rhaenyra promising to ride back on dragonback to hang out with Alicent.

From a family standpoint Rhaenyra should have stayed at least a little bit to hang out with her father since even if he didn't die that night he wasn't going to last long. But she hadn't visited him in all this time so who knows?

Plotwise, the show would've been over had they stayed, that was basically all their dragon riders and dragons and Otto would've surely executed at least Daemon as soon as he could, with everyone else under house arrest like Rhaenys.

Why So Blu?

Eh, it was a convoluted mess of an episode. I lost track of who was doing what with the exception of the gimp beating off to feet.

fujishig

I have to admit, it didn't help having two brothers(twins?) that we had barely seen before be a major part of this episode, with distinctly different takes on which side to support.

The Lord that was hung is the guy who congratulated Rhaenyra when Joffrey was born and was the one who greeted them when they first came to King's Landing last episode. So there's continuity there but you'd be forgiven in not remembering who he was.

eXcentris

It was a very average episode imho.

- Never bought that anyone would believe the last words of a delirious dying King high on opium. Especially not when he almost killed himself dragging his corpse to support his daughter's claim and to that dinner to bring the family together.

- Also, you're gonna have a civil war based on the fact that too many kids are name Aegon? Meh... this whole "miscommunication" angle is lame.

- The whole find Waldo (Aegon) part was mostly useless. What does it matter who finds him first, the end result is the same, Aegon ends up on the throne and Rhaenyra doesn't. And we spend a bunch of time with secondary characters we barely know.

- And Rhaenys should have BBQ'ed them, i.e. avoid a war.

Now I understand that both Alicent and Rhaenys do not want Rhaenyra to be killed, but I thought the tension in this episode was not very believable.

fujishig

Yeah they really stretched this out... the whole "who's going to find him first" was really just so we can have action (and find out how terrible Aegon II is).

The thing about the whole "Viserys's last words" is that nobody believes it. As Lord Beesbury (RIP) correctly says, there's no way Viserys on his deathbed changed his mind after years and years and years of holding firm, and only his wife hears, and there's no witnesses. Everyone is like going "yeah Alicent, wink wink, you keep saying that." Her own son who is being crowned doesn't really believe it. They just choose to use that as the vehicle to have a "proper" succession instead of being outright usurpers (and then killing everyone who opposes them). The people cheer but they don't really give a crap who's on the throne because nothing changes for them until a dragon rampages and kills them.

I did like the talk Rhaenys had with Alicent about her just wanting a window in her tower and being helpless, just trying to give power to the men around her, and then right after we have the whole foot fetish scene.

MrX

GRRM mentioned in a blog post that next season

Neil M.

Episode was pretty good but that ending was horrible.

chowderhead

I think the warning could also refer to Aegon as he was found hiding underneath the sept. He has been shown to be physically abusive and into violent spectacles involving children fighting. I think they are foreshadowing a brutal and violent reign. He definitely seemed into the power and adulation during the coranation. Another great episode.