Episode 2 of season 2 of House of the Dragon was released on Max, and it’s still an excellent heartbreaker.
After a serious and restrained first episode, season 2 ofHouse of the Dragon keeps the same tone in episode 2 which conditions the confrontation a little more between the Blacks of Rhaenyra and the Greens of Alicent. However, it is not the two women who aggravate the situation, but the men who surround them and seek the precipitation that the series always refuses (at least for the moment).
ATTENTION : SPOILERS
THE PRINCE IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING
After the last atrocious act of the first episode, the second episode of season 2 sinks a little deeper into horror while maintaining this impression of slow asphyxiation and falling in slow motion. This episode thus holds up a mirror to the previous one, by shifting the pain and mourning to the side of the Greens, not without taking advantage of it to hurt the Blacks in the side.
If the series spared us the killing of young Jaehaerys (whose main stigmata are an empty bed and a bloody mattress), it does not spare us the vision of his little corpse lugged through the streets of Port Réal, stitches at the neck. very apparent. The time is therefore not for meditation, but for confrontation, which here takes on the appearance of a cold war before inevitably continuing on the battlefield.
This fratricidal war takes in the meantime a more literal twistwith the fight of the Cargyll brothers, all the more heartbreaking because it is completely useless and only motivated by the bitterness of a few high-ranking people who have no thought for the little people who owe them bows and obedience.
So, the whole challenge for the Hightowers and their offspring is to make cynical political recovery to influence public opinion and demonize Rhaenyra, even though Otto and Alicent do not think she is capable of such barbarity. But that was without counting the affliction of Aegon, who ended up becoming the tyrannical king he was destined to become since his coronation. The death of Lucerys rekindled the embers, but that of the little prince definitely ignited the powder.
MEN OF FIRE
The death of his son thus marks a turning point for Aegon, who gets rid of his puppet strings to lead the dance, while flaking in the public eye in tragic scenes that are less and less modest, and more and more touching. It is therefore an increasingly abysmal gap which is widening between his reign and that, more peaceful and thoughtful, of his father.
This paradigm shift is illustrated by the destructive rage of the King who ostensibly declares war on Rhaenyra and her supporters by ransacking the miniatures that Viserys took care of throughout season 1. The season thus continues in nuance and contradiction, like Aemond who poses proudly – naked as a worm – in front of his older brother after being surprised in the fetal position, pampered by a prostitute.
Alicent and Rhaenyra, for their part, try to maintain the status quo. They must swallow their grief and anger to curb the thirst for power and blood of the men around them, starting with Daemon and Sir Criston Cole. Regarding the Lord Commander, his moral perdition oscillates between guilt (which he shares with Alicent) and an inferiority complex which tends more and more towards pathos. Being suddenly propelled to the head of the Council could only precipitate its decline moraland that of the one who thought she had him under her yoke.
A new episode of season 2 of House of the Dragon available every Monday since June 17, 2024 on the Max platform in France
