‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3, Episode 8 Reactions | Talk the Thrones

Hello and welcome to Talk the Thrones. I am Chris Ryan. I am joined as always by Joanna Robinson and as well as a woman. Who is finally done with her needlepoint. It's Mallory Rubin. We are here to break down the finale of the third season of House of the Dragon. A little bit of housekeeping. We are live on YouTube right now. We're live. And if anybody has any questions, you can send them to Mal's email address. And if anybody has any questions, you can throw them in the YouTube chat. We're going to try and hit a couple of them at the end of the episode. Any kind of like, I would say, lore heavy text. Slash book. Meaning questions. The place to send those are House of Art. Which is where we are being broadcast audio wise and on Spotify. And Mal and Jo are going to go deep on this episode of House of the Dragon. And the season of House of the Dragon on Tuesday. That's right. Andy and I will talk superficially about it on Monday. And we are going to get into the recap. Of a thrilling and crispy finale. Right about now. This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. Black Friday is happening now at The Home Depot. And they've got just the tree for you. Make your style, space, and budget. Make the holidays merry and bright with artificial trees starting at $49. Then make it your own with ornaments and trimmings for every holiday style. Find your perfect tree at the number one Christmas tree retailer. And get low prices guaranteed on all your festive favorites at The Home Depot. Exclusions apply. Visit homedepot.com slash price match for details. You're listening to a quick ad. You know what else is quick? Selling your car on Carvana. Just put in your vehicle information. And we'll give you an offer. Done. No hassle. No negotiation. No guy from an online listing lowballing you. Which means by the time I'm done explaining this, you could have basically done it. Still haven't started? Hey, better late than never. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Okay, fair warning. I only watched this episode once, like most people. But Ormond won, right? That's right. You're ready to go. You're ready to pod live. James Norton, ready to go. Recap. That Aegon lives push notification hit Rhaenyra like a ton of bricks. And she finally takes the safety off of Daemon. Doing so negates the purpose of having Mysaria around. Although, she had served some purposes the previous week. You know what I'm saying? And Mysaria, bad lay. We gotta ask. Wow. We gotta ask. Where all bad lays go. Off to Pentos. Aegon has reunited with his brother. And that's some heartwarming stuff. Basically, he turns Aemond into his dragon bodyguard. And Alys is not happy about that. We learn a little bit about Alys. We sure do. And some of her concoctions and potions. Bela and Adam are also not happy about the way Rhaenyra has been treating them. Basically, as if they were dragon riding Amazon delivery folks. Their father, Corlys, is being held hostage by Ormond. But little G. Wayne and Darren. Try to parlay with him on the side. All for naught because the Battle of Tumbleton begins. Ulf nearly misses it with a hangover. Switches sides to the Greens. Switches sides to Team Fuck You. And then flies off as a solo act. In the battle, Hugh loses Cat. Ormond loses a fight with a one-armed Northman. And Daemon gets saved by a pile of burning rubble and Corlys. Back in King's Landing, Rhaenyra has Alan kill a priest. And comes home to find another one of Alyson's children are dead. That keeps happening. Rhaenyra gives the camera a real "it is what it is" look and closes the window on Helaena and this season of the show. So sort of a brief recap there. Boy, look at you. Are you going to miss it? You're going to be waiting two years to do it for season four. Oh no, I'll miss podcasting about it with you guys. I was curious what you thought of the finale. That's a good way of talking about whether we'll miss it. Did you? Sure. What did you think of the finale, Jo? Um, I liked it. I, I still, oddly, I am getting nostalgic for the season two finale, which is something I didn't think I would feel, but like there's a lot to talk about in this finale. Yeah. Yes. But I don't know that it went, uh, like the highs were not as high for me as a season two finale, even though the season two finale left a lot of us going like, uh, what's, what's happening next, you know? Uh, it certainly feels like a finale that is an active conversation with season two and unquestionably a response, right? A lot of people felt like the season two finale, it was basically a trailer for season three, two muted, not enough happened. That I, no matter whether you loved this finale and thought it was incredible or it didn't work for you, you can't say it was boring. This finale to me is like a cocaine. It's like a really fueled threesome after a toga party in the bed of a pickup truck. When it's raining, there are definitely a few moments. Yeah. Tell us, tell us when you experienced that. There was no cocaine. Okay. There are definitely a few moments and a few character beats and scenes where it's like, who did what now? Right. Yeah. Yeah. But it's memorable and you can't deny it's memorable. I found this to be very entertaining and overall I found it to be propulsive and engaging. There are a couple of character decisions that I'll need you guys to help me. Work through and I'll need to sit with for a bit. But the action was pretty gripping and it felt like something the show needed to deliver. We're always monitoring the tip into, uh, uh, just style over substance. I don't think this finale tipped in that respect. Some. When you say style over substance, do you mean action over character or consequence? And I think something that we had talked, our initial reaction to the episode, we sort of shared this reaction, which was like a lot of it was riding on this character. Roddy, the ruin, the like head of the winter wolves, the Stark. He's just a key figure inside of this episode in a way that I don't know that the season did a lot of buildup. Yeah. He was the guy standing next to the teenage dude who killed Kristen. Right. That's all. That's all he was all season. And then he was such like a key player here at the end. And so, you know what they did all season to build up Darren and Orman and Gwaine and that aspect of Tumbleton, I think they really nailed. But then the other parts of it, I think left something to be desired. Yeah. I thought that, uh, the action was done very well. Yeah. I thought that, uh, given what they were doing with like thousands of either real or computer generated people and dragons and a town being burned to a crisp and all these like individual characters that were trying to track within all of this chaos, people not being ornamentally dressed that much differently from one another. So you're kind of like, okay, that's a good guy, bad guy, or it depends on your, you know, whether you think green, black, what, who's good and bad. I mean, you're a team green to be clear. Yeah. So it was a tough day. It was a tough day for me, but, uh, you love putting children on the front line of battles. It's just, it's just a move. You know what I mean? Um, I thought that if, if I was going to give a note, yeah, I kind of wish more characters in this episode got the Allison treatment, which is, oh, interesting. Didn't really appear until like a Coda last minute realizing somewhere cosmically that her daughter had passed. But otherwise, like it was sort of agreed upon, like Allison didn't really have a lot to contribute this episode. Right. So we're not going to do it. We're not going to have a customary check-in with her on the road out of Heron Hall, you know? And there were a few characters, um, that I kind of feel like maybe we could have saved that for season four, you know? Like, like give me an example. Bela, like, you know, that was like a really quick check-in with Bela and it's not like it slowed the episode down, but I was like. On the other hand, I hear what you're saying. On the other hand, um, I think the fact that Rhaenyra gets like read to filth by both Bela and Helena and also Massari. Like the fact that these younger women. The fact that these younger women are like, uh, hashtag not my monarch. Like, I don't think so. So I, I think that thematically is, is rich inside. And the idea that like a stranger who Rhaenyra never worked to truly entrust an agenda to her cause, like Ulf betrays her, but also an actual literal family member like Bela is like, I'm going to tell you. And Helena, of course, uh, I'm going to just scathingly lay into you about how truly lost you are. I think not only does that help to, to cement the number of people and the number of forms that Rhaenyra has lost. This is a crossing of the Rubicon episode for Rhaenyra. I have still some notes on just tweeting out the prophecy. I remain a little bit baffled by that. And I, it's, I'm working through it. However, I think this was an undeniably effective episode and season overall for showing us that Rhaenyra, you know, you said tough episode for you as a member of team, team green. Is it? It's a tougher episode. I think for people who have been rooting for Rhaenyra and team black. Sure. Yeah. Murdering the high Septon, even just the grabbing of Bela. Face the physical violence. They're forced. Both Damon and Rhaenyra doing a lot of face gripping. Yeah. And a lot of child murder in Tumbleton. Rodney, the ruin, just like boom, ax to the face to the kid who tapped his calf. Damon's like, get out of the way, kids. Get out of the way. Please. No, you two are going to stay. And they like hustle at the last second, but he was willing to do it. It's just, do you think the villain turns? Do you think he missed those kids? Cause I'm not sure. They definitely, whether they were still, uh, embroiled in flame. And brutally murdered. It's entirely possible. I mean, my question, my question about the kids is like, Damon has this real moment and said that this real sort of like, what hath we wrought like inside of this battle moment, which is surprising because Damon has seen so much battle. So what was it about this battle that made him feel that way? I'm the only answer I could come up with was the small children involved. I guess I was actually, I thought maybe it had something to do with being on the wrong side of dragons. Like on the ground, it's like, this is what. what Dragon: Civil War really feels like in an enclosed area. Yeah, it's interesting that the perspective and point of view we've gotten before of like what is putting aside something like the bells in Game of Thrones, just inside of House of the Dragon, like Rook's Rest, Kristen, because we even got the cut to Black and then Daemon's Fog of War. So Kristen, a non-rider to your point, Chris, as the one who was like, oh, my God, and men are like, you know, dust beneath their feet. I thought I was I agree that Daemon Reed there was complex. I think there are a lot of different things we can identify in it. I think one of it is even an experienced veteran of Dragon War like Daemon is like the decimation shell shock of the Dance of the Dragons, where this is an unceasing, unrelenting assault. And this is not the last time something like this is going to happen. I think there's also the fact that Daemon and Rhaenyra gives herself over to this in full in this episode has been the leading voice all war. That this is what we should be doing. Burn them all. And then he has to stand there and look as the women and the children are holding their severed limbs and their charred bodies of loved ones. I think there's a combination, too, of like the actual horror and guilt and a little bit of the now he hasn't witnessed Rhaenyra in her full new garb. Can't wait to talk about drip Queen Rhaenyra. I have some moral notes, but it was hot. Yeah. She was like, don't make a monster of me in a very sexy, flirty moment, which was interesting in terms of how these characters pair sexuality and violence. She said it like she was also like bring me their heads kind of. For sure. Definitely. And then he makes the kind of show of saying to his army. The realm is watching. Like, let's keep the queen's reputation in mind. I think there's a little bit of, well, fuck, that's done. Like, there's no more PR spin you can put on this. Tumbleton is ashes because of sure. Sure. But you were a part of this. Black Alley's response to that being like sounds boring. Exactly. So the culpability of it all, I think, is at play. I just think it's like an interesting time for Damon Targaryen to grow a conscience. I mean, yeah. And then he charges forward and continues the battle, too. Yeah. So, like, the question. Maybe that's even more depressing. It's like, is it too late to grow a conscience? Or if you have a moment where your conscience breaks through, then you plow ahead anyway. Like, how fucked are all of us really? Well, that's kind of what happens to Rhaenyra at the end of the episode as well. We're going to talk about this episode, I think, from the perspective of characters. I think that's probably the most useless way, useful way to do it. Believe in yourself, CR. Don't give up yet. We can start with Rhaenyra, who freaks out a little bit at the beginning of the episode and then stoically closes the window. on her old self following Helaena's death. I liked the fact that this episode had a few ambiguous moments. I would imagine some of them maybe annoyed you because, for sake of clarity, but there were a couple of moments like, for instance, Orwyle's look while Rhaenyra is publicly doing her, like, I have a very important press conference at 8 p.m. Everybody tune in. I thought that was really cool. I thought Rhaenyra's reaction to the needle, the needle point, was interesting, as was the needle point itself and what it portends. So let's start with the prophecy. Okay. Just because you want to watch the smoke come out of Mallory's ears. This is not done in the books, I take it. No, no. So I liked almost every Rhaenyra scene in this episode, genuinely. I thought that Rhaenyra's, like, if we want to start with the positive and come back to the prophecy, the reaction to Aegon, Aegon and Sunfyre and that news, just what opens the episode. This was such, I would say, overall, across character sets, a real reap what you sow episode, right? So Rhaenyra, incepted by Alicent, has put this lie out into the world that Aegon is dead, knowing that he's not. Now, they all did think Sunfyre was dead, right? Incepted is, like, too mild a word to use. Alicent's like, here's the party line, use it. And if they ask for a body. We'll just show them a bag of bones, right? Like, yeah. You know, it's just, it's down to the Snowfortress level of her mind. Our wife does die in this episode. Exactly. The fact that that backfires, and that specifically the idea that Rhaenyra has been touting, a dragon appeared to me, Adam, and Seasmoke in my moment of need, is now a chip that the other side can use, a dragon rose, Sunfyre rose. And Rhaenyra has to contend with that and work so hard to pull back belief and support. It was a fascinating place to find the character, and I loved that. I don't know that any, and I think it's shocking to see what happens in the High Sept with the High Sept, and I'm excited to talk about that. I don't quite understand Alan's contribution there. I'm eager to hear your thoughts. Rhaenyra just saying the prophecy out loud. It's not in the history books. The show has made a choice that that's okay. And we should say, we have an interview with Ryan Condal. Yes. It's running tomorrow, and we did ask him about this. We did. So we can get Condal's take on this for sure in House of R. Yes. I was puzzled. As you know, by the mention in the small council meeting, that's like on steroids now, after just addressing all of the small folk of King's Landing. I think thematically inside of the show where omens and portents and chosen ones sanctioned by the gods is so central to what all of the characters are doing, particularly Rhaenyra. It is credible to me that Rhaenyra would say, I am Rhaenyra the Chosen, right? That this Rhaenyra the Cruel PR act from the Greens out in the field is something that she needs to combat by saying, you think you see a sign there? I'm going to tell you with proof to her, no one else has the proof, that this is an inherited status, that this is real. I understand inside the show why the character does that. I have a hard time understanding how then it's not mentioned in Fireblood that she did this, given the number of this person took a shit in this place, stuff that is chronicled. But that's where we are. I do think in terms of performers inside of the show, Emma Darcy, that they are one of the strongest things in the show. They're unbelievable. They're incredible. And the way in which this opened with tears, vulnerability, and then how that hardens into steel and resolve, and that scene, the way that scene was shot between Rhaenyra and Daemon when, as you said, she took the safety off and said, you know, go forth and kill, and the smirk on Matt Smith's face, where Daemon's like, finally, I get to do what I've been begging to do. And he's like, I've got her. Like, I've been in a battle with Mysaria for Rhaenyra all season, and I won. And Viserys is ghost. Yeah, and I won. She's like, fuck Viserys. Mysaria, off to Pentos. That's it. And it's Daemon time now. So, yeah. I thought that this speech made sense for the character, if not for the grander story of Game of Thrones. Yeah, 100%. So, Daemon is the warrior, and Mysaria is the politician, and Rhaenyra just believes in herself. Like, Rhaenyra's, like, central preoccupation is this prophecy and this myth about herself that she is like, I am too pot committed to this to back off. Well, she has to, because, yeah, to your point. And she's like, they don't need to worry. Like, I don't need to worry about taxes. I don't want to worry about wheat. I don't worry about Ormond. I want to worry about what my dad told me was coming and why it's important that I stand in between it. And I think that's, she's like, why is this a secret? Why can't, you know what I mean? Like, she's, like, telling her son, and her son's just like, cool. Oh, my God. Poor Joffrey. Joffrey woke up, and it was a tough day to wake up. Yeah. And she's walking around. She's like, why do I have to keep making these kind of concessions or, like, taking Missouri's advice or Damon's advice? Like, the only advice that people should take is that you take my word for what's coming and that I'm the one who's prophesied to stop it. Yeah, and how do you think the crowd really felt about that speech? I think they were like, what the fuck? Tickleton's on fire. Like, what are we doing here? I think they were like, this doesn't feel sane to me, what is happening here. Like, Mad, like, Maegor the Cruel is sort of invoked throughout this, especially the way she's murdering Septons and all this. Me too. They, I don't know, that's her own, Rhaenyra's own thing. We haven't seen Maegor on the screen. I'd say some of the illustrations and some of the text, there is a little bit of a comp there, but certainly the fact that we have, Rhaenyra has the armor, like, and the dragon wings, the mail, right? If we think about the third episode of the season that we all loved so much, that scene, that conversation before Harry petitions of, like, everything I put on sends a signal. Should I wear jewelry? No. Right? Oh, the chain. Okay. The sword? No. So this is all deliberate because it's all about stabbing people. Stabbing into the dress and stuff like that. So leaning into the masculine, you know, they want, they're so excited to have a king, I'll give them a king. Like, I will be the prince that was promised is what she says. Military might. The eye makeup looked to me like, I loved it. It was awesome. Incredible stuff. Certainly one member of this podcast could pull it off. Big fan. I'm surprised you didn't try it tonight. There's still time for the deep dive. But it was kind of cool because it was like, almost like. Dragon slits. Leaking Maryskara, but like, fake tears almost. Like blood. The more you get cut by the throne. The more helpful it is to just draw red gashes on yourself, you know, preemptive cover. But I thought it looked like a little bit of like a dragon slit eye to, you know, be the dragon. The, the, like Viserys's crown in an episode where she is saying, and we built toward this in the penultimate, but Viserys's philosophy, not for me, the crown I still have to hold as a symbol of legitimate inheritance. So this, you know, this, this path toward trying to point toward all the aspects of legitimacy. We asked this on the deep dive last week, but. So, on the one hand, I find it kind of heartening that Rhaenyra is like, I'm done with saying I have to constantly worry about how my dad would have done this because it's in part his fault that they're in this fucking shit show to begin with. And hearing her say that was so gratifying to me personally. But then, like, Chris, to go back to what you were saying about how is Rhaenyra viewing the reality of the job versus her own image versus kind of the task and burden of the prophecy, it's, I don't know, you can make the case she just went from saying Viserys to just saying, okay, Daemon's philosophy. Mm-hmm. And like, Cassian. Miss Aria aside, as you noted. So the question is like, does Rhaenyra even have a chance? Is there a path to saying, well, what do I believe? Like, what's my philosophy? Is there room for that with all of these levers and forces and horrible things inside of this stage of the Dance of the Dragons? When she walks back in and finds Helena's obviously done what she's done. Yeah. Does Rhaenyra know that Ulf's turned and Tumulton's lost? I don't think she would. I'm waiting to know that. No, I don't think so. Okay. That'll be a season four update. The Ravens, another bad email for Rhaenyra. Another bad wake up call. Let's talk about Helena's death briefly. That's a character who I think grew a lot this season and I thought was performed very well. And especially when you consider like much as her story is not really allowed to leave one room. Yeah. I thought it was operatically staged and well done. What did you make, I guess, of her choice, but also Rhaenyra's reaction to it? I, this is my favorite part. I mean, not, I'm. All right. I'm not delighted that she's dead, but I think this, the way they laid this out over the season, those of us who read the book sort of knew we were headed here. And I think they did a really good job of, of carving out time for Helena and Helena's descent so that we could really feel the impact of it here. I like that. We didn't see the fall or the jump or anything like that. We saw, you know, her, her body after the fact, we just saw the empty window. We saw the, the needle points are trailing out the window. I thought all of that was really good. I think seeing the neat. Like her stitching her own death inside of the needle point. I think that is like beautiful and tragic, of course. And then. I must have been working on that for a while. For a long while. Like knowing that it was coming and like the image of Rhaenyra. Um, and, and we can all debate exactly what's going on there. Again, we talked to Condal about this, but that image of Rhaenyra and the way in which she, to my view, sort of looks at it, sees an unflattering depiction of herself, uh, you know, stitched. And is like, fuck you then. Stitched by a person that she believes can see the future. She believes in her being a dreamer and just decides to put it down and close the window and walk away and just say, I refuse to engage with this. I've, I am so far down my rebranding, my new eye makeup, my armor, me making unhinged speeches in, in the streets that I can't engage with this at all. I can't put the brakes on, you know, that's what it felt like to me. Definitely. And I like the way that that. Uh, Evolution we often talk about is like a positive, right? And we'll get to that soon with some butterfly talk, but the evolution changed in any form. You're not always like walking forward. And so the idea that across different choices, that thing that Joe outlined is present for Rhaenyra, the like, I saw counsel. I got impatient when I asked my advisors for advice and they were like, I have nothing to say. Useless in, in the, in the sept with the high septum, like that warning from earlier in the season. If you declare war on the faith, it's going to be a. Problem in the realm. There's not only like a character inside of this season saying that there's historic precedent. Rhaenyra has decided to do this anyway, to ignore it last episode, just last episode, Rhaenyra was seeking out, oh my God, a dreamer. I do want to look into the future. I do want to know, but I want to hear. That I was chosen something that affirms me and my exactly. So as soon as you're not getting that affirmation, all you can do if you're Rhaenyra, this is what Rhaenyra has decided all she can do is decide not to. Care to not look. I am going to say that you are right because you know more about this than I do. I watched it and thought she got what she wanted. She saw an image of herself on the throne that she can interpret in a variety of different ways. And she had been asking Helena, like, what do you see? What do you see? And this is what she sees. Not only like, is she predicting her own future, but she's predicting some kind of future for Rhaenyra. Now in the details of the image, there are probably a lot of like little like wrinkles in terms of like what that blood coming out of it means. And like hands and fire. Yeah, like fire and blood. Yeah, I don't. But this was this was ultimately, I thought, like an affirmation of what Rhaenyra thinks about herself. And she closes the window being like, what it's what's done is done. I think that's a completely valid interpretation. This is part of why it's fun to be able to debate something like this. Like, I think that the idea that she is that I would I don't think that is based on what Helena says to Rhaenyra. Yes. In my favorite scene. Incredible. My favorite scene. Everything that you care about is ugly. You are ugly. I don't think that that is what Helena is stitching. Like any sort of validation is what Helena is stitching into the tapestry. I think you are right that Rhaenyra might be so far gone at this point that that is how she chooses to interpret it. And I love that that framing, Chris. I think that the what's in the foreground and where all the details is like, again, kind of a through line here. What is the character choosing to look at and care about? Right. And that tells us a lot about where they are. Is Rhaenyra just saying the throne? I'm on it. Or is she? And I have a sword in my hand. I am exhibiting strength, the strength that everyone told me I needed. Or is she like, fuck, there's a lot of blood running down all of the appendages of my body into the roots of the ground and fabric itself and fire and people dying and dragon screaming little bit different tone, but a little bit of the dragon orgy tapestry vibe with like the human hands and the dragon claws kind of who knows what they're up to behind there. But certainly in an episode where once again, the doom of Valeria was invoked multiple times. Rhaenyra, once again, choosing to spin the doom as a positive by saying my family was chosen. The dream, like we escaped the doom, just us among the dragon riders. Daemon, part of his big like pep talk is a new Valeria. Once again, like cast aside Viserys's philosophy, but maybe hold on to the harbinger of doom regarding the doom itself. That's not what either Rhaenyra or Daemon does in this episode. So if you're looking at that, you're seeing maybe the imagery of the dance of the dragons, but also what is the dance of the dragons? What have we? What have we been hearing since the first episode of this series? The threat of Valeria reborn, the doom, the cataclysm brought into Westeros because of the cost of this dragon war and the characters and what they're doing. Can I tell you something about the Helena death that I, as a book reader, I really enjoy because there's all this ambiguity about, you know, Helena goes out the window and there's all this ambiguity about what happened. Was she pushed? All this sort of stuff like that. Did Massaria do something? And I really like that inside this episode, you know, when, when Massaria is walking out and Helena's walking in, Massaria does say something to her that some people could interpret as being the reason she jumps. Does she do it with the intention of making her jump? No. Or just being like, she's never, I mean, she says she's never going to let you go. Right. And is that the reason, is that, was that the decisive thing and the reason why Helena decided, you know, I'm going to make this needlepoint come true and jump out the window. But, you know, so you could say Massaria is the reason she jumped out the window, but either way, it happened while Alicent was gone. Yes. Alicent, the one thing Alicent cared about all season was, keeping Helena safe. And while she was gone and Rhaenyra said, I'll watch over her. What kind of monster do you think I am? The one thing she cared about went out the window. Is she going to think that, that Rhaenyra tossed her out the window? She might, you know, it, we'll see what, how Alicent reacts. But like this butterfly moment is interesting. I united Daemon and Corlys in my character list for a specific reason, just because they meet on the battlefield such as it is at the end of the episode. And I thought it was. A cool moment because I think I recognize the two of them sharing a lot more in common than maybe, I had maybe, I had not paired the two of them together throughout this show until this moment. The second sons of Westeros. Yeah. And. It's been a minute. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I go back to Ormund kind of just being like, I fucking love Corlys, he's a good dude. Like, like everybody kind of like respects Ormund, Corlys. I thought the moment when Gawain's trying to parlay with Daemon and Sufra. Sufra terms and Corlys cuts in with like an even healthier compromise. That sounds incredibly reasonable. If unlikely to be. Not to the Hightowers, it doesn't. Sure. But. Or to the Tyrells, by the way. But it's like if you just, he's like the idea that one king has to rule this incredibly diverse, incredibly complicated, historically volatile area is sort of stupid. You know, like, let's break it up. There were seven kingdoms. Let's. How about we just have some regents? Are you pro Cal Exit? Like California should exit. No, I just thought that like that was, you know, of course, the first time there's ever a good idea on the second season, a third season of the show. It's like a town gets burned, you know, to cinder right after it. Something I love on Corlys' front this episode is when he's like, hey, Daemon, we're leaving. Corlys who has sort of walked away from his role. And I think Rhaenyra is right when she's like, Corlys put himself out here vulnerable in the field. To get napped. I think she's right about that one. But the fact that like, you know, Daemon was like, Corlys, you're going to keep you manacled. You're essentially my prisoner now. And Corlys is like, guess what? We're leaving. I thought that was a really good moment. I loved that as well. Even just like Allie and Oscar and the background and the idea that we didn't witness any sort of exchange between Corlys and them. But you understand that they were willing to kind of follow his lead in that moment because he is he's Corlys Florian. Like he's one of. One of the most fabled figures in the realm. That was great. I thought that Daemon just, you know, again, they're all in at this point, like the chips are on the table, but out of hand rejecting not only Corlys is kind of real time updated pitch, but didn't consider for a second anything that Gawain came to him with. And like Gawain went and opened with a plan that obviously Daemon was never going to accept fun that he got like an Alicent book pitch split up the kingdoms and that that went to Gawain here. But it. fact that daemon just kind of is like what do you think i want yeah i want all the dead high towers right and it's not even like attempting to hide the fact when corliss challenges him on that front like there's a path here and it's to peace now one of the through lines across the seasons has been sin begets sin and like this question of is it too late and plenty of the characters and maybe plenty of the viewers would say it is too late and daemon doesn't have visibility into what is happening in king's landing where i think we could say definitively it is too late like renera just ordered the high sept and killed in the sept and then made this address yes but there's no part of daemon that is open to that appeal yeah even when corliss a trusted member of their alliance for all of this time says to him what if everybody like well i thought that when he says that to him and when he when he's like dame daemon we're leaving daemon surveyed this wreckage that the dragons have left behind and that this battle has left behind and his so solution or his response to it is to start killing everybody he sees in front of him and that's where corliss finds him and corliss's idea is like it's over yeah and now daemon you have to remember is the guy who is like we're not stopping at tumbleton or the western it's like i want to go back across the sea like i want dorn yeah i want all this stuff and it's like this guy only really has one direction right like it only really has one speed and you can use he could be a battering ram as he is when kraxis goes through the door that's right i really like that great shot that was so cool that was very sick but like he's not a politician and he's not a negotiator and i just thought there was just a cool like kind of yin yang moment in the episode i really agree with you but my i guess my question is are we meant to see what daemon goes through in this episode and think he's going to have a different attitude next time this conversation comes up given what he saw here will tumbleton be his sort of like nom moment or something like yeah you know i just think that everything else that goes wrong for everybody in this episode negates any lessons learned yeah he also was getting his ass absolutely handed to him by bull john roxton let's just say it yeah let's just say it daemon is one of my favorite warriors in the entire canon but bull john was fucking handling him people are gonna have some questions about that i think uh mallory and i did have a moment because when when john goes for his eye yeah mallory and i both had a moment where they're like are they gonna go all the way into this like a man daemon two sides of the same same coin thing and like take daemon's eye in this episode i thought daemon's got the sapphire let's give daemon a ruby a ruby yeah uh observe the north american dad 50s great polo collection he enters his vehicle information on carvana an offer appears in minutes remarkable he squints reads it again smiles and says dang that's a good offer the highest form of approval no haggling no hassle no one called him boss he's still on the couch astonishing sell your car today on carvana.com pickup fees may apply still wearing those old cargo shorts if your wardrobe's due for an upgrade but you don't know where to start you need stitch fix your stylist learns your size your style and your budget then sends a box pick just for you they always nail the fit no store no hassle no subscription required get started today at stitchfix.com that's stitchfix.com this episode is brought to you by txu energy if you're looking for a better way to save on electricity both night and day look no further than txu energy free nights and cool summer it gives you free energy all night every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use every summer it's the only plan that lets you use free energy to get more savings so all nights are always free summer days are now always discounted with savings like that you'll never look at a free night's budget you'll never look at a free night's plan the same way again learn more at txu.com rep number one zero zero zero four um kind of rounding out the tumbleton side of things okay i have ormond who is dead and i i feel very confident in that we really got a beat oh yeah that's a crispy dead or i mean he got first of all stabbed up the ass we also know that if by if there is a heart beating inside of him he doesn't want it to be he's like i smell he's he's dead i've smelled so many bad things today uh you know yeah that's what chris was saying before we started recording he's like that's the kind of dead body evidence i need to believe a character's dead yeah um which did you like better him finding off on the privy as a payoff for the this is like disgusting and i can't handle it or the blood severed arm blood spurting into his mouth with the chipped teeth like what did he say like that's a good northern fucking or something proper northern proper fucking from the north big bad of the season and in so much as he is that he did his job uh he put in a good shift james norton was great uh 10 out of 10 honestly really i think maybe was broadcasting his imminent demise a little hardcore in the last couple of episodes like i didn't see a future for him per se we were wondering a little bit he was just so good that we were like maybe they'll just keep i mean ormond does canonically die at tumbledown but we thought maybe james norton was so good that he would stick around but no i i will miss this performance which i thought was absolutely wonderful and entertaining and definitely needed in the show no question and all of the ormond darren gawain scenes were great all of them and they really i think that and helena were the two areas in which i think they really nailed it this yeah really great even like the little because a lot of ormond's work in this episode is to be like a complete lunatic you know walking around running around tumbledown shouting for olf yeah the moment where like they're bringing the human child child shields up to the battlements and like a townsperson who clearly reeks gets too close to him and he's like wow get away from me like a lot he's like doing a lot of really elevated height and stuff in this episode but even still we got these beats like when he knighted darren and darren and gawain are like can you like sub in i'd rather this be you you know exchanging looks with each other there was from a very fucked up abusive manipulative character a look of i thought genuine like pride when he knighted darren and then the look of abject shock and betrayal when he found out that gawain and darren had presented peace terms and gone behind his back like little moments like that what james norton was conveying with his face so good he conveyed some other things with his face really good i thought the the fact that ormond so all season long we talked about ormond as this like superior strategist right a tactician who was thinking ahead even to the point where some of his closest allies gawain and darren are like what's this guy up to what's the piece on the board he's so far ahead that the people he's working with don't even know the fact that ormond then is undone by making the exact same mistake the exact same mistake that damon and renera make which is treating off like shit thinking that he had won him because off wanted to fight like he he knew that he was saying i'm gonna give you a castle i'm gonna give you ale i'm gonna give you the things you want because they won't and he just like lost his shit and lost his patience do you think he off in the street shamed him just like damon did of course yes obviously do you think he could have uh kept his his stuff together if it there hadn't been like an outhouse moment right do you think like if it hadn't smelled so horrible he could have been hung over hung over yeah i actively hammered i think yes going into the tumbleton kitchens to like be like damon targaryen is a bitch yeah unbelievable stuff from all yeah well let's do let's do oh my god and i will pair him with hugh here he's like please don't involve me in this betrayal is something of a double betrayal sure absolutely i i think i was under the impression that this was going to be a you know that first swooping move back towards the the troops aligned with the blacks and burning them up i was like okay and then he does a big u-turn he's like fuck all of you and he's like fuck all of you which would obviously signal that he is comfortable as an independent operator i don't know the two guys from the tavern were with him when they cut up the dragon valet attendant yeah and then he's like fuck all of you and he's like fuck all of you um is that like a sleep it off and be like uh-oh what did i do is that i mean i don't know how much we can go into it without book spoilers in terms of like olf's uh trajectory trajectory from here this is a this is an update from the book and in the book he just betrays the blacks but for him to sort of burn bridges and corpses on both sides is a really interesting place to find him and uh hugh's involvement here is also a change from the books and is kind of interesting but i didn't think you were gonna make it and you didn't that was one of the other uh moments of ambiguity or at least moments that i enjoyed in this episode was damon seeing hugh yeah a couple times the courtyard yeah and whether that's just damon being like oh shit he's really not on his dragon where he's supposed to be or him being like oh this guy has there's more to this guy i didn't really think about like yeah all because even just when when he arrives on vermithore damon's like uh vermithore is supposed to be in king's landing yeah like he was assigned to be there now the fact that damon and raniera raniera who in this season has a scene with hugh like we're not oh what do they know she and hugh have a conversation about how his wife is in tumulton right he's like send me because i won't get tired of watching so this is known the fact that it doesn't like occur to them that he might not want to just stamp pat on guard duty in king's landing while the city the town that his wife is in is being attacked by their army is the kind of hubris that continues to manifest for them in many forms now the fact that damon and raniera are again ormond has his version of that those parallels for character who like positions himself as superior to also just like. He was until it smelled bad. I mean, you're right. His grip on branding, arise Sir Darren the Daring to get another knighting inside of the season, another sham of a knighting ceremony for him to say, I've made you king, but now kneel and take this vow of how you're going to serve me, Ormond, was pretty fantastic. Really great. Really great. And then when he sees him running through the town calling Kat's name, I think he's like, oh shit. Oh my God. And that'll have to be something that they think about moving forward. Ulf, I mean, the team for Ulf is like Team Ulf, right? Ulf the Dragon Lord, the way that he's styling himself throughout the episode. Great helmet. Was it? Yeah. I loved it. It was demented, but he's really going for it and you can really only ever say that about Ulf. I mean, he couldn't wait to embarrass Damon and Rhaenyra by talking shit about them. He genuinely just like fell asleep taking a dump. There's a long, like it's a crowded field of famous shit moments in Game of Thrones. You know, where does this rank? It's not Tywin Tyrion. Does it pass Diarrhea Dunk? It's something for us to think about over the next few days. Incredible place for him to be found. Truly what I will be thinking about over the next few days. I'm going to noodle on it a bit. You know what? I know you will. We'll be returning to that in the deep dive. Full power ranking coming. You know, no. Ormund recruited him. He courted him. He worked with him. He wooed him. Whatever made him think that he could do exactly the thing to Ulf. I'm going to just tell you you're a tool. I'm going to tell you you have no worth. I'm going to shout it in front of everyone and that that would be okay. Like what? Why? Because he was impaired by the stench of the outhouse. I mean, it really, it's an Achilles heel truly. It really paid off. The little details of what Ulf and Hugh were charged to do are very interesting to me at least in terms of like watching Dragon Warfare play out in this show because sit by the town with your dragon and just watch as a deterrent. But like even if Hugh had been sent by Rhaenyra like, oh, you have a personal vested interest in what's happening in Templeton. So you go with Daemon and like provide air cover or whatever. Dragons aren't surgical. Like, Hugh's advantage of being a dragon rider would not really have saved Cat per se. Hugh and Torrin and Sabbath of Frey all agree. And I think that that is something that is kind of fascinating about watching this happen where it's like, oh, you can have all these dragon plans but when you get to like, I need to get a specific person out of a town, then we don't really. That's why he tried to just duck in there and get her and duck out. Yeah, but she didn't want to go. And this is why the bullshit farcical never going to work for even a second even though we all deluded ourselves, we being the members of Team Black, into thinking that it could. We'll just root them out house by house. We're just going to go door to door and find all 15,000 Hightower soldiers and never have to use our imprecise weapon of mass destruction, dragon fire on the wall of small children. Which was also like when Daemon gets off of Caraxes, you know what I mean? He did. He burned the door and then he went back to the horse. He tried. Let's talk about other dragon riders. Great. Aegon and Aemond. In a scene that felt new to me. Like, it's new. I mean, Tom Clincardi's delivery of that line is like one of the best things that's ever happened. That's possibly why. It felt a little odd. It was awesome, but it felt a little odd. But like, him just being like, and here I am in Harrenhal. Nobody heard me fly up here. Nobody heard me like, kind of. I think he did. Okay. Right? That's why Aemond goes out there. Awoken by dragon wings and maybe for a second thought it was Vhagar. I was like, fuck it's Sunfire risen from the dead. It's my no longer dead brother. Well, he wasn't fucking his mom, so that was your first sign that it wasn't. That's true. But I guess I wanted to talk about, well, how did Aegon know where Aemond was? It's just now everybody knows he's at Harrenhal, right? It was, I think it's been out and about there, right? Okay. They've kind of moved in and out, because when Aegon was trying to march out of Rook's Rest, he was like, he's been sighted and Vhagar's been sighted in Wendishtown. So, you know, Riverlands. Gossip. Then Alicent is the one, though, aided by obviously Helena to tell Vernier, like, no, he actually is still at Harrenhal, even though like, other people think he's over Vhagar. for the giant burn marks that Vhagar left behind, which Vhagar did leave. Who knows? Is this his 20th stop? Did he go to Fairmarket? Did he go to Wendishtown? Or did he hit Harrenhal first and he's just like, really efficient? Do you think we were robbed of him checking in on the Vale and what Lady Jane Eyre would have thought? That would be very funny. Oh, I would love to see those two on a scene together. Obviously, you know, his way of forgiving his brother is to bring him into indentured servitude as like his security guard now. Well, the way they were talking about it inside the episode was that Amon has a choice here to choose between Alice and Aegon and what will, like, that this is presented as sort of a cliffhanger of the season is like, what will Amon decide? Oh, I thought it was like you can die or you can work for me. Yeah, but also his betrothed is a scary witch, so I don't know how, this is not book stuff, so I'm just guessing. Aegon does not seem shook by Alice. But he does not met Alice. He was just like, who's that? Your betrothed? What? I thought that this. He doesn't know she's an immortal witch. He didn't get the incredible balance. Intel on the backstory that we got. This was a good example of a scene where I was like, what? When it started happening because this is not an interaction in the book and I was shocked. Though Joe and I have been talking in the spoiler section on the deep dive about how, like, this real central focus for both of those characters, their obsession with each other, we were kind of like, how are they going to pay this off if there's not a scene coming between them at the end of the season? And then sure enough, lo and behold, there was. I think the fact that this is something that we talked about with Condal in the interview, check it out. The fact that, like, Aegon's whereabouts, we talked about this across the season with Rook's Rest, that, like, we knew Sunfire was there. Sunfire rises and burns the mutants. But, like, Aegon being there was not a book thing. Putting him in places where we didn't know he was, there is enough just missing, like, where is Aegon in this stretch of the story to do stuff like this and have it feel credible, I think. I think more importantly from, like, a TV storytelling point of view, and this is something that the people who work on the show have been talking about for seasons, it's, like, because of the, you know, very brief way in which this story is told in Fire and Blood and because it can be dramatically interesting in a book to be, like, a character has disappeared and then they reappear. But if you've got Matt Smith on your show, you're going to have to say, uh, he was at Harrenhal doing this this whole season. That's what he's doing. What was Tom Glyncarney doing? Like, Tom Glyncarney could have been absent this entire season and book readers would have been like, yep. But as TV viewers, it would have been like, where's Aegon? And I think because they didn't make that choice as TV viewers now we're sitting here saying, is he the MVP of the season? Like, he's in the, at least in the running, he would get down-ballad votes. Like, he was such a, I thought, compelling performer to watch. I don't know that he would be the betting favorite. I mean, I think he's incredible. I think I would say that he was the MVP of the season. Him or Orman, maybe. I don't know. Maybe Darren? Maybe Gawain? It's shockingly a member of Team Green. I don't know how we wound up here. But it's either Orman or Darren for me. Yeah. They're all wonderful. I'm having a harder time. So, Riley and I were talking about this. Please read Riley's great coverage on TheRinger.com. What a great website. But Riley and I were talking about, like, I feel like with Aegon, they leaned for me just a little too hard into what a piece of shit he was in season one for me to, like, really enjoy this. Like, he could have been just like a shitty fuckboy in season one, but they're like, sexual assault, child fighting. And I was just sort of like, then it's hard for me to really enjoy this sort of, like, rise that he's having. But we're gonna balance that out with a lot of child murder and murder of men of the cloth from Team Black. So the scales are over there. I, in addition to that, I think, like, one of the undeniable aspects of Aegon in the last couple episodes from his, you know, Mad King reaction to burning the mutants to the way that, what he's saying, the plan he lays out here, he's certainly not being positioned as, like, a moral, like, a paragon of virtue compared to Rhaenyra. We're in a place where all of these characters are monsters. Whether Aemond chooses to go with Aegon or chooses to stay with Alys, or what, I think just the fact that we watch him fall to his knees and show remorse, and we've talked about this with Aemond the whole time, the fact that, like, with Luke, he was able to express remorse, but then just fell back into his bad habits and hideous ways and harmful behavior. It's like, he's showing remorse here in a way that I buy. Parental therapy, it works. Will he stay in that place, or will another pull prove superior? I think the fact that, like, even though we don't know what choice he's gonna make, we still get another Aemond comp is, you know, purposeful and, I think, effective. Like, in Harrenhal, in the Great Hall, Rhaenyra flew in and challenged Aemond in the season two finale to, like, finally make his decision, and he pledged his fealty to her. So to get a version of that without as much clarity from Aemond with Aegon here. He wasn't fucking Alys at the time. I know. He missed out, it seems. I have a question for you as a non-book reader. This is all new to us, but, like, how did the Alys backstory moment work for you? Very cool. Yeah. I mean, it paid off the what's up with Alys stuff for two seasons, and Gael Rankin's great. I thought it explained a little bit of her tortured nature when it comes to, like, Harrenhal, wanting Harrenhal, but hating Harrenhal. This idea that this is what's keeping her alive, but also her prison. I thought it was just really well done, and, you know, within the realm of, like, I got a little bored of, like, Eamon's dreams and, like, the darkness of Harrenhal and what are you guys doing here, and I love it. loved when Alison came that they like just didn't know how to be with a third person. Nice. That is what she said. That. Sorry. I can't help it. I can't help it. You literally can't help it. I know. I've learned that over 10 years. I can't remember what I was saying. She was cool. Honestly, it doesn't matter what you were saying. Love that for her. Love that for her. Or I'm really sorry for her. Yeah, dead son. Terrible, terrible to hear that. More heightens the Melisandre comp in terms of just like the clarity of this long life, the question of magic and like the cost, obviously different circumstances and Melisandre is like pledged to a religious faction, which is different for Alice. But I did like hearing her talk about, and I mean, obviously, drastic tonal shift here. In an episode where Helena kills herself, like hearing what Alice says here, I wanted to go with him, with her son, right? That she tried to kill herself and couldn't and realized then that the price she had to pay, we always talk about this. It's something we love to talk about with like what is the cost and price of magic. I really like when stories show us that this is a horrific version of it. It drives me crazy when they don't. There should always be a cost. It shouldn't matter that Jon Snow get back from the dead. And also, in terms of now, some of the magic Alice is seeking now. Yeah. What do you guys read based on, through the lens of this history? Does she want dragons of her own because she wants vengeance? Against the Targaryens who burned Harrenhor's castle and killed her son? A strength to match their strength. Or is it because she's seeking a way out and she thinks based on this history that dragon flame is the only exit? That's an interesting question. I don't have a clue. Does it die that way? Yeah. Oh, I thought she was trying to. I think that's in the mix here based on the way we hear her talk about. Well, yeah. To be a writer. But I don't, I feel like if she had wanted to get torched by a dragon, she could have provoked, you know, Caraxes into doing that at some point. Yeah, Caraxes, Burme. That could have happened. I think it's, I don't ever want to be that vulnerable again. So I will arm myself with my own army of Targaryens. Also, she's been putting a lot of work. It's like Bull Durham. Like, you know, she gets these prospects in Harrenhal. Sometimes she wins, sometimes she loses. But she's like, it's just like, you know, I'm just like, it's a long season. I got this guy here. He's dreaming. I'm his mom. I'm not his mom. And then I got him. He's wearing my underwear. The cock. Let him go to the show. Yeah. It's getting a little late. Let's run through a couple of characters quickly. Alan was the one who jumped out just because he jumped a sword into the High Priest of the Seven. Does this track for you guys? What we saw from Alan in the sex scene? Okay, so here's my argument for it. Yeah. This question of legitimacy that Corlys has been, that his father has basically made the central preoccupation of his illegitimate children's life. The idea that their queen is going to do something that their father neglects. That's what he's elected to do, which is give them the last name and treat them as such. He gets it just in a roundabout way by becoming this trusted lieutenant of Rhaenyra. When she says you have the blood of Ol' Valyria in you, that's her acknowledging to a certain degree, you know, and her just utilizing daemon language to sort of get him to do what she needs him to do. Does this track for the Alan we know from this show so far and our understanding of him from the book, I would say no, but I do think it's a compelling, thrilling storyline of Alan, this quite stalwart young man to sort of dedicate himself to a monarch, be sort of whispered in the ear, have his brother say like, hey man, this is a dark path, let's not do this. And for Alan to watch us watch her sort of corrupt Alan, I think is very impactful. I think Alan also sees like, he's like in touching distance, I could be with Bela, I could be. Bela's going to love this. I could be the hand of the king, I could be something like really important in the court here. Yeah. Like I have a really good thing coming. Sure. Considering where I was at the beginning of season two or something like that. And yes, is it an extreme expression of that belief in Rhaenyra or that desire for legitimacy? For sure. But it's his choice and his hand that does it rather than waiting for his father or his. Yeah, for sure. To get like this paperwork signed so that it's like, you're cool. Now. 100%. On the other hand, I do always like to track like he who swings a sentence must swing the sword. Who says a sentence must swing the sword. And the fact that she. She said early in the episode, like, you go handle Tumulton and once you do, I will kill Aegon personally. But when it comes to the Septon, she's like, Alan, you do it. And I don't know if that was just a test of his loyalty or whatever, but just sort of like, why don't you do it right here? Or is she still squeamish from like. But that's the thing is like. Not executing Hightower, Otto. Otto. But when you're squeamish in the Thrones universe, for me, I would say let's not have our monarchs or our leaders kill people. But like in the Thrones universe, if you say someone should die, you should be the one to do it if you believe the Ned Stark of it all. I think it's also with Alan. First of all, I thought just the. Kind of inverting the positions that Adam and Alan are in. You know, like if we think of the awkward dinner scene earlier in the season, the look on Alan's face when Adam was so like. Almost like worshipful toward Rhaenyra. And he had reasons. He's a dragon rider now. And Alan was like, what the fuck, man? To see that flipped where Adam was like, did you know this? Did you know that she has Bela confined? And Alan, who has had this like romantic interlude with Bela that Adam would die for, was like, I don't really give a shit about that. I'm focused on this other thing. The once and future king, once and future Lord of the Tides language, very interesting, obviously. I thought that the Valyria, you're the blood of all Valyria, whisper from Rhaenyra was very clarifying as well. I think. On the one hand, keeping that where it is right before the thrust of the sword makes sense because that's such a massive thing for Alan to do. On the other hand, if something like that had happened before his scene with the Valyrian soldiers or with Adam might have helped a little bit. Mostly, I think it's interesting and effective as a way in this series that constantly is reminding us of the corrosive effect of proximity to power that that doesn't end at the monarch, right? Alan was like, I'm not interested in matters of the court a handful of episodes ago and now look. More importantly, what was with the accent on that Valyrian guy? Had some questions for you about this. I just have some questions. Bela and Adam. Yeah. What should she. What takeaways from this episode? I didn't have like a huge rundown for them other than they're obviously buckling under Rhaenyra's rule. I do think. I think Bela's thesis statement of like, you keep people around and you need them and as soon as you don't, you have no use for them. You know, this is something that Mal and I, all of us have been talking about all season is sort of the mismanagement of your people and sort of. sort of like how a little kindness can go a long way. But for Bela to say that right before Rhaenyra just kicks Mysaria out of the continent because she is no longer of use to her. But knows way too much to be close by. Jumped right off that wagon and no one fucking noticed. Unbelievable. Mysaria never takes her ride over to Essos that she's supposed to take. That's just not something she likes to do. As book readers, we'll hint. We'll talk about this in the book spoiler section on the deep dive, but this seems to be a very interesting breadcrumb trail for. Yes. for book readers. Which would be a. It's getting the theory brain going. Yes. It would be a new thing. The fact that Mysaria is here and her watching Rhaenyra in a way, it's just a. We have very interesting strong theories about this. I think on the Bela-Adam front, like the other thing is just when we think about the dragon math, which is so central in this episode, many times again, it was like six dragons, six dragons. Well, Ulf is just Team Ulf now. He's not Team Black anymore. And Bela and Adam, like they are, but how do they feel about it? How do they feel right now about Rhaenyra, her cause? They haven't even heard about what happened at Tumbleton. So it's like, you have this arsenal, but how is that going? That's also. What state is Hugh in after holding his dead wife in his arms? If I had to make a prediction without being a book reader, I would just imagine that non-Targ dragon writers will be under incredible scrutiny by Rhaenyra. Interesting. We have some questions from the audience. I wanted to ask really quickly if you had something in mind, what was a season three highlight, for you, and what was one thing you might say you were a little disappointed by? We can actually keep it to a highlight. Let's leave it with positivity. I just think the Daeron stuff was done so. We didn't talk about Daeron. Yeah. Sorry. Daeron, where is he? Yeah? I don't know. Where's Tessarion? Is that his dragon? Tessarion's dragon did not get to be deployed in this battle, but yeah, I think that the Daeron, Ormen, and then eventually Gwaine stuff. was enormously. Like, every time they cut to Tumulton and I wasn't like, ugh. I was like, ooh, I'm excited to go to Tumulton was not something I would have expected for this season, despite my love for James Norton, so I think they smashed that. Yeah, I agree. It's Team Green, which is just, man, boy. Like, Ormen, Daeron, Gwaine, those were my favorite scenes. Aegon and Lyras, always a delight. Tyland. Tyland looked great in the sweaty shirt. Those scenes were just so consistently good and entertaining. I did think that the bulk of the Rhaenyra scenes this season were really, really gripping and mesmerizing and Emma Darcy's, from a story perspective, but Emma Darcy's performances, as we already said today, was just unbelievable. And so those were really compelling, too. I think if you did want to hit a what didn't quite measure up, it's kind of what we opened with, which is just. Even more broadly than that, this, like, cluster of characters who just didn't get enough screen time for us to totally, like. Black Alley got a line. Yeah. And I should say, sounds boring. Not killing. The women and children. Sounds boring. The shot of her on horseback, like, firing arrows, incredible. Very cool. But, yeah, Yeah, Black Alley, Oscar Tully, and Roddy the Ruin, like, if they had had two more episodes, I'd like to believe that they could have given us some, like, you know, we know you never fucked a bear, like, some sort of fireside chat on the campaign right now. I really enjoyed two parts of the season that really stood out to me. One was the third episode, which was shot from the winner's POV. I wish the show had done more of stuff like that. I wish the show would dedicate more episodes largely to a character doing stuff and moving and negotiating, like, a scene after a scene after a scene with, like, cause and effect. I also really loved the Aegon, Larys, Tylan stuff. Aegon and Larys especially, because it felt like old school Thrones to me where these characters are out on the road changing over the course of a season. I think if I had any disappointment, it would be there were a couple of kinds of conversation that I felt like happened 11 times. Yes. And I was like, I got it. Like, do this again when something has changed rather than, like, we're kind of reiterating, like, I don't like this. Well, it's too bad. You know, like, over and over again. That was what I bumped on so hard in episode six. I do think seven and eight pushed beyond that into more, like, forward momentum, but I felt that, like, three quarters of the way through the season for sure. I think the other thing that the season nailed was the dragon stuff. It was fucking awesome. Like, it was just amazing. It's probably as good as you could make it. It's just, like, the show. As a story, as a text, would work no matter what, but the show is a visual spectacle if the dragon stuff isn't where it is. It's like a calamity. So, I don't. I don't know. I mean, I'm so looking forward to that aspect of season four in addition to obviously being with all of our problematic faves who keep doing terrible things to each other. H-O-T-D season four right into presidential election, right? Chill vibes. Chill vibes. Okay, I have a couple questions here from our. Our worst timeline. watchers, listeners. And this actually hits a question I wanted to ask you guys. What happened with the three dragons at the end of the episode? Was anybody riding Caraxes and Vermithor? So, Caraxes is Daemon. Vermithor would be Hugh, who's holding his. So, it's Caraxes chasing Silverwing and then Vermithor flying in behind the two of them. A little plume of flame from Caraxes towards Silverwing. Yeah, so dragons. What's on Vermithor's mind? Because Vermithor and Silverwing are, like, a bonded pair for life. Mated? Is that what they are? It was a little head-nuzzle a couple weeks ago. Well, I didn't know. So, do dragons have to mate to make eggs? We're going to send you some readings from Sept and Barth that are going to blow your fucking mind. But also some fan-fanked. But isn't it like. It's not like crocodiles where they're just like, whoops, I dropped some eggs. I don't know. Dreamfire? I have some questions about that. I actually don't know the answer to that. Oh, man. I'm thinking of sweet dreamy Dreamfire this episode. I need you to focus. Why were the three dragons, two of which don't have riders, one was blowing smoke at the other? Like, what was happening there? Well, I mean, we're one episode removed from all of the dragons attacking each other amid the carnage and the chaos. So, they're going to take action. The question is, are their riders guiding their action or are their instincts and their own emotion guiding the action? I would say in a Tumbleton battle sequence that I thought was pretty great and cool, that like seven-second stretch of the dragons flying after each other didn't necessarily clearly convey that. But, again, we see Caraxes blowing flame and Vermithor is like, Vermithor, let me get in here. That's an unknown point. I think that's what it's supposed to tell us. What side is Vermithor? Is Vermithor going to help Caraxes? Vermithor has fucked up both sides. Caraxes is like, you fucked up, I got to torch you. What is Vermithor going to do? Indeed. Dun, dun, dun. Bronze Fury. BigKahuna216 asked for the crew, who is your Dion Waiters for season three? Oh, man. Great question. Is it Ulf? I think it's Roddy. Roddy, yeah. I wish he had some more screen time, but I really, really enjoyed his attitude about life. Can't fucking wait. You know what? Torn Manderly. Oh, that's a good, those are both great picks. Sabbath of Frey, like, wishes that she were a nominee. Or all the cats. I missed the cats in the last few episodes. Yeah, Torrin's a good one. Those are good picks. I think those are the two contenders. Did you have a dragon MVP for the season, Mel? Oh, um, I think it has to be Sunfire at the end of the day. It's one of the most iconic moments in the history of the. Is it? Last week? Yeah. I thought so. Oh, no, I was asking, like, is it, like, thought of as that? I don't know. I would go Sheepstealer. Sheepy was great. Sunfire really landed a big hit. Correct. Dreamfire. Yeah. Or Tessarian. I don't know. The Blue Queen. I was expecting a little more involvement from Tessarian. Yeah, that's true. I'm going to be honest. Where did Tessarian go? Just still chained in the set. Darren was trying to, like, great questions. Great questions. We'll talk about this, I guess, more on the deep dive, but I will say, Gwaine saying, my boy to Darren really got me in this episode. Really did. We should wrap it up there so you guys still have energy for Tuesday. Tuesday's House of R's deep dive into the season finale. Yes. And Monday, check out the Brian Condon interview. Yeah, and Monday, Andy and I will talk about this on The Watch. Heck yeah. Thank you so much for listening or watching or both this season. We really appreciate it. It's always a fun show to do. Thanks to everybody who worked on the show, Arjuna and the whole crew. Squad. Squad. And Leia. Carlos. Jacob. Scott. Jomie. Oh, he did an order. Like, Sheepstealer. Yeah. Sheepstealer crushing it. Thank you two for your knowledge. Thanks for you, man. It's such a good show. Will you do, will you be back for season two of A Night of the Seven Kingdoms? Are you ready to commit right now on the public record? I'm not. I can't. I mean, I am, but this is like the one free agency. Like, I go on a year-to-year contract with House of R. We never know. We'll see what the terms are. You love that show. You'll be back. Talk to you guys soon. Take care. Bye. This episode is brought to you by TXU Energy. If you're looking for a better way to save on electricity, both night and day, look no further than TXU Energy free nights and cool summer. It gives you free energy all night, every night, all year long. Plus, a 25% bonus toward your daytime use, every summer. 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