“House of the Dragon” season 2 premiere recap: Team Black seeks vengeance

The new season picks up right after Prince Lucerys' death in the season 1 finale.

Welcome back to Westeros, where a bunch of incestuous platinum blondes with frustratingly similar names are fighting over who gets to sit on the Iron Throne. Though one Targaryen prince, Lucerys Velaryon, has already been lost, the greater Dance of the Dragons still looms. Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen’s Team Black and King Aegon II Targaryen’s Team Green are gathering their forces amongst the high lords and ladies of the Seven Kingdoms before the dragon fire commences in earnest.

Team Black mourns the loss of their prince

“Duty is sacrifice. It eclipses all things, even blood. All men of honor must pay its price,” we hear Cregan Stark (Tom Taylor), the current Lord of Winterfell, say as we watch the latest member of House Stark get chosen for the Night’s Watch. Though it’s nice to see Winterfell again, we don’t stay there for long before traveling north to the Wall.

Rhaenyra’s son and heir, Jacaerys Velaryon (Harry Collett), is there to plead with the Wolf of the North to join Rhaenyra’s cause and prevent Aegon II’s forces from usurping the throne. Cregan supports Rhaenyra — “Starks don’t forget their oaths,” he says — but tells Jace that his men are needed in the North the protect from the mysteries that lurk beyond the Wall. He points out that even the great King Jaehaerys’ dragon refused to cross the blockade of ice. When Jace asks what the Wall keeps out, Cregan intones, “Death.” Yet Cregan promises 2,000 graybeards to Rhaenyra’s forces — just as urgent news arrives from Dragonstone, informing Jace of his brother’s death at the hands of Aemond Targaryen.

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Back at Dragonstone, Rhaenyra is notably absent, making her husband Daemon (Matt Smith) restless. “The mother grieves as the Queen shirks her duties,” he complains to his cousin Rhaenys (Eve Best), who has just returned from patrolling the Gullet with her red dragon Meleys. She councils Daemon that until Rhaenyra has proof of Luke’s death, she cannot mourn him properly.

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Daemon reminds Rhaenys that she herself had the chance to prevent Luke’s death and end Aegon II’s whole line at his coronation, but did not. As Rhaenys starts to stalk off, he commands her to fly to King’s Landing to kill the fearsome Vhagar with him, but she coolly responds, “Would that you were the King.”

Meanwhile, Rhaenys’ husband, Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) is looking over the damage to his ship, the Sea Snake. A sailor in the Velaryon fleet, Alyn of Hull (Abubaker Salim), delivers to Corlys a dagger the Master of Driftmark had intended for Luke, his heir. Book readers know that Alyn has a greater part to play in the Dance of the Dragons, so keep an eye on him.

As Rhaenys implied, Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) is at Storm’s End looking for evidence of Luke and his dragon. When villagers find a dragon wing on a beach, she swoops down with Syrax and finds Luke’s cloak tangled in the wreckage. She breaks down into sobs, and when she finally returns to Dragonstone, all she demands is Aemond Targaryen.

Daemon takes it upon himself to do as his Queen commands. Since Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno, sporting a much milder accent this season) has recently been captured as a prisoner, he elicits her help in sneaking back into King’s Landing and hiring two assassins – a former Gold Cloak named Blood (Sam C. Wilson) and ratcatcher named Cheese (Mark Stobbart). He wants Blood and Cheese to bring him Aemond’s head. The Blacks will have a son for a son.

Team Green prepares for war

Back at King’s Landing, King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) wants to bring his heir, young Prince Jaehaerys, to the Small Council meeting to begin his kingly instruction. His sister-wife, the vision-prone Queen Helaena (Phia Saban), tells Aegon their first-born son isn’t with her, but before he can leave, she states that she’s afraid. But not of the dragons swooping about. It’s the rats.

Aegon looks about for the imaginary rats. “The queen is an enduring mystery, is she not?” he scoffs before fluttering out of the room. But by the episode’s end, Team Green will see that rats do not always have tails.

Alicent (Olivia Cooke) is preparing for the Small Council meeting by getting awfully intimate with her sworn protector Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). Though Alicent says they must never do it again, from the tender way she clips his white cloak to his armor, it’s obvious that their sexual relationship has been going on for a while.

At the meeting, Hand of the King Otto (Rhys Ifans) has his hands full trying to keep his grandsons from destroying the realm. Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) created a disaster by killing Luke, but instead of being regretful, he wants to goad Aegon into full war with the Blacks. Aemond proposes he fly to Harrenhal to give the Greens a toehold in the Riverlands. But his plan is rejected because that would draw Vhagar away from King’s Landing; the dragon is the only thing preventing the Blacks from attacking.

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As a ruler, Aegon remains casually cruel and easily swayed. He tries to humiliate Master of Coin, Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) into giving his son a pony ride during the council meeting before Alicent nimbly redirects his attention to more pressing matters. Later, during an audience with the smallfolk, Otto constantly corrects Aegon since his instinct is to give away all of the Greens’ gold in order to be liked by his subjects.

Otto should be careful, though, because Ser Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) is whispering into Aegon’s ear about the Hand’s domineering ways. Aegon is desperate to prove himself as king, and he can’t do that if the people see him under Otto’s thumb, as was his pliable father Viserys.

Larys continues lurking about Alicent as well, sensing her sexual attentions are being given to another. To show Alicent she is still firmly in his grasp, Larys replaces her entire staff with his hand-chosen picks so she will be under his eye even when he is not around.

Although she is the mother of the (disputed) King, Alicent feels disrespected and disregarded. Her plans to peacefully place Aegon on the throne have not gone as expected. Rhaenyra will not answer her pleas to meet Team Green’s terms, nor her note of apology for Luke’s tragic death at Aemond’s hands. The situation is unraveling quickly as her sons dream of the fiery glory of the battlefield.

Though Alicent is angry at the disregard her father shows her during the council meetings, she knows Otto is her best ally in keeping her sons under her control. Father and daughter come to an agreement over the goals of their house, but whether Aegon and Aemond listen to either of them remains a question. They will soon learn in horrific fashion just how vulnerable they are.

As Aemond continues his own plots with the Rhaenyra-hating Ser Criston, the assassins Blood and Cheese slip into the Red Keep looking for him on Daemon’s orders. Aemond is inadvertently saved by Otto, who draws him away for a conversation right before Blood and Cheese arrive at his chambers.

Not finding the Targaryen prince they were looking for, Blood and Cheese decide any Targaryen prince will do. Unfortunately for the fragile Helaena, the assassins stumble upon the nursery of her two children. In a horrific Sophie’s choice moment, she is forced to identify Jaehaerys as the Targaryen son they seek. To the awful (and unnecessary) sounds of sawing, she escapes with her daughter Jaehaera.

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She flees to Alicent’s chambers and in her panic is too shocked to notice that her mother is having sex with Criston Cole when she arrives.

“They killed the boy,” Helaena murmurs as she clutches her daughter close.

As Criston flees her bed and her daughter cowers in the corner of her room, Alicent realizes that the Blacks have finally declared war. The Dance of the Dragons now begins in earnest.

Notes from the Archmaester

• While the classic Game of Thrones theme remains, the intro has been redesigned as a tapestry of key moments in Targaryen history. It’s a much less confusing visual than the river of blood motif from season 1.

• In Fire & Blood, Aegon II and Helaena had two sons and a daughter, but it looks like the show got rid of their second son, Prince Maelor.

• Viserys and Alicent’s third son, Prince Daeron, seems to be hanging out in Oldtown indefinitely.

• When Alicent is lighting candles for the dead, in addition to her late husband Viserys and Rhaenyra’s son Lucerys, she mentions Alerie Florent, her late mother.

• Besides the appearance of future dragonseed Alyn of Hull, during Aegon’s audience in the throne room, we glimpsed another Valyrian bastard, Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew).

New episodes of House of the Dragon air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.

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