REVIEW: ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Episode 2 — “Rhaenyra The Cruel”

While the last episode deepened the context of all-out war, House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 is about the lighting of the fuse. A slow premiere has set the stage for a brash entrance into violence. A son for a son, in all of its brutality, does not right the wrong. Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) may have made the request for Aemond’s head, but her husband has brought her back a child in his place.

The opening of House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 is gripping. We watch as the guards spill out into the halls, carrying staff, shutting doors, and reacting to the murder. Aegon destroys his father’s model of Old Valyria. Alicent (Olivia Cooke) weeps while her father grounds her with the political opportunity the child offers. Carrying her guilt from having Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) in her bed instead of guarding the children’s room, Alicent is a shadow of who she has been leading up to season two. Her stark turn toward power doesn’t stay. But her pain isn’t entirely because of the loss of her grandchild, but rather for the grief her daughter will now live with.

Quickly, however, Ser Otto (Rhys Ifans), the Hightower patriarch, and Hand, is quick to make the death of the child a moment to gain sympathy from the masses. Parading the child, the severed neck stitched back together, through the streets, the Hand of the King gets exactly what he wants—the opportunity to corrupt the last image of Rhaenyra Targaryen and turn into a monster, “the slyer of infants.” The reverberations of his choice to turn his grandson’s murder into a propaganda art piece create ripples that reach Dragonstone and her allies.

But the murder of an innocent is not what Rhaenyra wanted, and she makes it known to her court and Daemon (Matt Smith). In an attempt to appease his wife, he instead insults her honor and the good nature she has created. She had the high ground, a murdered child, a merciful choice not to burn King’s Landing to the ground. But now, she is no better than the Hightowers, and the realm is beginning to shift under her.

Where she was quiet last episode, in House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 she has a lot to say—and all of it directed toward Daemon. Sure, Daemon may be at her side, but his every choice undercuts her stature as Queen. He may have stood by her, but it will never be erased that she now sits where he was promised to. While he has the ability to fight and push beyond the castle walls, Rhaenyra doesn’t. These two pieces of who they are continue to be in conflict. Their love doesn’t mean much when jealousy moves between them. They are too alike to bow to one another, and in the end, that makes Daemon’s decision to kill without permission, which is the last cut to the tether that binds the two.

Alicent and Rhaenyra are still at the center of this story, but the murder of this child thrusts his parents, Heleana and Aegon, into the center of it all. For Heleana, her grief is made a spectacle. She is forced to ride behind in the procession as her son’s body is jostled and paraded, and it breaks her. For Aegon, he’s equally wounded. However, his grief manifests in postering. He peacocks as wide and loud as possible, believing his violence conveys his fortitude. Instead, he’s foolish in the eyes of his Small Council. However, with Alicent racked with guilt and Criston Cole trying to hide that he shirked his responsibility because of lust, Aegon’s craze is nearly insurmountable.

Violence begets more brutal violence in House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 as everything begins to break across the choices made. Daemon flees Dragonstone from Rhaenyra’s anger with his armor and his dragon. Aegon promotes Cole to his Hand, tossing out the only Hightower of any value to the Greens yet again. Cole sends Arryk to confront his twin brother Erryk about his desertion as a way to atone for his incompetence. There is no stable ground in the Realm as it stands now. Too much hurt, too much violence, and with many seeking retribution, it’s clear that blood begets blood.

House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 is substantially better than the first episode of Season 2. It packs more emotional punches and sets up the war without becoming a bore at the same time. There are, however, two substantial moments in this episode. The first is the fight between Daemon and Rhaenyra. Watching trust be obliterated in real time is fascinating. While Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith have had electric chemistry in their romance and dedication to remaining by each other’s side moved the series to the back half of the first season, their rage is similar.

Daemon is a picture of masculinity grasping for relevancy with a Queen he should bow to. Rhaenyra wields a feminine rage that is built from her identity as a mother and as a woman constantly sequestered in her keep. The anger between the two is electric as they each fire back words they can’t take back. Effectively, Rhaenyra’s only connection, which isn’t her children, is dissolved. She can only trust herself, and only she can protect her children.

The second standout of the episode belongs to its finale, where Arryk and Erryk fight in Dragonstone. Having breached the walls easily by pretending to be his brother, Arryk arrives in Rhaenyra’s chamber. Dedicated to proving his loyalty to the Greens, Arryk must kill Rhaenyra. However, Erryk meets him. Adapting a key moment in Westerosi history, the battle is big.

It’s well-choreographed, and each hit has an impact. It’s one of the best fights of the series, and the emotional stakes it raises solidify it as a gripping end to House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2. The sequence’s direction is such that neither the audience nor the characters ever truly understand who is who. We don’t see who is a guard and who is an assassin. Instead, we are left guessing as they aim to kill each other, ending in the way that it only can for a fight between two bodies that share one soul.

House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 is great, first and foremost. It pays off the setup of the first and finds its footing as a unique Westerosi story. The last episode was a shadow of the franchise it’s based on. This episode, however, is more than that. It captures what made the first season so substantial, and despite the egos of warring and violent men, women’s pain and power stand at its center.

House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 on MAX (formerly HBO Max) with new episodes every Sunday.