REVIEW: House of the Dragon S02 EP07 Rhaenyra's plan works

The seventh and penultimate episode of the second season of The House of the Dragon (House of the Dragon), titled as The Red Seeding, was written by David Hancock (The Crown) and directed by Loni Peristere (The Witcher e American Horror Story). 

Now, all the expectations are related to the fact that we want to see the conflict between Greens and Blacks reaching its peak. On one side, we have Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) and on the other, Prince Aemond as regent, while his brother King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) recovers from his serious injuries. Battle of Pouso de Gralhas.

NOTICE: Attention, this text contains SPOILERS of the episode. It is recommended that you watch it before continuing reading.

The Red Seeding

This time we see less of King's Landing and more of Dragonstone. Unfortunately, Daemon's (Matt Smith) visions lasted a little longer, but it is clear that the seventh and penultimate episode is about Rhaenyra and her strategy to regain the throne in the midst of the Targaryen civil war. 

Rhaenyra's strategy

Without much suspense, Rhaenyra meets Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), the new knight of Seasmoke. In a spectacular photograph, we can see the two on opposite sides with their respective dragons, alone. He doesn't hesitate to show his support for her and is eager to learn more about his new role in all of this. Despite this, even when asked, he prefers not to reveal details about his ancestry and connection to Corlys Velaryon. 

Upon returning to Dragonstone, Rhaenyra shares the news and hope about Addam with her then confidant, Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), but still isn't sure where she can find more knights who have the same potential. However, instead of stepping back and letting insecurity take over, she understands that the Targaryens had many children out of wedlock, so there are many options to choose from across the kingdom. At that moment it was decided that an army of bastards would be created. 

As said in previous reviews, the characters that will become important now, such as Hugh (Kieran Bew) and Ulf (Tom Bennett) should have had a more in-depth presentation before, as their sporadic scenes throughout the season ended up putting them in a context of irrelevance, since the focus was always on royalty. In a way, the work of these characters was left until the seventh and penultimate episode, but at least the proposed dynamic ends up working well. 

In terms of creative adaptation, unlike the book, the series decides to introduce Ulf and Hugh as commoners of King's Landing, but they made a point of maintaining the key points and the search for alliance and service to Rhaenyra Targaryen and her family. In addition to the duo, some other knights travel to Pedra do Dragão to take a chance. Some of the dragon guardians don't approve of this strategy and end up leaving. 

Just like in the previous episode, Rhaenyra takes the candidates to meet Vermithor, the second largest dragon after Vhagar. As if it were a dejavu, as soon as the first knight appears, nothing goes as expected. The chaos begins with Vermithor spouting fire on the man and several other candidates. This causes many to run to the dragon pits.

In electrifying scenes, the dragon continues to chase, set fire to, trample and chew anyone who passes in front of it. But in a gesture of extreme courage, Hugh confronts him. And by demonstrating that he had nothing to lose, he conquered the dragon. Rhaenyra had a certain conscience for having once again sacrificed lives, but as the saying goes, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

Now Ulf went deeper and deeper into the depths of the moat. He ends up bumping into Asaprata (Silverwing) who, without much of a show, already chooses him as a knight. Naturally, as he is inexperienced, when riding the dragon for the first time, he ends up flying towards King's Landing and scaring all the city's inhabitants. This draws the attention of the Small Council and causes Aemond to rush to mount Vhagar and pursue Ulf with Silverwing to Dragonstone.

And here comes the icing on the cake. Aemond is a coward, of course he will use the advantage of having conquered the largest dragon in existence whenever he can, even if the battles are visibly unbalanced, the important thing for him is to annihilate the enemy. But this time, Aemond decides to back down. This is because he comes across at least three dragons surrounding Rhaenyra and understands that the number, for the first time, can overcome Vhagar's size. 

Daemon's visions continue...

O previous episode, entitled The Commoners, masterfully tied Daemon's bow of redemption with his dead brother. Even so, The Dragon House chose to go beyond the point and extend the prince's hallucinations with Viserys (Paddy Considine) for another week – something completely unnecessary. 

With war about to break out, we need to understand Daemon's attitudes in reality, especially with the latest events and the surprisingly positive and challenging return of Oscar Tully (Archie Barnes). The prince's efforts to conquer the Riverlands were failing so far. But with the death of Grover Tully and the sudden change in Tully's behavior, the winds change direction.

That quiet boy became an incisive and courageous person. Oscar makes his repulsion towards Daemon clear but insists on honoring his grandfather's oath and uses this argument to convince Riverland to cooperate. 

King's Landing in the background

In King's Landing, we follow Alicent through a crisis and deep reflection, reevaluating her place in the kingdom as a whole. She is also recovering from the wound acquired during the riot around the Sept, in an attempt to escape with her daughter. Now she shares a scar on her arm similar to the one Rhaenyra suffered in the first season.

So to try to get away from all this, at least for a moment, Alicent asks Ser Rickard Thorne (Vincent Regan), a member of the royal guard, to accompany her on a walk in the forest and watch over her while she decides to take a bath in the lake. This moment could be discarded, but it was very important to delve deeper into Alicent's mind.

As Rhaenyra grows stronger, she leaves herself increasingly vulnerable. A fact that is worrying because it is a return in the middle of a war, but on the other hand it is a way of maintaining the humanization of the character – work that has been done since the beginning of the second season. 

For now, the only positive point in favor of the greens is Daeron, Alicent's son who we haven't met yet, but who has already been briefly mentioned in a conversation with Gwayne (Freddie Fox). With him grown up and his dragon Tessarion grown up as well, they can bring hope of altering the Black team's advantage. Something that seems unlikely, since, despite the Greens having a stronger army and counting on Vhagar, they are now at a numerical disadvantage in relation to the dragons.

Characters and performances

After some time in the background, Emma D'Arcy shines again. The last minutes of the episode in which Rhaenyra needs to deal with Vermithor's fury but soon after feels confident for the war to come, are enough to leave everyone glued to the screen, wanting to see more.

Still within this core, Harry Collett is increasingly trying to expand his character and managed to do so very well in this episode, especially when the fact that Jace is Harwin Strong's son and the entire dynamic with Rhaenyra was mentioned.

Although King's Landing was left aside for us to have a good immersion in Dragonstone, Olivia Cooke in her little screen time, once again, managed to deliver the essence of Alicent. Her scene at the lake is very symbolic and the search for freedom and purification became even more visible. 

Finally, it's cool to follow King Aegon II's improvement because, despite the character being hateful, Tom Glynn-Carney is a great actor and plays his role very well. It's one of those cases where we don't want the character to have a good ending, but we want them to get better because they're fun to hate.

Technical aspects

The episode has an impeccable soundtrack, performed by Ramin Djawadi, who manages to transport the audience and immerse them even more in each of the areas. Furthermore, the images by cinematographer Vanja Cernjul also deserve recognition.

Plus, there are dragons. Many. And the visual effects continue to deliver high quality, showing that the sequences of scenes with them were probably the most expensive part of all of the second season of The House of the Dragon.

On the other hand, the rhythm is not that interesting. The episode does not intersperse scenes of different cores and characters enough. Plus, we spend a lot of time following arcs that, at the moment, aren't all that interesting, at least for most of the first half of the episode. Just like the sixth episode, The Red and Gold Dragon, this one also gets more interesting in the second part and the end. 

Conclusion

In general, this second season has followed a slower path to portray the Dance of Dragons and the focus was almost entirely on the development of the characters, on the dramatic arcs of the interpersonal and political relationships of the houses, leaving little space for the actual action. . 

It's not a bad thing at all, as this whole path led to one of the most interesting episodes of the season which, despite still maintaining a slower pace and a focus on dialogue, focuses on the black team's claim to the dragons and offers the momentum that We needed high expectations with the eighth and final episode of the season. 

Where to watch

The seven episodes released from the second season of The Dragon House are available at Max. The final episode will be released next Sunday (4) at 22pm.

Text revised by Wanessa Alves on July 29, 2024.

See the video

See also other features

REVIEW: House of the Dragon S02 EP06 Rhaenyra finally wakes up to life (with help)

REVIEW: House of the Dragon S02 EP05 behind the scenes of the war