5 questions we have after House of the Dragon’s season 2 finale
The second season of HBO’s House of the Dragon came to an end this past Sunday, and to say that its finale installment has gotten people talking would be an understatement. The Game of Thrones prequel’s latest episode, titled The Queen Who Ever Was, has already been heavily criticized by both casual viewers and TV critics alike, many of whom have been quick to deem it a deeply frustrating, lackluster, and anticlimactic finale. Even those who enjoyed the episode don’t seem particularly interested in downplaying its flaws.
That’s because The Queen Who Ever Was doesn’t wrap up many of its season’s ongoing storylines. Instead, it pushes multiple important subplots right up to the point of no return, but never beyond it. As a result, while the episode isn’t a very satisfying one, it has left us with plenty of questions about what we should expect when House of the Dragon returns.
1. When will Rhaenyra take King’s Landing?
House of the Dragon‘s season 2 finale sets up a major turning point in its central Targaryen civil war, the Dance of the Dragons, when Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) offers to surrender King’s Landing to her longtime rival, Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy). After covertly traveling to Dragonstone, Alicent tells Rhaenyra her plan to open the city’s gates to her and let her take her place on the Iron Throne without contest. However, The Queen Who Ever Was stops short of actually putting Rhaenyra on the Iron Throne.
In fact, the episode simultaneously sets up several other major twists and conflicts still to come, including a battle between the Triarchy and Corlys Velaryon’s (Steve Touissant) fleet and inevitable collisions between different Green and Black Armies in the Riverlands and the Reach. Taking all of that into account, it’s worth speculating about when Alicent will actually enact her plan to put Rhaenyra on the Iron Throne. Will she do so early in House of the Dragon‘s third season, or will the series use Westeros’ forthcoming military conflicts on both the sea and the land to delay Rhaenyra and Alicent’s boldest move yet?
2. How will Rhaenyra react to Aegon’s escape?
In its final moments, The Queen Who Ever Was throws an immediate wrench into Alicent and Rhaenyra’s already tenuous agreement when it reveals that Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) agreed off-screen to Larys Strong’s (Matthew Needham) plan to evade any forthcoming carnage by secretly traveling to Braavos with him. Aegon’s escape represents a major problem specifically for Alicent, whose potential freedom from Rhaenyra’s wrath hinges on her ability to not only surrender King’s Landing, but also hand over her son, Aegon, so that Rhaenyra can end any questions about her claim to the Iron Throne. Now that Aegon has left with Larys and (presumably) told no one of their destination, Alicent won’t be able to completely fulfill her end of her and Rhaenyra’s bargain.
So how will Rhaenyra react to this development? Will she accept her place on the Iron Throne and simply be content to wait until Aegon eventually resurfaces? Will she suspect that Alicent had something to do with her son’s disappearance? If she does, will she extend even more trust to her former best friend, or will she react with understandable suspicion and rage over Alicent’s failure to deliver Aegon to her? As frustrating as House of the Dragon‘s recent treatment of both Alicent and Rhaenyra has been, their canon-breaking deal in the show’s season 2 finale does open the door for their storyline to finally heat back up moving forward.
3. How much does Daemon know about the future?
In one of the House of the Dragon season 2 finale’s strangest and most shocking moments, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) experiences a vision of the future of Westeros after touching the Weirwood tree at Harrenhal. His vision includes glimpses of the White Walker army featured in House of the Dragon‘s HBO predecessor, Game of Thrones, and — even more notably — a brief shot of one of that show’s biggest characters, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), holding her three dragons just after they’ve hatched. Shortly after his experience with Harrenhal’s Weirwood tree, Daemon tells Rhaenyra that the world is “not what we thought it is” and implies that he knows what role he is meant to play in their family’s story. He follows up these remarks by bowing before Rhaenyra and again proclaiming her the rightful heir to the Iron Throne.
As dramatically satisfying as Daemon’s change of heart is in The Queen Who Ever Was, his vision raises a number of questions, not the least of which being: How much does he know now about the future of Westeros? Does he know what is destined to happen to his family throughout the Dance of the Dragons? Does he know the full arc of Daenerys’ story? Even more importantly, does he already know what’s going to happen to him and Rhaenyra? If he does, then how should his knowledge of the future either taint or, at least, alter how House of the Dragon‘s audience views his actions moving forward?
4. Why is Otto Hightower in a cage?
The closing images of House of the Dragon‘s season 2 finale are all fairly self-explanatory — except one. Before it cuts to black for the last time, the episode briefly catches up with one of House of the Dragon‘s maincharacters, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), who has been missing from the show for multiple installments. During its season 2 finale’s climactic montage, Otto is shown waking up in a cage and looking around in confusion at an approaching source of light. His whereabouts are left unclear, as is the identity of the person or being that he’s looking up to see.
The character’s disappearance following his dismissal as Hand of the King has been noted several times on House of the Dragon, but it doesn’t seem as if anyone close to him — or any of his rivals — knows what has happened to him. At first, we — like many Fire & Blood readers — assumed that the HBO series was keeping him off-screen so as to make his involvement in the Triarchy’s eventual attack on the Blacks’ Velaryon fleet as much of a surprise as possible. However, the series seems to have given Otto’s Triarchy plot from Fire & Blood entirely to Aemond and Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall).
It is, therefore, impossible to know where Otto is in the House of the Dragon season 2 finale or who has taken him prisoner because his current storyline is an original invention unique to the show. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate about what has happened to the character since we saw him last. Some fans have even begun to theorize that he may have been taken captive secretly by a Westerosi lord who is loyal to Rhaenyra, but we’ll have to wait until House of the Dragon returns to know the full truth of the matter.
5. Can season 3 avoid season 2’s biggest mistake?
House of the Dragon season 2 didn’t end up being the rousing success so many viewers had hoped it would be. Across its eight weeks on the air, the season hit fans with plenty of breathtaking and memorable moments, but it also spent a lot of time walking in circles, reiterating increasingly tired plot points, and trapping characters in dramatically static situations. The season’s pace felt, at times, glacial, and its finale’s trailer-esque conclusion has only made it feel even more uneven and unfinished. By the time House of the Dragon season 3 premieres in one-and-a half to two years, it will feel as though the show has asked viewers to wait four years for it to get to the, well, good stuff.
In order for its next season to make up for the failures of its first two, House of the Dragon will have to do exactly that — and without delay. The good news is that the series has now put off so many major moments that its third and fourth seasons may turn out to be overflowing with gasp-inducing battles and twists of fate.
At its worst, though, the HBO series has felt reticent to take the big narrative swings that made its parent show, Game of Thrones, such a thrilling achievement for most of its eight-season run. House of the Dragon will have to shake off that hesitation if it ever wants to reach the same heights as its predecessor, but it’s unclear right now whether or not the prequel’s creative team has the interest or confidence necessary to do that.
House of the Dragon seasons 1 and 2 are streaming now on Max.
