House of the Dragon Season 2 episode 8 recap: Bow to the queen

“Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” That’s the Charles Dickens gold standard for telling a great story. And depending how you feel about waiting for another possible two-year gap between seasons, the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale either delivers gold, or will leave you like prince of pouts, Jacaerys. No battles start and nobody dies, but there’s payoff aplenty. 

Alyn of Hull gives his biological dad Corlys Velaryon the “you suck” speech to end them all. Tyland Lanister mud-wrestles a pirate queen to make a deal with the Triarchy pirates. Daemon pledges his Riverlands army to Rhaenyra after binge-watching Game of Thrones and realising that he’s not the main character. Halaena not only tells Aemond that she’s never going to fly Dreamfyre to war, she gives him a spooky warning about his own coming death. And Larys convinces Aegon to flee King’s Landing with him, foiling Alicent’s attempt to achieve a bloodless end to the war by promising Rhaenyra that she’ll surrender King’s Landing to her. 

What happened in House of the Dragon Season 2, episode 7

Lord Oscar Tully called the River Lords to meet Daemon at Harrenhal, made Daemon apologise for being a naughty boy, and forced him to behead Lord Willem Blackwood for his house’s atrocities against the Brackens before pledging the Riverlands to Queen Rhaenyra. After seeing Seasmoke bond with Addam of Hull, Rhaenyra smuggled the Dragonseeds away from King’s Landing to Dragonstone to try their luck at bonding with the dragons. In a deadly feast of burning, stomping, and chomping of the unlucky, Vermithor chose Hugh Hammer, while Silverwing chose Ulf. And while Larys kept the rumour of new Dragonriders a secret to spite Aemond for rejecting him as Hand of the King, Aemond found out anyway after Ulf took Silverwing for a joyride over the city like the kid from The Neverending Story. 

Need a refresher? Read the full House of the Dragon Season 2 recaps for: episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episode 4, episode 5, episode 6, and episode 7. Also read the House of the Dragon Season 1 recap and a House of the Dragon Season 2 Who’s Who

Stream House of the Dragon Season 1-2 on Showmax now. New episodes Mondays, express from the US.

Episode 8: Tyland mud-wrestles the Pirate Queen

A red-faced and sweating Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) is in Essos, where he can’t promise the Triarchy pirates enough Lannister gold to win their support as Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) ordered. Even when he promises to surrender The Stepstones (which Corlys and Daemon won control of through over 20 years of bloody battles) to the Triarchy, giving them control of the Narrow Sea along with the right to tax sea traffic, it’s not enough.

He still needs to win the respect of their leader, swaggering and charismatic Pirate Queen Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn). It’s a tall order that eventually sees the two wrestling (fully clothed) in mud to everyone’s amusement, especially Sharako’s. Against the odds, Tyland manages to hold his own. He wins his fleet and a tour of Sharako’s harem, where she’s hoping he’ll give her wives some children. 

Ulf the lout and the prince of pouts

While new dragonriders Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty) and Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) have some notion of how to behave in court, Ulf the White (Tom Bennett) infuriates Prince Jacaerys (Harry Collett) by treating him like a drinking buddy, and propping his feet up on Dragonstone’s Painted Table like a lotto millionaire. But they’re still in the middle of a war, and while Baela (Bethany Antonia) tries to talk Jacaerys out of his most petulant pouting session of the season (Olympic Pouting Gold for Jace), Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) realises that just the threat of superior dragon power might not be enough to win the battle against a madman after Aemond burns the Black-aligned Crownlands town of Sharp Point in a rage.

And after Lord Simon Strong (Russell Beale) sends her a message warning her that Daemon (Matt Smith) is trying to make himself king, she takes Addam as her guard and flies to Harrenhal to finally confront her King Consort, leaving Jacaerys to kick Ulf and Hugh into shape. 

Daemon welcomes Rhaenyra to Harrenhal

Alys Rivers’ (Gayle Rankin) scheming, haunting and witchcraft finally pays off in this episode. When Ser Alfred Broome (Jamie Kenna), who’s supposed to be at Harrenhal to call Daemon into line for Rhaenyra, advises Daemon to take position as King, Daemon accuses him of treason. Realising Daemon is ready to see reason, Alys takes him to Harranhal’s godswood, where she places his hand on their weirwood tree.

Touching the tree’s blood-red sap, Daemon sees the One-Eyed Raven, the White Walkers, dead dragons including Caraxes littering a battlefield, a red comet, Rhaenyra on the Iron Throne, himself drowning, three dragon eggs, and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) hatching her dragons. In his vision, Helaena tells him, “It’s all a story, and you’re but one part in it. You know your part.”

So when Rhaenyra arrives at Harrenhal instead of a fight, she get a changed Daemon, who kneels to her as his Queen, then rallies his army to cheer her, prepared to fight in her name. He tells Rhaenyra that she is the rightful heir for a reason, and that the real war is bigger than any of them. 

Heleana refuses to go to war for Aemond

Meanwhile, after burning down Sharp Point and finding out that Rhaenyra had all the Dragonseeds smuggled out of the city under his nose, Aemond orders Lord Jasper Wylde (Paul Kennedy) to shut down the docks to inspect every boat coming or going. Not done, Aemond barges into Queen Helaena’s (Phia Saban) rooms to demand that she prepare to go to battle on Dreamfyre.

But Helaena digs in her heels. Later when Aemond again tries to get her to fly with him to Harrenhal and destroy Daemon and his army, Helaena asks what he’s going to do if she refuses – burn her like he burned Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney)? Not finished, Helaena tells him what else she has foreseen: “Aegon will be king again … He sits on a wooden throne. And you, you’ll be dead. You are swallowed up in the god’s eye, and you are never seen again.”

Realising that Aemond has tipped into becoming a classic Targaryen maniac, Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) privately urges Aegon to let Larys smuggle him out of the city, only to return as the King once Rhaenyra and Aemond have destroyed one another. Aegon resists, and he gives Larys a graphic breakdown of his injuries (Game of Thrones fans, insert your mental image of Ramsay Bolton waving a sausage). 

Alyn gives Corlys the deadbeat dad speech

As Corlys prepares to set sail for the Gullet, he tries to mend fences with his curt first mate, his unacknowledged illegitimate son, Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim), the man who once saved his life. Corlys wants a working relationship that doesn’t have everyone walking on eggshells, but Alyn has news for him.

He reveals what it was like for him to grow up without a father, to starve and scrounge in rags … and then see his father walking through the market with his legitimate son and heir, little Prince Laenor, dressed in furs and picking out sweet treats for after dinner. For Ayn, Corlys is a boss, the ship is an office, and this company is not his family. It’s a Class-Aegon burn. 

Alicent surrenders to Rhaenyra

After seeing Aemond try to force Helaena to go to war, Alicent has had enough. She convinces Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan) to smuggle her past Lord Jasper’s new lockdown of the King’s Landing docks and goes to see Rhaenyra at Dragonstone. During a tough conversation, Alicent offers to order her guards to open the city to Rhaenyra and her forces in a guaranteed peaceful surrender in exchange for her and Helaena’s safety and freedom.

Even when Rhaenyra points out that she is going to have to behead Aegon to end the war, Alicent concedes. Aegon will die, and Aemond will have to fend for himself. 

A promising ending

The final scenes set up some intriguing moments for Season 3 (confirmed in June 2024). We catch a glimpse of the Starks’ Winter Wolves passing through The Twins on their way to Riverrun, while Daemon sets off to lead his army from Harrenhal. We see a grubby Lord Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) in a prison of some sort. Prince Daeron and his dragon Tessarion fly above the Lannister army as they finally march to battle. Larys Strong manages to smuggle Aegon out of King’s Landing. And after wandering lonely as a cloud over hill and dale for the past two episodes, Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) finally comes face-to-face with the dragon she is determined to claim, Sheepstealer. 

Correction from episode 7 recap: Hugh Hammer’s mother wasn’t Daemon and Viserys’ half-sister. King Jaehaerys I disowned his ninth child, Saera Targaryen (Daemon and Viderys’ Aunt), and sent her to the equivalent of a nunnery as punishment for her promiscuity. Instead, she ran away and eventually earned enough money to start her own brothel in Volantis.

Stream House of the Dragon Season 1-2 on Showmax now. New episodes Mondays, express from the US.