Ryan Shoots First: House of the Dragon (S2 Ep3) “The Burning Mill”
The dragons are getting restless as the kingdom inches closer to war in Episode 3 of Season 2 of House of the Dragon. Thrones-verse doesn’t really have “filler” episodes but there are ramp-up episodes. This felt like a ramp-up episode. No real earth shattering things happen but there are some significant character defining moments that will influence how people react going forward. Rhaenyra wants to avoid war at all costs and Alicent isn’t crazy about it either but a theme of this episode seems to be the minds of men all around both so thirsty for war. War brings power, war brings glory and all they see is the status and power they can claim. Sadly as we see in this episode wants can only go so far in this universe and reality often hits even harder.
I do love how the dragons are really depicted as nuclear weapons and when both sides have them we see similar hesitancy as we do in real life. A type of dragon-deterrent exists when both know once that bottle is open there is no closing it till almost everything is burnt to the ground. Another interesting note is most of the dragons are piloted by children and most of them are heirs to some throne or title so it isn’t like they can just sacrifice small folk.
The other big theme is the smaller houses are starting to pledge alliances and gather and even get into scuffles. The tension is spreading in between Dragonstone and the Red Keep and the lesser houses are starting to gear up. So what is everyone to do? Accept it and go all in? One final plea for peace? That is where most of the tension in the episode lies as it really feels we’re already past the point of no return but the key characters aren’t really there yet and are still figuring that out.
Either way next week looks to be a big one as the dragon action picks up and the age of deterrence comes to an end.
Observations
- Man, I love appointment television
- Scheduled > Binge
- New additions to the tapestry!
- The war is spreading
- Dang things didn’t go great for that kid
- Did we time jump?
- Woah
- Man, digging up that rocky dirt would have sucked
- Rhaenys is up on her lore
- Yea, Alicent ain’t guilt free Rhaenyra
- Nice necklace loser
- Kings guard seems a little lax
- I love the marble ball thing
- Them frikin Tullys
- Aemond holding on to that coin
- He didn’t like that
- Yea, we want to see Sunfire!
- Hahaha no one believes that Aegon
- Ahhh, Targaryn’s grace getting them so odd allies… a tradition.
- Seasmoke just wildin’
- Man, that’s a heavy thing to ask
- Here’s our slimy boy and his noodle
- Damn that’s elite right there, Caraxes in the rain on Harenhal is shot of the night
- Why is Daemon going with the wingless helmet?
- “Strongs” huh?
- Haha, poor Harenhall
- Riverlands about to be a warzone
- Moves and counter-moves
- Criston thought “How can I look like more of a tool” then got that haircut.
- So does she just keep those around to give to folks?
- Ewwww take them down, man.
- Turn the table on!
- Dragons really are like nukes, straight deterrence strategy here
- Kill them all Rhaenyra
- I love these two they’re so cute
- Cmon Seasnake wake up man
- Danny’s eggs!!!
- Get all the kids out of here so we can go to war!
- Awww she just wants someone to talk to and maybe picked the WORST person
- Why are the gold cloaks clowns? That seems to be a pretty common trend
- Sir Life of the Party
- We got a bastard running around, and telling folks about it?
- Great point a lot of these folks have probably never even seen the royals
- Aegon is such a bro haha
- That was Lady Hauk Tuah
- Poor Aemond man
- Welp, I’ve seen that now
- Bros horse has some drip
- SPOTTED
- Moondancer aint big but looks cool
- Jace wants to get his dracarys on
- Daemon has trust issues
- YES!!!!! Milly!
- This is a ballsy play
- Good timing
- Man that music
- HAHA These two
- Alicents face haha
- Yea ya dummy, again all you’re similar names caused a war.
- They’re both like “uhhh what do we do now?”
- Wow, that look on her face, she knows what she must do now.
