‘House of the Dragon’ Episode 10 Reactions | Talk the Thrones
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Hello and welcome to Talk the Thrones for the season finale of House of the Dragon. My name is Chris Ryan and I now work at the Dragon Valet parking at Storm's End. There's a lot of room for promotion. Joining me as always is Ringer Senior Staff Writer Joanna Robinson and Corliss Valerian's personal trainer Mallory Rubin. The TV 12 works!

What's up, you two? What an amazing season finale, right? Yeah. Yes, Chris. I'm so delighted you popped the old sapphire into your eye hole for this recording to make it a real formal event. Mallory, Joe, it's fantastic to see you. Here we are on Sunday night in America. We have a new National League champion. We have a new Civil War brewing. What a day for you. In Westeros. And so let's start big picture.

Joanna, was that a satisfying finale for you? I thought so. I have like some questions, but overall I thought in terms of like delivering a big spectacle that also has real human emotional stakes to it, like this is the ideal combo for a Thrones episode. Yeah. Mel? Agreed. I agree.

I think I probably have the same couple of questions and notes as Joe does. But overall, I thought that was really strong. And honestly, it's been a minute since my heart was racing quite like that, watching an hour of TV, which might have something to do with watching it in real time and then immediately coming to pod about it.

but the caliber of the performances and that blend of the highly intimate human stakes and the awe-inspiring Only Thrones-style spectacle, having all of that here in the finale, and the

the dual finale nature that we now see in the season with the Green Council, green centric penultimate episode and the Black Council, Rhaenyra centric finale. It just feels like a more cohesive conclusion to the season now after seeing this. Look who dropped a segue. It's Mallory. Let me pick it up for you.

Because my next question, Mal, if we can go a little bit TV structural, is I was curious whether for the two of you that worked. So obviously, in some ways, you could look at episode eight as the penultimate episode. That was obviously when Viserys passes away. It's the moment the families are still together. So we get to see all these characters interacting. It's got a lot of drama, but...

The last two episodes sort of function as two sides of one finale in a lot of ways. We've got the greens one and the blacks one, as you mentioned, Mal. Jo, did you like the way that that was handled by the creative side here, by the showrunners? Yeah, I was really curious if that's what we were going to get after the entirely green-centric episode last week. And like a little green seeped in here, right? A little autumn. Autumn made a cameo. Yeah.

But, you know, Allison is only present in the form of a, you know, a page ripped out of a book many years ago. What a message to send. What a thing to hold on to. And,

and I, I liked that moment to really consider these two women and the parallels between their positions. And it helps us really analyze and understand the differences in their characters, but also the very similar positions that they're put in here. Um, in the, inside the, uh, episode interview, Miguel Sebastian, I call them sister episodes, uh, nine and 10. So yeah, just, that's definitely how they were thinking. Signing off. This has been Miss Miguel Sebastian. My last, my last,

Yeah. I just want to know if you're the third sister in this case.

Yeah, I was going to bring up, Talia. No, I just want to note for the record that if, you know, years in the future, after our many hours of podcasting together, either of you or Steve or Arjuna or anyone from our beautiful Ringerverse family sends me a little like Zoom audio clip, something like that, to harken back to all of our time together, my emotional response will hinge on whether or not you've usurped my throne. So that'll depend.

I'm going to definitely do that. I'm going to definitely do that. I'm setting you a little clip of you being like, I couldn't do this pod without you, Chris. You're the best. Remember this? All right. So we have a ton to get through. We have a ton of pretty interesting, pretty fascinating deviations from accepted Thrones history that happened in this episode that we're going to get into. And we're also going to talk dragons. We're going to talk about my boy Luke gone too soon. So let's get into the recap. Okay.

If we shall live from Dragonstone, the world's least likely naval strategist, Luke McBain Targaryen is really regretting the career choices that others have made for him. And his mother who knows something about having the weight of the world dumped on you at a young age tries to soothe him. Now I just want to make one note here, which is that Corliss Valerian is apparently still under the weather in the no cameras allowed wing of Driftmark Grace Memorial Hospital. Speedy recoves my guy.

Family time comes to an end when Renise arrives via Celadragon to tell Rhaenyra about how her dad has finally succumbed to his decades of debilitating illness and limb loss. And Aegon has been named king of the realm. Dame and Rhaenyra grieve Viserys in their different ways. Both seem to assume he was murdered and they ask Renise why she didn't light Aegon's ass up when she had the chance. Renise has a great line about... Damon's been reading Twitter. Yeah. That would be great if they just shot this a week later after Twitter's reaction. Yeah.

All this gets put to the side when Rhaenyra unexpectedly goes into labor. There's some question as to who is calling the shots at Dragonstone, but no matter what, Daemon always gets the best lines. Like most births on this show, this one does not go well. After a quick recovery for Rhaenyra and a quick funeral for her stillborn child, she is greeted by Aeric, who has both the crown and

and a pledge of allegiance for her. We go to Rhaenyra's first war room where she is being subtly challenged by Rhaenys and overtly challenged by Daemon, who seems to be doing triple duty as husband, general, and hand. Their war footing is challenged by Otto, who they meet on the same bridge where Daemon was confronted years ago.

Otto asks for their surrender and Damon straight up lets the Philadelphia out, calling Egon a drunken cunt and threatening to stuff Otto's withered dick into his own mouth. I want this line clipped and put over the video of Bryce Harper celebrating on second base during game five of the NLCS. This is my fucking house.

Rhaenyra asks him to put a pin in it and get back to Otto tomorrow. During a very intense conversation with Daemon, during which Daemon puts his hand around Rhaenyra's throat, it becomes obvious that Viserys never shared the dream of ice and fire with Daemon. It also becomes obvious that Daemon is a big believer in dragons and not so much in anything else. Back on Driftmark, Corlys returns from his Kawhi Leonard-esque resque and...

And he wants to retire, but Rhaenys sees something in the Deposed Queen that she respects. Corlys decides to declare both for Rhaenyra and give the most important push alert ever. The triarchy is crushed. The Blacks hold the Narrow Sea. Everyone seems buoyed by this news, and they decide to send some children on dragon back to do some messaging. Seems like a flawless plan. Luke,

Luke flies to Storm's End to convince Boros Baratheon to reaffirm his allegiance to the Blacks. It's a dark and stormy night. Boros Baratheon is doing his part to conserve energy and a candlelit throne room. Who does Luke find but his old sparring partner, Aemond? It turns out the one-eyed Targ has added an unprotected draft pick of Betrothment to his trade package and Boros loves it. Loves it.

Loves what he hears. Luke is sent packing, but not before Aemon asks him to cut out his own eye. Funnily enough, this same thing happened to me at a bar in Boston in the late 90s. I did not have a dragon, though. Luke demurs, gets on his teenage dragon's back, and flies away. Aemon chases him down, talking trash high above Storm's End. Luke has seemingly made his escape when his dragon, Arix...

We're going to find out if I'm right about that. Goes hot route, hot route, hot route and buzzes the tower on Aemon's dragon, singeing Vhagar's whiskers. Vhagar decides enough with this shit and well, she eats Luke basically. We end the season with Rhaenyra finding out what happened to her carrier pigeon. She looks very pissed. This is why you send ravens.

Wow. Incredible. Alzheimer. They're getting longer and longer. I'm glad this is the last one. Of all the things we're going to miss about covering House of the Dragon, your recaps. Who knew? I finally found my calling. It's been a while. Okay, so I guess...

we still have to work out some kinks on the driving options for dragons, the self-driving options. Am I right to understand that Eryx and Vhagar took matters into their own hands in that scene? Because they basically have in that final scene or in that final set piece, uh,

Both Luke and Aemon seem to be trying to get their dragons under control and lose control of them. Yeah. Most of us are not fluent in Valyrian, yours truly included. But a phrase that a lot of us know is Valadoris, right? All men must serve. And like, Dwar is the, like, that's the verb that they're both shouting, like, obey me. Obey me to their dragons as their dragons are out of control. And Valador,

This and maybe one other thing are the thing that book readers have the biggest question mark about out of this episode because...

This is a battle that takes place on a dark and stormy night, as you said, or I guess mid-afternoon. It's hard to tell when storms end, yeah. Over Shipbreaker's Bay. And so you only have like Amon's word for it, what happened out there, right? Because folks on shore are just squinting into the cloud cover, seeing two dragons go at it. But I think...

So this is, you could call it a change, or if Aemon comebacks and claims he did it on purpose, which is sort of what the inside the episode interview sort of implies, that he might come back and be like, yeah, I meant to do that. I think what this is leaning into is that Viserys quote we got in the very first episode of the season, when he says everyone, you know, and Rhaenyra says something similar in this episode, everyone says Targaryens are closer to gods than to men, but they say that because of our dragons. Without them, we're just like everyone else.

And so I think the thesis statement, apparently, of this series is just sort of like,

How can you have dragon peace? You can only have dragon wars because of the nature of dragons and the nature of people like a daemon who believes in taking the dragon approach to the world. You know, dreams didn't make us kings. Dragons did. He's fully bought in to this idea, you know? But it's...

He's hawkish about dragons. But even like, you know, even a little from a little baby, like A-Rex, R-Ex, whatever we want to call Luke's dragon. Yeah.

to a veteran, a war vet like Vhagar, a war criminal herself, Vhagar. You know, there's only so much a Targaryen can do on top of those beasts. So Mal, Joe mentioned that this deviates from what people thought they understood about what happened in The Skies Above Storm's End, right? Like that this was explicitly Aemon kills Luke, right?

And now it kind of makes it seem like, do you think that the show is doing a little character softening of Amon? Amon? I don't know why I called him Amon. Amon? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think there are a couple through lines of the season that feel increasingly clear after watching that climactic, very specific,

Very sad and harrowing sequence. One of them is the one that Joe just mentioned, this real theme of the capricious nature of dragons and the hubris of trying to control them, of thinking you can. The Viserys quote that Joe read was the one on my mind most watching that episode, and I was also thinking of

The Caprice of Dragons, who can know the mind of such a beast, which is the fire and blood line when Aemond claims Vhagar. And the other, I think that this like the subtle updating here of how much of this was outright intentional murder in the fire and blood account and how much of this was a mistake, I think is even though these are different.

A little bit of a piece with Allison's misinterpretation of Viserys' final words and the fact that these characters cannot totally wrap their arms around Viserys.

a conversation, let alone a dragon, right? And that really heightens the tragedy. You know, I'm curious to see, much like in the wake of episode nine, the response to that, that Allison's interpretation of Viserys's final words. I'm curious to see what the response is to this Aemon thing. But I think it just makes this even more deeply, deeply sad. And

you know, if you go back and look at the passages, on the one hand, I will have your eye or your life strong. There's not like a ton of wiggle room there. However, I think that

The actual fight above Shipbreaker Bay is, as Joe noted, observed from afar. How can it not be? And so this is this larger through line as well of the way that history makes its way down across the word of mouth into the printed page, into our hands as readers and viewers. So I think that there's a way that this tracks and really heightens the

family unit just disintegrating in front of us, a theme that is also heightened in episodes nine and 10 as these teams and factions that should be working toward common cause are constantly at odds with each other. There's a lot of human error there. And then you're trying to wrap your arms around magic. So I was trying to kind of wrap my head around this because I,

There was part of me that felt like, so they have this story essentially laid out. It's in these books. They can do a little bit in the margins to experiment or misdirect or get creative about what happened, quote unquote. But for the most part, they have a blueprint that they have to follow. And it's interesting that the things that they have added as...

or, you know, not twists, but as their own sort of creations are about misunderstandings, you know? And for a second, I was like, I'm not so sure I love that. It seems like a little, not haphazard, but bringing human error into this, I was like, or like just like games of telephone. I was like, is that why I watch games of telephone?

I watch Game of Thrones. But then when you think about it, that is how Game of Thrones started is fucking Bran climbing up into that window. You know what I mean? Like the Game of Thrones itself is propelled forward by these kinds of like, you would never believe that this happened, but this kid caught Jaime and Cersei and the whole thing fell apart. Or Joffrey taking Ned's head, right? 100%. That's what I was going to say. Tywin's war council knocking over the cup and saying, there's your piece. You know, Joffrey saw to that when he decided to remove Ned Stark's head. And so why,

Exactly what is going through Aemon's mind and seeing here that he's saying no and trying to stop Vhagar and seeing that little Luke cannot quite control Arax. Like the, the really heart wrenching thing is that at the end of the day, the outcome is the same. And I think that connects to another through line of Rhaenys and other characters hitting this idea in recent episodes of like, what does it matter? Which is a deeply, deeply dismaying thing to confront, especially when you have these kinds of weapons in your hand. Like,

We're all Andor heads here, right? Like our guy Luthen said, turning back will be impossible. Something like this happens and whatever you intended is ultimately irrelevant and that just makes it all the more

upsetting to think of what's lost from here. And I think what's really important, speaking of good old Ned Stark, before he lost his head, you know, like, there's one of my, oddly, one of my favorite lines in season one when Varys goes to visit the Black Cell, he talks about Rob leading an army, and Ned says, Rob, he's just a boy. And, like, we talked about the casting of these kids here and how it's even clearer in this show that these are children. Okay, like, the actor playing Aemond looks a bit older, obviously, but, like,

Luke looking so young. Eric's looking so young. You know, like, his little wings not being able to keep up in the storm. Like, just even when they were setting out, I was just, like, pretty devastated by what I was looking at. But, like, the idea that, like, and, you know, and Mallory brought up Joffrey taking Ned's head, which is just such a huge...

huge things that happened that like nobody, Cersei didn't want to happen. That wasn't the plan. But Joffrey's a boy, a boy king. You know what I mean? So what are these, what happens when children are involved in these high stakes situation? A key line, I think from Fire and Blood in this passage is,

It says, the tragedy that befell Lucerys Velaryon at Storm's End was never planned. On this, all of our sources agree. Right? So I think they find, like, when you see these decisions that they make, there's usually, like, a line from Fire and Blood that they definitely seized on. And we're like, wouldn't this make it even more, even juicier if that idea of never planned is a tenet?

a terrible, terrible accident that happens in the storm, you know? And to your point you made earlier, Mal, about the idea that essentially, like, you know, that these sort of, like, happenings are what is propelling this larger mythology and this feeling like a prophecy is coming true. You know, I think that even though Alicent essentially is like, oh, I heard it. This is what Viserys said, like, that is dying breath. So, like, we have to now name Aegon King. Otto was going to do that anyway.

You know, like when they get to this small capsule meeting out, it was like, yeah, we've been planning this for like quite some time. So anyway, I just thought, I thought that was interesting to watch the show kind of break from the books, but also still be like ultimately true to the books. Well, Chris, to that last point though, that just makes me think of one of the opening notes of this finale, which was Raniera saying to Luke doing his classic job snow. I don't want it yet again. I don't want it. We don't choose our destiny, Luke. It chooses us. And yeah,

I was on the one hand, like sure that tracks because Rhaenyra is a character who has inherited the weight and burden of this prophecy from her father. And we see the way throughout this episode that the, the, the heaviness of those words influence her to the, to the point where she has to think about whether to preserve the, the, the unity of the realm with those words in mind or her own life's quests and purpose, right?

But also how inherently at odds a line like that is with a story like this where characters are constantly, constantly thinking about their own choices and acting in a way that challenges some sort of larger destiny, often as is a quintessential fantasy story thing.

about the very fate that they would seek to avoid through those actions. So I think that that's like a real through line here as well. Choice and destiny and how you can pursue choice and the maintaining of agency in your own life if you think that there's this larger thing hanging over you. And obviously that's something that is going to be a wedge between many of the characters who are, in theory, otherwise quite aligned. Well, I was going to say, you know what else...

Rhaenyra says in that scene, she says that Viserys taught her how to be a leader. And I was like, did he though? Wasn't that like our main Viserys critique? Yeah. That he didn't do that for her? No. Speaking of driving a wedge, and obviously there's a wedge between Rhaenyra and Daemon. So let's talk about this fireside chat that they have. Jo. Yeah.

There's going to be a lot of different readings of... There was a lot of ambiguity in this scene. Let's just put it that way. So obviously the physical violence of it. Then there's also the aspect of Rhaenyra almost in a state of shock, disbelief, and mild amusement that she knows something that Daemon doesn't about ruling. And I thought it was a fascinating scene. I think it'll be controversial. What did you make of...

When you left that scene, how much do you think Damon knew about the Song of Ice and Fire, or does he know nothing at all? I think he knew nothing at all. So my... I'm...

I feel so uncertain of my read on this scene, and I was really hoping that they would address it in the inside of the episode, and they have not yet that I have seen as of recording this, so I'm curious. I don't think they did. Yeah, so I'm curious to see if any interviews come out that have shed further light. I bet they will. Yeah, that maybe Mallory and I can chew over on Tuesday. So I will say this is the other big moment I think that people are having, book readers in general or Damon fans or however you want to put it, are having out of this episode, this choking moment.

So I'll just answer your question, which is like my read on it is that I don't think that Damon knew about Song of Ice and Fire at all, that he lashes out much the way that he lashed out before the Battle of the Stepstones, sort of like beating a messenger near to death, right? Lashes out violently, right?

When he understands that this is, like, yet another thing that Viserys has left him out of, all he ever wanted was to be Viserys' right-hand man, and Viserys didn't trust him with this key piece of information. He, like, you know, these two people have just lost a child, and...

They've lost Viserys. They're in this, like, extreme... I'm not making any excuses for anyone. But, like, this is the stew that they're all cooking in, right? And I think that... I love that little sneer from Rhaenyra. That little chuckle sneer from her. Like, oh, you didn't even know. The fracture that they're trying to show us in this marriage where they each... I thought it was really interesting on the inside of the episode where they were talking about how, basically, Rhaenyra has...

some Daemon Targaryen in her, but when push comes to shove, when the crown goes on her head, she's more her father than she is her husband or uncle. Which is confirmed even more when she's like, I share this vision now. And he's just like, oh, great. So I married Viserys. Right. And he's like, I was so frustrated for so long by how Viserys, you know, ran the realm. And I thought I was marrying another dragon. Like, I thought we were going to be two dragons together and do this. And I'm just back with my brother again. The fuck?

And, you know, what comes next is awful. But I think that's what, you know, the wheels that are turning his head. What do you think, Mallory? Yeah, you know, obviously an incredibly upsetting scene that I am still processing. I certainly...

took note of the fact that Damon's general position in that exchange and also across the episode is the exact inverse of what Viserys said to Alicent in front of the fire in episode three during the hunt when he said, what is the power of a dragon against the power of prophecy? Damon is flipping that completely. What is the power of prophecy against the power of dragons? And that is inherent in

to his worldview and the very Targaryen centric nature of his outlook. Um,

Thinking back to the confrontations that Daemon and Viserys had in the throne room in episodes one and two, I'm your brother, the blood of the dragon runs thick. You are the dragon. Your word is truth and law. This is the entirety of how Daemon thinks about himself and his role in the world, often because it's the only thing that he's had to latch onto when he's felt cast aside or left out. And I think, Jo, what you said about

This this sense of of feeling outside yet again of Viserys is most sacred in her life and truth. Certainly not excusing what he does, which is horrific, but absolutely seemed to be propelling his behavior there. And I mean, Davin killed his wife. So like it made sense can like character consistency wise to me for sure.

I think there's some people who had the read. It's similar to sort of like Jamie Lannister, where you're like, I think some people were tracking, hoping to track a cleaner arc with Damon. That's not who Damon is. But I think people were like, okay, now he's with Rhaenyra. Now he's like where he's meant to be. Oh, it's going to be different now. But like, you know, just like with Jamie Lannister, like we don't arc cleanly. We slide back and forth on scales and stuff like that. So I think...

I think he was happy to be in service to her, which is what we saw in episode eight, until he understood that what they wanted, they were at complete cross-purposes. Yeah. And it's similar to, I mean, it's meant to be an overt reflection of the Otto-Allison fracture in last week's episode, where we're watching Otto's like, hey, Allison, you and I are in this game together. And then when they have their...

split over do we push forward to war and kill Rhaenyra or do we try to do this as peaceably as possible? And that's the exact same split that we're seeing here. We're seeing, you know, and it's not an accident that we're seeing two men pushing towards something and these two women try to hold on to like the tattered remains of their bond and their friendship and peace and

And again, that's a different interpretation of then what's in Fire and Blood, but I think it's a really interesting one. Yeah, I mean, it seems like there's characters in various points, like I mentioned with Aemon, he's getting, is he getting softened? Was it Allison somewhat softened towards the end of the season versus the way she's sort of depicted in Fire and Blood? Yeah. Oh,

them. Rhaenyra too. Like Rhaenyra in Fire and Blood in this episode, she's like, they stole my crown. Fuck them. Kill them. Like, right. You know, it doesn't take, I mean, I imagine that's more of what we're going to see from her after that incredible face that Emma Darcy pulls at the end of this episode, that that is what we're going to see kicking off next season from, um,

Rhaenyra and Amidarsi said in the inside of the episode, you know, like everything changes, of course, like Luke dies, everything changes for Rhaenyra. But the Rhaenyra that we get in Fire and Blood is awful.

ready to go to war immediately. You know what I mean? So this inside the marriage fissure is a show invention. And I think it's an interesting parallel with that Alison Otto fissure. Yeah, I think that the parallel there is strong and clear across these two episodes. I always...

Okay, so Chris, what you said a minute ago about how, you know, Damon killed his wife and it's only a couple episodes ago that he's uttering aloud, we're all capable of depravity and has done like a lot of hideous things, right? So I think we all agree that

it's not a shock that for Damon's character, that this character is capable of doing something horrific. No, it's that he's doing it to Rhaenyra, yeah. Right, it's inside of their relationship, but also I think I do always, even if it tracks with his larger nature and presentation in the text, I...

I always have a little bit of a hard time when inside of the televised Thronesverse, they heighten or increase some sort of domestic violence or in other cases, in other episodes of the past, like sexual violence when that's not there on the

on the page that always is a, is a difficult thing to, to understand. And so like Joe said, I'm eager to hear more of the thinking of, of why specifically that felt like the choice to make with Damon in that moment. More broadly, I think like what Joe said about the fact that the men inside of these respective camps and alliances are, are,

are the ones who are advocating for a more violent course. And even for Damon, like, there are so many lines in this episode that are pulled right from Fire and Blood, much more so than in any other episode of the season. Is the withered cock one pulled from Fire and Blood? No. Sadly not. That's an original one. A Matt Smith original? Okay. But, like, the line that Damon has in this episode about how...

It's hard for a person to kill a dragon, but dragons can kill dragons. It's a line right from Fire and Blood, but the meaning and the intent behind it is inverted. And the text, he uses it to say, let's hit pause here before we send our dragons out to war. Damon does that? Yes. Let's go recruit. Let's win other houses to our cause. Let's figure out how we can lock down a certain stronghold in a key location. But let's not be rash with the dragon math.

And so I think that like heightening that patriarchy, it made me think too of a moment like,

his conversations with Lena and Pentos, where we see him reading, reading, learning about this Valerian history and Targaryen history, which I assume is fueling this solibuntal Vermithor, which I'm interested to talk about soon. But like, what was one of the things that he said to Lena in that episode? He was talking about how they had no place that they belonged and how it was also a relief to him to be rid of the politicking. And I think that part of what Daemon says

understands to be true about himself is that this kind of world brings out the worst in him. Yeah. That this sort of politicking awakens the darkness inside of him. And that's true for a lot of these characters. It's not always the thing that they truly desire or want. When Allison hands that page over...

there's a part of that that's certainly sincere, the warmth and love that she still holds for Rhaenyra. And then there's a part of that that is totally warped by the campaign that all of these characters are waging. And that's ultimately what this story is about.

Damon really is the manifestation of the Bugs Bunny, Lord forgive me, I'm about to go back to the old me meme. Joe, I wanted to mention in a different scene in this episode, just to kind of keep throwing our arms around the whole thing, because I don't think that you can separate the choking scene from the labor scene. And you're mentioning Lena Mallory. So Lena obviously dies in childbirth, but also by her own dragon hand, I guess. Yeah.

And I was very, very curious what you two thought of Damon's

uh, lack of inattentiveness to, to Rhaenyra during that whole moment and whether or not we should read that as callousness or fear and, and being frozen by on his part. I also thought it was very interesting that he did not seem to have much command of the table of people around him who were kind of like, do you want to go check on your wife? Like, we don't have to do this right this second. You don't have to go to the Riverlands right now. Like, what did you, what did you think of that, Joe?

I thought it was really interesting. To Mal's point earlier, usually when we prep for these episodes, I will copy into a document the relevant passages from Fire and Blood, and usually it's just a handful. This is pages and pages and pages. And I think it's because this sequence in the book has a lot more dialogue than other sequences in the book, so full passages are airlifted into dialogue into this episode. So I was looking at the lengthy passage of this

horrific labor that Rhaenyra goes into, and Daemon's name is not mentioned once in that whole stretch. And so I was like... Because I was looking, I was like, okay, was he there in the book? And not, you know, I was like, no, his name isn't even mentioned. So it's not a question or an issue. He's not even, like, really involved in any of it in the book. I think the most charitable read is that this is some sort of, like, Lena, you know, trauma layover. But, like, he has...

Rhaenyra has had two children with him since then in the intervening time, not coming early and not so alarmingly as this one does. But it is incredibly callous. It's like callous is actually a gentle, you know, it's horrific that he is plotting a war while she's screaming. That's a line from Fire and Blood that screams are echoing around Dragonstone as she's like going into labor. But like the fact that...

Again, I don't think that Daemon wants to snatch the throne from anyone, but there is a little bit of that in this episode because... I read that more as like he envisions... I mean, he's so similar to Otto in so many ways, but that he basically envisions a world in which he is king in name, in everything but name. And that Rhaenyra is essentially... That they are in lockstep on how they want to rule the world. And then when she starts to deviate from that...

At all. Like that he's, he, but he, I guess he's, he's reacting that way before that even happens before she even gets the crown. I think that a choice to do this, leaving Demon's character out of it, a storytelling choice to do this is to underline the ways in which Rhaenyra's gender, this, this box that she has been placed in, the exact box her mom was placed in that she feared and did not, you know, like her whole life.

That she has found happiness as a mother, that this hasn't been a horrific, traumatic, we've already seen a birth from her. But in this key, crucial moment, she is kept out of the room because of her gender, specifically. And so I think him being able to go forth with his plans is,

at the exact same time that she is stuck in her, trapped in her room and can only send her like teenage son to try to sort of like ineffectually speak on her behalf, I think is a really key underlining of this long time struggle for Rhaenyra with her own gender. What's like the opening note of the series? It's Rhaenyra arriving from her flight on Dragonback and going to see her mother who says the child bed is our battlefield. Yeah.

And for that to...

be so fully at the fore for Rhaenyra at a literal dawning of war, a moment when the men in her life are gathering and amassing around the painted table to talk about how to take that battlefield. And she cannot be there to be a part of it. Yeah, all of those themes from the entire season are present in that moment. So another really disciplined

Stretch from Damon! Really? I mean, because you can, like Joe said, like hearing the screams echoing through. And it, of course, it connects also to Emma and Viserys and Balon as well, because we go to the funeral where we're, of course, thinking back to seeing little Balon on the pyre.

seeing Emma on the pyre. And for that to also be the moment, that moment of loss and grief and despair that Rhaenyra is crowned, is there a more...

absolutely unmooring but apt encapsulation of this character's journey than that. It's also something where you can make the argument that losing that child prepares her to lose another one. That like, that there is, this show is at least asking us to make these connections between what she endures in childhood and what it basically prepares her for as queen. Like that, to me at least, that's what

The show is putting forward. I don't know necessarily that I would, I would personally agree with that or write it that way. But the fact that they essentially make her ascension happen at the funeral of her baby is not an accident. You know, it wasn't just, Oh, out of convenience. Let's also put this here. I also thought, you know, Mal, your point about her mother and, uh, you know, her brother's death in the first episode. That's also where she like kind of starts flirting with Damon. Yeah.

I mean, that was like when they start speaking Valerian to each other and you can tell that there's like... They've had their little necklace hand over before then, but yeah. Yeah, these two in a funeral, sure.

It's also key that, like, this would have been her first daughter, like, and that's another parallel with her father who was waiting his first son. Like, this was going to be her first daughter. She was going to name it Visenya, which is the name she picked out for her brother when she thought her brother was a sister. It's horrifying. Yeah.

And it's interesting. It's very different from the book where like Rhaenyra gets a 300 strong coronation, like a cool pomp and start, not like a sad funeral. I know it's like the dirty desert there for, yeah. It's tough. That was, I thought that scene was really the, the, the funeral turned coronation was like, I,

I was shaking watching that. It was very effective. Yeah. Damon holding the crown, like that beat that he takes with the crown, you know? Even just like, again, if we think about 9 and 10, and like, I thought 10 was a much stronger episode overall than 9, but if we think about them as pairs and as this like joint finale, like we talked a lot last week about the...

import and heft of the symbol of Aegon taking Aegon the Conqueror's crown and having Blackfyre, like, it's an equally potent symbol for Rhaenyra to have not only Jaehaerys the Conciliator's crown, but Viserys her father's, right? Because you have the Conqueror's Iron Crown as the symbol of conquest. What more...

What more fitting crown for a usurper to wear, but also the one who's trying to convince the realm, yeah, I'm the right one in this line of men and conquerors that you've come to accept in your land. The crown of the peaceful kings on Rhaenyra's head as she exercises a restraint that almost no one else, maybe save Rhaenys, is capable of is...

really powerful as is of course the symbol that, okay, I'm reminding you all that I am the one that Viserys chose. And here's the proof on my head. I'm glad you mentioned that it's Viserys' crown because I think like more casual viewers may not really understand the crown situation if you're not tracking the crowns closely. But like the idea that Erik Kargil, our favorite Erik. The number one Erik of this podcast. Like the last

we saw the crown. It was resting on Viserys's gooey, rotting body. Like, you know, Alison put it there. So he went in and snatched the crown, like stole it. Wipe that down with a little Clorox wipe. Yeah. Or a little bit like vinegar, at least something like that. You know, but like stole the crown for like, what better sign of loyalty? I did a, I did a heist for you, a crown heist. They did a goo, I did a heist. Yeah. I love a heist. You know that.

It does seem like basically in this show, the men can either conquer or quit, but the women actually govern. It's like Alyson and Rhaenyra and Rhaenys are actually interested in how do we plot a way forward? And how do we form alliances or make sure people get what they need and get what they want, but also do what they have to do? And then the guys are just like, I either want to fucking destroy everything or I'm going to go back to Pentos.

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Because that brings us to this other scene I wanted to discuss, which is Renis and Corlys. Corlys is like, you were right. I was wrong. Let's retire with our grandkids and chill out. And Renis is just like, no. I recognize my soul in this woman. And she's the only one who's going to bring peace to this place instead of just burning it to the ground over and over again. I thought that was really interesting. Now, I don't necessarily know that the show has shown us

Rhaenyra's amazing touch with bringing people together and how the realm will benefit from her rule. But...

I thought that that was like a really interesting scene. Mal, what did you think of Corliss' revival and Renice and him kind of having this conversation about like, is it better to run away or die trying to build a better world? So, two things. Quickly, in terms of the big picture before zeroing in on them specifically, I thought this episode did a

really good job of something that is crucial heading out of season one into season two in the Dance of the Dragons, which is reminding us how many other houses are in the realm and that their allegiance matters, that winning them to your cause and being able to trust in that allegiance once you've won it is as important as the dragons that you're flying on. And so...

A house like House Velaryon, the fleet, the wealth, everything we've spent an entire season learning about, it had to be relevant here at the end.

In terms of the specific positions that the characters are taking, you know, we've been away from our guy Corlys for a minute and he's suffered a grave wound and a fever of the blood. And, you know, he's been through a crucible as have so many characters. So if he wants a rest, who am I to judge?

They were apart for so long. And I loved- Six years. Six years. That was the first thing Renise said to him was like, dude, you bailed. Yeah. We lost our family and you left. And that is fucking hideous. And Renise has spent all of this time- But now, the triarchy is crushed! Like, wow!

I have to say, I'm shocked you didn't lead the pod. I was saving it for the end. That was my triarchy update of the week. My first text to Chris was the triarchy, man. It's happening. Your favorite. It's all for you, Chris. It's all for you. Oh, man. This relationship,

between Rhaenyra and Rhaenys has never been easy. And that's been one of the things that's been sad for us as viewers, but is ultimately, I think, true to life, right? You're not necessarily like just gonna align because we think you should for X number of reasons. Rhaenys has a code. Rhaenys has principles. Sometimes they are confounding to us, including my legions of spoke by exploding through the floor of the dragon pit and then being like,

And then be like, what we need is to bring peace to the realm. Yeah. But, like, thinking back not only to the more recent exchanges in the Godswood, et cetera, during the petitions in episode eight, but, like, go back all the way to episode two when...

Rhaenyra says, when I am queen, I will create a new order. What is her niece's response to that? It's not like, fuck off. It's I wish that could be true. And she pairs that desire with saying to her, like, here's the hard truth, which no one else will tell you. Men would sooner put the realm to the torch than see a woman ascend the Iron Throne. And so for Rhaenyra to be like an embodiment of power

at least a desire to try to find a different way. And I think particularly on the heels of what Renice thought was a pretty hollow idea

pitch from Allison to last week. We do not rule, but we may guide the men that do gently away from violence and sure destruction and instead toward peace. And it's like, what do you think peace looks like exactly if this is your plan? And so she's getting a different version of that from Rhaenyra. And it's not an easy choice for her to make. She doesn't bow at the coronation. She doesn't bend at first, even though she looks down at her grand at her granddaughters. She takes her time to get to that moment. I,

I have a couple things I need to say about Renise really quickly. I think a big reaction that people have had to Renise's decision at the end of last week that I've seen is, well, of course she wouldn't do that because above all else, and this is a section from this section of Fire and Blood, no man or woman is as accursed as the Kinslayer. Right? So you're not supposed to...

kill your kin. It's a bad thing that Aemond did in this episode, right? That is part of it. But like when, when Rhaenys says it's not my war to start, then the question is,

Exactly what she says to Corlys later, which is like when he's like, let's just hang out with our grandkids. And she's like, who do you think Jace is? He's heir to the throne. Also, Bela, my ward, like maybe like the closest to me, is supposed to marry him. So when she's like, this isn't my war, I was like, in what way is it not your war? Like, in what way has it ever not been your war? I did think it was great when Corlys was like, but she killed our son. And Rhaenys is like, shh.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I've worked through that in a prior episode. She's like, let the morphine drip take effect. And I, well, I had to wonder, and I don't, like, based on last week when they decided that the reason that Renise decided to not torch Allison was because she didn't

recognize another mother in that moment. I wonder if that thinking extends to this episode where she sees Rhaenyra as a mother who's just lost a child. Maybe, yeah. And she's like, there's some common... I thought her line about why she didn't do it to be like, there's probably going to be a war, but I'm not starting it. Made sense. Then don't kill all of them! Look. That's still the part I just cannot accept. It just doesn't make sense. Anyway, we're not talking about that episode. Nope. I was wondering whether or not

You felt like Renice, like given Rhaenyra's arc over the course of the episode where she obviously loses a child, first unsteadily is sort of running the painted board. But then as the episode goes on, gains more painted table. Yeah. You got it, buddy. There we are. And then as the episode goes on, grows into this role as not just like pretender to the crown, but actually queen. Yeah. Yeah.

If Renise feels like Rhaenyra's passed some sort of test, because obviously this is somebody that she has sort of had intermittent check-ins with over the years. Somewhat hostile, somewhat, I think, in a mentor-protege way, and somewhat just kind of like checking in. But I really wonder whether or not there was something that happened over the course of the episode. If you two thought this, and if you did...

could you locate it that made Renise say, this is the one who's going to lead us through because she doesn't know about the song of ice and fire either. She's not like, Oh, this is, this is, we have to go with Rhaenyra because she's the one who's going to protect us from the North at some point. She's just like, I I'm throwing my lot in with this person. What, why was that? Why did she do that? I think, and this is like, this is a parallel that Malin and I were talking about just like based on trailer footage we saw last week, but yeah,

There's a key moment in season seven, episode two of Game of Thrones, where they talk about Daenerys Targaryen being queen of the ashes. How are we going to take King's Landing? I will not be queen of the ashes. And in this episode, Rhaenyra says, I will not be queen of ash and bone, which is a paraphrase line from Fire and Blood. But I think that's the moment of like, when Rhaeny says men would sooner put the realm to the torch, right?

and seeing one of the Iron Throne. And Rhaenyra's like, I'm not going to burn this. You know. Yeah. Rhaenys, queen of not burning things last week, is like, oh, here's another person who doesn't want to burn something down. Like, that's all these men. And I think Rhaenys has low opinion of these men. But all these men are standing around the table talking about moving things around like they're pieces on a chessboard, right? Right. And Rhaenyra's the only one in the room actually thinking about

the people involved and maybe Renise who crushed a hundred thousand small folk is not the person who should be thinking about that. Is that how many people? That revolt? A couple. Well, it's, what is it? 80,000? You know, like kind of just like, I don't know. It's many hundreds. I mean, you can see the concrete flying. It's still, yeah. A lot of carnage. I,

I think it's Queen of Ash and Bone. What do you think, Mallory? I was thinking of the same season seven Dragonstone war council and specifically Olenna's conversation with Dany after. Peace never lasts, my dear. Will you take a bit of advice from an old woman? He's a clever man in your hand. I've known a great many clever men. I've outlived them all. You know why? I ignored them. Now, we rewatched Game of Thrones and that ends with you're a dragon, be a dragon. And we're like, what's in the brakes? Ugh!

and talk, so let's workshop it a bit. But I still think that Olenna, Danny, Rainice, Rhaenyra parallel of looking around and seeing a bunch of men who have made the same mistake time and time again is very palpable there. And speaking of men making the same mistakes, I mean, I know, Chris, you mentioned the withered cock already, but...

Otto showing up here is just unbelievable. Well, like I had my jaw on the floor. I mean, it's Orwyle in the book and he's here too, but. How did Alicent let that happen? Cause like presumably. I mean, Alicent's probably like, if my dad gets killed, that's like a win-win for me. I was just like, this is the worst person to send on this diplomacy mission. It's shocking. It's absolutely shocking. And we, I mean, listen,

We're talking about, oh my God, I can't believe person X made it out of scene Y alive. We saw Damon wave the white parlay flag and then annihilate our guy, Krabby, the crab feeder. I was, obviously he tries, he draws steel and would be delighted to kill Otto right there, but I couldn't believe-

that Otto showed up, made the pitch, and then he made it out alive. And it was just great symmetry, not only with the Damon-Otto, even like Damon saying, Chris, your favorite line, mummer's farce. Damon said it this time and Otto said it to him. That wasn't my favorite line in this episode. It was definitely him calling Agon a drunken cunt. Yeah.

You love talking about Mummersfars. So for Daemon to throw that back at Otto's face, for Rhaenyra to land on the bridge on Syrax again, we had the different moment, obviously, with the Kingsguard Oath, but Caraxes hovering above in an intimidating pose. Syrax on the other side of the bridge now. You know what I mean? Syrax should have been a little bigger. Just throwing that out there. We can get to dragon stuff in a second.

No, I have a dragon stuff I have to talk about really quickly. Okay. Which is like, it's very important that Rhaenyra is not able to get on a dragon at this moment because she just went through horrific labor. That's like a plot point. That's like why Jace and Luke have to go instead of her. And she just hopped on Cyrax and flew down to the dragon confab. I don't know. Let's talk about Luke. I want to talk about Luke a little bit here. Okay.

We lost him. That was tough. Rhaenyra probably going to rethink doing that. Although I would imagine that what she's really like, that just solidifies. If she spent this entire episode trying to think of a way forward diplomatically, I would imagine that this would put her in a slightly more hawkish position after this episode. She certainly looked to have changed in that last shot. But

Any final notes about Luke Targaryen dash strong? Because how dare you work so hard to secure that surname? I guess I'm, I'm not really as interested in Luke as much as I want to talk about where this leaves Jace, because I thought it was pretty interesting that Damon takes Jace to this loyalty test that, that there seems to be a little bit of a connection between Damon and Jace and the

Where does this leave him both in terms of pecking order, but also now that his brother is gone? Do you think it's just blood oath time for Aemond? I was trying to make sense of that for what the purpose of that scene was. And I think it's meant to be, again, a parallel to episode nine where Otto and Alicent are having their fight over Aegon. It's sort of like Rhaenyra's like, we're

Rhaenyra talking to Jace is nothing should be done without my consent, right? Like, don't let them do anything while I'm in here doing this. And then later, the vow that she makes Luke and Jace swear, which is you're just messengers, like swear on this book and you don't lift a finger. You are just messengers. You're messengers of peace. The funny thing was that like Jace is like, Luke is like, yeah, I won't lift a finger. Like, I don't even have to go. Like, you can send a rake. Can we send Baelor?

Yeah. It's like older than me and probably better at a dragon. And so I sort of felt it as like a battle for Jace's temperament, right? Like, Damon's like, no, you're a dragon, and this is what we do. This is how we secure loyalty, and this is how we operate. So sort of like a little stepdad-mom sort of...

light duel over Jace's nature was my interpretation. What do you think, Mel? You guys remember in episode six when Viserys and Lionel were watching the training in the yard from the battlements and Viserys was like, this is the stuff, Lionel. It'll certainly form a lifelong bond. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah. And Lionel was like, you know what I'm not scared of? Fire. No.

back to that moment with some aching in my heart watching this episode. In Fire and Blood, so we hear that Luke is 14 in this episode. He's 13 in the text. The prince was 13 years of age. His body was never found. And with his death, the war of ravens and envoys and marriage pacts came to an end and the war of fire and blood began in earnest. That's because he got digested with a dragon prilosec. Yeah.

High up in the skies, Vhagar was like, I am going to need a digestif. I just ate a kid. I thought that kid was... I thought that kid was... The kid who's playing Luke did an incredible job in this episode. Really good. Like, can't wait to get out of Storm's End. Can't wait to get out of the room. Didn't want to really be involved in any of this in the first place. Doesn't want to be...

The Lord of Driftmark doesn't want any of it. And that's like, I think, Chris, like your question about is about both Jace and Luke. And I think like it's worth saying

It's worth thinking about the fact that they want different. They want a different things. Like we saw Jace earlier around the painted table, studying his Valerian and working, working, working to prove his worth. Now I will say in fire, what does he do around the painted board? That's what everybody wants. Good old painted board. You know, Luke in the book is like,

they think we're strong and when they see us arrive on dragons they're going to be like oh yeah they're Targaryen so this is like Valarion exactly but Jace is studying and training and so whether he's hearing whether he's like getting that call to the side from Daemon or getting that reminder from Rhaenyra that whatever claim is left to me like I'm paraphrasing right but whatever claim is left to me you are the heir to it he has a

a level of expectation and pressure placed on him that Luke is feeling and voicing to Rhaenyra he feels, but that is a kind of just different calculus in his life. But that second son's idea that's also been this through line of the season, like in a way, it's one of the most central driving forces of the show. And in a way...

I feel like I'm like Renice and Rhaenyra on the godswood. Like, what does it matter? Because part of the point is at the end, everybody's in the same place. They've all been caught in that same swirling storm. Like, they're all a part of the dance now. You can't escape it once it's happened. I just want to say, if you're sitting at home and you're like, but Chris, Mal or Joanna, what the hell was Rhaenyra thinking sending little old children out as messengers on Dragonback? What was this about? I will say in the book...

it seems a little less unreasonable because she's like, first they were going to send all three and she's like, how about not the toddler? Yeah, Joph, stay home. Let Joph not go, right? So there's that. Damon was off doing something else. She's incapacitated. Bela and Raina are like not in the conversation, you know? So it's sort of like they make the most sense in that context. Some of that context is removed here. And so you're just like, why are you sending this obviously timid child and his tiny dragon? Joe, you're asking, you mentioned that the difference in the book is,

I did a little research. Is it true in the book that

Is Boros Baratheon slightly less dickish in the books? Like, is he a little bit more like... No. Definitely not. He's a huge piece of garbage. I think he's more overly sexist. He is like, you can't kick this kid's ass in my house, though. Yes. But that's like... That's because he doesn't want any culpability. Yeah, yeah. And to violate... Yeah, exactly. Guess what, Boros? I think you're going to have some culpability on your hands.

Rhaenyra had taken House Baratheon for granted for too long, his lordship told Aemond. He literally is just like...

And that's, I mean, that's a, so like, Rhaenys is the one who says in the book, Rhaenys is the one who's like, Baratheons love me. And we got that moment between Boram and Baratheon and Rhaenys in the first episode. She's like, no, this is going to be an easy job for Luke. It's a puddle jumper flight over to Storm's End. No problem. Like, we did not know that Vhagar and Aemon were going to be there. It's also a puddle jumper's flight from King's Landing. Just FYI. That first shot of Vhagar, like looming behind Rhaenys.

Yeah, and when he appears above him. She, Chris. When she appears above him, I'm sorry. Did it give you more... Milo and I had this little mini argument. Did it give you more...

T-Rex in the rain, Jurassic Park, or Godzilla in the rain in, like, Texas. T-Rex. Yeah. I thought Godzilla, just think about, like, that shadow. Like, just the silhouette. It's the way, like, she rears up, like, with the wall in front of her. It's just sort of like, and, like, Luke shows up and he's like, oh, no, that's Eamon's car. Fuck. Like,

You know what else was great about that sequence, by the way, that pays off a season long trend, like all this talk about marriages and the political capital of being able to offer up a marriage pact. And Luke is like,

Wasn't prepared for what inevitably would have been the question. Oh my God. Why didn't they, why didn't they put Joff on the table? Why didn't they say we have a toddler at home? Because Luke is not Billy Bean. He's like, okay, I will tell you my mommy your answer. Yeah, exactly. Like that's what Joe's been saying for episodes now is like, you really feel how young they are. Yeah. You really feel it. He's just like, argh.

Wait, can I just say one quick thing about a notorious friend of women, Boros Baratheon? This is the passion fireblood I would like to read. He had nothing against women, Lord Boros went on to say. He loved his girls. A daughter is a precious thing, but a son, should the gods ever grant him a son of his own blood, Storm's head would pass to him, not his sister's. Why should the Iron Throne be any different? Yeah.

As a father of daughters, Boros Baratheon thinks women are fine. Big time girl, dad. There's a bunch of other things that happened in this episode. Damon singing. There's a few things I'm sure you guys are going to get to at House of R. We saw Vermithor. That's Jahaerys' dragon. That was incredible.

Chris, you were like, that's Vermithor, right? Yeah, I did want to ask. You could tell by the dental records that that was Vermithor, right? Boris Baratheon cannot read, right? Yeah, correct. I hope that comes up a lot. That's canonical. That's canonical as well. He needs his maester. That is, that rules. Like, think of Luke Nobis.

prep. They didn't say, don't hand the illiterate lord a scroll. That was not the move. Have a marriage offer ready. Take Bela with you. She'll back you up. It could have gone really definitely. You two will definitely dive deep into this episode on House of R's. Whatever scenes we didn't cover, you guys can grab there. But I did want to hit one or two questions about the season in general because this is the finale. This is also the finale for this

or season of Talk of the Thrones. It's been such a delight talking with you. But... Mal, what was your favorite moment from the season? My... I have a tie. I'm torn between two picks, which is the Eye for an Eye sequence, the showdown at Driftmark, and Viserys' long walk into the throne room. Those are my top two. I think I'm going to go with Viserys' long walk, which was...

Just an arresting and heart-wrenching stretch of television. I think we all have one. I think we're all pretty much like, this might be a consensus. We might have a quorum here. Jo, what did you... You thought it was... The long walk. The long walk? Okay. I think it was now they see you as who you really are. Eye for an eye. I mean, both of those scenes involve everyone, right? Because when we see Viserys to his long walk, you see...

Alicent and Aemond and Aegon and Helena and Jace and Baelin and Rhaenys, they're all taking in. And same with Eye for an Eye, you've got everyone in the room there. And it's a microcosm of sort of these bigger things that are happening. Did you two have a favorite character to watch over the course of the season? Jo? Yeah.

That's a tough episode for me to say this, but David, I was going to take the heat for it. I was going to say David first. It would have been the easy pick before this episode, undoubtedly, right? Sure. I'm sorry to say it. Matt Smith gets the best lines.

Emma Darcy's really on the rise, though, has had far fewer episodes, but Emma Darcy in this episode was so incredible. And I'm really interested to see what happens after the facial expression we got at the end of this episode. Looking forward to next season, which hopefully will come next year, although I have my concerns. I hope so. I don't want to wait.

I can't go back to a Thrones-less life now that we have it back. I can't. What will I do? Joe, is there one thing, not like plot spoiler, but like just vibe-wise that you're really looking forward to in second season? Well, okay. So I will say something that we've been saying a lot on...

House of R the deep dives is that we felt like these time jumps that they were doing was because they were trying to speed up to and hit the battle over Shipbreaker's Bay by the end of the season. And they felt like they had to sort of like, they wanted to start where they started. And that just meant they had to like hop decades sometimes or six years or whatever the case may be. So next season, now that we're in it, the Dance of the Dragons, and I don't think this is a spoiler to say, is only two years away.

And so, like, the characters that we have, we're not going to be hopping through time aggressively, we think, anymore. There might be some, but, like, nothing major. And it's just a lot of dragon battles. And so we're going to have these, like, peaks, you know, every couple episodes. Set pieces. Like, for the next, you know, big set pieces. Yeah. And then a lot of, as Mallory alluded to earlier...

You asked for one thing, I'm giving you five. Like, spreading out of the map. Like, Jace is going to go up to the Vale, and then after that, she's planning to go up to Winterfell. So that's really exciting. And then, Damon's talking about going to Harrenhal. Like, there's a lot of places on the map that we're going to go to, a lot of houses. So we're going to break... So, like, a lot of those critiques that people have of the season, which are the time jumps, and how insular, inside one family, inside one location, it felt, is not going to be the case...

going forward. It will be fascinating to get to the end of this series and be like, was season one season zero? You know? Mal, what are you looking forward to next season? The widening in the map, the widening of the world, you know, Jace up to the veil and to Winterfell. Delightful. Can't wait. Like,

truly cannot wait. And similarly, it'll shock you to hear the introduction of even more dragons into our story. We got a moon dancer shout out in this episode. I love it. The dragon mound was really hotly tipped. We didn't get to see it. Into the dragon mound. We did. David is going in. Oh, that's where he is? Oh, I thought that was just like his usual parking spot for the dragons. Oh, yeah.

I just want to say really quickly, I think some people are confused and they think that that wasn't Vermithor. They thought that, like, Daemon was messing with Vhagar. Those are two different dragons. I know, Chris, that you know that. Vhagar being Aemon's dragon? Yeah, Aemon's enormous dragon that we saw at Storm's End. That's the only place we ever saw Vhagar. The dragon that Daemon was crooning to is Vermithor. It's a different dragon. Okay. So...

I saw some people who thought that Damon provoked Vhagar to...

but fight Ereks over Shipbreaker's Bay because he wanted to start a war. But I'm just here to tell you those are two different dragons. Oh, like it was a false flag operation? Right. Sheesh. Yeah. Just trying to clear that up. We're getting some interesting pupil reflections and morphing as Vermithor and Daemon stared to each other's eyes and Daemon sings in High Valerian and attempts to lock down even more dragons. Like the literal shot of their eyes. Does that mean that they're like locked in with each other or what? Well,

That's what happens when I stare at Mallory when we talk. Yeah. Our pupils melt into each other. And we do three hour pods earlier in the episode of Rhaenyra giving birth and shot cutting between. Yeah. Exactly. So like that's, that's part of what I'm really looking forward to too, is the continued expansion of the Canon and the mythology around dragon riding and dragon binding. Is that just like, I'll have to rewatch this again. I've seen it once. Like,

we see a reflection of Damon in Vermithor's eye and then we see, we zoom in on Damon's pupil and we can see it's just a reflection reinforcing this theme. Targaryen, dragons, et cetera. But is there actual magic afoot there with what he was singing in that song? Who knows what he found in those books when he was studying. He's bound to a dragon already. There's no precedent for any link with a second dragon for one rider. But,

dragon binding is something that is studied and sought after. So this larger question of how to bring more dragons into the fold, I can't wait for more of that next year. I'm so excited next season. David Peterson, who does all the Valerian for the show, posts like the translation of all the Valerian every week. Oh. So I'm pretty sure that the translation of the song is, it's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me. LAUGHTER

I think Verve 4 is more of a 1975 fan, but I like that joke. That's really good. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you, chatting with you two this season. Thank you to Steve Allman for producing us. You can listen to, I can only imagine how deep of a deep dive is going to happen on House of R. We have a lot to talk about. Tuesday. Andy and I will be talking about this show tomorrow. What a great ride. And I really do hope that they come back 2023. If Succession's coming back in the spring,

bring this back in the fall. Let's try and turn it around. And get those spin-offs going. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. I want to have like Reading Rainbow with Boris Baratheon and like all of his like all of his English teachers over the years who tried to get him into Great Works Literature. Let's see if Shireen can time travel. Kind of like a Finding Forrester with Boris Baratheon. Okay, we're going to wrap it up there.

House of R on Tuesday, The Watch tomorrow. Thank you to Steve. Thank you to Arjuna. Thank you to everybody who worked on the show this year. Thanks to everybody who listened. We'll be back next season, hopefully. Talk to you soon.

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