We jumped ten years into the future and…oh whatever, we need to talk about Aegon. The dude is jerking off out his window. Yep, just rubbing one out trying to spread his seed on the heads of the poor city folk. Do you want to give the audience some kind of peek into a character’s persona? Just have him masturbate out a window, tells me everything I need to know. The crazier thing about that scene? Queen Alicent walks in and just waits for him to finish, then demands to know what happened with the prank. She screams at him about how he needs to not trust his cousins because he should be the king, not one of them. As she is yelling at him, Aegon goes from creepy perv to a kid you feel bad for because you can tell that he just does not care about being king. But Alicent is filling his head with how his aunt will kill him once Viserys dies.
Okay, we got that out of the way.
We are getting closer to the civil war. I feel like Viserys will die in either the next episode or the one after that. I originally thought they might try to have season one end on his death and the fallout (I do not want to spoil anything). But now, things are set up for him to die. Rhaenyra is in Dragonstone. The Strongs are out of the picture. Otto Hightower is probably on his way back to King’s Landing. Daemon is a widower and probably on his way back to the Seven Kingdoms.
-What is Larys Strong’s game? Obviously he is now the head of his family and the Lord of Harrenhall, but there seems to be more to it. His mention of Otto rewarding him at the end of the episode, while playing with a flower. Is he implying that Otto Hightower will give him Highgarden? Maybe he facilitates a marriage to the baby Lyonel Highgarden’s mother (who is the regent until he comes of age). Or am I reading too much into the flower thing?
-I wish we would have seen Laena claiming Vhagar. The dragon theatrics she and Daemon put on for the people of Pentos was cool. Her death was sad and I wish we could have a little more time to get to know her.
-Speaking of sad deaths…Harwin Strong and his dad. We did not get to see Harwin much, but he seemed like a good father. I loved the training yard scene. Aegon taking his mom’s advice and being extra cruel to his cousin, while Ser Criston Cole urges him on, ends up making Harwin snap. He punches Criston and it was very satisfying. Being locked in a room and dying by a fire is such an awful way to go.
So much stuff happened this episode, I could probably write another 25000 words about all the great stuff happening. I mean, we got a Grover Tully reference (some people think GRRM was being lazy when he was naming characters–Grover, Elmo, Oscar Tully–but he has said that it was his way of honoring Sesame Street, especially since they did a great Game of Thrones segment on Sesame Street). Rhaenyra tried to heal things with Alicent (imagine if Viserys said “yes, we accept the proposal–I mean, they are his children too). Helaena seems to have the gift of prophecy (also, in the book she is married to Aegon–but something tells me Alicent will not allow that in the show).
I’m all in favor of the “show don’t tell” approach to writing, but the wanker who would be king was a bit much.
Episode 9 is called “The Green Council” and ten is “The Black Queen” so I feel like a lot is going to happen in short order. Having now read the book, I’m here for it.
It reminded me of Roman jerkin’ off while looking out the window on Succession. Similar vibes between those two…also, Aegon is played by David Tennant’s son.
Since you finished the book, the part I thought you would enjoy was the Tully family names. When I read it, my first thought was “okay, maybe the Sesame Street characters are named after some historical lords that GRRM is drawing from…but then when they mention Oscar (I think it says he has a surly demeanor or something), I knew it was definitely a funny reference.