In the Flesh: House of the Dragon s2e02 'Rhaenyra the Cruel'

A man tortures his own grief-addled granddaughter with the sight of her beheaded child for the sake of political messaging. A sadistic thug forces a loyal knight to waste his life in order to assuage his own pitiful guilt. Twin brothers sworn to rival claimants to the Iron Throne die in a brutal duel with one another, one by the other’s sword, the survivor by his own. What does it all have in common? It comes to nothing. Impulsiveness, idiocy, random chance, and pettiness fritter away whatever capital any of the power players vying for control of Westeros might have eked out of the rolling catastrophe of their uneasy detente. A grieving and impetuous Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carnie) squanders the sympathy his grandfather Otto (Rhys Ifans) managed to win. Daemon (Matt Smith) badly stains his wife Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) image in the eyes of her supporters. Ser Erryk (Elliott Tittensor) and his twin brother Arryk (Luke Tittensor) die in such a chaotic, immiserated tangle of bloody white cloth and torn flesh that it’s not clear which man begs Rhaenyra for forgiveness before falling on his blade. There’s your Dance of the Dragons.

There’s just enough light in ‘Rhaenyra the Cruel’, directed by Clare Kilner and written by Sara Hess, to leaven that relentless sense of pointless, hateful spiraling. Rhaenyra looking on as her young sons play with blocks. Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) childish and unassuming in the arms of his matronly courtesan, clearly longing for the affection and safety with which his own mother couldn’t provide him. Rhaenys (Eve Best) and Corlys (Steve Toussaint) linger in bed, seemingly after making love, discussing their marriage and the royal couple with the relaxed ease of partners who really, truly know each other. There’s real meat to these characters, who again and again have proved to be more than they appear at first glance. Even one of the realm’s most seasoned and unsympathetic power players, the scheming and politically tunnel-visioned Otto Hightower, gets a rare scene in which you just can’t help but root for him. Faced with the moronic, short-sighted plots of his royal grandson and lord commander ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), he looks as exhausted by their shit as a little league coach whose players have shown up for practice naked and drunk.

The whole affair, from Daemon and Rhaenyra’s truly nasty fight over his contract murder of the young prince Jaehaerys to the quiet shot of Aemond inspecting his chambers for signs of intruders, is beautifully shot. It’s not only that we’re being given every reason to care about even the most disastrously awful people here — Aegon’s lonely sobbing in his chambers is so crushing, even before his mother, helpless in the face of his need, decides against consoling him — but that care is evident in every particular of these displays. The way light hits embroidered silk, the sparkle of dust hanging in a beam of sunlight, the drape of a black lace veil over queen Helaena’s (Phia Saban) face on a windy day as she stares transfixed at the thousands coming out to mourn her son, it’s every bit as arresting as the sight of the dragon Caraxes taking flight or the monumental bulk of Dragonstone set against the expanse of the sea. This is beautiful, sharply written television with something real to say. It’s not to be missed.