Man the scene of Jace trying to make his report to the queen only to break down and cry in his mother’s arms was brutal bravo writers and actors

Aegon getting Jaehaerys into his small council at age 6 "to prepare him as heir to the throne" is very interesting, because Aegon himself obviously never got that treatment from Viserys, who did not consider him his heir. There probably is a lot of pain over that, and he tries to compensate by giving his own son the treatment he feels he was denied by his own father.

Btw Shad, the book was far worse with Blood and Cheese. They made Helaena choose between her sons, Jaehaerys and Maelor, which would live and which would die. She chose Maelor to die, as she thought he'd be too young to know what's going on, and they killed Jaehaerys and took his head right in front of her. This drove her to utter madness. (Maelor remembered the choice.)

To be fair, the assassins ask Daemon, “What do we do if Aemond isn’t there?” We don’t hear his answer, so he could very well have said he was fine with a substitute.

My favorite thing about the character writing is how little dialogue there needs to be. I got tons of character from Rhaenyra, and she had one line in the whole episode. It’s awesome to see.

When shad says that in other shows things are not well explained, I have to think on "the stone sinks because it looks down"

lets just say, in the books this is far worse, the children are awake and the mother gets to choose one to kill instead, she chooses the youngest of the 3 (its 3 children in the book) and the murderers tell the kid that his mom doesnt love him before killing the heir anyway. Also in the book Alicent is present and her guards are killed so there are actually guards with them in the book :P

As far as the King’s Guard is concerned, keep in mind last season saw 4 of the 7 King’s Guard resign or defect to Rhaenyra. So they logically could not be enough King’s Guard to guard all of the Royals. Also the two of them got into the Royal level through Maegor's secret passages. They do this to avoid the gurads that protect the levels and that is also the specific reason Daemon hired the Rat Catcher. Due to him knowing those secret passages very well. Loved the Video! Hope this cleared some of that up!

"Where was the KingsGuard?" Well... more then half of them defected to Team Black, Cole was banging the Queen Regent, and Sir Clubfoot had just gone on a purge of anyone who he suspected might be disloyal. Sooo... its possible that almost all of the kingsguard were either with Rhaenyra, or dead. If any were still in the castle, they might have been guarding the standard passageways, which the assassins avoided.

Not dismissing the fact that there were absolutely no guards on the upper apartments of the royal family, but the Kingsguard specifically is about 50/50 split between the two teams until vacancies are filled.

I think The Kingsguard is Balls Deep within the former Queen. 😂😂

Shad you like Daemon so much that you dont see him as a bad guy at all. It was clear in the scene that Daemon give order SON FOR A SON so if they woudl not find Aemond they would had to take out somebody else... they even zoom on Daemon face when they ask him that. It was clear

3 scenes were absolutely amazing. #1 the first 5 minutes at the wall (chefs kiss) #2 Jace trying to give the report to raenyra and breaking down #3 raenyra only having 1 line of dialogue all episode and we knew exactly how she was feeling the entire episode.

You're way better discussing this with nerdrotics panel. Wasn't the same without you.

31:10: The order that Daemon gave was "a son for a son", I think that pretty firmly establishes that, if they couldn't find Aemond, they could go after Jaehaerys. I did not see a problem there.

Aegon was one of the highlight. Can't wait to see more of him💚

We did have the scene where Otto walked in on Cole and Aemond drawing up plans, and Otto scolded Cole and told him to return to his post. That likely wasn't only to get him out of the room, but also an indication that it was known that Cole and possibly the Kingsguard in general were shirking their duties. And of course we had the Queen's premonitions about being afraid of rats before that happened, and we still have the connection between rats and Lord Strong. He could very well have played at least an indirect role in this. And we did have a rat conspicuously and calmly walk past our "rat catchers" as they were making their way to their target. It very well could have been that they were seen through those rat eyes.

I love Emma's acting . A mother's grief was portrayed well. But it went a little differently than the book for blood and cheese part. Brutality wise tone downed a bit.

Loved how it began with Cregan Stark and winterfell. Just beautiful

In the books, it makes more sense as they know for a fact Helena visited her mother in the Tower of the Hand, so they wait for her there. In the tower, there are for example also hidden passageways., So they waited and made her choose, she even did offer up herself in it. She breaks because she chooses the younger boy, but blood and cheese kill the older one. She can really go knowing she has to look at the son she choose to be killed. I do think they did that way to lessen the impact.

Half of the kings guard is on dragon stone and Cole was screwing the queen regent. And I’m sure one or 2 of the remaining 4 were with Aegon while he was in the throne room drinking with his buddies

They made a point of having Larys point out that Alicent was "indisposed". I'm sure he knows about her and Cole, and he's going to leverage it with Alicent's father. Maybe she withholds her feet from Larys and it provokes him to turn on her. Either way this will be one of the events that ultimately leads to Cole's downfall.

Once the sawing sound started I had to fast forward. Nope. Can't do it. Amazing how the gore of The Boys makes me laugh but THAT scene from HoTD sent me running for the hills. It's the sign of an excellent show.

I had one problem in the end, where blood and cheese kill the boy. In the book, it is far better when they ask Helaena to choose which boy gets to die, and Helaena chooses Maelor. Then Cheese whispers to him, 'Do you hear, boy? Your momma wants you dead, and then he kills the other boy. Very psychotic, very evil, but a beautiful in-terms of the story.

The kings guard was banging the queen, the others were in the throne room with the king. This is only days after the king died and the king guard are short 4 knights. There is no logic gap.

Just a thought. They are short staffed, and the roral guard could be just at the main doors to the royal chambers and not bedroom doors. The rats' catchers came through a secret door.

It was a little different from the book , but at least they're following the blueprint, hope they keep it that way

That scene where the fisherman find the dragon wing and Lucs Dublet and Rhaenerya flies over and finds it and her break down was heartbreaking. This show has fantastic acting. It really is the best show on TV the past few years. It’s a breath of fresh air with all the bullshit we seen on a week to week basis

Helaena carrying her daughter out of the room while you can hear them SAWING HER SON'S HEAD OFF was exactly as distressing as it needed to be

As Robin Williams once said, if women ruled the world, perhaps there woukd be no wars, but there would be tense negotiations every 30 days

its not an oversite its purposeful assassination of a devastating scene that unlike Luke and aemond could not logically be turned down or manipulated into something else without ruining it in some sense

To be fair the kings guard consists of 7 members, Lord Commander Harold Westerling left and 3 more moved to the blacks leaving 3 members with the greens, Cole i imagine is almost always with the queen regent, leaving 2 two to protect the king for 24 hours, should they have city guards probably but not kings guard Edit: still haven’t seen the episode but looks like my guess was correct about Cole 2nd Edit: Daemon gave the city guard the gold cloaks and made them respectable so they are loyal to him. So there are only 3 kings guard to protect the king and his family 24/7

36:50 I don't think this is a weak point. Instead, it's the same thing as in goT season 4 when Tyrion gets to Tywin in his private quarters, without any guard interfering. It's how the Red Keep is built and it often results in these high profile slayings of important characters in the books.

Cristan Cole is a Kingsguard and is Alicent's guard. I'd assume the other two were with the King and his pals. Don't forget there are only three of them as they haven't replaced the others yet.

While I agree with Shad about “Where are the King’s Guard?!” I believe there are two things. 1) As mentioned in this episode the King’s Guard is divided and don’t know how to protect the royals when the royals are trying to kill each other. 2) There are supposed to be in total 7 King’s Guards, which includes the Lord Commander. 3 have signed with Rhaeynira, Lord commander has resigned over being ordered to kill Rhaeynira promoting Christian Cole to Lord Commander. Leaving each side with 3 Kings Guards. Also there were 2 Kings Guards watching the King while he was drinking with his friends in the throne room and we know that Cole was “indisposed” that evening. But Shad is still right. There should have been a comment at the small council meeting about the lack of King’s Guard.

I did think Blood & Cheese was underwhelming, but I also think the lack of staff / guards is pretty rational. Regarding the Kingsguard, only 3 of the seven have stayed serving Aegon, and Criston had clearly been assigned to protect the royal quarter's that night... he was busy elsewhere however (I do wonder if you will see some character conflict with Alicent helping enable the assasination of the kid because she is messing around with the guy clearly actively assigned to guard the royal chambers). Now there is the rest of the household guard (and the rest off the palace staff) that should probably be dotted around, but if you consider that: 1 - The Greens have just purged the staff and guards of anyone not loyal to them and are holding some for questioning; their numbers are likely currently VERY depleted. 2 - That I imagine most of the guard that is loyal has been assigned to the city / keep walls and the Scorpion positions in case the Black's launch an attack with their dragons. There is probably very few people left actively protecting the inside of the Red Keep, and they are likely stationed at the known entrances to the royal quarter's (And the Green's just don't know the Keep that well, hell, most actual Targaryen's barely know a fraction of Maegor's passages) Do think they probably could have had a throw away line emphising however how depleted / stretched thin the guard is, and that Criston was assigned the the Royal Quarters that night (And was then occupied with the Queen instead of doing his job)... but I do feel like most of its still implied well enough without them having to spell it out.

Shad, the Kingsguard on duty was burying his sword in Alicent's sheath. They were short handed because half their number just defected to the blacks. Christin Cole failed to protect the kids.

42:11 A: finding out about an "illicit affair" because of unlocked doors is a story waaaaaaay too common in reality B: I have a pretty safe guess as to which kings guard was supposed to be at Haelena's door. He was busy with the other queen

The way I see it, Cole was probably "guarding" Alicent's room alone, so as to avoid anyone knowing that he's banging her, plus they took a secret passage specifically to bypass the guards, not to mention that we see two of the 3 remaining guards in the throne room with Aegon. If there were any others, they were probably stationed just outside the entrance to the royal quarters, as a whole, not expecting anyone to slip in through a secret passage that they obviously didn't know about.

Really liked this episode. Aegon got a lot of characterization and I liked that he was good with his son, the guy needed some redeeming characteristics after being such a horrible person in season 1. Jace and Rhaenyra's short scene mourning Luke was brilliant. The political scheming inside the royal family in Kings Landing was interesting, with Otto slowly losing grip on his grandsons, and I don't have a problem with how they handled Blood and Cheese. We never see such a scene acted out graphically in any movie, Hollywood just doesn't do that, so I kind of expected how they did it. Only thing where they may have strayed is when Helaena points out the right child immediately, I think it would have been more powerful if she had pointed out the other one like in the books, have Blood and Cheese see through it, and Helaena having to live with the knowledge she condemned one of her living children to death.

The no kings guard with Alicent makes sense because that's Coles job. But no guards watching Helena makes zero sense.

We are actually shown Blood and Cheese asking for a contingency if they are unable to get Aemond. And while we don't hear Daemon's answer, we can easily assume especially with a clear directive of "a son for a son" that they repeat later. So no inconsistencies here so far. There is also one show-specefic theory worth mentioning. That Helaena's children (some or all) may be Aemond's, not Aegon's. I do not actually think it was relied on here even though there are several inducators lending credenve to it, but it's an interesting point. In the book of course Daemon explicitly ordered the murder of one of Aegon's sons (hello, little Maelor, wherever could you be, keeping company with your uncle Daeron probably) and Helaena was forced to choose the victim herself (and tricked in the process). And no, Blood and Cheese not encountering any guards is not a problem. They used those very secret passages known to only a vanishingly small number of people. Kingsguard (in its reduced state) certainly know almost nothing about those. So they simply bypass all the guarded entrances into the private quarters. The lack of any visible guards while Helaena is moving around *is* rather strange, granted. The Red Keep is not run efficiently these days apparently.

At first I was mad and confused by the rat catcher, I was like "that's clearly not who he wanted dead" then I remembered the rat catcher asked, "what if we can't find him?"... but still wow!

Hey Shad. It baffles me that they fumbled the ending of this episode as much as they did. It was all there for them to nail this and make it one of the most intense moments in Game of Thrones history. But they changed things and made it worse and made it make less sense. If they had done it according to the books, most of your criticisms are at least addressed, and also makes it more brutal. Below is the few paragraphs where it's described in the books: Let it not be forgotten: in his youth, Daemon Targaryen had been the "Prince of the City," his face and laugh familiar to every cutpurse, whore, and gambler in Flea Bottom. The prince still had friends in the low places of King's Landing, and followers amongst the Gold Cloaks. Unbeknownst to King Aegon, the Hand, or the Queen Dowager, he had allies at court as well, even on the green council... and one other go-between, a special friend he trusted utterly, who knew the wine sinks and rat pits that festered in the shadow of the Red Keep as well as Daemon himself once had, and moved easily through the shadows of the city. To this pale stranger he reached out now, by secret ways, to set a terrible vengeance into motion. Amidst the stews of Flea Bottom, Prince Daemon's go-between found suitable instruments. One had been a serjeant in the City Watch; big and brutal, he had lost his gold cloak for beating a whore to death whilst in a drunken rage. The other was a ratcatcher in the Red Keep. Their true names are lost to history. They are remembered (would that they were not!) as Blood and Cheese. "Cheese knew the Red Keep better than the shape of his own cock," Mushroom tells us. The hidden doors and secret tunnels that Maegor the Cruel had built were as familiar to the ratcatcher as to the rats he hunted. Using a forgotten passageway, Cheese led Blood into the heart of the castle, unseen by any guard. Some say their quarry was the king himself, but Aegon was accompanied by the Kingsguard wherever he went, and even Cheese knew of no way in and out of Maegor's Holdfast save over the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat and its formidable iron spikes. The Tower of the Hand was less secure. The two men crept up through the walls, bypassing the spearmen posted at the tower doors. Ser Otto's rooms were of no interest to them. Instead they slipped into his daughter's chambers, one floor below. Queen Alicent had taken up residence there after the death of King Viserys, when her son Aegon moved into Maegor's Holdfast with his own queen. Once inside, Cheese bound and gagged the Dowager Queen whilst Blood strangled her bedmaid. Then they settled down to wait, for they knew it was the custom of Queen Helaena to bring her children to see their grandmother every evening before bed. Blind to her danger, the queen appeared as dusk was settling over the castle, accompanied by her three children. Jaehaerys and Jaehaera were six, Maelor two. As they entered the apartments, Helaena was holding his little hand and calling out her mother's name. Blood barred the door and slew the queen's guardsman, whilst Cheese appeared to snatch up Maelor. "Scream and you all die," Blood told Her Grace. Queen Helaena kept her calm, it is said. "Who are you?" she demanded of the two. "Debt collectors," said Cheese. "An eye for an eye, a son for a son. We only want the one, t'square things. Won't hurt the rest o' you fine folks, not one lil' hair. Which one you want t' lose, Your Grace?" Once she realized what he meant, Queen Helaena pleaded with the men to kill her instead. "A wife's not a son," said Blood. "It has to be a boy." Cheese warned the queen to make a choice soon, before Blood grew bored and raped her little girl. "Pick," he said, "or we kill them all." On her knees, weeping, Helaena named her youngest, Maelor. Perhaps she thought the boy was too young to understand, or perhaps it was because the older boy Jaehaerys, was King Aegon's firstborn son and heir, next in line to the Iron Throne. "You hear that, little boy?" Cheese whispered to Maelor. "Your momma wants you dead." Then he gave Blood a grin, and the hulking swordsman slew Prince Jaehaerys, striking off the boy's head with a single blow. The queen began to scream. Strange to say, the ratcatcher and the butcher were true to their word. They did no further harm to Queen Helaena or her surviving children, but rather fled with the prince's head in hand.

I raised the same question: where are the guards? Now I'm not sure who the people were that were getting drunk with a king, and perhaps that's why there are no guards. I don't remember who those people are from the last year, and if they are the royal guard, it would explain why the Upper Floor was vacant as they were all getting drunk with the King on his orders. Otherwise I am not sure who they would be to be able to have the conversation that they were having.

Being a parent made this episode kick like a mule. The grieving scene with Rhaenyra and Jace was heartbreaking, and then of course the ending was just brutal. To me the message of this episode is stop getting children involved in adult BS and protect them at all costs.

Three of the kingsguard went with Rhaenyra. Only four were left in Kings Landing. Cole was the kingsguard on duty that night and he was 'otherwise occupied '.

Rhaenyra is going to be pissed that this happened and rightfully so. At no point did she say she wanted a son for son or an heir for an heir, she said specifically she wanted Aemond Targaryen dead and him only, not an innocent child who had no part in her sons death. Also, where was the Kingsguard when the thugs walked into Helenas room? She is the Queen, she would easily have at least two or three guards outside her room at all times, especially during wartime.

In the book, they were ordered to kill one of Aegon's sons. In the show, they were ordered to kill Aemond, but then they asked, "What if we can't find him" and it cut away before Daemon answered. Then, before the killing, they said, "he said a son for a son," so it's implied that when the scene cut away, Daemon answered, "a son for a son," as in, if you can't get Aemond, bring me the head of one of their sons. So, the kids were their secondary targets. I assume it was a change made so non-book readers wouldn't see it coming. I don't mind it, as it still paints the Blacks in a bad light, but I must admit they really sanitised them in season one. I hope we get more scenes making Black stans question their loyalty.

Without "your mother wants you dead" B&C loses a lot of the impact. It didn't need more violence, one line of dialogue would have helped a lot.

Well for the the reason they were so willing to deviate they had a line where they asked daemon wa to do if they cant find the intended target and then they cut away

I think in the book Blood & Cheese bypass the guards because they get directly into the room through one of the many secret passages that the Red Keep has, that only Maegor I knew about (and people tend to rediscover partially and keep to themselves...). About Alicent, I think... well, Cole should have been guarding it.. and yeah, they should have locked the door, but maybe it was... well, he was guarding the door and she just pulled it as in 'fuck it, I can't wait more' sort of thing... dunno. Just to find a reason for that one. To have the heir of the thrones unguarded, though, is inexcusable. Also I feel that for now the Kingsguard have been reduced to half of their normal size... Funny enough Cole would not get the blame as he is clearly the guardian of the Queen Mother. But he is at this moment the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard so he would still get part of the blame...

I don’t believe Alicent and Cole “just started” a relationship. I believe they’ve been banging since season 1 and this season is just revealing that. There are several hints in season 1 and comments made by those characters that kinda imply that they were already getting it on. This season is insane so far and I’m so excited to see what comes next! The amount of amazing sh*t packed into just one episode was overwhelming… but in a good way. HOTD makes the Acolyte look like it was directed by toddlers. Lesley Headland should be embarrassed and I hope she watches HOTD to see what actual talent is.

Honestly it could be that they dont have enough kingsguard at the moment, the former commander left, the twin betrayed them and 2 were with the blacks to begin with, so that is about half of the kingsguard gone

Blood and Cheese scene was underwhelming to say the least. Sure, I still liked the episode enough to give it a solid 7 overall (I'm more generous because there really isn't anything as decent among fantasy shows anymore). But had they done justice to that ending, it could've been even a 9. SPOILERS: 1. In the book, Daemon marked one of Aegon's sons for assassination from the get go as Aemond wasn't anywhere near the Red Keep at the time and even if he stuck around, he was one of the best fighters in the Seven Kingdoms, almost on par with Daemon himself, he'd dispatch a Gold Cloak and a rat catcher without breaking a sweat. 2. Blood and Cheese didn't roam randomly out in the open, they got directly to royal chambers via Maegor's tunnels. 3. There were guards (not King's Guard, just regular castle guards) in the book, but Blood and Cheese simply ambushed and murdered them. 4. They took both Helaena and Alicent (no Cole fun-times in the book) hostage along with all the kids. 5. Then there is the Sophie's choice Helaena was forced to make between the two sons (the younger son, Maelor seems to have been cut from the show, much like, apparently, the younger brother of Aegon, Helaena and Aemond, Daeron, who should be around Jace's age). When Helaena hesitated, they threatened to SA (the actual word would flag this comment) her daughter. And then they chose to kill Jaehaerys anyway (in the books it's a single swing of Blood's sword, sudden and brutal, but no sawing at least). Then they just disappeared in the tunnels again (I won't spoil what happened later as it may be shown in the next episode). To sum up, it was a sudden surprise attack directly into the heart of the Keep that took maybe 5 minutes total. There really was no chance for anyone to realise something's wrong in that short a time. Once again we go back to show writers thinking to be more clever than the author when they should've just followed the perfect blueprint. Why do you think GRRM takes forever to write a single chapter? He does consider all the questions and does his best to make it make as much logical sense as possible and if it doesn't he's not afraid to re-write the entire thing from scratch. As for Green vs Black, you will be changing your allegiance many times over the course of the show. Without spoiling the details, by the end there won't be anyone innocent (except, of course, young children) who hasn't committed a cruel and unjust action in the Dance of the Dragons. Side note: remember the blacksmith who petitioned Aegon and the sailor who talked with Corlys. Not saying more, but just note down their names, remember their faces.

Aegon II saw the people as more of his family than his actual family who treated him like a pawn.

I think when the king is taking petitions he's taking on lower cases as practice. Otto probably wanted to use it as a learning experience ready for the bigger decisions.

3 members of the Kings Guard left to serve the Blacks, meaning the other 4 are spread out. The king was on the throne meaning they were likely focused around there. In Ser Croston’s scene with Aemond, Otto tells him to “return to his post.” We next see him in Alicent’s chambers. He likely should have been the one guarding the royal quarters but was… distracted.

Ok here is why no Kings guard durring assassination attempt.... Alison is sleeping with her own Kings Guard and Kole orders them to clear that area for privacy. That's Why she specifically said "We can't do this anymore" They cleared the guards so they could have relations. 😅 Your welcome 🙏! Great content by the way 👏 Kole should get his head handed to him... just saying...😊

Water was the freeways and highways of the world back in the day... Well, still important today...

37:30 they're down 4 out of 7 Kingsguard because of defection, most of the guards are on the walls looking for dragons, and Cole was likely supposed to be there, but he was sleeping with Alicent. As far as Alicent's door not being locked...anyone think she might WANT to be caught on some level? She clearly has some level of guilt about it but can't seem to stop herself. So maybe subconsciously she's not being as careful as she should be.

Regarding the King’s Guard, in the scene before when we see Aegon drinking in the throne, there is 2 King's Guard with him standing each side of the thorne. Cole was occupied with Alicent. That is 3 of the 7. Then there are the two that were with Rhaenyra when she received the news of Viserys death and are sworn to her, Erryk who arrived later with Viserys' crown and Lord Commander Harrold Westerling who resigned when Otto told him to kill Rhaenyra. Those are the other 4. So the greens have only 3 King’s Guard at the moment, 2 were with the king and one was with Alicent.

With shows like this there is no excuse for star wars to be as bad as it is. I'm excited for more episodes!

I think there may be an explanation as to the lack of Kings guards. If memory serves, Rhaenyra currently has three of them, and since it’s only been a couple days since then only four remain in Kings Landing. There’s at least one with the king in the throne room, and Cole is with the queen regent. That means there’s only a maximum of two other guards for all of the Royals. Perhaps they were off with someone else or the king?

Yeah, maybe they should have had a scene that showed that Cole was supposed to be guarding the entrance to the royal bed chambers and that Alicent had dragged him away for sexy time, leaving them unguarded.

Waited 4 years and ended up being underwhelmed by blood and cheese cause why tf did they make alicent screwing Criston cole and the dog kick scene more shocking than the actual blood and cheese scene....all they had to do was to stay faithful to the book for this specific scene ....

Always look forward to your breakdowns!

Roughly half of the kings guard have defected and the other half (rounding) that haven’t are having relations to the former queen regent. I think that’s a very purposeful choice and there will be implications in the next episode

I always appreciate your takes, Shad. Keep up the good work.

I hate the cheese and blood scene. First, Helaena only offer a necklace and seconds later she give his own son to be decapited (the murders said that want a head), she dont care her own child, just take the girl (the only that care?) and run, actually, when she speak to Alicent said something like "they kill the boy", fuck is her son. She dont beg, not try to lie to they, just give her son. Also, all happen by accident, Rhaenyra or Aemond never want this, just kill a adult men but the murder are greed. Like always Rhaenyra is the good. And also, Alicent and Cole are lover, the hypocrital religious greens, of course.

Step side wokywood, we are back.

You are so right about the way they artfully interweave all the characterization and key plot points together all at the same time. So much is going on in every scene. Such a good show.

20:04 to me, it shows that Aegon did have a chance in hell of being a good leader and a good person. It's gone now, because Otto and Alicent were always more interested in making him an idiot they could control rather than a decent king (they even say it as much) but he COULD have been forged into something good, unlike his obvious GoT counterpart Joffrey

The reason there was no kingsguard was because it was supposed to be Criston Cole guarding that door. And well... we all know what he was busy doing.

Overall a good episode, but the Blood and Cheese scene was so watered down, we don't need gore but the reason its so memorable in the books is it was truly gut wrenching and emotional, Heleana is forced to make an impossible choice, it just felt like she did it too easily, and offering the necklace instread of her own life just fell flat. I was actually dreading the scene but feel it lost how truly impactful it could have been.

It was a great episode and I really appreciated the review. Thanks for another great video.

Shad, maybe consider having a cheat sheet with faces and names for these reviews. Doesn't need to be on screen, just something for yourself. I totally understand that the names are hard to keep track of.

Great episode, great review! Just a side note.. is there a hum in the audio? Was trying to figure out of it was on my end but my headphones had a hum for most of the episode.. maybe an AC unit or something

Yeah, Criston Cole and Alicent a not a fan. Also, perver the book's version of Blood and Cheese. It's far more devastating. As for the rest, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Thanks for the vid already.

Something I noticed for the first time (despite having seen season one several times) was during the recap of season one at the beginning of this episode was during the scene of Vhagar killing Jace. At the moment when Vhagar bursts through the clouds and chomps down on Arrax and Jace, you see Jace's actor reflexively flinches and ducks in surprise right as Vhagar is about to bite down. It is a good sign of great stage direction where the director let the actor know exactly what was happening and how to react. It's important to remember there was no real dragon on set to react to for the actors. And so many times in these other crap shows and movies from Marvel and Disney Star Wars you will see actors not acting or reacting properly to what has been CGI'd into the scene. That's how you can tell the stage direction on these other shows is crap.

The murderers asked Daemon "what if we don't find him?" and the scene cuts right after, so he probably told them "find another heir" or something.

I was a little disappointed that there were not 3 children and we didn’t hear the famous line “here that boy your momma doesn’t love you”

They lost the balls in the blood and cheese scene. Nowhere near as brutal, pretty tame.

In the scene the kings guard are in the throne room drinking with the king. I suspect the Queen is going to try to make it out to be her son’s fault for distracting the guards with coming up with a cool name rather than push it on Cole’s shoulders so she can keep her power over him.

Three of the Kings Guard are on Dragonstone. One is missing because he resigned after Viserys died. So there are 3 in Kings Landing. Criston is with Alicent. I imagine the other two are with the King in the throne room protecting the King who is getting drunk with his buddies.

I think it is Deamon who told them that a substitute would suffice. They asked him " What if we can't find Aemond" and then they cut the scene prior to Deamon answering but then they say between them " a son for a son, he said" and "we have to kill a royal" etc so I am 99% confident Deamon gave the green light for this.

In the last three episodes someone has stolen a dragon, a crown and now murdered a prince in what should surely must be the most guarded place in Westeros, that stretches incredulity to Star Wars levels, bullshit, the writing is crap. From what we have seen people have simply walked unchallenged into the Dragon Pens, the Treasury and the Royal bed Chamber, and no-one thinks that is poor writing?

I love how Gary and Ryan build the assassins up as these ice cold killers (Of course the books are from unreliable narrators.) but they're just actually idiots. And this was a pretty solid Season opener. I hope this leads to a Game Of Thrones reset where time and space are altered so that they can fix the dreadful mistakes Dan and Dave made.

It was King Viserys' wish that Rhaynera would rule as queen after him. Lords gave theis oaths. So,if you are on team green you are oathbreaker....I know that both sides made bad choices....but the oath is an oath and man is just as good as his word.

As for Blood and Cheese, the episode was clear. Daemon tells them: "kill Aemond." They ask: "what if we can't find him?" Daemon smirks and the scene cuts. Then when one of them take Queen Helaena, the other says "Daemon told us a son for a son, does she look like a son to you?" And this shows us what was Daemon's answer to the question "if you can't find Aemond, then kill any other son, just don't come empty-handed".

"I could see Daemon going either way." Classic Daemon. Also, we know where the new Lord Commander was, and also the King's Guard is currently short handed because they split between both sides, and the former Lord Commander quit.

A solid episode with a disappointing last 10-12 minutes. It's not about the graphic violence, the scene in the books isn't any more brutal in that aspect it's that they changed some the context so that the scene has way less dramatic & emotional impact moving forward. It was a very important scene that's gonna have massive implications for the rest of the season & they half arsed it. Strongly disagree that it's as well written as s1 of Thrones, that's a legit 10/10 season of television & this is so far a very solid, enjoyable 7.5/10 writing with 1 really amazing episode (episode 8) & 1 really bad one (episode 9). I think a lot of people have a "starving man in the desert" reaction

I think the choice works for the guardsman, since... well... he does state he hates Hightowers and seems to be a brutal, violent man. Add to that the stress of going into the castle, the fear of being found out... I can see him doing something stupid like that.

Good episode but they bungled “Blood and Cheese”

I was thinking exactly the same thing regarding the lack of guards. These two assassins appeared to have an unchallenged, free rein of the castle. For a show so well made as House of the Dragon, it was immediately noticeable. I'm hoping that when the event is investigated in episode two, it will be discovered that the guards had been ordered away for some reason...but by whom, and what reason were they given?

In regards to the King's Guard being missing, I believe that at this point, Aegon only had 3. The others had either died or defected. Two of them were with him, one of them (Cole) was guarding the rest of the family. By sleeping with Alicent, Cole derelicted his duty. Unfortunately he can't really be punished too severely for this as the Commander of the King's Guard declaring Aegon King was a big point in his favour.

There’s only 3 Kingsguard at present, 1 is Cole, the other is Arryk who is probably protecting the king and there’s 1 other who might be anywhere at that point

I watched it late at night after spready 125 bags of mulch with my family and attending a concert with my dad, and I didn't once drift off!

So in the scene where Daemon is talking to the assassins, the guy with the dog asks “what if we can’t find Aemond” and it turns back to Daemon and the scene ends…implying - in hindsight - that he gave the order “if you Can’t find Aemond then take the other prince”. Remember Daemon wants this war to happen and has hated Aegon and his line throughout the whole episode. It totally makes sense for him to order his heir to be killed. I’m guessing we might see these assassins killed and Daemon can be off the hook for giving the order. The assassins get blamed for being stupid and Daemon doesn’t have to take accountability from Rhaenyra

Yeah I really like House of the Dragon way more than Game of Thrones because they're way more tasteful with the sex and violence.