Spoilers ahead for the Season 2 finale of “House of the Dragon.”
Khaleesi is back.
In the Season 2 finale of “House of the Dragon,” there’s an unexpected cameo from a major “Game of Thrones” character: Daenerys Targaryen.
Well, sort of.
Daenerys was born around 200 years after the events of this show. And, Emilia Clarke didn’t return. So, how did Daenerys appear without the actress, during the era of her ancestors?
Here’s what happens.
All season long, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) has been having wild dreams / visions.
In the Season 2 finale, he has a vision that includes seeing the White Walkers, the Three-Eyed Raven, Daenerys’ three dragon eggs and Daenerys herself at the end of “Game of Thrones” Season 1 (where she’s naked, emerging from fire unburnt, with her three newly born baby dragons crawling on her).
Her back is to the camera, so if it was really Clarke, they’d show her face. Nevertheless, it’s unquestionably Daenerys that Daemon is seeing in his vision.
She will be born over a hundred years in the future, but at least one of her ancestors is already seeing her.
In the vision, Daemon also sees himself submerged into a large body of water, he glimpses his niece/wife Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) sitting on the Iron Throne, and he sees Rhaenyra’s half-sister, Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban), who tells him, “It’s all a story and you’re but one part in it. You know your part. You know what you must do.”
This vision helps Daemon – who has been waffling all season in his support of Rhaenyra – re-affirm that he supports her as the rightful Queen of Westeros.
“House of the Dragon” is about a civil war between Rhaenyra and her half-brother, Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), who usurped her throne.
Season 2 ends with Aegon escaping the city in a covered wagon – he got horribly injured earlier in the season by his brother, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell). Aemond has ruled in his place while he’s recovered.
Aegon gets persuaded that he should go lie low while Aemond and Rhaenyra fight. Then, after the dust has settled, he can return to rule as “Aegon the victorious.”
Meanwhile, Aemond unsuccessfully tries to get his sister, Helaena, to fly her dragon and support him in war.
Helaena, who is a Dreamer (someone who has prophetic dreams and visions), tells him, “Aegon will be king again. He has yet to see victory. He sits on a wooden throne. And you. You’ll be dead. You are swallowed up in the Gods Eye and you are never seen again.”
The Gods Eye is a large lake in the Riverlands.
In the final shots of the Season 2 finale, Aemond and Rhaenyra’s respective armies are shown marching, preparing to go to war against each other.
Rhaenyra has three more dragon riders: Addam (Clinton Liberty), Ulf (Tom Bennett) and Hugh (Kieran Bew), who are also shown suiting up with armor.
And, Aegon and Aemond’s mom, Alicent (Olivia Cooke) secretly visits Rhaenyra to tell her that she’d leave the city gates open so that Rhaenyra can come in as a “conqueror” without spilling blood, and take the Iron Throne, after Aemond goes off to fight.
Season 2 has been a mixed bag. The dragon battle in which Aemond burned Aegon was the high point.
But the show spent too much time spinning its wheels around Daemon’s dream sequences, which felt like they were just stalling and benching him.
It also slowed down the plot after that battle, but it didn’t have good character development in place of plot.
For instance, Hugh is still barely a fleshed out character. We spent a little time with him, but most of what we know about his personality is, “he has a worried wife.”
The show is still struggling to flesh out its large cast of characters – Helaena could be intriguing, but at the moment, the show hasn’t given her depth. She’s barely a character. She appears on-screen for 30 seconds every few episodes to say something cryptic or ominous before vanishing from the story again.
Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), who seems to claim a large dragon this episode, could also be an interesting and sympathetic character for the audience to follow – maybe we’d like her as much as Arya or Sansa Stark in “GoT.” But, it’s hard to feel that way about Rhaena when she gets so much less screen time and development than the Stark sisters. Similar to Helaena, she appears on-screen for 30 seconds every handful of episodes.
For all of its faults, “Game of Thrones” juggled its large cast well, and made every character feel like they had depth and personality. “House of the Dragon” struggled to do that in Season 2. It had a lot of dramatic deaths, but they lacked emotional impact, since we hardly knew some of these people.
The show is oddly paced; it’s slow-walking this war, but it’s not using its time wisely, to fully develop many of these characters.
“House of the Dragon” has been renewed for Season 3, but a premiere date has not been announced.
