House of the Dragon 2×08 “The Queen Who Never Was” is a disappointing season finale that feels more like setup for the third season than a conclusion for the second season. Though perhaps, that is fitting, after all. The entire second season has felt like a setup for more.
Fire & Blood, the book House of the Dragon is based on, has long ago ceased to be the show’s guiding center. That part would be easier to accept, as a book reader, if it felt like the show had any idea what it was doing with a storyline that often feels like it’s going in a wholly new direction. Well, that and if it didn’t feel, at times, like the entirety of the show is about correcting Game of Thrones’ mistakes. That ship has sadly, very much sailed.
House of the Dragon 2×08 “The Queen Who Never Was” does very little to make the show feel like a show that wants to stand on its own two feet. But it sets up that possibility. It’s been doing that for the entirety of season two. Let us hope, at some point, it delivers.
THE MOST RIDICULOUS CIRCULAR STORYLINE EVER
I feel like Daemon’s storyline is the serpent eating its tail and me complaining about it is the same, but here we are again, and the season is over, so we must talk about this mess again, even if it’s just to reiterate how little sense it makes. Sure, I get what they were going for, more or less. But the storyline took way too long, and the decision to tie his final vision to Game of Thrones lore makes a bad decision even worse. Because in truth, if you’d told me at the beginning of the season, or any point in season 1, that Daemon didn’t want the throne, just the love and respect of Viserys and Rhaenyra …I would have believed that!
The show already had enough established to get Daemon’s character to where he is at the end of Season 2. They didn’t need this long detour that robbed us of the Daemon and Rhaenyra dynamic for most of the season. And then, when we do get them together, when they have an army, we don’t even get a real moment between them, because …well, there’s a bunch of people, she’s the Queen he just swore fealty to, it’s not like they’re gonna make out right then and there. Though for a moment, it almost seems like they want to.
Even the moment they get for themselves before the oath isn’t about them, it’s about the future, about the fact that “winter is coming,” and though yes, Daemon’s oath “until death or the end of our story” does sound more like a marriage vow than the kind of vow you make to your Queen, it’s kinda sad that the for most of Season 2, the show chose to double down on storylines that added very little to the underlying story of this show than take advantage of the dynamics that made House of the Dragon interesting for viewers in the first place.
IT WOULDN’T CHANGE ANYTHING
House of the Dragon 2×08 “The Queen Who Never Was” plays with the idea of inevitably, in what is probably its only nod to book readers. Because as much as the show has changed some beats, some things cannot be changed. This story must play out the way it has to, even if we have grown attached to certain characters. That’s what happens when you’re telling a prequel story.
There are interesting beats in the episode, character-wise, that come from this exploration. Alicent’s “I didn’t know what I wanted, I knew only what was expected of me” rings true, because it’s a deconstruction of the character House of the Dragon has built and the journey she’s been on. The same goes with Helaena’s conversation with Daemon, Phia Saban’s best moment in a season that hasn’t allowed her the time to shine she deserved.
“It wouldn’t change a thing,” Helaena says, and Saban is encapsulating the entire show in it. Saban’s Helaena has always been the eyes of not the audience, but perhaps, George R.R. Martin, and the larger world. We understand the stakes through her. And in this hour, so does Daemon. And yet, Saban does another magnificent and very difficult thing in this episode, she makes us care, even though we recognize the truth of her words: it does not change a thing.
Things will still end up the way they have to. We will still lose most of these people. That doesn’t mean we can’t root for them while we have them.
WHAT GAME OF THRONES DID WRONG, HOUSE OF THE DRAGON CAN NOT FIX
House of the Dragon 2×08 “The Queen Who Never Was” does a lot to tie the show to Game of Thrones, in a way that feels both inevitable and a grave mistake, considering that the Targaryens in Game of Thrones ended up being pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Daemon’s vision would be a lot more powerful if Daenerys and her dragons had, you know, actually had something to do with ending the Long Night. But, alas, subverting expectations and all that.
But this is an old conversation, and we shouldn’t be having it again. House of the Dragon is wrong for resurrecting it. The show shouldn’t be about the mistakes of the past. This story didn’t need the connection to shine. The characters were interesting enough on their own. To make Daemon bend the knee because of this absurd vision, to have Rhaenyra suddenly be the right choice because it is not just simplistic, it’s a copout. The story isn’t, has never been about easy, right choices.
Sure, there’s something to be said about Team Black as the team on the “right,” particularly from a modern lens, because Rhaenyra is the chosen heir, and who cares if she’s a woman? But the whole point of the show was to showcase Team Green as people with nuance and to make people, if not outright root for them, at least feel better about the ebbs and flows of this war. That’s kinda hard when the show is basically going, one side should win! We understand you have favorites, and so do I, but can we at least pretend? For the sake of the show and all?
Things I think I think:
- First time Tyland is somewhat interesting, I’ll give him that.
- Okay, so Aemond is losing it. Gotcha.
- When Aegon calls Aemond “mand c*nt,” I kinda laughed, because he is very right. Because let us not kid, he was talking about Aemond.
- Me, agreeing with Larys Strong. Whoever thought we’d see the day.
- Look, I’ll be the one to say it, you did kind of deserve your manhood being destroyed, Aegon. Not gonna lie there.
- “Will you burn me as you did Aegon?” I mean, Helaena asking the real questions.
- Rhaenyra threatens Daemon and his reaction is kinda like “That’s hot, do it again.”
- Okay, but I’m on Jace’s side vs. Ulf.
- THIS BITCH IS TURNING ON RHAENYRA, I WILL MURDER HIM. We were worried about Daemon, and we should have been worried about the messenger Rhaenyra sent.
- This whole conversation with Cole talking about Alicent was unnecessary. There’s nothing he says that’s gonna make us like him more.
- Baela telling it to Jace like it is was one of THE scenes of the season.
- I wouldn’t say I like Ulf, and it’s been 0.2 seconds.
- That vision was a TRIP.
- “I could have you killed”/”It wouldn’t change anything.”
- Alyn *should* tell Corlys to go to hell. Good on him.
- “If I survive this war, I will continue as I began, alone.”
- There’s a part of me that gets what they’re trying to do with Alicent, but I also would much have rather she be the kind of person who wanted to see the world burn.
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of House of the Dragon 2×08 “The Queen Who Never Was”? Please share with us in the comments below!
House of the Dragon aired Sundays on HBO.
