 I have seen some chatter online, overall just 10 out of 10, honestly. I am Jackson to lack of surprise that Damon would joke brain air, because if they weren't going to fight before, they sure as heck are going to fight now. House of the Dragon, episode 10, the season finale. Did it stick the landing? Yes, it did. I have seen some chatter online, not much, because I don't have time to be looking online and stuff, but what a little I have been informed of people saying that it did not stick the landing. And that is just objectively false. So let's talk about it. The first section I have is something that I had planned to talk about already, that I wanted to bring up as a positive, as something that I quite like about the show. And then I learned that people have a problem with this. And also, well, now I'm definitely talking about it. That is pregnancy and childbirth. I think it's great. I know that people have a problem with this. So even I found myself at times watching the show inching towards the thought of, like, is it is it a bit much to have this again, having had enough childbirth scenes? And then immediately like pulling back and being like, I would never think that about a battle scene, about a fight scene. This is equally relevant to the plot. If not more so, it's just not something that gets depicted all that often. It's the exception, not the rule. And I love the fact that this show is one, giving an equal time, basically saying the bloody battle that goes on in childbed is as important if not more important than what goes on on an actual battlefield, especially to the story they're telling, but in general. But add to that the fact that this story, this show, this is about essentially two mothers going to civil war with each other, setting the kingdom at war with itself. So Alison and Rhaenyra, you know, this is these are the two loggerheads in the story. They are both mothers and they have both had to fight to birth children and now we'll have to fight for their children's legacy. And I think in general, let me the idea that in stories we show battle, we show war, we show hand to hand comment, we show blood in that regard, but childbirth, if at all mentioned, is, you know, someone, some lady screaming in the other room while a father paces. And we see his story. We see how he's like worried about his child being born. And then some doctors saying, hey, we can't save the mother. And then the father deciding what to do about it. But it's not often that we actually see the birthing room and seeing what the mother is going through or if it goes wrong. Oftentimes, again, stories will be like, everything went great. Here you go. Here's the baby. Or they're like, oh, she died in childbed. Isn't that sad? But like, you don't see that, but you often see battles. You see men die on the battlefield. You see duels. You see beheadings. You see executions. You see, you see this all the time. So just in general, yeah, I'm glad they're they're showing childbirth, too. Because like, yeah, that's just as relevant. But again, these are two mothers and to really bring home what they have had to do to bring forth this life, which they will now fight to fight for the legacies for, for their children, you know, for Allison to fight to get Aegon on the throne, Rhaenyra to fight to get herself. And then thereafter, her children on the throne. It is extremely appropriate to show that the birth that we saw in this episode was a failed one. It came prematurely and the child did not survive. And it was a bloody brutal one. But so then having the scene of the pyre for the dead child, I hadn't really thought of it in these terms until I heard the show owners say that this is kind of how they thought of this scene, is that it is kind of paralleling and mirroring the scene with the Viserys early on the show when they are at the pyre for his baby that his wife Emma dies trying to bear. When they said it, I was like, oh, yeah, huh. But like, I didn't clock that at all when I was watching it. And I think the reason I didn't think of it in those terms and I still don't really, I mean, when they said it, I was like, I mean, I guess so. But I just don't think that Viserys and Rhaenyra situations other than the being at a pyre for your baby are similar enough to be a parallel or in fact, polar opposite enough to be a parallel. They're just kind of different situations, you know? So it's not, again, for it to parallel something or to juxtapose your things in that way or for you to like mirror them in some way. Usually, at least to me, that signifies that some you're trying a parallel because these situations are in some way similar or you're drawing a parallel because these situations are in some way the polar opposite. And that's why we're connecting the two to show them as mirror images either because of how similar or because of how different they are. And here, I mean, yes, it is a child's funeral, but that's it. Like that's the only part of it that's the same, like where Rhaenyra is in her life and what situation she's in and what she's being forced to consider right now is so, so different from Viserys. But again, not in a way that's like the direct opposite of that, you know, like on a color wheel or whatever. Like it's not like so different because it's the opposite. It's just very different. So I just don't see what the point of paralleling that would be other than simply to do it, which is kind of how it seemed. I was like when I said it was paralleling it, I was like, OK, but why? Why would you parallel that? Like just to say that she's now in her father's shoes, because like what makes her be in her father's shoes isn't that she's burying a child. That is not what makes her be in her father's place right now. And even then, she's not really in her father's place either because her the legitimacy of her inheritance is in question. And he hadn't like just been named the king. So anyway, I don't get the point of paralleling that. So I didn't clock that at all. But again, I liked that this episode showed that like the instant she gets this news, right, that her throne has been usurped, she goes into labor and has to spend the first hours, the first day of this of this new knowledge of her father being dead and of her effect that she should be Queen now, but isn't that she has to spend that time with birthing and birthing a child. It's not going to make it at that. The way that in this situation, because this is what happens, then people go into these like default modes, including Damon and Rainier has to like take extra steps to ensure that the default is not what happens moving forward because Damon by default then takes control of the armed forces and starts taking action. It's like, OK, she's going to go birth a baby as women do. I the dude, I'm now going to, you know, take care of the army side of things. And I don't necessarily think that Damon was trying to usurp her. I don't think it occurred to him that this is not what he should do immediately. You know, like Damon's already kind of a take charge kind of guy. And Rainier is going to go going to go birth a child. So it's just the natural thing for him to do again. I don't feel like he's like, oh, good, she's in labor. Now I can take charge. Like I don't think that that's the reading of it at all. Just that this is the default, just like that's why Aegon's been crowned. It's the default that it goes to the dude. That's what this kind of whole war and situation and question is about. And Rainier going into labor at that very moment has to go even further to prevent again, the default from happening. She calls her sons to her and is like, look, Viserys is dead. I should be queen now, but Aegon was crowned and I'm in charge now. I'm the queen. Your legacy is through me. Nothing goes without my say and her sons. Then she kind of like deputizes them to like be her voice in the room while she can't be because it is through her, as she rightly says, that they would have any claim anyway. So it behooves them to strengthen her position in the room that she can't be in right now. And again, she has to work extra hard now to set everyone's mind right to be that she's the one that's if they're fighting for her to inherit for her to be the queen, then it's because she's going to be in command. She's the one in charge. It's for her that they are fighting, not just in name, but to actually rule. So I think we can segue nicely then to Rainier and Daemon and what their dynamic is like in this episode. So I want to start with Daemon crowning Rainier because I kind of already covered Daemon's reaction to her going into labor, which was not ideal, but it was very Daemon. So anyway, the crowning scene here is actually where I did immediately think of a parallel to Viserys, not with the pyre. So we did learn or at least I learned, I don't think I mentioned it in the video, but it was, it became known online that the scene in the episode two ago now, in episode eight, when Viserys takes the throne for the last time to reaffirm their legitimacy of Rainier and his sons, he, the crown falls off his head as he's trying to make it up to the throne and Daemon comes up and picks up the crown and then puts it back on his head. And so this was not planned. But nonetheless, you know, what they choose to do with the footage that they have, what they choose to keep in and show remains, like these remain choices that they make. Whether or not that was an accident, their choice, what to do with that, then moving forward is a choice. They kept this footage of Daemon standing over Viserys and crowning him, where he's, Viserys is lower and Daemon is higher and this continues to trend of talking about several times now, where the show would often frame Viserys as weaker by having the camera angled down at him and frame Daemon as stronger by having the camera angled up at him. They did this even in the first episode when Viserys was on the throne and Daemon was standing lower before him. The camera angles did not show Viserys in as dominating a position compared to Daemon as you would imagine they would, given their actual physical positions and political positions as well. So anyway, we did that yet again, right? In this throne room scene in episode eight, where Daemon is standing over Viserys and putting the crown on his head and they pan out to show that they didn't just show Viserys getting the crown back on his head. They very clearly showed Daemon standing over him and I don't mean to suggest that in that scene they're implying that Daemon holds the power in the room, but they did show that. And here, when Daemon receives the crown from Eric and goes to Rhaenyra with it and crowns her with it, the camera does not pan out to show us Daemon standing taller than Rhaenyra because he is taller than her and he would be from a higher position lowering the crown onto her head. That's just based on their sizes, that's what would be going on. But the camera doesn't show that. It just shows Rhaenyra's head receiving the crown. And then the next time you see Daemon, he's already kneeling. So there is never a shot where he is standing over her, putting the crown down on her head. You just see the crown go on her head and the next time you see Daemon, he is below her. He is kneeling before her. And I really liked that they chose to do that. So they've shown him being in charge. He is obviously taller than her. There's no helping that. But once she becomes queen, once she receives the crown, he is shown to be subservient to her. I also love that in this scene I got the return of this beautiful piece of music that I don't know what it's called in the soundtrack, but I called it Rhaenyra's theme when I talked about it a few episode reviews ago. I love this theme music that Rami and Jamadi wrote for Rhaenyra. They've used it several times in iconic moments for Rhaenyra throughout the show. It's this kind of like base kind of drumming, heavy sound with these light feminine vocals atop. And it is I think a great piece of music for representing Rhaenyra as a character. And I love the way that they have used this music several times and it's always been in quite sort of like epic, like very character shaping and character defining moments. They've played this music and it feels almost like planting and payoff where they've shown these scenes where again they've been pretty important, significant moments for Rhaenyra and played this music because this is sort of like her on her way to her final form, if you will. And so in this scene, when she gets the crown and everyone is kneeling for her to hear this music again, it feels like a reprise. It feels like this is what all of those other moments were leading towards and here she is finally. But you know, not all is well between Damon and Rhaenyra as I already alluded to. He kind of takes charge while she's away. Again, I don't feel like he was intentionally usurping her but that's nonetheless what he does. And I do like that they didn't immediately show him being deferential to her. His instinct is to command and to lead and take charge always. Viserys had to deal with this side of Damon as well. And you know, Viserys is a man and his older brother. This is just kind of how Damon is. So it would have been extremely out of character for Damon to immediately be like, you know, Rhaenyra's in charge, no one would do anything with that Rhaenyra I say. So like that's just not who he's been this whole time. So that would just not be in character. So it felt very Damon of him to just be like, all right, I'm in charge now. Here's what we do. And even when Rhaenyra comes back, he's still not quite willing to like, oh, he's like, this I know better. I'm older than you. I don't care if you're clean. And again, I don't mean to say that Damon thinks he should be king and not Rhaenyra. That he should be like the one in charge really. But at the same time, he's like, I mean, you're queen and all, but like I know better about this. Like I just do. Then this is just how this goes. It's again, it's a very, like it's the default attitude. When they argue, he uses a comparison to Viserys as an insult to Rhaenyra. You know, he doesn't say, oh, you are your father's daughter as like, oh, you'll be a great queen. It's like, there's too much of Viserys in you and that's a bad thing. Which is also interesting because of how many times Viserys complained that Rhaenyra was too much like Damon. So I guess she's out of the worst of both worlds at the best of both worlds. Both Viserys and Damon see too much of each other in Rhaenyra. And I mean, perhaps that is what would make her in other circumstances, the ideal queen. But she has the more calm temperament that Viserys has but has the chutzpah and willingness to do what is necessary to go to war, to do that kind of thing as well. So again, in different circumstances, she might be the exact ideal queen if that is the case, that she's the perfect blending of Viserys and Damon. Then we get to Damon choking Rhaenyra and again, this completely checks out as something Damon would do. I mean, for all the positivity on the internet about Damon, he's not exactly the ideal person to choose as a mate. He does awful things all the time. So I'm not at all surprised that he would choke Rhaenyra. I'm not condoning him choking Rhaenyra to be clear. We're talking about the writing here. And Damon, as written, as portrayed in the show, him choking Rhaenyra, I'm like, yeah, I am Jack's complete lack of surprise that Damon would choke Rhaenyra. What I love about this scene is that despite the fact that Damon physically dominates her in this scene, right? Cause he's taller than her and he chokes her. She doesn't do anything violent against him. She still comes away from that conversation, the one on top. She dominates him in terms of her power and her position because in this conversation, we have this realization. Rhaenyra realizes that Damon doesn't know about the prophecy of ice and fire. And this moment, not only does it give her the upper hand over Damon in this individual circumstance in this individual conversation between the two of them, it does give her the upper hand in this dynamic in this room, but it also gives her that final certainty that Viserys truly meant her to be his heir. And I think this is a fantastic parallel to what has been going on over Yonder with Allicent because for Allicent, the prophecy served as a final confirmation that what Viserys intended was for Aegon to take the throne. So once again, we're kind of paralleling what each of them gets from Viserys. Each of them now has this realization about that it's prophecy related. Allicent feels that he has confirmed that he wants Aegon. And Rhaenyra realizing that she is the only one that heard this prophecy, that he didn't just maybe not tell it to Aegon, but that he didn't even tell Damon. Damon was his heir up until he named Rhaenyra, and he never told Damon. And that realization for Rhaenyra about how this was not just a passing thing, this wasn't like a, well, you know, in the moment, I got no other kids so I'll name Rhaenyra. This serves as that confirmation that he really, really meant it. But yeah, overall in this episode, I think I like that they showed Damon not immediately kowtowing to Rhaenyra. He takes over when she goes to give birth. He takes charge. He argues with her in front of everybody. He chokes her. But I don't think that this episode at all shows him not supporting her weirdly. Like he, in his way, in the most Damon way imaginable, he 100% supports her. And he believes he's doing everything in his power to strengthen her claim. Often that means he thinks he knows better and he's in charge and he should make the call. But he does believe that she should be queen. And he does, in his way, defer to her, at least eventually. And he does support her and her claim. Moving on then to Rhaenyra and the Valarians. So first of all, I just wanna say I called it. When Damon reacts to Rhaeny's showing up at the news that, you know, the greens crowned Aegon, I escaped on the back of my dragon. Here I am. Damon is the voice of the audience is like you could have ended this right then and there. You could have burned them all, why didn't you? And Rhaeny's says exactly what I said her position was when I watched that episode. This is not Rhaeny's fight. She does not have a dog in this fight. I mean, again, she does have, you know, the stake in what happens. But whether or not the kingdom goes to war over the question of succession here is not Rhaeny's call. It's not up to her if that happens. So when that's exactly what she says, she's like, if there's gonna be war, that's not my call. That's on you. I was just getting out of there because I'm not gonna side with them. But it's not up to me if we go to war over this. So as soon as she said that, I was like, yes. Nailed it. But again, it makes sense that that would be the call she'd make. It's not the one Damon or Rhaenyra would want. Necessarily it's not the one the audience would want. But it makes sense that that would be her call. Because as again, what I'm about to talk about Rhaeny's doesn't have much reason to super duper support Rhaenyra. If when Push comes to shove, it's a matter of honor of swearing odes of this is the side that we did swear we would support when Viserys named her as heir, this is the side on which our grandkids are. So I guess if we have a side, it's this one. But she has no love for Rhaenyra, at least at the time of her escaping on the back of her dragon. So I liked how throughout this episode we watched Rhaeny's kind of come around to the idea of Rhaenyra, not just because, okay, if I have to choose, I'm choosing this side because of the aforementioned reasons. You know, that she actually comes to respect Rhaenyra as an actual person who might be the better choice as a ruler, and not just because she's not Aegon, who's like the worst choice, that she watches, that we see Rhaeny's watching her and weighing her and measuring her. And then she is ultimately the bigger person because even, you know, the audience knows that she didn't actually kill Lainor, Rhaenyra didn't actually kill Lainor, but as far as Rhaeny snows, Rhaenyra killed Lainor. And the fact that that is something that she's able to not forgive but set aside and still support Rhaenyra and still recognize Rhaenyra as the better choice and as a worthy choice to rule Westeros, that she has the level head to be able to say, hey, Coralus, I've been watching Rhaenyra. I mean, Coralus is for good reason, not down with that at first. He's just learned that Daemon killed Vaemond. They both believe that they're responsible for Lainor's death. Coralus is like, you know, screw all of them. Why shouldn't we side with them? And Rhaeny's is like, look, we have to choose a side, that is clear. And Rhaenyra is trying to keep everyone from going to war. She is showing good judgment and would make a good ruler. And also, you know, their grandkids are on that side. And so I like that the episode just spent time showing us Rhaenys and Coralus having to come around to this idea that it's not just a given that they would side with Rhaenyra, that they have to kind of come to actually choose that. And then again, to show that Rhaenyra does not take that for granted, that she did not fully rely on the fact that they would join her side for, you know, obvious reasons. So that when Coralus comes forward and is like, we're on your side, that this is not lost on Rhaenyra, what a monumental thing this is to have them on her side. And not just Coralus saying, hey, you have our fleet, but that Rhaeny's herself personally is like, I'm putting my skin in this game also, me and my dragon. Did that moment felt as epic as it should because they had to set aside a lot in order to make this choice? It was not made lightly and you really feel that from all sides. Moving on then to Rhaenyra and her kids. It's been pointed out by a lot of people that in the depiction of these characters on this show, Rhaenyra is a lot more motherly than Allison towards her children. So we see Rhaenyra frequently, sort of like touching their heads and their shoulders and kind of being very like physically affectionate with her kids, very touching her pregnant belly a lot. And the way that she speaks to them is usually patient and coaching and teaching and comforting and consoling. That's how she's shown with her kids. Allison by contrast, we see her slapping her kids, yelling at her kids. We see her telling Aegon that he's no son of hers. There's no like physical affection. She never displays any physical affection towards them. When Aegon asks if she loves him in the previous episode, again, I don't think she actually means to say that he actually is an imbecile. Like she's not like insulting him while she is insulting him. But I don't think she means, I mean, obviously she's saying you imbecile, of course I love you. But again, like what I meant, I suppose, which I feel like people weren't clear on that or I wasn't clear on that in the previous episode, when I pointed out and others have pointed this out as well that Aegon, when he says, do you love me, mom? And she says, you imbecile. No, we don't mean when we say or when we point that out, that she is saying with that that she does not love him. But to me, it's telling if somebody can't say the words. If someone says, do you love me? And you say, what do you think? I mean, like the fact that you can't find it in you to actually say the words, you find a way to imply it rather than saying it outright, I think it's telling. Because people struggle to say things that they don't mean. They'll find an excuse not to or to say something similar that's not quite it. She didn't say you imbecile, of course I love you. She just said you imbecile. You know, it's like if someone says, do you love me? And the response is, I wouldn't be here if I didn't, you know, okay, why can't you just say you love them? Or use that as a supporting statement. Say, I do love you, I wouldn't be here if I didn't. But because you couldn't utter the phrase, I love you, you just skipped to the you imbecile, I wouldn't be here if I didn't kind of response. I think it's very telling. Which again, when we see ain't gone asking her, he's clearly at his lowest and he doesn't believe his father ever loved him. He's asking mom if she does and all she can say is you imbecile, I think it's telling. Again, Rainier, when she's in labor, she calls her sons to her and tells them, you know, it's up to them because their legacy is through her. And she's sort of like forcing them to take up the mantle of their positions now, the same as she is being forced to. The show has established several times that Lucerys does not want it when he's a little kid, he says it. And then at the beginning of this episode, when he's older, he also says that he doesn't want to be the heir of Drift Market, he doesn't know what he's doing. And again, we see this as a parallel to Aegon, who also was like, I don't want to be king, I shouldn't be king. But Rainier, unlike Allison, she's kind to Lucerys and she doesn't say, you know, shape up or ship out. She's not cruel to him. She's like, look, I'll be here to guide you. I don't know what I was doing either. She's very affectionate. And so later on in the episode, when Lucerys and Gissari is both volunteer to take up some piece of this mission, you know, of reaching out to their allies, Rainier earlier in this episode has asked them to take up the mantle of being heirs to the queen now because that's what she is now, that's what they are now. And seeing them now take on that duty and asking to actually do something to contribute, she then has to let go as a mother and has to accept that they are going to have to be at risk. She asked them to grow up and they are now asking to be allowed to really do so. So she has to honor that if she really does want them to grow up. And then we have the scene where she's explaining to them the mission, making the promise not to engage in violence, which is again, her kind of approach to this whole situation of like, we're not gonna strike first, we're not gonna be the violent ones. We will respond to that if it comes to that. And so, I mean, I having red-firing blood knew what would happen. So I was like preemptively getting devastated watching this scene, but where Rainier is then essentially telling Luceri is like, look, like, you know, based on the conversation they had earlier in the episode, you know, like, I know you don't feel ready. I know you don't. I know this is a lot. I know this is scary. You're getting the easy job. Don't worry, we're easing you into this, which again, it's devastating to watch when you know that he's not getting the easy job, quote unquote. Like, you go understand why she would think that there's very good reason I think that I would be the easy job. It should be the easy job. So I mean, she's asked them to grow up and they're willing to do so and now she's sending them out on what she thinks is like a good baby step for them and it's, well, it's gonna be more than that for Luceri's. A lot of growing those characters had to do all at once. And yeah, it's hard to watch. Moving then directly into Luceri's enaiment, much like what they've done with Alison, which I've praised ultimately. I mean, again, I talked about the time skip, the initial time skip version of Alison being a bit much to swallow all of a sudden, but in general, they've done a lot to add new ones to Alison's character, to her motivations. She's not just a cartoonish cookie cutter Disney villain who's like, I'm here for ambition alone, rawr. Like, there's a lot of nuance to her character in the show which I very, very much like. So they've done something similar here with Aamon, where again, the book tells us Aamon kills Luceri's on Dragonback. That's all we really know. Cause as a history book would tell it, you know, that's all they would know. Like, you wouldn't know what the conversation was like, what was going on between those characters. No historical record would have that information. And I like the idea that Aamon, hotheaded and angry, would pursue Luceri's, but that he would not have intended to kill him. And so for that to happen as a sort of like losing control of the dragon, which is already also kind of like, this would be a thing that Aamon would feel because it was such a big deal to him to claim a dragon and that he kind of had to go out there and get one for himself. So the idea of being able to control a dragon is a big point of like, of his ego, I guess, is the best way to say it. So that he would lose control of his dragon would already bruise his ego. And then the loss of control of that dragon would result in the death of Luceri's. Well, if he goes back and tells them what happened, he either has to say, I lost control of my dragon or I killed Luceri's on purpose. Neither is a great option. But the performances of both actors who played Luceri's and Aamon in the throne room scene was so well done. The tension between them, you know, you could cut it with a knife. The reveal of Aamon's eye was again, to be expected if you've read the book, but, you know, it was cool. It was cool to see. The performance of Aamon now after he's killed Luceri's of this kind of like, oh fuck, you know, I have made a huge mistake. Cause he didn't, I mean, killing Luceri's in any circumstance would be, oh fuck. But given where the kingdom is right now, Aamon knows that he's basically just started the civil war. Because if they weren't gonna fight before, they sure as heck are gonna fight now. Which I thought was a really good choice to handle that scene that way. Instead of him just being like, I'm gonna kill you when then he does and then goes home. You know, that would have been not especially believable, especially for how these characters have been painted so far. And this just, yeah. This just makes a lot of sense that this is how this would go down. Moving next to Rhaenyra and Allicent, which is something I've talked about quite a lot now in these sections, cause it's crept up in all these other sections. But there's a lot of ways in which Allicent and Rhaenyra are being paralleled and being mirrored and juxtaposed. Again, these two episodes in and of themselves are, when is the Green Council? When is the Black Queen? You know, when is the Allicent episode? When is the Rhaenyra episode? So like, obviously. This show is about these two ladies. But again, the show did a great job in this episode showing Rhaenyra really coming to grips with this position, that actually like taking on the mantle of being Queen now, what that means, what it means for her kids. And we similarly saw Allicent in the previous episode like Viserys is dead and fully coming to grips with what it means if she wants to get Aegon on the throne and what it means for her position. And going through this roller coaster of change, both of them have to go through this after Viserys' death. We also have an interesting paralleling of the dynamic between Allicent and Otto and the dynamic between Rhaenyra and Daemon. Daemon and Otto, their instinct is to jump to killing, jump to war, jump to violence. That's their instinct. And both Rhaenyra and Allicent show much more restraint and they check those impulses. When as Allicent said in two episodes ago to Rhaenyra that they both have more in common then either of them would often allow. And again, Allicent tells Otto in the previous episode an unwillingness to murder is not weakness. Rhaenyra assessed a Daemon in this episode so I should go to war because I'm angry. Neither of them wants, thinks violence is the first answer at least. They're willing to do violence but it's not their go-to first choice. Next we come to the bridge scene which is an obvious parallel. Does not need me to point that out too early on in the show when Rhaenyra went without her father saying that she should to prevent bloodshed between Otto and Daemon. Here, we obviously paralleled that scene. Rhaenyra's dragon even landed on Otto's side again so they once again had the part to let her through. Before it was Daemon that was challenging Rhaenyra's claim. Here it's Daemon defending Rhaenyra's claim but it's still violence between Otto and Daemon that Rhaenyra is once again the person to come between and say no. No, we're not gonna do violence right here today. Rhaenyra has been and continues to be the keeper of peace which is what Rhaenyra says about her to Coralus is one of the reasons she has decided to side with and support Rhaenyra. Another thing I loved about that scene which is nothing, not necessarily anything that happens in the scene but it's just that the having of this scene and because it does call to mind the much, much, much, much earlier scene that happened quite early in the show with Rhaenyra, the young Rhaenyra coming between them is just at this moment and kind of go like look at how far we've come because it makes you immediately recall this other scene because the whole time, you know, obviously you're aware of the young Rhaenyra and what all has gone on but because it calls to mind this earlier scene so vividly and you just look at these characters and how much has happened between them and how much has happened in the interim and how much they've grown and changed and how much in general has changed since that original scene. I don't know, I love the way that it just kind of like brings that into sharp relief. You know, the first time we had this scene Rhaenyra was there on behalf of Kings Landing and now she ends the scene saying that Kings Landing will have her answer. So how is this episode as a finale? I think it's a brilliant finale. Again, I've seen here and there these takes that it was a weak finale and I just think that that's, you know, I guess every opinion is valid except that one. If you think this show is good and you don't think this finale is like the landing, get out of here. You don't understand the show. I mean, this episode, it closes the loop on episode nine. These episodes are a pairing. They are, you know, Green Council, Black Queen. They are a duo. This completes that circle. This did so much paralleling for things that happened in the show in general but also for what happened in the previous episode. It's showing us the sides. You know, we got to really know the green side of the previous episode and not just Alison Tanauto but all the points of weakness and strength that are on that side, the breaking points, the points that they have to their advantage. We got a deep dive into what's going on over there. And then with this episode, we got the same with the blacks. The strengths and weaknesses of not just Reynira and Damon but about their allies. Who's on their team? What do they have going for them? What are their points of weakness? Where might this all fracture? I also really enjoyed that it showed us not just Reynira wondering about whether or not it's right to go to war. It also showed us the very practical concerns of going to war. Like it's not just a question of is it moral to do this? It's, is it practical to do this? The fact that they go through, you know, do we even have the numbers to do this? Do we have the resources to do this? It's not just I want to reclaim my throne. You have to actually think about it if that's possible. This episode, I think beautifully completed the evolution of Reynira into her final form into the black queen that would go to war for her crown. Because even at the beginning of this episode, she wasn't quite there yet. She was very, you know, still young Reynira, not quite ready to claim this position. She knows she has to. She feels uncertain about these things. Doesn't immediately want to go to war. The war is not necessarily the answer. But just in that last scene, we see that Luceris isn't just the last straw in terms of, oh, in general, this side can't let that stand. Because of course that side can't let that stand. But what it does to Reynira, to push her over the edge and to make her willing to go to war for this. Because she was not willing to go to war for the crown alone, but over the death of her son. Yes. And because this whole season had been building up to the Dance of the Dragons, I like that it showed us the first domino to fall, the first casualty of the Dance of the Dragons. Luceris' death is, I think, a brilliant way to end the first season. Because it shows us the real pain and the real stakes of what's about to happen. You could have ended it before that, I guess, and just that they're considering going to war. But this is what is the final kind of, this is the point of no return, so to speak. I think it's a perfect place to end it. I also liked that it did give us our very first glimpse of what we can expect a war between dragons to look like. Because up until this point throughout this show and also Game of Thrones, we've only ever seen Dragon versus city. Dragon versus general populace. Dragon versus castle. Dragon versus army. That's what we've seen. We've never seen dragon versus dragon. And the Dance of the Dragons is going to be many a dragon versus many a dragon. So we, we then, we saw the first casualty of this war and our first glimpse of what this war is going to look like and how devastating it's going to be. The show overall, final thoughts about sort of all 10 episodes, it's not a perfect show. I have had complaints throughout. The pacing is a little off. Again, I think they worried about losing their audience. So they were clipping along at a faster rate, ultimately I think ending with Luceri's death was the right place to end. So if they felt they needed to get to that point, I guess. I don't necessarily think that they should have waited, you know, pushed some of this plot into the second season, but then if we could have had more episodes in season one or longer episodes to help with the pacing. But otherwise, you know, if this is, this is the goal, you know, you got to get from the series becoming king to Luceri's dying. If that's, you know, those are the bookends and we have to fill in everything in between. That being the task they are set with, the pacing was decent for that. The time skips, as I said before, were drawing not just because how they tie into pacing and how they are kind of drawing every time, no matter what, you know, I had a big problem with Allison after the time skip where she was just this complete 180 of her characterization. We didn't see like, there was a point missing between point A and point C, we didn't see B. We were just kind of left to intuit that these changes had happened with her over that time skip, but didn't really see at least even the beginnings of it. Not great in my opinion. Lots of issues with Kristen Cole throughout, not to think, I mean, we hate him. So I don't just mean like, I personally have issues with the guys, of course I do, but like, the fact that he murdered Joffrey the way he did and there were no consequences for this, the way that he's not really aging looks kind of strange next to everybody else who's getting either aged up, you know, like Viserys was looking like our corpse, but also the actors keep getting aged up, but like Kristen looking so young and fresh this whole time is a bit weird to me. So they could have at least, if they're not gonna recast him, you know, give him some gray hairs. You know, there were moments of weirdness, moments of spectacle, moments of like, this is for television, which, you know, we're not my favorite, but for, you know, accepting that a show is gonna need to do some of that. Overall, I think most of the time I handled it decently well. Again, Kristen killing Joffrey at the wedding, purely so that we could have a death at a wedding. I didn't love it. Again, I talked about it a lot, didn't love that, but it's not absolutely the worst thing ever. Vaman's Beheading was, again, a moment for television. Doesn't really work for the writing. Rainy's coming up through the floor with the dragon. Again, I talked about it, like I don't think it's as bad as people said and the people defending Kristen and Vaman as totally making sense in the logic of this universe, going bananas over, not making any sense what Rainy's did, need to pipe down. All of it makes like equal sense, meaning not very good sense. Rainy's motivations did make sense to me that this is what she would choose to do, but I agree, it's a bit ridiculous that she came up through the floor with her dragon. You know, people saying then the floor, the stones would have hit her and killed her. Forget whether she'd killed the greens, you know, sure. It was a moment of spectacle for TV. For being that, it was certainly better than what we got in season eight. So anyone saying that we're at season eight level of writing right now, get a life, we are not. Go back and watch season eight. You've forgotten how bad it was. Laris and the feet, again, I don't know why we needed that. It was there to be weird. It was there to be a moment to make you go, ugh, didn't make a ton of sense, could have done without that. But overall, I think as I talked about before, the task of this show is to take an outline of history from Fire and Blood and to really flesh it out, to give it the meat, to give it the nuance, to give it the character and flavor that is not in the book. It's just not that kind of book. To fill in all those blanks, and I think for the most part, it did a brilliant job filling all that in. And again, not just filling it in, because of course, they would have to write in, okay, we know this happened, so we actually have to figure out what the conversation where it was decided that would happen would look like. And doing that alone takes creativity and they did a good job if and when that was what they were doing. But they also added in a lot of nuance that's not present in the book, partly because the book again could not have that nuance because it's to do with very personal moments with characters, a lot of introspection that a history book like that just would not have access to that knowledge. So Viserys character overall, George R. R. Martin even praised it as a better Viserys than his book Viserys. There's just a lot more nuance to that character. He becomes a much more tragic figure than he's in the book. Damon's character overall, I think they handled, again, a character that can very easily just be like, oh, he's the bad boy. I think they've given Damon's character a lot of nuance and a lot of it is oh, two Matt Smiths, great performance. Alison Tane and Rainier are the gimmacks that they made them friends before all this goes down and the way that they've later kind of showed them dealing with the ramifications of their actions, how to decide what to do about what's, what they're contemplating doing, in particular with Alison's character because she has such an unlikable character and is positioned that way by the story and they've given her nuance that they've given her some pretty sympathetic moments. So it's not just oh, she's the baddie. She is much more likable than Cersei Lannister. Anyone out here saying she's worse than Cersei get out of here? She's not. The way that they took the time to show us Rhaenys and Coralus siding with Rhaenira. I think a lot of that, again, a lot of nuance to that. Aamon killing Lucerys and showing again that this was accidental and how this would have gone down. I think that's brilliant. I initially was very skeptical about adding in the prophecy of ice and fire, but they won me over. In episode eight, I was like, okay, actually this was a good idea. You guys are handling this really well and then furthermore in this episode and the previous one where the way this carries through the way this is part of what shapes the motivations of our characters, I think what's handled brilliantly in a great addition to the story. From a technical standpoint, the show has been fantastic all along. I mean, they have a lot of the same people doing it as Game of Thrones, which was also stunning. I mean, the sets, the locations they shoot in, the costumes, the makeup, all of that chef's kiss, it looks fantastic. The use of dragons, I mentioned before, is always narratively purposeful. It's not just spectacle, which makes it that much more impactful when they do do it. I mean, obviously CGI is expensive, so that's part of why you'd keep it to a minimum, but they did minimally use CGI. Obviously the dragons have to be CGI and other things as well, but it didn't feel like a show that's just all filmed on a green screen. It has life to it. It has grounding to it and the dragons I've praised before, again, narratively purposeful, but also they feel like these weighty beasts that they feel alive. They feel real. They feel like they have mass, again, because they did a good job, technically speaking, with just animating these dragons. But there's a lot of attention to detail on how they've animated them, have they given them personality, when and how they use them in the story, just very, very well done. The music, as always, is fantastic. I love, love, love, love, love. Ramin Jamwadi is a composer and he knocked it out of the park again. Yeah, he wrote some absolutely beautiful new music for this show and it was always a joy to listen to what new music he'd come up with and always added to a scene. The casting and the acting of everyone was superb. Again, what problems I had with Alison's characterization after the time skip were to do with how they are writing the character, not necessarily the actress's performance. It is also how she's directed to perform it. I think overall, everyone is fantastically cast and performing their roles brilliantly. And for a season that is essentially a prologue, I think this show did everything that it needed to do to get you hooked and set up for the following season. It showed you what has laid the groundwork for the Civil War that is to come in a way that you fully understand where both sides are coming from and not just the heads of those sides, but everybody else who composes the mosaic of the Civil War, all the individual relationships that are going to be at play when we move into a Civil War. Why individuals are gonna be motivated to behave in the ways that they're going to behave when we go into actual Civil War. It gave us, again, all the information we need about all these people, reasons to root for and against people. This final episode, not just leaving off on, okay, we're about to go to Civil War, but to give us our first casualty, to give us a reason to really now wanna see this war because we, like, reindeer at the end of this episode are like, you killed Lucerys. Like, this cannot stand. And to get us the audience primed, not just to be like, oh no, the kingdom's gonna go to Civil War. Oh no, oh. No, at the end of this episode, you're like, hell yeah, we're going to war. All I can say really ultimately is Bravo. They knocked it out of the park. Whatever issues I have, it's not a perfect show. I can't expect it to be a perfect show. For being an adaptation of a small, relatively small chunk of fire and blood, it did everything it really needed to do. Certain things I would have done differently, sure. I think there's a perfect adaptation, a perfect show. Overall, just 10 out of 10, honestly. As a whole, brilliantly done. And I can't wait for season two. But I'm not quite done talking about House of the Dragon in a couple of weeks. The week of November 7th, we're going to reconvene the group earlier this year, Alex from Alex Nieves and Jimmy from the Fantasy Network and myself. We did an Asong of Ice and Fire read-along and we also read The Night of the Seven Kingdoms and Fire and Blood. So we're going to reconvene the week of November 7th. We haven't quite pinned down the date yet, otherwise I would tell you to do a live to talk about House of the Dragon. I'm very much looking forward to that. Jimmy's also been covering the show on his channel, so if you haven't seen his tanks on the episodes, go over there and check out what he's had to say. Overall, I think the three of us are mostly on the same page. At least I think we all agree that this show is fantastic, but there will be individual things that we disagree about. I already know a couple. So it should be a pretty interesting conversation and it will be live. So you can join in and let us know your thoughts as well. So for the time being, do let me know your thoughts in the comments down below. I post videos on Saturdays, other random times will be up on Saturdays so like and subscribe, turn on my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you.