The fourth episode of House of the Dragon season 2, “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” was a key moment for HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series. All season long, we’ve heard words of warning about how horrible a civil war between dragonriding Targaryens could be. But words are wind, and until we actually saw the dragons dance, it was hard to fully comprehend the horror that was about to be unleashed.
Well, unleashed it has been. “The Red Dragon and the Gold” was a devastating episode where three dragons battled it out in the sky over a besieged castle. It was epic stuff as exciting as anything we saw on Game of Thrones!
As we do every week, we’re breaking down the episode to search out all the easter eggs and secrets you may have missed. SPOILERS from “The Red Dragon and the Gold” ahead.
First and foremost, there are no changes to the opening credits this week: the funeral of young Prince Jaehaerys and the hanging of the ratcatchers are still the final shots on the tapestry. “The Red Dragon and the Gold” is a huge episode that will probably end up on the woven history of House Targaryen.
The title of this episode, “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” is taken directly from the chapter of George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood. That chaptered featured the Battle of Rook’s Rest as well as many of the other main events of this season. The chapter is titled “The Dying of the Dragons—The Red Dragon and the Gold.”
Episode 204 begins with Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) dreaming it up at Harrenhal, and another surprise cameo from Milly Alcock as Young Rhaenyra. Let us go the way of bullet points:
Next we head to Driftmark, where Princess Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) is making a rare visit to the docks to meet Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim). We’re going to get into SPOILERS here from the book; if you want to skip them, jump ahead to the next image.
In King’s Landing, Alicent Hightower is haunted by her last conversation with Rhaenyra, where she was finally forced to confront the fact that she misinterpreted King Viserys’ final words. She’s thinking quite a lot about Viserys in this episode; that dragon statue she’s studying at the start of the scene is one which broke early in House of the Dragon season 1, and Alicent had mended as a surprise gift to Viserys.
Alicent receives some moon tea from Grand Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan) to abort a pregnancy from her escapades with Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). There are a few important details about this scene. The first is that this calls back to season 1 in some pretty hypocritical ways for Alicent; in House of the Dragon’s fifth episode, “We Light The Way,” Larys Strong tells Alicent that Rhaenyra received moon tea, which is what leads her down the path of uncovering Rhaenyra and Criston’s affair. Alicent was pretty judgmental back then; less so now, it seems.
The timing is of note. Criston and Alicent’s relationship only started after King Viserys died near the end of season 1. That was roughly a month ago in the show’s timeline. So it’s long enough that Alicent might have known she was pregnant, but still been in the very early stages. However, we have seen moon tea used as a morning-after pill; that’s why Rhaenyra took it in House of the Dragon season 1, within days of sleeping with Criston.
Back on Dragonstone, Queen Rhaenyra’s advisors continue to whine more than help. Bullet point time:
Next we hop across the bay to Duskendale, where we see just how bad the Blacks are at keeping track of Criston. While they bicker about not knowing where he is, Criston and Alicent’s brother Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox) are busy sacking the stronghold of Duskendale. Those shields lying on the beach with red and yellow fields ornamented with black and white designs are the sigil of House Darklyn, which rules there.
Criston has gathered all the remaining soldiers of House Darklyn to watch as he gives their lord a choice: bend the knee to Aegon or die. Lord Gunthor Darklyn refuses to bend the knee and calls Criston Cole “Kingmaker,” since he’s out enforcing Aegon’s will across the countryside. This is a nickname of Criston’s from the book, which he gets because he is the person who literally places the crown on Aegon’s head during his coronation. Cole still crowned Aegon in the show, but it’s bringing in the nickname in a different way.
After Criston beheads Lord Gunthor Darklyn, all of the remaining Darklyn soldiers bend the knee. Then, Criston receives a letter from his runner. That letter is most likely from Aemond, letting Criston know that he’s made all the necessary arrangements to meet him at Rook’s Rest for their surprise attack. And indeed, Criston announces to Gwayne and his men that they’re not heading toward Harrenhal right after reading it.
The other fun thing of note in this scene is that Gunthor Darklyn is played by Steven Pacey, who is best known in many fantasy reading circles as the narrator of Joe Abercrombie’s First Law audiobooks.
With Criston on his way to Rook’s Rest, we head into the Small Council chambers so that Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) can finally fill the rest of us in on the plan:
Back in Harrenhal, Daemon’s still having nightmares. He dreams he hears someone walk by his room, and then chases them into the hall with his Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister. It looks like Aemond Targaryen…until they turn around, and it’s just Daemon with an eyepatch and a different wig. Fun fact: “Aemond” is just “Daemon” with the D moved to the end. These two characters are very intentionally set up as very similar polar forces on either side of the Dance of the Dragons, and Daemon serves as both an inspiration and fixation for Aemond. It looks like Daemon is having to grapple with his own hand in making this monster.
After seeing the apparition, Daemon stumbles into the workshop of the woods witch Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin):
Back in King’s Landing, Aegon is faced with the uncomfortable truth that no one really wants his input as king.
We’re almost into the Battle at Rook’s Rest! Ser Criston and Gwayne have set up camp, and there are some cool little details to be parsed. This scene starts with soldiers felling treesso they can build the battering rams we see later. Medieval armies often didn’t carry that sort of heavy siege equipment with them on the march, but rather made it out of whatever they could once they arrived at their destination. Another nice little detail is that Criston’s warhorse has a Seven-Pointed Star embossed on its chanfron, because of course Criston is the image of piety.
Meanwhile on Dragonstone, Rhaenyra has finally returned just in time to hear her councilors discussing the looming battle.
Our final scene before the battle is part of a montage. Rhaenyra tells Jace about the Song of Ice and Fire, the prophetic dream Aegon the Conqueror had about the looming White Walker invasion which led him to unite the Seven Kingdoms.
Now we’re into the battle itself. Unlike much of the rest of the episode, all the details are right up in your face during this sequence, so the Easter eggs are more spread out since it’s all about that action. One last run of bullet points:
And that brings us right to the credits of this latest, dramatic episode of House of the Dragon. “The Red Dragon and the Gold” was a massive episode for HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series. As of this writing, it’s the highest-rated episode in the show’s entire run according to IMDb, and has stoked the hype for the series to a new high. Now that the dragons have danced, the war is only going to grow fiercer.
House of the Dragon just delivered its first Battle of the Bastards-level event episode. What’s next?. House of the Dragon just delivered its first Battle of the Bastards-level event episode. What’s next?. dark. Next
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