Matt Smith certainly looks like The Warrior himself (God/Aspect of the Seven). If HOTD becomes an antology series (post-dance of the dragons) I would not be mad if he played another Daemon...
Speaking of Daemon, how ducking funny is his reaction to the Brackens saying, "go ahead - burn us". Mad respect for him to actually realize that THAT is the kind of soldiers he needs.
Alys Rivers remains one of the breakout characters of this season.
Baela is a boss. Loved her conversation with grandpa Velaryon. Indeed, Rhaenys chose to go out like a dragonrider.
🤩 🤩 🤩 More Book-accurate Eyrie and (Frey) Crossing 🤩 🤩 🤩
Random Thoughts
Parading Meleys' head around is definitely a bad idea. It's diminishing the mysticism that the dragons possess. This is also undoubtedly setting the stage for the <event from F&B>.
That's a level of incest I was not prepared to see, Daemon.
So far with Daemon: Brother issues, niece issues and are we adding Mommy issues ? Next Episode are we getting Baelon cameo ?
Is the Valyrian armor "HOTD-Canon" for Aegon surviving Rook's Rest ?
I'm not quite sure who Rhaenyra's handmaiden was seeing at the end.
"What time is it" "The WOLF". Loved how that line could have a meta context, in addition of the actual in-universe meaning.
I loved the proposal and extent of the Dragonseed plan for the Blacks. To me, it sounds more out-of-left-field and grandiose than the F&B version.
Was this the first usage of "Aemond One-Eye" ?
Good job, Otto. All that work to keep Daemon off the throne... only to end up with Daemon on the throne - just with the D moved to the end and a cool eye-patch.
spoiler
I wish I had thought of this one first: After the Bracken Fiasco and all the other blunders, our rogue prince is earning the nickname Daemon Backfyre'd.
Felt like going back to business as usual in season 2 after a really good episode 4 in this series for me. There's some awkward dialogue and many scenes seem like meaningless filler or exposition that is put in to use more of the source material. This feels like it is done to fill in the blanks with whatever to get to the major story points from the book and really doesn't match GRRM's level of writing... weakest parts of the show in S2 for me but this definitely still is way better than the way GOT turned out in the later seasons that did not rely on the books.
That said, it was still a reasonably good episode. Aftermath of the battle was interesting (they made it clear that dragons are like nukes), found it clever how they contrasted the way team black & green handled the prospect of a woman ruling. Also good to see Dragonstone finally work to gather some forces even if things are still quite shaky on that front it seems.