House of the Dragon' Season 2 finale: Before dragons dance, they gotta stretch

This is a recap of the most recent episode of HBO’s House of the Dragon. It contains spoilers. That’s what a recap is.

Credits! And a pretty sizable amount of thread is newly devoted to the Red Sowing – last week’s dragonrider recruitment drive. (Red Sewing joke goes here.)

On behalf of Team Green, Tyland Lannister meets with representatives of the Triarchy (sing along with me: the Free Cities of Myr, Lys and Tyrosh, which lie on, or just off, the continent of Essos across the Narrow Sea). They agree to give him an armada of 100 warships to break Rhaenyra’s blockade of the bay in exchange for control of the Stepstones – the same place they fought Daemon and Corlys for control over, back in season one. But they will only do so if Tyland can best their admiral, Sharako Lohar, in a mud fight. High stakes diplomacy meets Stripes

On an overlook above the town of Sharp Point, Aemond regards its burning ruins, which he’s just had Vhagar flick her Bic at. Sharp Point lies at the tip of a peninsula sticking up into Blackwater Bay, not too far from the islands of Driftmark and Dragonstone. Which is important, because, as predicted, Aemond didn’t deal well with getting chased away by Rhaenyra’s new dragons last week and has immediately taken it out on the nearest thing he could, which in this case is the entire populace of the Westerosi equivalent of Provincetown. Aemond looks upon his handiwork with smug satisfaction, although in fairness that’s kind of just his face.

Larys, whose official title is Master of Whisperers but could easily be Guy Who Can Read The Writing on the Damn Wall or Dude Whose Like Entire Gig is Knowing Which Way the Wind’s Blowing, tells a bedridden King Aegon that they need to leave King’s Landing yesterday. There’s a fun bit of back and forth between them, as Larys tries to sell Aegon on running away to Essos and waiting it all out, only to one day return in glory. But Aegon, always a creature of carnal appetites, can’t see past the damage that’s been done to his body, which he describes in such detail it’ll put you off sausage breakfast sandwiches for a week.

On Dragonstone, Jacaerys happens upon Ulf and Hugh. Ulf behaves like the Shakesperian comic character he’s written to be, and gets a little overfamiliar with the Prince, lumping himself in with him overtheir shared ability to ride dragons and have brown hair. Hugh, who’s used to being looked down upon by royals, attempts to smooth things over.

We’re all born naked; the rest is dragon

Over on Driftmark, Rhaenyra asks Corlys for any intel on Addam, but he’s not forthcoming. “I’ve had little to do with him,” he says, speaking truthfully. We get a helpful new dragoncount, if you need to update your Dance of the Dragons Scorecard. Rhaenyra’s got six. Aemond has only Vhagar, and two others: The dragon Tessarion, belonging to the oft-mentioned-but-not-yet-seen Daeron Targaryen off in Oldtown, on the other side of the continent. But Tessarion is very young and untested. There’s also Dreamfyre – she’s fierce, and almost 100 years old. But she belongs to Queen Helaena, who doesn’t ride her often.

Rhaenyra makes some noises about hoping her dragon advantage will act as a deterrent, so she won’t have to go to war. Still, she says this. After everything that’s happened, if you can believe it. Because I’m not certain I can.

Over at Harrenhal, the Riverlords armies are mustering, and Daemon is doing a West(eros) Wing walk-and-talk with Ser Alfred Broome. You remember him – he was the pouty jamoke on Rhaenyra’s Small Council who was always second-guessing her, so she sent him off to check in on Daemon.

In the weirwood courtyard, Ser Alfred tells Daemon that he has the support he needs to overthrow Rhaenyra and declare himself king. Which, if you haven’t been following SIX! EPISODES! worth of frustratingly repetitive dream-visions, is something that Daemon wants. Or does he? Daemon’s reaction is unreadable. This whole exchange was witnessed, Polonius-behind-the-arras-like, by a lurking Ser Simon Strong.