House of the Dragon Season 1 Episode 2 Ending Explained: Targaryen Cracking

House of the Dragon on HBO Max had an overwhelming open response last week when the first episode came out. Most fans were surprised how quickly they got sucked right into the narrative. For this week’s episode, we see some strange marriages taking place while some other characters get up to some mischief stopped by forces out of their control. At this point, the Targaryen family is cracking under the pressure, there is infighting some passive-aggressive tension and a whole lot of violence brewing.

This episode follows up six months after the death of Queen Aemma. King Viserys I is advised to take a new wife by the council. The inbreeding gets better because Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys Targaryen propose that the king marry their daughter, but the only problem with that is that she’s 12 years old. Meanwhile, Rhaenyra Targaryen is grieving her mother and worrying about the succession she was promised because Viserys may very well produce a male heir causing the council to revolt against her coronation to the Iron Throne. As Rhaenys warns, she may not have a throne to come back to if Viserys remarries. 

Amidst this, Daemon and Lord Otto Hightower have been making plans using the Dragonstone to steal a dragon egg but they are caught by Rhaenyra, which sends Hightower into a spiral wondering how his plan was foiled by a 15-year-old. Now, watch as things get more intense because King Viserys decides to marry Rhaenyra’s best friend Alicent Hightower. This decision made against the advisement of the council also seemed to rile up Rhaenyra. But, the pair had been meeting each other for quite some time and had managed to have a kinship that worked. Sadly, Rhaenyra is betrayed that she wasn’t told about the secret meetings and all the reassurances that she had given were false and didn’t mean anything for the future.

Cut to Corlys Velaryon who was already slighted by the fact that Viserys wouldn’t marry his daughter, but now he is looking for something more interesting than just being the father-in-law of the king. He wanted to defeat the Triarchy at the Stepstones and to do so, he recruits Daemon was convinced after much dialogue about how he’s the second son and woud have never been considered for the throne. Everything he got he had to work hard for and that power wasn’t given to him. In the next episodes we’ll see how the duos plans come together and what happens when (or if) Viserys catches wind of this after he explicitly asked them not to do so. 

Stream House of the Dragon now on HBO Max.