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0:21

Eamon, look

0:24

at me.

0:27

Your king demands an answer, who

0:30

spoke these lies to you. It

0:50

was handled. Me.

0:55

By the way, that was also Kim Renfro's

0:57

reaction when I asked her if she wanted to do a cast

1:00

of kings with me. Me,

1:04

me a little drunk

1:06

in the corner. Hello

1:10

everyone and welcome to a cast of Kings,

1:12

an unofficial recap podcast about the HP

1:14

original series House of The Dragon. I'm

1:17

David Chen, and I have not read fire and

1:19

blood, book on which House of The Dragon is based.

1:21

And I'm Kim Renfro, and I have

1:23

red fire and blood. The book upon which

1:24

House of Dragon is based. Every

1:27

week on this podcast, we recap, spoil,

1:29

and discuss this episode of

1:32

House of the Dragon that just aired this week will

1:34

be recapping and spoiling season one

1:36

episode seven, Driftmark. We

1:38

will not spoil anything from future week's episodes.

1:40

That includes anything on the next time on

1:42

preview or anything

1:44

from the books.

1:46

You can find more of our episodes at acastikings dot

1:49

com. Find us on youtube at youtube

1:51

dot com slash acastikings and also on

1:53

TikTok at tikTok dot com slash

1:55

at a cast of kings. You can always email

1:57

us at a cast of kings at gmail dot

1:59

com or find us on Twitter as well at

2:01

a cast of kings. So

2:04

Before we get into season one episode

2:06

seven, Driftmark, I want to

2:09

acknowledge the feedback

2:11

that we received from last week's

2:13

episode. I wanna talk

2:15

just very briefly about it, which is to

2:18

and I wanna start by saying that I have been hosting

2:20

this podcast for about ten years. which

2:23

is a really long time to be

2:25

a part of a show like this, and I've been grateful

2:27

for to to be

2:29

a part of tangentially a part

2:31

of the Game of Thrones community as I describe

2:34

it. Right? This podcast

2:36

has been and always will be

2:39

From the perspective of a show watcher

2:41

who is being guided to the show by

2:43

a book reader, that is what

2:45

the original pitch for the show was

2:47

that is what we have tried

2:49

to live out in our ideals and in

2:51

the execution of the show. And

2:55

the And

2:56

I'm really proud of the fact that

2:58

we are a podcast that does

3:00

this. Last

3:03

week on the podcast, I expressed

3:05

some difficulty with the

3:07

time jumps, and I thought they were

3:09

inhibiting a storytelling. A view that was

3:12

very widely expressed by a

3:14

lot of show watchers, a lot of people

3:16

writing about the show across various parts of the

3:18

Internet. And I was

3:20

very dismayed at

3:22

some of the feedback that I got, which

3:25

was not respectful disagreement or

3:29

hey, I I'm not sure I agree with you, Dave, or here's

3:31

why the time jumps are good actually, but

3:33

was very much like you shouldn't be

3:36

allowed to even express your opinion, David

3:38

Chen, or your opinion isn't valid.

3:40

Like, how dare you question them? Or basically,

3:43

questioning any competence I had

3:45

to even discuss a show in this way. That's

3:47

very disappointing. So

3:50

I I think I just wanted to say that

3:53

I think that we have

3:56

tried to create a

3:58

podcast that is welcoming

3:59

to show watchers only, that is welcoming

4:02

to book readers as

4:04

well, and that sometimes it

4:06

will result in Show watchers only

4:08

being confused about what's happening on screen.

4:11

And I I feel it's my

4:14

job to express that confusion

4:16

when it happens. You you don't have to agree, but,

4:18

like, that is the premise of the podcast. There

4:21

are many podcasts out there.

4:23

Hundreds even that

4:25

will not talk about the show like

4:27

this. Mhmm. You know, that will

4:29

not evaluate the show in the way we're evaluating

4:32

it. if

4:34

you have an issue with how we're doing

4:36

this task, you should check out those of the

4:38

podcast. I hope in addition to this one, you

4:40

know, but There

4:42

are other podcasts that will do it in the

4:44

way that I think a lot of people are looking

4:46

for, which and which will not be critical of things

4:48

like the time jobs. And for me,

4:51

as as a consumer myself, I

4:53

want the kind of varied perspective something.

4:55

Mhmm. That's that's what I am looking for

4:57

in my media. And and

4:59

so that's what we're gonna try to bring to you here on testings.

5:01

So just wanted to briefly

5:04

mention it, Kim, I don't know if you had any thoughts on it as

5:06

well, but

5:06

Yeah. I mean, I I personally find it

5:08

wild that anybody

5:09

would take time out of their day to be

5:12

mean about somebody else's, like, perspective

5:15

and opinion on anything.

5:16

I find it incredibly

5:18

helpful to hear

5:19

from you about like where

5:21

things might be losing you or

5:23

how certain structures might not be

5:24

working because it is reflective of the way

5:27

that a big subset of fans

5:29

are

5:29

watching this show. I mean, I was just watching

5:31

the episode. Finally, my husband caught up

5:33

with it over the weekend. And

5:36

we're sitting on the couch watching episode

5:38

six and

5:39

where I paused it multiple times to explain

5:42

to him, like, okay, that's who those kids are.

5:44

And he was like, what is happening? He was

5:46

he was, like, almost in the exact same boat. It

5:48

seemed like that you were, and

5:50

he lives with a game with

5:51

Roan's expert in his house. So,

5:55

like, Yeah. I think it's

5:57

I think it's incredibly valuable to

5:59

have to be able to

5:59

talk through different perspectives,

6:01

throw out maybe, like, different analyses

6:03

of why things are shaking out the way that they are.

6:06

and it's perfectly fine for people to not

6:07

agree. Like, we're not here

6:09

to we're not here to have perfectly

6:12

in sync opinions about the show. We're here

6:14

to to each bring our

6:16

unique perspective to how

6:18

something as massive as the first prequel

6:20

series to Game of Thrones is shaking out in the

6:22

week to week experience. So I'm

6:25

totally and it's great to be able to do that with

6:27

you and

6:28

I have no qualms with us disagreeing

6:30

from time to time in a respectful

6:33

In a

6:34

respectful manner. I agree. And

6:36

I just wanna point out, like Kim has been an

6:39

incredible partner to go on this

6:41

this journey with through House of Dragon and

6:43

been extremely supportive of me

6:46

sharing my thoughts on this podcast and and

6:48

private when we talk about, you know, prepping

6:50

for the podcast and so on. So I am

6:52

really grateful to Kim for just her

6:54

openness. And I do wanna reemphasize

6:57

what she said, which is, like, you don't have to agree with everything we

6:59

say. Like, I'm not saying, well, if you don't,

7:01

If you like the time jumps, you're dumb. Like,

7:03

that's not what I'm saying. I'm I'm just asking you to

7:05

not have the opposite of the the inverse

7:07

opinion, you know, which is, like, if I don't like that

7:09

that I'm dumb, you know, I

7:12

I do also wanna point this out, which

7:14

is that I

7:17

think that

7:19

the

7:20

there are issues with last

7:22

episode that go beyond the

7:24

time jumps. I am going

7:26

to I I host another

7:28

podcast called the film cast, and we

7:30

have a kind of bonus episode segment we

7:32

called the film cast after dark. On last

7:34

week's film cast after dark,

7:37

I talked with my colleague, Jeff, about

7:39

House of Dragon. Jeff is a show

7:42

watcher only. Mhmm. So he has not read

7:44

the books. He

7:46

love he loves the time jumps. He thinks they're

7:48

incredible. He thinks

7:50

that he he thinks that they give a scope

7:52

of history that is impossible with a typical

7:54

show like Game of Thrones. Right?

7:57

So he has no issue with time jobs. He

7:59

was completely baffled by

8:01

how how

8:02

last episode handled some of

8:04

the casting changes. And

8:07

I'm gonna play a clip for you from that episode.

8:09

I put harp noises at the beginning and end

8:11

of this clip so you can understand where the clip

8:13

begins and ends. But

8:15

here's a clip from the film cast after dark

8:17

with Jeff Kanada talking about

8:20

season one episode six of House of Dragon.

8:23

It has it's such a different

8:26

vibe. Like, I

8:28

don't feel like I know these people. It feels like

8:30

I'm in the uncanny valley. It's -- Yeah.

8:32

Yeah. -- it's like -- No. -- that's not that

8:34

character.

8:35

It's very odd to me. And I think it's because they have

8:37

different personalities. Yeah. Like, a

8:39

lot

8:39

has changed in ten years.

8:40

So -- Right. -- which you would expect I

8:43

mean, that makes sense sort of contextually,

8:45

but -- Yeah. -- it it super

8:47

jarring. And, I mean, they didn't even do

8:49

the the, like, slow dissolve.

8:51

You know? Oh, yeah. It's it's

8:53

it's bizarre the way they did it. Did

8:55

they kinda had, like, at least

8:57

seeds some flash forward or flash

8:59

back earlier in the show. Something or

9:01

or or like have here's a thing. Have

9:03

someone say their names like,

9:05

introduce them. You know, like, we

9:07

watch an entire birth at the beginning of that

9:09

episode. You don't know who you don't know who

9:11

it I don't even know who it is. I'm like, oh, these are all new

9:13

characters. You you don't know who it is unless you've read

9:15

this press reports of who's playing who. Right?

9:17

But many people might not We did. My wife

9:19

and I didn't. And we're like Yeah. And then they they're

9:21

walking in, and I'm like, they start she he

9:23

calls her, you know, Lanira.

9:26

Lanira. And I'm like, no.

9:28

No. That's not. I'm turning

9:30

my wife. And then and then her husband comes in, I'm

9:32

like, I could kinda

9:33

see that being the older version of that

9:35

guy, but this is crazy. This is weird. Mhmm.

9:37

And it's just it's just so strange and the

9:39

vibe of them and the and I have no idea who

9:41

all these children are and whose children are what?

9:44

And, like, The show does nothing to

9:46

help you. It does nothing.

9:50

So that

9:51

was my friend, Jeff Kanata. expressing

9:54

his confusion with last last episode. If

9:56

anything, Kim, I did not go far

9:58

enough with my with my

10:00

critiques. I mean, again, that's unfortunate.

10:03

passionate feelings everyone's having. That

10:05

is from someone who loves the time jumps.

10:07

Mhmm. Like, the time jumps are incredible. And

10:11

there's still qualms about how

10:13

the show has handled

10:15

and possibly will handle casting transitions

10:17

in the future. Right? Yeah.

10:20

Go ahead. It's

10:20

just it's so interesting to me because I think

10:22

it's emblematic of a much larger

10:25

thing happening right now with the

10:27

relationship

10:27

between entertainment coverage

10:29

content and TV shows

10:31

and movies and adaptations and things because

10:33

I think that this is a good example

10:36

of, like, I'm

10:38

sure that the folks involved with with the

10:40

casting decisions and the script

10:42

writing and everything knew that there

10:44

were people like me in the

10:46

world. There's many of us who,

10:48

like, my job is

10:50

often to translate things that might

10:52

need a little bit more explaining from

10:54

the screen to, like, an average

10:56

TV watcher. And so to me,

10:58

it's just it's so interesting because it did not

11:00

occur to me that somebody would be

11:01

unaware of the fact that all of

11:03

those act that there been four actors cast to

11:05

play Raynier and Alison, young and old,

11:07

like, from the get go

11:09

in our press screeners, like, we had

11:11

a specific note saying, like, hey, please

11:13

make sure to watch episode six because that's

11:15

when the cast changes, and we would like that for

11:17

that to be, like, included in your reviews.

11:19

So, like, I had every fore

11:22

warning going into it that this was

11:24

happening. And it's true that some

11:26

people don't watch TV like that. Some people

11:28

aren't reading the inner payment weekly

11:30

covers of a new series coming up. Some people

11:32

aren't reading, you know, every single

11:34

piece of extraneous information about a

11:36

show before it premieres. And so I think it's

11:38

it's valuable to hear that feedback from people who

11:40

are like, I was genuinely lost as

11:42

to like what is happening in the show right now.

11:44

Whereas a lot of people like me, completely

11:46

knew that it was coming, didn't skip a

11:48

beat. I was just straight into being

11:50

really interested to see how Emma Darcy

11:52

played, Rayonier, you know.

11:54

So People are coming at the show

11:56

from varying levels of

11:58

engagement with, like, all of the

11:59

extraneous stuff that goes into it. And that's

12:02

perfectly valid. Yeah.

12:03

I mean, I think that here's a

12:05

fair point that I will conceive is

12:08

that if you're listening to this podcast, you're

12:10

probably familiar with the cast change. Right? Like --

12:12

Yeah. -- that that that is a huge possibility.

12:14

And, I mean, I got a lot of people writing and being like, come

12:16

on, David. You didn't know about the cash usage? It's like, yes. Thank

12:18

you. Yes. I I've spoken

12:20

with Kim Renfro every week for the

12:22

last ten weeks. I'm aware that the cast

12:24

change occurred. Yeah. But I also feel that

12:26

it is part of my job

12:28

-- Mhmm. -- on this podcast to evaluate it

12:30

from the perspective of somebody

12:32

who is just watching the show and has

12:34

no other information about the

12:36

show. Yeah. because some

12:38

people are like that. They don't wanna see the previews

12:40

for next week's episode because they

12:42

want the experience to be entirely,

12:44

like, fresh

12:45

and exciting to them. And it's sure

12:47

that they are asking a lot of you

12:48

by dropping you in to this

12:50

episode with n like having to figure

12:52

out exactly how much time has passed might think

12:54

that that's even if you got that that was Raynier right

12:56

away, you might have assumed that that's her first child.

12:58

And then boom, she has two

13:01

already very grown children, like

13:03

people it's a lot of information that that you're

13:05

being asked to process in a single

13:07

go. Yeah. Indeed.

13:08

Well, anyway, I

13:11

wanted to acknowledge some of the feedback that came in, but

13:13

also acknowledge that, like, on

13:15

on some level, I I feel I

13:17

went really far and criticized me the time the time

13:19

jumps last week. And to some degree, I felt

13:21

like I didn't criticize the episode enough for

13:23

some of the decisions that it made. that aren't

13:25

even related to the time tips. We didn't even talk about

13:27

kind of how that transition occurred --

13:30

Mhmm. -- that much, you know. So,

13:32

anyway, wanted to go into it, of course, you

13:34

can always email us at acasa

13:36

kings at gmail dot com. And

13:38

especially

13:40

if you enjoy what we're doing, we'd really

13:42

appreciate some of that. Great to hear

13:44

some of that feedback as well. That'd be greatly appreciated.

13:47

Okay. The

13:49

only other thing I wanted to mention before we get into

13:51

this week's episode Kim is there was some debate

13:53

last week about why

13:55

Lara's had

13:58

people's tongues cut off

14:00

if he was then also going to

14:02

give them his sigil. Now,

14:06

Larry has a sigil on his

14:08

cane. Correct? Mhmm. What is that

14:10

sigil?

14:10

It's apparently a firefly

14:12

is what he's taken up as his,

14:14

like, personal, little

14:17

sneaky symbol. I

14:18

like how pernicious ducks put it at d coating

14:21

TV dot com. Suppostik

14:23

flare strikes again. Damon

14:25

flying through Dragonfire despite not being fireproof,

14:28

cutting out guy's tongues only to give them

14:30

symbols of who he works for. doesn't

14:32

really make sense, but gotta get that cool stuff

14:34

on screen, end quote. The

14:36

Damon stuff felt like, you know, a

14:38

fine little fun stylistic flourish,

14:40

but it did feel really weird to me that you'd have an

14:43

incredibly graphic scene of a guy's tongue getting cut out

14:45

and then have Lara's give them a

14:47

firefly sigil. on top of

14:49

that to which is a

14:51

schedule that he has on his cane and could easily be

14:53

traced back to him. Weird

14:55

decision. And the supply chain player that finishes ducks referring

14:57

to is basically showing incredibly

14:59

graphic violent stuff on screen that doesn't really make

15:01

much sense in the context of the story.

15:04

I I did think it

15:06

was just weird. It's weird that he's

15:08

and it's typically typically

15:11

when you show something that violent on screen

15:13

like getting cut off, there's like a really

15:15

good story reason for it. And maybe

15:17

there wasn't in this case, but if you if

15:19

you understood one, let us know how to cast a king's

15:21

GMO dot

15:21

com. It until just now when you were talking about that.

15:23

I was, like, I guess, in in this most

15:26

recent episode, Vocera's, like,

15:28

looks

15:28

very pointedly at Allison and says

15:30

that if anybody else dares

15:32

to question the parentage of Rayonier's

15:34

children that they'll have their tongue cut out. And I was

15:36

like, oh, well, now I know exactly what that

15:38

look like and what he's threatening to have done

15:40

down. Oh, yeah. So

15:44

so in other words, it did have a storytelling.

15:46

Maybe maybe they were setting

15:48

us up to be like, oh, that's a pretty

15:50

gnarly threat that he'd I

15:52

don't know. I'm being generous here.

15:54

I didn't think much of it because the whole tongue

15:56

getting cut off thing is prevalent

15:58

in Westeros. And I was like, yeah, of course,

15:59

they're doing this again to to

16:02

the people in the black cells. That

16:04

is old hats now. Yeah.

16:06

Old hats. Yeah. I'm getting cut off.

16:08

Yeah. He is a hardened viewer at this

16:10

point.

16:13

Alright,

16:13

everyone. You are watching or listening

16:15

to a cast of kings at a cast

16:17

of kings dot com. We are talking

16:20

about season one episode seven

16:22

of House of The Dragon,

16:24

drift

16:24

mark. As

16:25

usual, Kim Renfro, let's start with

16:28

overall thoughts on this episode. What'd

16:30

you think? I

16:30

ah i continuing

16:32

my trend of just loving it.

16:35

I I again was

16:37

curious to see, like, what they were gonna do with the time

16:39

jump in this episode or how much time would

16:41

and I like that this is, like,

16:42

pretty much one

16:45

twenty four hour period. It seems

16:47

like that a lot happens and

16:49

and so it was kind of cool to see that like,

16:52

awkward family funeral dynamic

16:54

play out in this westerosi culture.

16:57

So much cool stuff with

16:59

dragons happening in this episode, ramping

17:02

up violence, Damon

17:04

and Rainera. I've

17:05

been waiting for this episode.

17:08

ever since the I think it was

17:10

our very first episode of a cast

17:12

of Kings this season where you were like,

17:15

yeah. Yeah. it's like they're clearly setting up that, like, Damon and

17:17

Ranira

17:17

are Are the are the Our

17:19

the amazing team. Yeah. Our

17:22

enemies opposing teams and I was like, uh-huh.

17:24

Yeah. Very, very interesting. I wonder.

17:26

Kim Kim

17:27

has the best poker

17:30

face. It's

17:32

it's actually incredible, honestly. I'm I'm actually quite

17:34

impressed with how good the poker faces because

17:36

there's been so many times when she's you

17:39

know, I've said something that basically

17:41

is extremely silly in the con the broader

17:43

context of what ends up happening,

17:45

and Kim has said nothing. And

17:47

that is what I have asked her to do, and she's

17:49

done a great job of that. So in

17:51

terms of not spoiling stuff, I should point out.

17:53

Obviously, want Kim's insights in the future.

17:56

So

17:58

anyway Anyway, what'd

17:59

you say?

17:59

What are your overalls? My

18:01

overall yeah. What are your

18:04

overalls, David Chen? Yes. My

18:06

overall thoughts are I quite like this episode.

18:08

This episode takes place

18:10

seemingly within a week after last or

18:12

within two weeks after last episode. Right? there's

18:14

a funeral that goes on for Elena who died

18:17

last episode. So very short

18:19

amount of time has passed. And as you pointed out, it

18:21

is really cool that this episode

18:23

takes place basically within a twenty four hour period.

18:25

That was fairly rare for,

18:28

like, Game of Thrones have an episode that took place

18:30

in a twenty four hour period, you know. So you really

18:32

can't kind of get to see some of

18:34

these character dynamics, interpersonal

18:36

dynamics play out in a cool way.

18:38

Mhmm. I

18:41

really loved the scene

18:43

in the drift mark,

18:46

lobby, anti chamber, whatever

18:48

the hall, you know, the great hall, wherever it

18:50

is, where, like, all the characters

18:52

gather. It's rare to see all the characters, like,

18:54

gather like that. I mean, we we did see it in the

18:56

wedding scene a couple weeks ago where there's a

18:58

ton of characters in my location, but then everything

19:00

just felt so unpredictable and

19:02

tense. Yeah. There it felt like anything

19:04

could escalate. Anything could happen. Yeah.

19:07

and that's just really well done in terms

19:09

of storytelling filmmaking in my opinion.

19:11

I really enjoyed the ending. I know the ending

19:13

was a great shock to many book

19:15

readers. But -- Mhmm. -- for me as a

19:17

show watcher, it just played like a really well

19:20

executed montage. Mhmm.

19:22

And I really I really liked you know, what it

19:24

was doing and what was saying about

19:26

Reneera. I do still have

19:28

some qualms, still have some kind

19:30

of remnant issues from last

19:32

week that I will try to

19:34

limit in terms of my conversation with this

19:36

episode. But overall,

19:38

I I really was a fan of

19:40

this episode and certainly

19:42

enjoyed it more much more than last week's episode.

19:45

So anyway, let's

19:47

get into it. Stay ahead. The episode begins

19:50

with a funeral adrift mark. It's Elena

19:53

that is being put to

19:55

rest and this

19:57

scene was really cool. I just

19:59

have to say,

19:59

like, the way they

20:02

the production

20:03

design, the way they kind of show

20:05

you the rituals that occur at

20:07

drif market, you get the sense of this is not the first time

20:09

something of this has been done. Elena's

20:12

c casket, which looks like it's

20:14

made of stone. and

20:17

just kind of the the speech

20:20

that is being given, the ulegy, whatever

20:22

it's called, you know, it's

20:24

all just it all plays off as

20:26

like a really honorable way to kind

20:28

of put this person to rest and

20:30

visually very interesting. What do you think of the funeral

20:32

address

20:32

mark? Yeah. As sad as I was to see that

20:35

Laina pretty

20:35

much came and went in a

20:37

single episode, at least the adult version of

20:40

Laina. I appreciate that this episode

20:42

gives so much breathing space to the

20:44

fact that that death was really tragic.

20:47

you

20:48

see exactly as you said sort of

20:50

like the ceremony, all of the the high valyrian

20:53

speech. We get a reference to the

20:55

Merlin King,

20:55

who in

20:57

fire and blood, they say that the the

20:59

driftwood throne,

21:00

which is that throne made out

21:02

of driftwood -- Mhmm.

21:03

-- is

21:05

in Lord

21:05

Korlysis' chamber, like, that throne

21:07

according to legend was gifted to

21:09

the Valarians by the Merlin king. So we

21:11

get,

21:11

like, cool little sprinkles of of

21:14

religious

21:14

references. It's also funny because I looked it up. The Merlin King is

21:17

the name of the ship that in Game of

21:19

Thrones littlefinger

21:20

used to smuggle Sansa

21:22

out of king's landing.

21:24

after

21:25

Joffrey's death. So just fun little those

21:27

little

21:27

I love when, like, my little

21:29

sensors go off with, like, wait a second. That

21:32

was a thing to this other thing.

21:34

So fun

21:34

little details built in there. I love

21:37

that, of course, Damon

21:39

is the one who laughs at a funeral, like

21:41

-- Mhmm.

21:41

-- classic. But

21:44

also he's like the only one for which it would be even

21:46

remotely socially acceptable to laugh at that

21:48

funeral, I think. Yeah. But

21:51

anyway,

21:52

auto is there. He's hand to the king. He and

21:55

you know he's hand because he looks down at his

21:57

little hand pin and

21:59

kinda like gives it a little tap, you

22:01

know, to reaffirm that it's still there. He's

22:03

feeling himself at this funeral.

22:05

So it does feel like lares'

22:07

a gambit has paid off. Right? Like,

22:10

we we can fill in the blanks that

22:13

Vocera has called auto

22:15

in in the interim and and brought

22:18

it back. Interesting

22:18

that Vocera has failed

22:22

to acquire a

22:22

single other trusted ally in the

22:25

last ten years. you

22:27

might possibly put back into

22:29

this position. Yes. Yes.

22:32

I mean, I I

22:35

think we could use the phrase. It's interesting

22:37

that nothing has happened around a blank topic

22:39

in the last ten years. for

22:41

a lot of different things, but we're not going to. We're

22:43

not going to.

22:44

Okay. We see

22:46

that dragons flying over the Castle

22:49

High Tide And we see at for the first time, I think

22:51

five dragons on screen at

22:53

once. Yeah. And it and it makes it makes

22:55

sense. It's like, oh, yeah. Of course, all the dragons would be there

22:57

because everyone would kind

22:59

of people would fly to be there. They bring they're not gonna leave the dragons

23:01

at home. They're not gonna leave the Porsche at home.

23:03

They're gonna take that thing to the place that

23:05

they're going to, of course. Yeah. The

23:07

nuclear bomb Porsche is is

23:09

coming with them to the Part it's part

23:11

Porsche, part nuclear bomb. They're not gonna leave

23:13

that at home. Of course, they're gonna bring it with them.

23:15

Yeah. Yeah. This is we saw five, and then you

23:17

can assume that Vanguard is off screen at some

23:19

point. So this is like six dragons that have

23:22

all gathered. for this

23:24

funeral. And in the book, there's a

23:26

sort of mention that, like, driftmark

23:28

almost felt like the old

23:31

valyrian times once again because this

23:33

was, like, the most this was the

23:34

highest number of dragons that had been

23:37

collected around

23:37

a single space in a very long time.

23:39

So, yeah, I'm

23:40

pretty sure there's five total dragons,

23:42

so it's like you assume that probably

23:44

Damon brought Caraxi's

23:47

Raynira on Scirox. Lainor's

23:49

Dragon is Sea Smoke,

23:52

Rainy's, who's Lainor and Laino's

23:54

mother, the queen who never was, her

23:56

Dragon is Maylies. And

23:58

then I'm I think that the

23:59

fifth dragon is probably supposed to be

24:02

either Aegon or Beyla or

24:04

Helena's dragons, but I'm not sure because we

24:06

haven't seen those ones up close

24:07

yet. in the show, but hopefully we will

24:10

soon. So

24:11

then there

24:12

is this wake, right, at

24:15

this castle? Mhmm. And

24:17

all the families meeting together, and

24:19

I believe this was, like, the first scene

24:21

that was ever filmed with all these actors.

24:24

Yeah. According to the after the episodes

24:26

information. And

24:27

I do

24:29

think it it did feel a little bit awkward

24:31

to me. But

24:32

I was cool with it because I felt like

24:35

this is the kind of awkwardness that

24:37

ensues. Whenever you bring family

24:39

members together, in

24:41

a big way that they're not usually used to being together.

24:43

Of course, there's all these, like, preexisting relationships

24:45

and thoughts and feelings, and they're all

24:47

gonna collide in this weird and awkward

24:49

way. And so I felt like any awkwardness

24:52

was completely intentional on the part of

24:54

the show.

24:54

Yeah. A a bunch of

24:57

different

24:57

interact what's going on here. I don't

24:59

know which ones you feel are are worth highlighting,

25:01

Kim, but we did get one of

25:03

the things I did enjoy was, like, Reneera walking

25:05

in, and then Alison kinda just giving

25:07

her the stink eye. Like, that was funny because seriously

25:10

They're still not on good terms.

25:13

Helena, who is

25:16

Allison's

25:17

daughter -- Yes. -- is

25:19

playing with a spider. Right?

25:22

Is that right? Yeah.

25:23

So she is once again kind of speaking in

25:25

this, like, cryptic rhyme. And, yeah,

25:27

I had to poke or face myself

25:30

last week because

25:33

in episode six, basically, the same

25:35

thing happened where, like, we see Helena and she's just

25:37

sort of, like, talking to herself. she

25:40

said she referenced the

25:42

fact that Aymond was going to lose

25:44

an eye when

25:46

Aymond and Alison are talking about the fact

25:48

that he doesn't have a dragon yet.

25:52

Helena said he'll have to close an

25:54

eye. and it was like, okay, what the hell does that mean?

25:56

And then in this episode, you see that the

25:58

trade off for him claiming

25:59

Vaguar was the fact that he loses an

26:02

eye. So, yeah, she she's saying something else in this episode

26:04

where now I'm like, okay,

26:05

what prophecy -- Mhmm. -- where, like, Dragon Dream

26:07

is that referencing. She says, quote,

26:09

hand turns loom spool

26:12

of green, spool of black,

26:14

dragons

26:14

of flesh weaving, dragons of

26:17

thread, end

26:18

quo quote.

26:19

So

26:20

decipher that as you will. I I

26:22

mean, as as a book reader, have you deciphered it

26:24

already? Like, do you know what it is?

26:27

No.

26:27

But I

26:28

haven't tried very hard because I I

26:30

didn't I didn't want to get ahead of

26:32

myself here. Mhmm. So just But

26:35

anyway, it seems like Kelena can, like, somehow

26:37

the future.

26:37

Yes. We're getting we're getting told that she is

26:40

effectively a dragon dreamer, which

26:42

is what king viceris is,

26:44

where they

26:44

have these sort of like prophetic dreams.

26:47

and she's being treated by her brothers, like, she's a weirdo

26:49

because of it instead of like,

26:51

oh, that's a

26:51

pretty sweet asset to have

26:53

in the family. But I

26:56

don't think they fully put together that, you

26:59

know, they That she's actually

27:01

predicting the future. That she's predicting

27:03

the future. you know, but -- True. -- all

27:05

they see is a budding entomologist,

27:07

and they are they're disappointed by that

27:09

for some reason. But Uh-huh. Yeah. So egg

27:11

on, who is the older one? Yes.

27:13

the older son of Alison Blonde

27:16

-- Yeah. -- talking to Eamon,

27:18

the younger son of Alison also

27:20

Blonde. Yes. they kind of joke

27:22

about marrying their sister and Eamon is

27:24

like, I would do it. I would do it to secure

27:26

it to make the valerian bloodline

27:28

pure.

27:30

Egon Nemo is getting completely lit

27:33

at this funeral, basically.

27:35

So Yeah. I don't

27:38

Zelda Good. For

27:41

those who are watching the YouTubers in a little cameo

27:43

from Kim's cat on

27:45

the video stream. But Kim,

27:48

any other interactions in the funeral wake

27:50

that you wanna mention? I

27:52

thought

27:52

it was sweet to see

27:55

Raynira,

27:55

like, encourage her boy, Chase,

27:57

the oldest, to go

27:59

comfort Damon's daughters, Balan

28:03

Raina.

28:05

presumably

28:05

they

28:05

haven't met until this family

28:08

gathering

28:08

because we're

28:10

supposed

28:10

to believe that Damon and Rainier haven't seen

28:13

each in ten years since that welcome wedding feast

28:15

in episode five. But

28:17

they seemed to have, like, bonded

28:19

pretty quickly to each other and they sort

28:21

of, like, you know, I kinda remember

28:23

that for my days of, like, the family

28:25

functions. Like, you sort of meet your cousins

28:27

and become BFS with them within, like,

28:29

twenty four hours if you're the only kids.

28:31

hanging around. So that was a sweet

28:33

little moment.

28:35

Also, like,

28:37

young Luke saying that he doesn't

28:40

want to inherit driftmark because if he

28:42

does, that means everybody's dead. And I'm

28:44

like, these

28:44

kids are getting into it early.

28:47

I'm like, of understanding,

28:49

like, the the danger

28:51

and the sacrifice that is involved with

28:53

having to

28:53

be the ruling class

28:55

of this country. He Luke is

28:58

Raynira's -- Yeah. -- round haired

29:00

son. Yeah. Right? And

29:03

therefore, technically, Lord

29:05

Corless's grandson. And that's

29:07

why he would be the inheritor of driftmark.

29:09

Yes. Because he's the second

29:11

born child of the

29:13

future queen basically.

29:16

So

29:16

his inheritance is going

29:18

to be driftmark because that is lane ores,

29:20

that's supposed to be lane ores, lane

29:23

ores

29:23

valarians. Mhmm. inheritance

29:24

is quote

29:24

unquote father. Yeah.

29:27

And the idea is Reneura's first born

29:29

would be the king. If you look king,

29:31

So Chase, Jaceris,

29:34

who they called Chase,

29:35

her oldest, her first born son, also

29:37

brown haired boy,

29:37

little mop. He was so cute in

29:40

this episode. Like, that whole, like, you know, I'm

29:42

I'm

29:42

hiding my eyes because I'm becoming

29:44

an angsty teen haircut that he has going

29:46

on. Very cute. Yeah.

29:49

also you pointed out on Twitter or you retweeted

29:51

someone on Twitter saying, like, big John Snow

29:53

Energy with, like, I don't want it, you know, like --

29:55

Yeah. -- which

29:57

is what

29:57

Luke Luke says, right now. Yeah.

29:59

Reneura's child says, I

30:02

don't want to which is the same thing that John Snow

30:04

said when he was deemed to be

30:06

the inheritor. here's something that confused me, Kim,

30:08

was during the episode,

30:10

Aegon and Amon are talking, and then I think it

30:12

was one of them says that's your future

30:14

queen over there.

30:15

Speaking about Helena. Oh,

30:18

yeah. Good catch. So that

30:20

that was a little confusing because I'm like, wait, are they

30:22

assuming that Aegon is eventually

30:24

gonna be king and That's

30:26

what Alison has been telling

30:28

Aegon. So that that statement is

30:30

made with the assumption that Alison is

30:32

right about Aegon eventually being

30:34

the heir. Right? Yeah. No. Totally. Not

30:35

to mention, I think that it shows that

30:37

they like, they are

30:40

treating incest as a very

30:42

casual thing between them of, like, I'm going to marry my

30:44

sister and produce children with

30:47

her presumably. I think

30:49

kind of shows a little bit of the

30:51

hypocrisy of, like, so

30:53

Alison thinks it's completely violent,

30:55

gross, that Rainier and Damon

30:57

might

30:57

have have

30:58

coupled or whatever and yet, like, here she

31:01

is as a grown woman and

31:03

she's fully fine with teaching

31:05

her sons that it is their duty

31:07

to marry for one

31:07

of them to marry their sister -- Mhmm. -- eventually and have

31:10

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sponsoring this episode. There is a scene where

32:45

Lainor is standing at the high tide

32:47

crying instead of being at the wake, and then

32:49

Corless says to Karl retrieve your

32:51

patron. He's very upset about it.

32:53

What is going on here? Why is I

32:55

guess, Leonor is upset

32:57

because his sister is dead. Mhmm. They

33:00

they I believe they

33:03

believe to have a close relationship. Right? And so that's very

33:05

reasonable. Yeah. But, yeah,

33:07

what's any ideas of, like, what's going

33:09

on with this sequence? Like,

33:12

I

33:12

thought it was interesting that like so many other people

33:14

seemed to like clock this exchange

33:17

and be talking about it. It

33:19

like I think seems to be one more

33:21

example of the way that gossip

33:23

is probably spreading around the realm, like Corless,

33:25

so obviously

33:27

referring

33:28

to Karl's like,

33:29

patron, like, patron meaning that's a

33:32

person who pays

33:32

you to

33:33

stick around.

33:34

Right? So I think it was like a slight dig

33:36

at the idea that, like, Carl is no more

33:38

than, like, a hired boyfriend for

33:41

the the king consort. And

33:43

lane guards, like, standing in the

33:45

water, clearly, like, wasted. I

33:48

think Corless just wanted him to, like, why did Leonor

33:50

just stop embarrassing

33:52

himself in front of people, but the way that

33:54

he went about it,

33:55

brought more attention to the fact

33:57

that Leonor and Karl were there. So I

33:59

think

33:59

that it's it's good stage setting for the

34:02

fact that they both

34:03

are going to want to escape by the end

34:05

of the episode and

34:07

rid themselves

34:08

of, like,

34:10

the the

34:10

sort of facade that they have going on of, like, oh, you're simply my,

34:13

like, you know, good

34:14

pal

34:15

who just happens

34:16

to come around with

34:17

me everywhere. Yeah.

34:20

There

34:21

is a

34:22

conversation between Vocera's and

34:24

Damon as well. And I guess

34:26

these brothers have been through a lot at this point.

34:29

But I what I do get a sense of

34:32

is collegiality

34:34

between these two at this point. There there's

34:36

no longer the kind of open

34:38

warfare and enmity that obviously was in the earlier episodes of

34:40

the show. Anything you wanna highlight

34:42

about that interaction? I just

34:45

think Desiras is

34:47

a little flip flopping

34:49

man

34:49

who can't figure out if he wants to,

34:52

like, extend the

34:52

olive branch or punish David. And,

34:55

yeah, I guess, Damon makes it through this episode without being

34:57

banished again. But, like, this I

34:59

just I almost thought it was funny

35:01

that, like, viseris is,

35:04

like, oh, we're

35:05

like, every other episode, now I'm gonna have a nice conversation

35:07

with you. Now I'm gonna get pissed

35:09

again, like, viscera's, I

35:11

think, just can't

35:13

this area seems to have a really hard time sticking

35:15

to a decision and, like,

35:17

following through on that. And,

35:18

like, yes, you can assume that after

35:21

ten years, things might have softened between them.

35:23

Vocera is clearly, like, doing way worse with

35:25

his health. But,

35:26

yeah, I was just like,

35:29

man, you really can't not give

35:32

Damon, like, third, fourth, fifth,

35:34

sixth chances here to,

35:36

like, be around and be a part of

35:37

the family. Mhmm.

35:40

Mhmm. Certainly, he's not gonna do

35:41

anything that's gonna interfere with the line of succession in

35:43

any way anyway. Alright.

35:47

else about the the

35:49

funeral wake? I I we

35:51

see auto kicking the crap out of

35:53

egg on and

35:55

Yeah. Mess up. I don't I'm

35:57

I don't agree with auto and

35:59

Allisons. Kim is not a

36:02

believer in corporal punishment. I don't know if you

36:04

guys did so. Even in medieval times,

36:05

man, you really gotta slap around, like,

36:07

who you believe is

36:08

gonna be the future king? Like, you think

36:10

that's the best way to handle this?

36:14

Not great. The only other thing I don't think I I don't think I noticed

36:16

until I watched it a second time is that

36:18

Vocera's calls Allison, Emma, on

36:21

his out from the party. And I was

36:24

like, oh, like,

36:25

now he's having

36:28

memory. Like, ish like, I,

36:29

like, couldn't tell him, like, are they implying

36:31

that he's starting to, like, literally untether

36:34

from his current reality?

36:36

Or, like, was it just a Freudian slip?

36:39

thing of, like, he's thinking about his first

36:41

wife, but that was a pretty like,

36:43

the way that sir Harold, who's the current

36:46

captain of the

36:48

King's Guard, gently correct like, try to, like, correct him without

36:50

correcting him by being, like, should I see

36:52

after Queen

36:54

Allison?

36:54

The your your current

36:56

wife, should I see after her?

36:59

Yes. Yes. And then I

37:01

I

37:01

do think it would

37:04

what I the next statement I'm about to say has nothing to do

37:06

with time jumps. I do think

37:08

it's a bit of a cheat what the show did in

37:10

episode five and the transition to episode

37:12

six, like,

37:14

Vicera's collapsing at the end

37:16

of episode five. Like, the

37:18

next the show language filmmaking

37:20

language is the next episode. That

37:23

guy is either dead or he's on a deathbed.

37:25

So the idea that he

37:28

is still alive and well, like, it it's

37:30

no longer a thing I feel I can track.

37:33

I I guess you you do see him losing body parts throughout the course

37:35

of the season. So that is, like, a way you can kind of

37:38

track his

37:40

decline. But Yeah. It was an interesting

37:42

touch because, otherwise, seems completely lucid

37:44

in this episode. Right? Yeah.

37:45

And I think so this is

37:47

something that I was also kind of wondering about,

37:50

like, why they they show him sort

37:52

of deteriorating so much in

37:54

episode five.

37:56

I've traced it back to that conversation that

37:58

auto and Alison have. Right? Where before he

37:59

when he gives her, like, one final lecture

38:02

about,

38:02

like, if you don't understand

38:04

now,

38:06

that you are in danger and that your children

38:09

are in danger, like, I give up basically. You know?

38:11

He kind of

38:11

like put this

38:13

fear in her

38:15

that not only her

38:16

life, but that the life of her children are at

38:18

risk, the moment Vocera dies

38:20

because that's when the line of succession

38:22

question is going to snap into effect.

38:25

Right? and he says something to her of, like, it

38:27

might be weeks or it might be months,

38:29

but, like, the king is going

38:31

to die. And then

38:33

you see her see viseris collapse multiple

38:36

times. And so I think that that is

38:38

supposed to be letting

38:40

us

38:40

know that

38:41

she is like She

38:43

has put herself

38:44

in a state of constant fear that

38:46

viseris might die any moment,

38:48

and then we jump ahead in

38:50

like, okay. So for ten years, you've been thinking, like, this

38:53

might be it. This might be the time

38:55

that

38:55

he goes. So it's like, she's

38:57

been on edge ready to

39:00

try and defend the children from the sword even

39:02

though that's like a made up threat. Right?

39:04

Like, auto Yeah. Like, I don't

39:06

think that Raynira at any point in

39:09

the last ten years has seriously thought to herself, well,

39:11

the second my dad dies, I'm gonna have to go

39:13

murder those kids over there. But that's

39:15

what Alison thinks Raynira

39:17

might be

39:18

thinking at every moment. So

39:20

that's my only, like that's the only

39:22

reason why I think they might be kind of going a

39:24

little hard on the fact that Vocera is deteriorating with

39:27

outdoing what you said, which is like, if you're

39:29

showing him collapsing, especially

39:32

as like the cliffhanger to

39:33

an episode, it tracks that he would be dead or

39:35

dying in the next episode,

39:36

but he's Hanging on. And

39:39

Alison

39:39

is getting more and more unraveled

39:41

by the day, I think

39:43

because of that. I

39:44

think that is a little bit of a reach, but I

39:47

buy it. I buy it, and it's really

39:49

good insight, Kim. So I'm I'm because I'm

39:51

not I'm not being sarcastic. I'm

39:54

like, I don't know that, like, I don't know that, like, a casual viewer might, like,

39:56

put that all together, but I think you put it

39:58

together very very beautifully. So And I

39:59

think that that is, again,

40:01

part of the rub of,

40:04

like, the way

40:04

that they're trying to see things. And because even we I explained last

40:07

week, in the background, they show

40:09

the

40:09

Maister Switch. And in

40:11

the book, it's explained that

40:13

because a new maastor has taken over,

40:15

like, viseris is able to live longer

40:18

effectively because this new maastor has different

40:20

treatments for whatever ailment he's giving. they did not

40:22

try and explain that at all in

40:24

the episode. They just hope that you would pick up on

40:26

the fact that it's a different maser there and that

40:28

that's the maser who a few episodes

40:30

ago, like, suggested a new poultice for his grace. Like

40:32

so you're right that it is, like, you

40:34

have to, like, be You can you can really,

40:36

like, put the pieces

40:37

together. Yeah. Yeah. You

40:40

know, and it's not it's not necessarily bad for a show to ask

40:42

that of the audience. Right? Like -- Yeah. -- there

40:44

are some shows like, here's another show,

40:46

Dark, The Netflix original. Look

40:48

at look at

40:50

a work. really gonna work to watch dark in my opinion. Well, gonna

40:52

have, like, a freaking worksheet with

40:54

all the character faces and everything on

40:56

it to really understand

40:58

that show. I should

41:00

make it a bad show doesn't make it a bad show, you know, just because

41:02

you gotta do some work for it. So Yeah. I'll

41:04

send you my, like, hundred page

41:06

Google doc of notes. for for dark.

41:09

That was the most challenging show to

41:11

try and unlock them. So Yeah.

41:13

It happens. Conversation between

41:15

Corless and Rainey's Rainey's is

41:18

not happy that Damon rebuffed

41:22

Lana's desire to

41:24

return to Westeros -- Mhmm. --

41:27

implies that they had

41:29

better bakers here. you know, that would have been able to help

41:31

Lena with her birth. There was something

41:33

you wanted to

41:34

point it out here

41:36

that was different from the book. Right, Kim?

41:39

Yeah.

41:39

Well, Lena's death in

41:41

general

41:42

was different

41:44

played out differently in the show than it happens in

41:46

the books. In the book, she actually does make it back

41:49

to Westeros. And

41:50

her

41:51

and Raynira, like, are said

41:53

to have been really close

41:56

and that they there's, like, an explanation that like,

41:58

try and have different maesters help

41:59

her through the childbirth, but that

42:02

that ultimately fails. And she

42:04

winds up

42:04

In

42:06

the book, they say that she died, like, on the stairs basically,

42:08

while trying to get to Vaguar,

42:10

not so that she could be self

42:12

emollulated, but or, like, you

42:16

know, via

42:16

her dragon dragon

42:17

emolulated. But because she

42:19

wanted to ride

42:20

her one last time before she Nine.

42:23

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. emulated,

42:25

by the way. Emulated. Emulated. Yeah.

42:28

Emulated. What did I what did I even say? You were

42:30

saying emulated or something? Like,

42:32

you know,

42:33

Thanks. Thank

42:36

you for saving me from myself.

42:38

Yeah. No problem, Kim. So

42:41

they have a conversation that's very similar

42:43

to the one that do you

42:45

you watch breaking bad?

42:46

right Like, Yeah.

42:48

What what

42:49

is that? Is it is a yes or no question,

42:52

Kim? I I

42:53

watched most of

42:55

it I think that there's some season in the middle where

42:57

I I didn't see all those episodes, and then

42:59

I didn't watch it after that. Spoilers, can I

43:01

spoil the ending of break that? I'm gonna

43:03

spoil the ending in breaking bad, but there's a scene at the the whole time,

43:06

Walter White is saying that he's doing

43:08

all these horrible things for his family quote

43:10

unquote. Right. And then at the very end of

43:12

the show, his wife is like,

43:14

please stop saying you're

43:16

doing this for your family. And then he finally in

43:18

the final episode, I think of the show, he's like,

43:20

I did it for me. And

43:22

that's basically the conversation that Corless and Rainey's have

43:24

in this scene where he's like,

43:27

I just want what's best for my children.

43:29

And she's like, please stop saying

43:31

you want what's best for your family. Like, you

43:33

want what's best for you. Mhmm.

43:36

And they have a frank conversation

43:38

about the fact that his

43:41

grandchildren are not actually his

43:43

legitimate grandchildren. They

43:46

actually are not connected by blood to

43:48

him at

43:50

all. which leads him to make the statement. History does

43:52

not remember blood. It remembers names. End

43:54

quote. And he kinda, like, breaks away

43:58

from Rainey. And I think the

43:59

the point that he's making is it doesn't

44:02

matter

44:02

if they

44:03

are not

44:06

related to me by blood. It just matters that

44:08

we all have the same name and that history

44:10

remembers our

44:12

name. And you wrote in the show notes that's pretty progressive.

44:14

Hey, good job, Corless.

44:16

Yeah.

44:16

I

44:17

like, I think that he

44:19

has a point and I think

44:21

that it also helps highlight the fact

44:24

that it's really Alison

44:26

and Kristen who seem intent

44:28

on, like, keeping the conversation going

44:30

about the fact that Rayonier's

44:33

children are bastards. I

44:35

feel like every single

44:37

other person in in that cast,

44:39

in the Red Keep would probably be happy

44:42

to, like, faint ignorance

44:44

for the rest

44:45

of their lives. I don't know

44:46

if they're they're all invested in

44:49

this fiction, basically. Right? Look, it

44:51

it is to their advantage to believe

44:53

the fiction.

44:54

Right? Yeah. And I can see

44:56

I can see why especially last episode that

44:59

seems like a

45:00

big mistake on Rainier's

45:03

on Rainier's behalf. Right?

45:05

That, like, her choice to have these children, to

45:07

have more than one child out of wedlock, has

45:10

put her and her

45:11

children in danger, and like the whole line

45:13

of succession in danger. But then

45:16

as we see in this episode, like, her and Leonor did

45:18

try apparently to have children of

45:20

their own. And once

45:22

you once you see once you

45:25

have that piece of information, then I think Cordless's point kind of

45:27

is even better because it's like, they they're

45:29

the ones that got leaner

45:31

in that situation. knowing,

45:33

like, Rainy's new for sure based on a conversation

45:36

that we saw them have, that Leonor

45:38

was not sexually interested in women

45:40

and, like, what do you think is

45:42

gonna happen

45:42

when you put a gay man

45:44

as future king consort? Like,

45:46

there was I think that

45:49

there was always this risk that he

45:51

might not produce children of his own blood with

45:53

Raynira. And Corollus seemed to have,

45:55

like, accepted that and immediately moved on to, like,

45:57

well, fine. We're gonna treat

45:59

these boys

45:59

as our own, whereas

46:02

Rainy's is now having an issue

46:03

with it and it's like

46:05

I I feel

46:06

like Lainor was put Lainor and Rainero, we're in a little bit of a lose

46:08

situation there because they needed to

46:10

have errors. Like, that's the whole question of

46:12

the line of succession is about having

46:16

multiple generations being prepared at the same time for the

46:18

line of succession. Right? They couldn't go ten years

46:20

without having a kid that would have once

46:23

again put her claim at

46:26

risk.

46:26

So

46:27

Yeah. Yeah. There is

46:29

a

46:29

scene on the beach between Damon and

46:32

Ronira where they basically catch up on the last

46:34

ten years. Now

46:35

and kind

46:36

of reveal a lot of the information that you

46:38

just covered. Mhmm. Trying to have a kid. There

46:40

was no joy in it.

46:44

And and Raynira did get a lot of comfort from mister Harwin. We

46:46

get a little bit more of that relationship

46:48

and what that must have been like.

46:50

Mhmm. If I

46:51

am too

46:54

argue

46:54

if I'm to try to argue in

46:56

favor of the time jumps. Mhmm. I think this

46:58

is kind of one area where I I kinda try

47:00

to explore it in my head a little bit because

47:03

You know, on last week's episode,

47:06

I put forth the possibility. Oh, they should have

47:08

just done a whole season

47:10

with these these actors and

47:12

kind of

47:14

And

47:16

they could have referred to stuff that happened in the past

47:18

via monologues or dialogue

47:20

or or whatever. And

47:23

Here's

47:23

a

47:24

scene where I feel

47:26

like, oh, that probably wouldn't have worked out very

47:28

well. Like -- Mhmm. -- if the story

47:31

is

47:32

that Damon

47:33

and Reneera haven't met in ten

47:35

years, then

47:36

seeing seeing

47:38

that past interaction play out

47:40

on screen is really critical to understanding

47:43

what their relationship might be like

47:45

at present state.

47:47

Mhmm. However, you know,

47:49

like, they they didn't have to do they didn't have to tell the story in that

47:51

way. Like, they could have told in such a different

47:53

way where, I don't know, they're writing letters to each

47:55

other or some other way

47:58

of them knowing each other in the last ten years that gives you

47:59

some more context for that relationship.

48:02

Yeah. So I don't know. But but but I guess,

48:04

like, as I was watching this scene, I

48:06

was like, this is one of the

48:08

strongest kind of scenes

48:10

in favor of a time job and or different

48:12

actors playing it is like without the

48:14

context of The Damon

48:16

Renera story in the past --

48:18

Mhmm. -- this romance obviously happens, like,

48:20

extremely suddenly, and it's

48:22

asking you to buy a lot.

48:24

you know, it's asking you to buy that, like, she'd be attracted to her uncle

48:26

and that they would rekindle this long

48:28

lost love that they had for each other.

48:30

And that just doesn't work Yeah.

48:33

In my opinion,

48:34

unless you have

48:35

either more time with these two characters in

48:38

the relationship in present day or in the

48:40

past. Mhmm.

48:42

All that said, it does still happen quite suddenly in this episode. What do you think

48:44

about Playdoke? Yeah.

48:46

I think it's

48:48

so I think

48:50

it was very interesting that she

48:52

just straight up, like, called him out

48:54

on a band like, in her

48:56

opinion abandoning her as a child, like, not only after that

48:59

first sexual encounter that they had,

49:01

but then after, like, presumably, in

49:05

the middle of that like, they were about to

49:07

make out on

49:07

the dance floor when the chaos broke out

49:09

at the wedding feast, you know, and then

49:11

presumably Damon just

49:14

finished. Yeah. He just he just peaced out and never came

49:16

back ever again. He never came back --

49:18

Yeah. -- didn't presumably check up

49:22

on her see how she was doing just like assumed that

49:24

she would be fine. And I

49:26

mean, she mostly was. It seems like she

49:28

had a decent life in the in the last

49:30

ten years but

49:32

I think that this episode is when you

49:35

see exactly where all of

49:37

the lines are being drawn between people

49:39

and it's very obvious why she

49:41

views Damon as not only like a personal comfort

49:44

to her, but as a very

49:46

very powerful strong ally. in

49:49

what she now understands is going to be,

49:51

like, a bloody. And, like,

49:53

this is

49:54

when in first blood is drawn, right,

49:55

in this episode, literally. between

49:58

the two families. And

49:59

I think that exactly to

50:02

your point, like, the last six episodes have

50:04

shown us very

50:06

clearly how effective Damon is

50:08

at

50:10

violence and, like

50:10

-- Mhmm. -- and commanding that

50:12

level of like power that

50:15

not very many people have in the realm of,

50:18

like, the way that Targaryens are sort of viewed

50:20

as almost god like,

50:22

above the law type of people

50:24

like David

50:25

and Reneer are creating their own little,

50:27

like, modern family

50:27

of, I don't

50:29

know, aggressive aggressive

50:32

and progressive. Targaryans.

50:34

Yeah. I am

50:35

curious to see how the Damon personality is

50:38

gonna play out. You

50:39

know?

50:40

Because

50:41

I think he's in my opinion,

50:43

extremely different than when we last saw him.

50:45

Right? He was full of

50:48

fire and Piss

50:50

and Vinegar, you know, in in the first five episodes of the show.

50:52

And now he's it calmed down extremely.

50:55

We described it last episode as

50:57

he's kind of he had tough

50:59

twenties, and he's now in his calmer, more

51:01

subdued thirties. Mhmm. You describe him in the show notes this

51:03

week as he's in his post grant era.

51:05

He, like, has already found himself, like, he

51:07

knows what he's all about. Uh-huh. And

51:10

so I do hope that

51:12

III think to its credit,

51:14

the show has done a good job

51:18

of showing us a different demon than what we had in the first five episodes. Like,

51:20

this is a very different

51:22

character. And I hope that as the

51:24

episodes evolve, that

51:26

the character doesn't just go back to his old ways that we see

51:29

some conflict between what we

51:31

are seeing now

51:32

and then what we've seen in the first five

51:34

episodes. Right? Yeah.

51:36

To me, that will be the

51:38

mark of, like, successfully pulling off

51:41

this character transition -- Mhmm. --

51:43

from Old Damon than you Damon. So alright.

51:45

We're gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. be back soon with more discussion

51:47

of season one episode seven of House

51:49

of Dragon. Dramatic pause.

51:52

A dramatic

51:52

a dramatic Pause.

51:54

Says something without

51:55

saying anything at

51:57

all. Dramatic

51:58

dramatic pause.

52:00

is a go to for

52:03

podcasters, presidents, and

52:05

radio

52:05

voiceovers. It makes you

52:09

look really smart. even

52:10

if you're not.

52:12

Feed deserve a

52:13

go to like that. Like Hey

52:15

Dude Shoes, light,

52:18

comfy, good to go to.

52:21

A

52:21

dramatic pause

52:23

says something

52:24

without saying anything at

52:26

all. Feed

52:27

deserve a go to like that. Like Hey

52:29

Dude shoes, light, comfy,

52:32

good to

52:34

go to. Okay.

52:36

They

52:36

have sex on the beach in a

52:38

conveniently placed tent. I know

52:40

it's either. That little that little

52:44

wooden structure. Yeah.

52:46

Super convenient. Seems to have,

52:48

like, some, like, flaps and coverings and

52:50

stuff like that already. It's just it's

52:53

amazing. It's Maybe not the first time that's been used

52:55

for this purpose. But, anyway,

52:57

they have sex

53:00

and I don't know if there's anything else we have to say

53:02

about that that topic. aside

53:04

from

53:04

the fact that Raynira,

53:06

the fact that they've shown us,

53:08

Raynira

53:09

is too seemingly like

53:11

tender and sweet sexy ends with

53:13

Christian Cole and now

53:16

Damon. So

53:17

and we've seen

53:18

both of her weddings

53:20

both of her wedding And

53:22

we have seen none of those scenes for Allison. Right? So I

53:24

just I the only thing that was striking

53:26

to me about this was, like, oh, they're really

53:30

giving you a much more direct

53:32

insight into Raydier's relationships and how they operate

53:34

in private, whereas we aren't seeing a ton

53:36

of that for Allison. And

53:39

I think that

53:39

that's intentional -- Mhmm. -- because

53:42

this episode really pushes

53:44

Allison

53:44

into antagonist territory.

53:47

Mhmm. Mhmm. debatable. But Fair

53:49

enough. Hashtag team analysis. But -- Yep.

53:51

-- I will say, I think

53:53

it's clearly positioning the show and the show watchers

53:55

to kind of sympathize with Raynira. Like, it shows you most

53:58

things are mostly from her perspective. So

54:00

I I would agree with that that

54:04

that notion. There's a scene when Eamon shows up on the

54:06

beach seemingly looking for Vanguard. This

54:08

is the part of the episode that I thought

54:10

was like,

54:11

could have been better set up. Yes, we got a

54:14

little bit of of last week where

54:16

Eamon is being tortured by the kids and he has his

54:18

fascination with dragons and he, like, wants a dragon

54:20

for himself. Like, we get we get all that.

54:22

But there was, like, no set up for this

54:24

scene where, you know, no I I

54:26

don't think correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think

54:28

there was a scene at the funeral wake where

54:30

they're, like, hey, did you

54:32

see Veygar? He's sitting over there on those hills

54:34

over there. And Eamon's like,

54:36

you know, like, there's nothing where, like, they

54:38

set up that, like, This might be a

54:40

thing that he's doing. We see him here a dragon roar. There's

54:42

like a shot of him kinda like looking up

54:44

at

54:45

sky and the sun, like, moves behind

54:47

the castle. And then you, like, hear a little

54:49

dragon roar in the distant and he seems kinda

54:52

curious by it. And

54:54

then, like, wanders

54:54

off, but you're right that they're they didn't really for

54:57

how serious this scene

54:58

is about, like, the danger of dragon

55:01

writing and the danger and,

55:04

like, what it takes to claim a dragon. We just kind of had to watch all that

55:06

and pick up on it in real time. There

55:08

wasn't, like, the, like, oh,

55:10

man. Now that

55:11

Laino's dead, who's gonna

55:13

possibly claim Vader or,

55:15

like, I love I

55:18

love I love the Kim Rann

55:20

throw Impressions. But, yes, There's nothing nothing

55:22

like that. There's no like who's gonna claim BEGR. There's

55:24

no here's how difficult it is to mount

55:26

BEGR. There's there's no AIM in

55:28

being like, I should go check out BEGR. It's

55:31

Yeah. It's a little odd. And as

55:33

a result, I had no idea what the f

55:35

is going on in the scene for

55:37

a while until he, like, gets to the dragon

55:39

and then, like, starts writing it. And, I

55:41

mean, Kim Renfro, how difficult is it for someone to

55:44

typically claim a dragon in

55:46

this way? I

55:47

would say very hard, especially one as

55:50

large and full grown

55:52

as Vanguard, like you see that

55:54

Aiman was on the verge of being Is it more difficult than

55:56

trying to handle a

55:57

cat while you're recording a podcast, which is what

55:59

you're

55:59

doing right now? Yes. I'm actually very good at handling

56:02

my cat

56:04

while we're my little my little

56:06

beast. She claimed

56:10

me. Mhmm. Yeah.

56:12

It is it's very challenging, very risky. Literally,

56:14

if you do not have Targaryen blood,

56:16

it's

56:16

all but a sure

56:18

death sentence. We've seen

56:21

In the songwriting Firebooks, there's

56:23

a character Quentin Martell who doesn't

56:25

exist in the show, who

56:27

tried and

56:29

failed spectacularly to ride one

56:31

of Danny's dragons. So, yeah, it's very hard.

56:32

I think it shows he's got a lot

56:35

of a lot of balls on

56:36

this

56:37

little kid. Like, the

56:39

way that he really stood his ground, he's

56:42

using valerian phrases.

56:44

The one that he says up

56:47

front, Dohaires, means serve. So, like, he's basically,

56:49

like, staring this giant ancient dragon in the

56:52

face and saying, like, serve

56:54

me. I'm

56:54

a ten year old kid.

56:57

Repalls it off,

56:58

climbs up. I love, like, the I love, like, the

57:00

I was like, how the Yeah. The rope

57:01

the ropes, like, yeah. That was really cool. That's

57:03

a cool touch. Yeah. That

57:05

she has, like, a whole, like, rope ladder

57:08

basically, like, that she is just on her back

57:10

at all times so that he can climb

57:12

up there. Gave me

57:13

a lot of vibes of how to

57:14

train your dragon. Have you seen those

57:17

movies? Mhmm. I love I

57:19

love those movies. Yeah. And, yeah, the

57:21

whole, like, test flight there's

57:23

a really good test, like, a scene where hiccup,

57:25

the character, and how a trainer

57:28

dragon, tries writing his dragon for the first time,

57:30

and it's very scary and dangerous.

57:32

And then as soon as it starts working,

57:34

like, if you sense that

57:36

exhilaration, and I think the same thing happened in

57:38

this episode, right, where, like, you see that Aymond

57:40

is, like, about to lose his grip at any moment. It's very

57:42

chaotic, but then, like, once they get

57:44

in the zone, he's

57:46

writing a

57:48

gigantic a gigantic destructive

57:51

magical creature, and he did

57:53

it all on his own. And so

57:55

now Vaguar, dragons can only

57:57

be bound to one writer at a time. And

57:59

so

57:59

it's like now nobody else is gonna be able to

58:02

write Vaguar as long as Aymand

58:04

maintains

58:04

his claim over her.

58:06

Yeah.

58:06

I mean, I I feel like in in reality, if this is a

58:09

real thing, you'd you'd wanna have some kind

58:11

of dragon security after It's

58:14

like if a nuclear weapon can only be bonded to one person,

58:16

you'd wanna have some kind of nuclear

58:19

weapon security after, like,

58:21

the person dies and anyone else

58:23

can bond to it. You know what I'm saying? Like Yeah. I think I think

58:25

it and again, I maybe

58:27

I'm just reaching, but

58:28

I'm, like,

58:30

you can you can see that it was a very unexpected

58:33

thing. Like, it it's not

58:35

every day that somebody just decides that they're

58:37

gonna risk their life to

58:39

claim a dragon. And don't think anybody expected it of

58:42

Ewald. And I think he kinda knows that. That's why

58:44

he comes back all, like,

58:46

swaggy

58:47

and confident. afterwards because you can see that he's like,

58:49

oh, yeah. I just did that. Like, nobody nobody here thought I

58:51

would do that. And and I guess, like,

58:53

the

58:53

pool of people who might possibly do it is

58:55

pretty limited. Right? It's

58:58

not like It's not like there's like AAA million people that

59:00

are all waiting to climb on the drive. It's like there's

59:02

maybe like twenty that might even

59:04

be able

59:06

to. So maybe the secure maybe they reallocate the security budget

59:08

elsewhere for that one. And there there's an

59:09

element of, like,

59:12

disrespect to it.

59:14

Right? Like,

59:14

maybe they didn't think that they had

59:16

to send anyone to guard Vanguard because it wouldn't occur

59:19

to the Valerians

59:22

that one of Allison's kids

59:24

would dare take Laina's dragon when

59:26

they literally just finished bearing her,

59:28

like, a few hours ago, man,

59:30

didn't

59:30

even wait.

59:32

Yeah. Yeah.

59:33

So the kids start fighting because

59:35

Eamon shows up and, you know, Elena's

59:38

children immediately realizes what's happened.

59:40

Eamon has stolen one of the dragons that

59:42

was theoretically could have been meant for one of

59:44

them. Mhmm. A huge fight

59:46

ensues. And

59:47

Chase

59:49

and Moose also show up.

59:51

So Eamon, again, Is

59:54

Alison's child, Jason he's the blonde

59:56

one, Jason Lewis are the brown haired ones.

59:58

They are very near as children. They

59:59

show up basically

1:00:01

amassified ensues and Eamon's

1:00:03

eye is permanently

1:00:07

damaged. It's or destroyed, I guess.

1:00:10

Mhmm. And

1:00:12

we've seen scenes in movies

1:00:14

and TV shows kids fighting. You know, like,

1:00:16

this is not an uncommon trope. But

1:00:18

what I appreciate is that we get

1:00:20

the Game of Thrones universe take on this. And in

1:00:23

this universe, like, the kids are playing

1:00:25

for keeps. like something terrible could happen at any time

1:00:27

and in fact that's exactly what occurs.

1:00:29

You then see the eye getting sewn up later.

1:00:31

It looks horrible. Like,

1:00:34

the whole his face looks horrible and very damaged by it.

1:00:36

And it's clear that, yeah, this is this

1:00:38

is a a tragedy

1:00:41

that has occurred. Mhmm.

1:00:42

And and

1:00:43

they kind

1:00:44

of have this big fight in the hall where

1:00:47

Alison says, I'm literally going to take

1:00:49

an eye for an eye and escalating

1:00:53

series of things that occur,

1:00:55

but I I actually really love this

1:00:57

whole between the beach

1:00:59

fight and then the in the great

1:01:01

hall and then arguing with each other and and how that felt,

1:01:03

again, so tense and unpredictable and

1:01:06

escalating like anything

1:01:08

could happen. We'll talk

1:01:10

through some more details. But, Kim, any thoughts on these

1:01:12

sequences? Yeah.

1:01:12

I mean, whoever

1:01:15

did the fully work

1:01:16

for that fight

1:01:18

between the

1:01:18

kids. Like, this sound when

1:01:21

Eamon's fist, like, connected with

1:01:22

every single one of those kids, I was

1:01:24

like, oh my god. He's punching them. really

1:01:27

hard. They're like,

1:01:29

they're this is not like a little

1:01:31

slap

1:01:31

fight between kids. Like,

1:01:34

you've you've felt the

1:01:35

viciousness. And then as soon

1:01:37

as Eamon escalated it to, like, halt

1:01:40

like, when he, like, has

1:01:41

Luke by the throat and then picks up a rock.

1:01:43

I was like, oh, he's out. Like, he could kill

1:01:45

one of these boys right now. And

1:01:47

both of those

1:01:50

boys as far as the realm is concerned,

1:01:52

are, like, or at least for

1:01:53

Are in the line of success? Chase.

1:01:54

Yeah. Chase Chase

1:01:56

is next in line. Like, it's

1:01:59

it's bananas that he went as far as he

1:02:02

did, and you felt that

1:02:04

danger. And so then when you see, you

1:02:06

know, the

1:02:08

pocket sand, knife to the face move, like, you kind of understand

1:02:10

that they are truly defending themselves

1:02:12

from their

1:02:14

former peer and friend

1:02:16

who, like, now might actually

1:02:18

murder them. And so,

1:02:20

like, it it reminded me

1:02:22

in season one of Game of Thrones

1:02:24

when you see the fight between Aria

1:02:26

and Joffrey, and, like, we,

1:02:28

the audience get to see what really

1:02:30

happened and, like, the cruelty that was on

1:02:32

display there from Joffrey.

1:02:34

And then that moves into, like,

1:02:36

trying to explain to the adults what happened and it just becomes a big, like, he

1:02:38

said he said she said situation with

1:02:42

the similar chaos

1:02:44

of, like, we can we

1:02:46

can kinda get a sense for, like, what might

1:02:48

be, like, the just response here. But

1:02:50

as we see, Allison has no

1:02:52

interest in believing

1:02:54

that her son might have been at

1:02:56

fault here. And right

1:02:58

near her goes straight into,

1:03:00

like, well, he called him a bastard.

1:03:02

So, like, let's get

1:03:03

this all out in the air one more time,

1:03:05

I guess.

1:03:06

So I thought

1:03:08

it was really well done. Yeah. There's a lot

1:03:10

of, like, little things that I really enjoyed about

1:03:12

this scene kind of I I

1:03:14

loved Damien just kind of sitting there in the

1:03:16

back. Cool as a cucumber. Just just chilling.

1:03:19

Just you know, he's not intervening. He knows that it's

1:03:21

not his time to play his card in and the

1:03:23

only time he does intervene is to stop Sartre Christian

1:03:25

from going after Venero,

1:03:28

which is you know, worth

1:03:30

considering. Yeah. Is that that's the

1:03:32

only time when he felt it was worth stepping in.

1:03:33

Yeah. I also wasn't sure if Kristen

1:03:36

was headed for the kids. It's weird.

1:03:38

He, like, goes around

1:03:40

the group. And

1:03:40

I was like, yeah, he probably is just trying

1:03:42

to protect Allison, but then it's like there's also

1:03:44

a chance that he was split decision

1:03:47

to enact his

1:03:48

queen's order of bringing him

1:03:51

Luceris' eye. And so Yeah. III

1:03:53

think

1:03:53

it was you

1:03:55

know, Allison's like, hey, sir Christian, I order you

1:03:58

to take that kid's eye. And and I

1:04:00

think sir Christian was having a bit of a

1:04:02

crisis of of

1:04:03

conscience because he's supposed to protect

1:04:05

the queen, but that doesn't necessarily extend

1:04:07

to him taking out kids' eyes. Right? That

1:04:09

was kind of -- Yeah.

1:04:11

-- of his powers or, like, of her

1:04:13

of her -- Yes. -- control in this

1:04:15

situation. And he he

1:04:18

does

1:04:18

not follow,

1:04:19

I think, smartly, doesn't do exactly

1:04:21

what she says, but it's like you also see viseris

1:04:24

and sir Harold who's the captain of the King's

1:04:26

Guard. They both clock that

1:04:28

as like oh, this

1:04:30

relationship between Allison and

1:04:32

Kristen is probably more

1:04:34

inappropriate than we have realized

1:04:36

or, like, the loyalty

1:04:38

here -- Mhmm. -- is crossing a

1:04:40

line. Is it Yes.

1:04:42

He's not he's not just doing his duty

1:04:44

anymore. He is -- Yeah. -- which

1:04:45

again, I I

1:04:47

have a lot

1:04:48

of a wide understanding of Allison and

1:04:51

Kristen's behaviors, but, like, they seem to

1:04:53

be getting

1:04:53

more hypocritical, the older that they get. in

1:04:55

terms of, like,

1:04:56

what they what they decide

1:04:58

is honorable and decent

1:05:01

is

1:05:01

very easily moved around whenever

1:05:04

they have

1:05:04

a desire. for action?

1:05:07

I will

1:05:08

say that

1:05:10

for all the challenges, and I get here,

1:05:12

I'm I just want people to understand.

1:05:14

I'm like really making a conscious effort to kind of praise the things about

1:05:16

the episode that I really like and and

1:05:18

decisions that they've made that have

1:05:22

that have gone against other sentiments I've had about the show in the

1:05:24

past. But this was the scene that fully

1:05:27

justified Olivia Cook being

1:05:30

in the role of Allison where she's

1:05:32

like, you know, I demand record beat

1:05:34

like, I demand and I like, the

1:05:36

way she does that is so

1:05:40

chilling, you know, and is

1:05:42

so good that I'm like, oh, wow, she

1:05:44

really nailed it. Like,

1:05:46

in a way, that I'm not

1:05:48

saying who who played Emily

1:05:50

Carrie? Emily Carrie. I'm not saying Emily

1:05:52

Carrie couldn't have

1:05:54

done that. But I think

1:05:56

that Olivia Cook brought something

1:05:58

really brought something to it that was special.

1:06:00

ah and so

1:06:02

And so To me, this is the first scene in the last two episodes that

1:06:04

I'm like, oh, wow. I totally get, like,

1:06:06

why they wanted her to be in this

1:06:08

role? Because it's just it's

1:06:10

so good to what she does with like,

1:06:12

you can you can tell how angry

1:06:14

she is and, like and she's crossing

1:06:16

a line and she does it so brazenly.

1:06:19

know, which is, like, demanding the eye of this kid.

1:06:21

Like, it's a moral line that it's,

1:06:23

like, you know, the the relationship after

1:06:25

this point is, like, irreparable. You

1:06:27

have to imagine. Right? Yeah. And so that and that's also like, so

1:06:29

many lines are being crossed in that scene, and I thought

1:06:31

she just nailed that that

1:06:34

performance. So

1:06:36

Yeah.

1:06:36

You really believe that she believes

1:06:38

what she's saying is

1:06:40

the most righteous and, like,

1:06:43

just path forward. but, like,

1:06:45

you get to see on everybody's faces that,

1:06:48

like, you're crossing a line. And not only is

1:06:50

she crossing a line, but, like, viseris is,

1:06:52

like, doing a pretty piss poor

1:06:54

job of raining her in. And I think that that's

1:06:56

emblematic of what their relationship

1:06:58

has been like. In the last episode, when

1:07:00

she tells them, like, you can do whatever you want, and

1:07:02

I'm dead. Like, you

1:07:04

in this realm, the

1:07:06

king's word is final on all

1:07:09

matters. Like, she has she

1:07:11

has gotten herself into a place

1:07:13

of power within

1:07:14

her rule as

1:07:15

queen that is overstepping, but Vocera

1:07:17

seems to have not done a single thing to

1:07:19

try and, like, curve

1:07:21

that -- Mhmm. -- building impulse of hers. Right? Mhmm. Mhmm.

1:07:23

To call the shots. Speaking

1:07:26

of Acerus, he

1:07:26

tries to get the truth out of

1:07:30

out of Eamon. Right? Where where did you hear this

1:07:32

horrible lie? And why did you, you know,

1:07:34

theoretically, like, Rainyra's kids

1:07:38

were accused of being bastards, and then that's

1:07:40

why they struck him, and it

1:07:42

was very insulting and terrible, right, for them to

1:07:44

quest for him to question their honor.

1:07:48

So he's like, where did you hear this lie? And then I think

1:07:50

it's meant you're meant to be like, is he going to

1:07:52

name Allison? Because that would be very bad for Allison

1:07:54

if he does. But instead, he

1:07:58

names Eamon. And he does that, I think, well, why does

1:08:00

he do that? Kim, you had a you had a theory on

1:08:02

in perspective on why he'd names Emmand

1:08:04

instead of Alison's in

1:08:06

that situation.

1:08:07

the gone Egon. Oh,

1:08:08

sorry. Egon. Why Eamon?

1:08:10

Eamon Eamon is the one

1:08:12

who lied about the print. I apologize. Yes.

1:08:14

No. Yeah. Yeah. I think because

1:08:16

you played that clip earlier, and I

1:08:18

was like, there's so much silence between

1:08:22

the question and the answer. because because you watch him, I

1:08:24

felt like it seemed to me,

1:08:26

like, you watch him know that

1:08:29

it's his mother. Like, to your

1:08:31

point earlier, we're like, apparently,

1:08:34

Alison has been speaking to Aegon and Eamon about this enough to the point that they refer to Helena as the

1:08:37

future queen.

1:08:39

Right? Like, It

1:08:43

it's pretty obvious

1:08:44

that it came from Allison, but I

1:08:46

think that they exchange this look where Eamon decides,

1:08:48

like, okay, if I actually say that

1:08:50

right now, Vicero's won't have it won't have any choice

1:08:52

but to punish Allison. Right?

1:08:54

Mhmm. And he clocks

1:08:56

that and decides

1:08:58

Okay. Instead of throwing my mom under the bus,

1:09:00

I'm gonna throw

1:09:00

-- Yes. -- my drunkolder brother under

1:09:03

the bus. Juvenile can get

1:09:05

his record expunged when he's eighteen. So

1:09:07

in Westeros as well. So yeah. It it does seem to be a

1:09:09

good way to diffuse attention. And then, of course,

1:09:12

Aegon's like, look, we we all know

1:09:14

what's going on. Just look at them

1:09:16

and That's not something Alison would

1:09:18

have said, I don't think. So Sure. Another way of getting getting the poisonous

1:09:20

toxic gossip out into

1:09:23

the open as well. But

1:09:25

I just loved it when Aegon says me, you know, it's like a whole it's like a

1:09:27

very sick call me, like me,

1:09:32

like, Like, he was

1:09:33

so zoned out. Like, this has nothing to do with me. I just

1:09:35

have,

1:09:35

like I don't even know

1:09:38

what's going on right now, man.

1:09:40

Like, And

1:09:42

it's it it was hilarious,

1:09:44

I thought. Yeah. So

1:09:46

what else happens in

1:09:49

the scene

1:09:50

that's worth mentioning. Yeah.

1:09:51

Alison says, like, he gets to

1:09:54

decide which eye to

1:09:55

keep. You

1:09:56

know, the king is like,

1:09:58

hey, look, just all put this behind us, and Alison's like, no. That's not

1:10:00

good enough. So then she's like, I'm gonna take

1:10:02

one eye as well. He gets decide which

1:10:05

eye to keep Kristen won't go over and take the

1:10:08

kids eye out, so then she grabs

1:10:10

the dagger, which is a special dagger.

1:10:12

Right? It's the same dagger that killed the

1:10:14

niking. Well, the snackers certainly sees a lot of action throughout

1:10:16

the course of Wester's history.

1:10:18

Really does? If if the cat's paw,

1:10:20

right, is what I mean? Yeah.

1:10:22

it's it's referred to as the cat spa blade because

1:10:24

that is the dagger that

1:10:26

Joffrey

1:10:27

used that Joffrey

1:10:28

provided an assassin with to

1:10:30

go try and kill

1:10:31

Brant Stark. and Game of Thrones. I see. And so

1:10:34

It was Joffrey that did that. I thought it was, like, a lannister that did or one of the

1:10:36

lannisters that did that.

1:10:39

Joffrey is a lannister. No.

1:10:41

I know. But, like alright. One of the

1:10:43

older one of I thought you're right. One of the older Lannisters like Jamie or No. I think it

1:10:45

they don't really

1:10:46

ever explain that super well, but

1:10:50

books, Tyrion, kind of

1:10:52

puts two and two together that

1:10:54

Joffrey probably overheard King Roberts saying something

1:10:56

about, like, it would be a mercy just

1:10:58

to kill the boy. And then

1:11:00

Joffrey hired someone to try

1:11:02

and, like, twistedly and carry out King Roberts'

1:11:03

thoughts. Yeah.

1:11:06

Alrighty. One final thing before we

1:11:07

get on with the show, which is a quick word from

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1:12:15

Allison lunges with a

1:12:17

knife and then Renura

1:12:20

stops her and there's this moment when, like,

1:12:22

the knife blade is, like, right at her

1:12:24

eye and they kind of have

1:12:26

this interaction and then the

1:12:28

knife eventually slashes open a

1:12:30

huge portion of Vaynera's arm

1:12:33

and the

1:12:34

the

1:12:35

scene basically ends at that point. I was

1:12:37

a little bit annoyed that, like, at no point earlier

1:12:39

in the scene did it come up that

1:12:41

Eamon had claimed one of the dragons. Like, that that

1:12:43

that was kind of the proximate cause of all this, but

1:12:45

it seemed to be like a big reveal at the end.

1:12:48

Like, oh, that's what caused all this, you

1:12:50

know. Well, like, at no point while they're stitching

1:12:52

up his eye, did they say, like, hey, he was

1:12:54

out claiming dragons and then they got into, like,

1:12:56

whatever whatever. That's what? Yeah. I

1:12:58

really loved the the dialogue here of Allison kinda like finally losing

1:13:01

her shit in

1:13:03

front of everybody.

1:13:04

And

1:13:06

when she says, like, what have I done? But what was

1:13:09

expected of me? And then they cut to,

1:13:11

like, the knife point with, like,

1:13:13

fire in the background, like, at

1:13:14

Raynier's eye and I'm like, oh yeah, they're reminding us

1:13:16

that, like, Raynira also feels

1:13:19

bound

1:13:19

to this obligation of this

1:13:21

prophecy that her father told of, like, there has

1:13:23

to be a targetarian on the throne who

1:13:25

has to carry out, like, this

1:13:28

potential fight against the cold darkness

1:13:30

coming for us all, whatever. So,

1:13:32

like, But Alison doesn't

1:13:34

know that side

1:13:35

of why Rayonier is doing what she's doing. Alison only sees herself and

1:13:37

when she

1:13:40

says, like,

1:13:41

I've

1:13:42

forever been upholding the kingdom, the family, the law, while you flout your duty as you please. like,

1:13:45

this is

1:13:48

really Alison's Allison is

1:13:50

coming at this from a perspective of,

1:13:52

like, I've done everything that was asked of

1:13:54

me regardless of how awful it was.

1:13:57

and

1:13:58

I'm being she thinks that she's

1:14:00

being villainized for it or, like, being cut out of the proper line

1:14:02

of succession and things that should

1:14:03

happen because Rainier's children aren't legitimate. Whereas

1:14:08

has sure flouted

1:14:09

certain, like, norms and customs, but

1:14:11

never out of, like,

1:14:13

a cruelty in

1:14:16

my opinion. it

1:14:16

seems to mostly have been

1:14:18

out

1:14:18

of just a personal desire for equality for what another

1:14:20

heir to

1:14:21

the throne would be

1:14:23

able to do.

1:14:26

And in this case, you know, she did

1:14:28

try according to her with Leonor. They both

1:14:30

acknowledge it. Like, they tried behind the scenes

1:14:33

to

1:14:33

do their duty as

1:14:35

expected. So The I mean

1:14:36

okay. That that's a pretty

1:14:38

pro, regular reading of things in

1:14:40

my opinion, but Yeah. What's

1:14:42

your what's your count It's

1:14:45

it's not it's not I I think

1:14:47

that's mostly accurate, but, like, the idea of, like, yeah, Veneer is just doing her best just, you

1:14:51

know, is, like, okay. I mean, yes,

1:14:54

they tried, but it felt like they didn't try very hard based on the And

1:14:57

also, like,

1:15:00

Reneura did

1:15:00

you

1:15:02

know,

1:15:03

have this long standing relationship with Harwin

1:15:05

that we never really see in the

1:15:07

course of the show. But, like,

1:15:09

you

1:15:10

know, like,

1:15:11

that she, like, stepped out

1:15:13

of bounds in a really big way over an extremely

1:15:15

extended period of time over the course of

1:15:17

many, many years. And so I just don't see

1:15:19

Reneera as kind of this beacon of virtue.

1:15:21

I know I I agree

1:15:23

that in the Westeros universe, if

1:15:25

a dude was doing this, like,

1:15:27

it would be people might not bat an eye in

1:15:29

in the same way that they do with with Ranira. But just but the idea that, like,

1:15:32

Ranira is has

1:15:35

a duty and she's doing everything she can. I just don't that

1:15:37

does not jive with what I'm seeing on

1:15:39

screen of Reneera personally.

1:15:42

You know? Yeah. I mean, I certainly would never describe

1:15:44

Reniere as a beacon of virtue. Sure.

1:15:46

Sure. Not even a little bit.

1:15:49

Fair enough. I apologize for the strong

1:15:51

person argument then. No. It's yeah. No. I think

1:15:53

that you're right and that and I I'm

1:15:55

sure that there are a lot of people that

1:15:57

agree with you. the whole in fire and

1:15:59

blood, Alison and

1:16:00

Rainera, are completely pitted against one

1:16:03

another and, like, explained to

1:16:05

be, like, having this, like, I don't

1:16:07

know, you know, hysterical women cat fight type

1:16:09

of thing. I think that the show

1:16:11

is very intentionally letting

1:16:14

us understand the different motivations

1:16:16

that both Rayonira and Alison have to be behaving

1:16:18

the way that they're behaving. And it's

1:16:21

all going terribly

1:16:24

wrong. But we see Rayonira

1:16:26

in private, like, to Damon say, like, I don't think Allison is

1:16:28

capable of

1:16:30

cold blooded murder. Like, rainier

1:16:33

still has some sort of sense of, like,

1:16:35

regard for Allison that is not reciprocated at all. Allison only seems

1:16:37

to want to talk about

1:16:39

all of the terrible

1:16:40

in just things

1:16:43

that Raynier is doing. When I don't think

1:16:45

that Raynier actually has, you know,

1:16:47

like, the marriage proposal

1:16:49

that

1:16:49

Raynier put forward, last episode

1:16:51

between Helena and Chase, from Alison's

1:16:53

perspective, that's like, oh, you want to

1:16:55

keep my daughter hostage

1:16:58

and, like, you know,

1:17:00

completely tie our families to each other so that

1:17:02

you can control all of them. I don't think that's what Raynira actually had in mind. I think that she genuinely

1:17:05

thought maybe we

1:17:07

can salvage this. but

1:17:09

they're just so beyond being able to communicate to what another -- Yeah.

1:17:11

-- their their fears and their desires. And

1:17:14

then this is the result is

1:17:15

that it's

1:17:18

creating in

1:17:20

family strife. That's being

1:17:22

passed

1:17:22

to their children. It's like

1:17:24

when you

1:17:25

have that friend of

1:17:27

yours that has basically a toxic relationship with someone else where

1:17:29

they literally no longer have the

1:17:31

ability to interpret any of

1:17:34

their actions positively. You know,

1:17:36

like, that's kind of what Alison

1:17:38

just like with Reinera. I will agree with you that I think that I think the show is making both of

1:17:40

them out to

1:17:43

be very sympathetic characters. I

1:17:45

know people don't agree with them. They they

1:17:47

don't agree with that. Like, they people are much more pro ranira overall from

1:17:50

what I can tell.

1:17:53

But I think they're both tragic figures

1:17:55

in their own way. And I and I don't

1:17:57

see, like, Reinera as that much more virtuous, if at

1:17:59

all, than Alison personally.

1:18:00

all that else it personally

1:18:02

by But, you

1:18:04

know, I think I'm not interested in

1:18:06

seeing either of them be virtuous. Right?

1:18:09

I see I'm

1:18:11

I'm interested in seeing how they each attempt to wield

1:18:13

power when they're being given very

1:18:15

little avenues to

1:18:18

do so. Right? Mhmm. And they're both going about it in very

1:18:20

different ways. Allison is trying to

1:18:22

stay within the laws and

1:18:24

customs of the country

1:18:27

because that's how things have been done for

1:18:29

centuries and she's, like, the old

1:18:30

school, faith of the seven type

1:18:33

of person who

1:18:35

has, like, that moral

1:18:36

code and structure.

1:18:37

And Rayonier is kind of like free ball and

1:18:39

everything. Like, she she

1:18:42

she seems to be trying

1:18:45

to kind of make it up as she goes

1:18:47

with what she's being given. She didn't ask to be made air to the iron throne. You

1:18:49

know, she says at the

1:18:51

beginning that she happy

1:18:53

to ride around

1:18:54

on her dragon with with Alison for the rest of her life and freedom. So,

1:18:57

yeah, I think

1:18:59

that the show

1:19:01

yeah i think that the show just because of

1:19:03

the

1:19:03

changes that they're making to fire in blood,

1:19:05

it feels like the show is

1:19:07

going heavy pro

1:19:10

rate nera. when it comes to kind of like explaining

1:19:12

how things unfold, but that doesn't

1:19:14

mean that Allison is a straight

1:19:17

up villain. Like, there are many,

1:19:19

many reasons to to sympathize with what she went through

1:19:21

as when she was younger and how that

1:19:23

has all informed her

1:19:27

survival instincts. in -- Yep. -- in the current timeline. I agree with that. I do

1:19:29

think I do think you're

1:19:30

right though that the show is kind of positioning Allison

1:19:32

to be the villain. Mhmm. There is

1:19:34

a scene with Auto and Allison where

1:19:37

Allison's like, okay, dad, let's get it all out. Like, what do you have to say about it? And he's

1:19:39

like, actually, well, actually, good

1:19:44

job. good

1:19:46

job back there. Like, he he basically

1:19:48

says, say what you will about the tenets of Alice and

1:19:50

Thai Tower, but at least it's the ethos, Kim Monroe.

1:19:56

Sure. You know, he's basically

1:19:58

saying like like at least,

1:20:00

hey, I I now know that you

1:20:02

know what it takes to be on

1:20:05

top, basically. Right? Yeah. And, like, to me,

1:20:07

that's a big admission. Like, when he says we

1:20:09

play an ugly game and now I

1:20:11

see you have the determination

1:20:14

to win it. He's acknowledging that

1:20:16

what they're doing is strategizing and

1:20:18

putting pieces on the table -- Mhmm.

1:20:20

-- and not acting out of

1:20:23

some you

1:20:23

know, divine moral

1:20:24

code, but

1:20:26

that their

1:20:27

code dictates to them that this

1:20:29

is what the right thing should be,

1:20:31

and they will it's like the ends

1:20:34

justify the means argument. Right? Where auto seems content to let Alison

1:20:36

could, like, maybe wreak

1:20:38

a little bit more havoc

1:20:42

if in the end

1:20:44

they get what they want, which is

1:20:45

her children -- Mhmm. -- on the iron throne,

1:20:48

safe and on the iron throne.

1:20:49

Yep. He

1:20:50

says we play an ugly game as you said,

1:20:52

Kim. Hey, Kim. Do you know what you

1:20:54

know what the the game is? It

1:20:56

it

1:20:56

does it have to do with I

1:20:59

I think you say

1:20:59

Trones. I think it might

1:21:02

be a game of Thrones.

1:21:04

Thrones? That is the ugly game that

1:21:06

they're playing. I don't know if you It's

1:21:08

a little it's a little easter

1:21:10

egg for you guys. Okay? The ugly game, the game he's

1:21:14

referring to, is the Game of Thrones. You had to watch the episode three

1:21:16

times to really pick up on that. Oh,

1:21:18

I mean, closer to five plus

1:21:22

for me personally? Yeah. But Rainera

1:21:24

and Leonor have an interaction. That's actually quite

1:21:26

nice. I should have been there. Those

1:21:29

should be our house words.

1:21:31

That was pretty hilarious. Obviously,

1:21:33

you you get a sense of, like, the

1:21:35

missed opportunities and connections that this family has had

1:21:38

over the years. Mhmm.

1:21:40

And I think

1:21:41

Leonor is seeing the damage and the potential threats to the whole

1:21:44

kingdom

1:21:44

that occurred

1:21:46

in the prior scene. or

1:21:49

I guess you didn't see them. You just

1:21:51

saw the aftermath of them. Yeah. He's like, okay. I

1:21:53

gotta I gotta lean in to the family here or else,

1:21:55

like, things will go

1:21:58

even more south. And so he not go I'm I'm gonna

1:22:00

be there for for

1:22:03

the for the kids. And

1:22:07

and he's he's basically trying to correct

1:22:09

their old ways. He he's

1:22:12

recognizing that what they have

1:22:14

is not working. Yeah. And

1:22:15

and he's trying to make it better, and he's trying to

1:22:17

do an honorable thing. Right? So Yeah.

1:22:19

Nice. Nice. It really broke

1:22:22

my heart when he said,

1:22:24

like, that

1:22:24

he hates the gods for making him the way that he

1:22:26

is, which I believe is an illusion to his sexuality and the fact

1:22:28

that he has no interest

1:22:30

in women and therefore doing his

1:22:34

duty in this family has been challenging

1:22:36

for him. And the fact that Rayonier

1:22:38

immediately is like, no. Like, you're a

1:22:40

good she,

1:22:41

like, reassures him and gives him and, like,

1:22:43

validates his experience and his life in a

1:22:46

way that I really

1:22:48

appreciated.

1:22:50

especially

1:22:50

watching it the first

1:22:52

time

1:22:53

knowing what happens

1:22:55

to him, the starting with

1:22:57

this conversation. The whole rest of the episode was just like a roller coaster of

1:22:59

emotions for me of, like, we

1:23:04

went from that's

1:23:04

really, like, sweet moment to then, like, when

1:23:06

Rainier was talking to Damon

1:23:07

and I was, like, oh, no. Like,

1:23:10

now Well,

1:23:12

okay. So we we should explain

1:23:14

that in the books, Leonor dies mysteriously, and

1:23:16

it's not clear exactly how

1:23:18

he dies. Is that right?

1:23:20

In the books, it's just said

1:23:23

that Karl like, that him and him and Karl who had

1:23:25

been, like, acquaintances

1:23:27

for some time that

1:23:29

they got into a fight in public, and Carl stabbed later to death. And

1:23:31

it's kind of like written off

1:23:32

as like a, we're

1:23:34

not really sure why that happened

1:23:38

vendor, like, what escalated to what? It's

1:23:40

just known that, like, he was killed

1:23:41

tragically. Right. And then and then you're, like

1:23:44

and you're watching this. You're, like, oh my

1:23:46

gosh, they're gonna make rainier one responsible for it and then flip again at

1:23:48

the end where it's like, oh my gosh, she's actually

1:23:50

not responsible for it or she is, but

1:23:52

he's not dead. You know? Yeah.

1:23:55

So Like, I thought

1:23:56

like i thought because,

1:23:57

you know, you've you've already identified it. I'm pretty pro ranira throughout most of

1:23:59

show i'm pretty pro reindeer a throughout

1:24:02

most of this

1:24:03

so far. I've

1:24:05

really kind of been in lockstep with understanding even

1:24:07

when she does things that are detrimental to others or

1:24:09

whatever,

1:24:09

I've been sort

1:24:12

of like I

1:24:13

get I get why she's doing this and I don't really fault

1:24:15

her for it necessarily. This was the first time

1:24:15

where I was like, oh,

1:24:17

no.

1:24:18

They're making me

1:24:20

they're they're turning me on Rainera. I was like, I

1:24:22

can't justify this. Like, Lator has truly done nothing wrong. He just

1:24:25

had that really sweet

1:24:27

conversation with her. where he

1:24:29

recommitted to their marriage and, like, she's I was, like, I was I was

1:24:31

kinda, like, of course. Of

1:24:34

course, David and Raynira are

1:24:36

gonna conspire

1:24:39

together to murder this innocent man

1:24:40

so that they can marry, like, yeah, sure

1:24:42

that tracks. But I was, like, I

1:24:45

was

1:24:46

I was grieving my loss of my prorated nearest

1:24:48

dance as the scene went

1:24:50

on. And then, boom, surprise.

1:24:53

He's alive. and it's fine. And I can

1:24:55

continue being pro Rainera because, in

1:24:57

fact, this is a very

1:25:00

wonderful character development for her

1:25:02

of, like, ensuring a, like, safe protected

1:25:04

passage for him to go, like, live his

1:25:06

life where he maybe doesn't have to

1:25:08

sit around and just feel ashamed of

1:25:10

who he

1:25:11

is recently. Like -- Mhmm. -- I thought that was a really great thing. And

1:25:13

I really enjoyed the little

1:25:16

switcheroo game that the writers

1:25:18

played with with book readers in

1:25:20

this in this example because it's

1:25:22

hard it's hard to surprise us. Mhmm. Mhmm. But we were surprised and it's very

1:25:25

fun when

1:25:28

that happens. as a show watcher only, I was not

1:25:30

really surprised, you know, because they give you, like, all these hints about

1:25:32

what's gonna happen. I mean, it's

1:25:34

a really cool montage when she's, like,

1:25:37

when

1:25:37

she says when when Damon says, you know, we can't marry unless Leonor is dead. And

1:25:39

she's like, I know.

1:25:42

And then you see Damon

1:25:47

killing some random guy. So it's like, okay, what's

1:25:49

going on there? Yeah. Then you see the Leonor and

1:25:51

Karl fight, and then a

1:25:54

body emerge from the ashes who

1:25:56

you cannot identify. And it's like, oh, that's

1:25:58

clearly not leaner. Like, right from

1:25:59

that point, it's like, that's not leaner

1:26:02

because That's

1:26:02

kind of how TV shows

1:26:05

and films do this kind of reveal. So

1:26:07

still very well done when he gets on the boat

1:26:09

at the end. It's like a cool reveal. He takes off

1:26:11

the hood. You see it's him. They're on the it's

1:26:13

a beautiful shot of them on the boat together, but I just thought it was

1:26:15

like a pretty well executed scene. I wasn't

1:26:17

as head fake multiple times as

1:26:20

you were. So it's

1:26:22

kinda it's kinda cool. It's kinda cool, Kim, that, like, this is, like, an inverse. Like, usually, it's the show watchers being shocked.

1:26:24

And for once, it's, like, the book readers that

1:26:26

were really taking it back. So that's a nice

1:26:31

reverse of a dynamic there. Yeah. And in a

1:26:33

positive way.

1:26:34

Right? Because, like, in last episode,

1:26:38

it was a little bit of a reveal to book readers that Lara

1:26:40

Strong was the one who orchestrated the

1:26:42

fire and killed them. But it's like,

1:26:45

that's a that's a tragic reveal. That's all, like,

1:26:47