Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Unsullied Recap House of the Dragon Season 1 Episode 9 “Finding Aegon”

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A bit of an admission to begin:

  1. The episode title was actually, “The Green Council.”
  2. After being an unlikely fanboy of Ladies Love Criston Cole, I’m beyond ready for the dude to croak (no offense to Fabien who has plays the character quite well). Criston… you’ve morphed into a dickhead bully asshole.
  3. Someone needs to start listening to Helaena. Beast beneath the boards, dumbasses.
  4. Yes, I was unnoticeably absent last week. If you happened to notice, you are one of the chosen few and thank you for your unwavering allegiance.

Now, where the motherf&*$%g hell is Aegon?

My name is Oz of House Oz and the King is, in fact, dead.  A quick shout out to Paddy who played Viserys. Those were some acting chops my man.

And holy shit, what an episode last week. Due to work/life balance issues (of which there is absolutely no balance), I didn’t even get the opp to write it up.  But damn it was great.

This one? Not so much although it still ranks up there in the “good enough to devote an hour of my life” category.

We kick it off with a loose-lipped little shit running around telling secrets and considering how kids just pop out and grow in this show, the whole time I’m trying to figure out who this one belongs to.  But nope… this is right after the last episode.

King's Landing Red Keep, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), 1x09 (1)

Word starts to spread and plotting Otto who cues up Order 66. This is where you lock ‘em up or kill them if they won’t bend the knee and/or refuse to be on your side… kinda like American politics.

King's Landing Red Keep Small Council, Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan), 1x09 (1)

Into the council chamber and I don’t know half these people but they look important and they are all on board with Otto with the exception of the old white man. A couple of notes here: 1. Alicent was unaware of the plan in place and wasn’t too thrilled.  2. Old white men are typically traditionalists regardless of time and place, fiction or non, modern or medieval. They just are. And there’s a chance you will be too if you are lucky enough to live that long. And let’s be honest… he wasn’t wrong.

That said, bash his head in dammit!! This would have been a glorious time for Westerling to finally finish off the “Westeros Love Machine.” Instead, he hands in the cloak and probably went fishing. Wise move, especially considering what’s coming.

King's Landing, Erryk Cargyll (Elliott Tittensor), Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor), 1x09 (2)

Then it seems like we spend half the episode trying to find the royal idiot. First it’s Otto who sends out Pete and RePete (Eric and Eric, or Arryk and Arryk, or Eerick and Aerick) to find the king who doesn’t want to be king. And then Alicent does the same with Butthole Cole and “you can’t disguise a face like that” Aemond.

*Regarding Aemond: this guy nails this role. I don’t know anything about book Aemond, but to me they could not have done any better casting him.

They visit all the local henhouses and with blonde-headed bastards everywhere, it’s clear that Aegon is putting his Aegs in more than one basket.

Back to Otto and the kneeling game with a few dissenters and one who reeaaalllyyy thought about it before wisely tapping out. Larys catches one(Caswell maybe?) that tries to flee to spread the word which raises a question… why are there no ravens yet? Wouldn’t that be a better idea? Had they not discovered raven mail? Are ravens not yet trainable?

Anyway, he got hanged because Westeros is a nice place to live.

The search for Aegs continues into a cock-fighting pit. Woops, no those are children. Wonderful. Forget the damn child-labor laws in this place. We haven’t even gotten past kids “clawing each other’s eyes out for money” stage. And you say we haven’t progressed.

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Anyway, random girl has some info and Aemond tells Butthole Surfer that he would be a better king. That’s not saying much, my dude.

Alicent then visits Rhaenys who is locked up until she rings a bell signaling who she is going to support for the throne.

Otto goes to meet with the White Worm who is hot and neither pale nor wormy. Wait, isn’t that Daemon’s ex? Anyway, she knows where the heathen Targ is and tells Otto not to forget who helped him.

Aegon ends being under a table of candles and throws a temper tantrum because I don’t want your politics and leave my ass alone. Butthole shows up and fights RePete (or is it Pete) and Aemond sacks Aegon for a loss.  And for the first time in a while, Cole decides not to kill someone.

Meanwhile, Alicent and Otto discuss Rhaenyra and her family living or dying. If this Aegon thing is the way they are going, it’s actually hard to disagree with Otto because we all know what is about to happen if they are allowed to live.

King's Landing Red Keep, Larys Strong (Matthew Nedham), 1x09 (2)

Now, can we talk about foot-fetishes? Listen… I’m not one to judge and I’ve always been a “to each their own” type of persuasion. But what is it with feet? I obviously saw the camera pan down to Larys’ crooked foot which was purposeful (ha… you thought I was going “there”). But why? It’s not that feet are necessarily disgusting (although some are for sure). But are they sexual? Feet have a given purpose… you walk on them. Right? Am I missing something? Am I missing out on one of life’s guilty pleasures?

Ok. Sorry. Moving on…

Pete (Erryk maybe) breaks Rhaenys out of the Hilton Garden Inn but loses her in the wild rush to see the new king!!

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Alicent does a pretty good job of persuading Aegon into the importance of his role, gives him the dagger, and takes him to the coronation. At first, Aegon has the nerves but eventually seems to embrace his new job. That is until…

Destruction, terror and mayhem! I honestly couldn’t tell how Rhaenys busted into the room but then I remembered Helaena’s words and maybe I’m reading into that completely wrong, but it made sense.

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Regardless, Rhaenys could have ended the forthcoming conflict right there, but I also get why she opted not to.  Beyond the family connection, it’s ultimately not her conflict to settle. The biggest issue I have is that a bunch of innocent poor people died. And yeah, it’s a fiction and a TV Show, but still.  Come on Rhaenys!

Initial Thoughts:

I hate that I didn’t get the chance to write up Episode 8 because damn. And while this one wasn’t the most intriguing, it set up what should be a banger of a finale.

The time jumps, the massive amount of children, the random lords of houses, and the aged-up actors have been quite confusing at times. But I’ll give credit where it’s due… this series has exceeded expectations and I honestly didn’t know if it would.

Kudos to HBO and the showrunners.  I’m in. The dragons be flyin and the fire be ragin next week.  Just another day in Westeros.

See you all next week for the series finale! And please visit our site often even as the series concludes. We run on a shoestring budget here and have always been fan-centered. Please consider helping us with a donation if you can and as always, thank you so much for clicking on our site. We have a great crew of contributors and we all do it for the love of ASOIAF.

Until then, enjoy your week, press on, do something kind for someone, and may there always be peace in your realm.

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