{"id":281098,"date":"2026-06-29T14:27:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/281098\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T14:27:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:27:39","slug":"house-of-the-dragon-recap-has-heads-rolling-in-queens-landing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/281098\/","title":{"rendered":"‘House of the Dragon’ recap has heads rolling in ‘Queen’s Landing’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the second consecutive week of the House of the Dragon recaps on The Big Lead<\/a>. You can call me Otto Hightower because I\u2019m back and I did my best.<\/p>\n

This week we\u2019re recapping the second episode of the third season of House of the Dragon, which was cleverly titled \u201cQueens Landing.\u201d Get it?<\/p>\n

Jace Targaryen<\/p>\n

The episode opened with the final moments of the Battle of the Gullet<\/a>. Thankfully, there was no surprise where Jace washed up on shore and was brought back to life. There would be no cheating of death in this episode like some characters in this universe have in the past. Just a dead crown prince which led to a tear-filled dragon ride. That sure seems like something you see more and more these days. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m old enough to remember when riding dragons just kind of rocked and everyone was psyched to climb on one. Makes you wonder if there are too many dragons in \u201cHouse of the Dragon.\u201d At some point they\u2019re just going to show dragon riders commuting to work. Drinking their dragon coffee, dreading punching the clock.<\/p>\n

Rhaenyra Targaryen<\/p>\n

I thought her initial \u201cwhat have you done\u201d reaction to seeing her dead son was an odd one at first, but that might be the moment that she starts to crack. The Targaryen family doesn\u2019t have the greatest track record when it comes to mental health. Maybe this is the beginning of the end for our queen. I haven\u2019t read any of the supporting materials this show is based on so please, no spoilers.<\/p>\n

Alyn Velaryon<\/p>\n

He found his father and got his name which is about the best ending you can hope for when your boat sinks. Though this does raise some questions about the amount of paperwork required for anyone to legitimize an heir. You just have to say it on a beach in front of two witnesses and a bunch of corpses and it\u2019s done? Just like that? I know Beala and Addam are both dragon riders, but are either of them a notary?<\/p>\n

Sheepstealer<\/p>\n

Just look at that ugly dummy. That\u2019s a face only a mother of dragons could love.<\/p>\n

Rhaena Targaryen<\/p>\n

Yet another dragon rider who immediately regrets her decision. She got her cousin-slash-stepbrother killed and can\u2019t even use her ugly dragon to get free room and board at The Vale. Maybe now these two go village to village stealing sheep, just trying to stay out of trouble. Poor Rhaena\u2019s aunt-slash-stepmom is now queen and she\u2019s out on the road recreating Homer\u2019s Local Man Ruins Everything headline<\/a> in the Westeros Times. Though in her defense there is a lot of that going around in House of the Dragon.<\/p>\n

Daemon Targaryen<\/p>\n

Whenever someone starts a scene this happy you just know there\u2019s bad news on the way. Daemon remains an MVP of the series because his dragon allows him to travel from place to place and scene to scene to interact with any number of people. And most importantly, he can carry a tune. Who doesn\u2019t love a good chorus of Fish Feed? <\/p>\n

Alys Rivers<\/p>\n

I think we can all see where this is going. She asked for a castle and Daemon said she couldn\u2019t have one. Now she\u2019s going to save Aemond and really put a damper on the whole new queen thing. Whatever happens, hopefully we get to meet the manalope from the season premier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

King Aegon and Larys<\/p>\n

These two only had a quick scene this week, but their road trip storyline potential is right up there. Especially now that they\u2019ve turned into a pair of John Wicks on the King\u2019s Road. <\/p>\n

Jasper Wylde<\/p>\n

Classic guy who exists, but I have no idea who he is or what he does. Luckily, he\u2019s dead now and everyone was happy to see him go despite the fact that no one knew who he was in the first place. That might actually be the elevator pitch for this show three seasons in.<\/p>\n

Aemond Targaryen<\/p>\n

No one really thinks he\u2019s going to die which means it would be a surprise if he died but \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d wouldn\u2019t really try to pull off a double-bluff this early in the season. This isn\u2019t \u201cThe Traitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Otto Hightower<\/p>\n

The former Hand-slash-kingmaker-slash-grandpa hadn\u2019t been seen since the second episode of season two. That\u2019s a long time to be secretly held in prison, but at least he got to see his daughter\u2019s best friend as soon as he got out. It\u2019s always nice to see a familiar face. And then on top of that his daughter showed up a short time later. Almost sounds nice when you put it that way.<\/p>\n

Rhaenyra Targaryen<\/p>\n

The things you have to do to get a job in this economy, am I right? Capping off an episode full of sad boy and sad girl dragon rides we get a sad queen taking her uncomfortable throne after she chopped off the head of the father of her childhood best friend who made it possible in the first place. Hopefully Alysant understands that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. Or, in this case, the woman. There were certainly more than a few posts on Westeros\u2019s Twitter where people said today was the day Rhaenyra became queen<\/a>. Though it is kind of surprising they wrapped up the entire eight-episode season in just two hours. Not sure what we\u2019re doing for the next six Sundays beyond watch Daemon struggle to implement infrastructure week in King\u2019s Landing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to the second consecutive week of the House of the Dragon recaps on The Big Lead. You…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[620,6132,6131,58926,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-281098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-featured","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-hbo","tag-house-of-the-dragon","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}