House Of The Dragon “The Green Council” Review
House Of The Dragon “The Green Council” is the ninth episode from the first season of the House Of The Dragon. Following pretty much immediately from where episode 8 left off the King dies off screen but Alicent is informed of his passing and so the Greens start their plotting. Well, every Green besides Alicent because of course she can’t be seen as doing anything remotely questionable. Turns out Otto and the rest of the small council have been plotting to put Aegon on the throne during the six years Rhaenyra hasn’t been there, Alicent had no clue and is obviously annoyed and wants to give Rhaenyra a chance to respond. Otto tries to go full “kill them all” until it transpires that Aegon can’t be found. Alicent sends Criston (yep, Ser Nice Guy) to find him and to report only to her, Aemond goes with him. Otto sends the Kings guard twins and tells them only to report to him. Neither party find Aegon so Otto goes to Mysaria, The White Worm, and find him for a price. They find Aegon but he puts up a fight and ends up in the hands of Aemond. Larys Strong tells Alicent that there are spies in the walls and she should be wary but he’s willing to give information for a look at her feet. Aegon is crowned Aegon II but his party is crashed by Rhaenys Targaryen who literally crushes maybe hundreds of people below her dragons feet before having Meleys roar at everyone gathered and fly off.
Review
So that was a thing that happened. Honestly, this episode got one thing right and that’s the characterisation of Aegon. He’s given more personality traits in this one episode than the entire season and he actually comes across as the most sane one amongst them all. Besides the rape and alcoholism he’s got his head on pretty straight and at his coronation it’s clear he starts to like the unquestionable love the commonfolk give him just for being King. It’s a sharp contrast to what he’s had up until now, a child raised without love could get addicted to it and I think we start to see the beginnings of that here.
Rhaenys’ moment of bringing her Dragon into a public place and roaring before flying off was clearly an excuse for her to have a “boss bitch” moment and it was ridiculously stupid. There was genuinely no need, the episode could’ve ended with Rhaenys flying off on Meleys to go warn Rhaenyra and have the camera pan to Alicent and Otto as they both look scared and uncomfortable, realising what’s going to go down, as Aegon still soaks it all in and carries on oblivious to the scheming going on behind him and it would’ve been so much better. Subtle but there, perfectly mirroring everyone’s place in the family, at least on the Green’s side and mirroring what was said before “we can’t rule but we can guide the men that do.”
Realistically the whole episode had moments like that. The White Worm’s accent is honestly comical, if you’re used to people with strong accents speaking English then you can understand her but it’s so obvious that the actress is hamming it up way too much for it to be taken seriously, as an extension Mysaria herself is difficult to take seriously, she’s meant to be this mysterious character that even Daemon goes to for information at some point but with her sounding so damn goofy it’s impossible to get that.
This was bad, really bad, the writing being the worst offender as the directing and pacing are actually decent.
