House of the Dragon’s Season 2 Finale Needs to Avoid One Crucial Mistake
Several important turning points lie just around the corner.
There's only one episode left of House of the Dragon Season 2, and the table has been set for a potentially explosive finale. Across its past few installments, the HBO series' sophomore season has laid the groundwork for multiple major moments from its source material, a fictional Targaryen history book titled Fire & Blood, to come to fruition onscreen. Indeed, now that Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) has assembled her new team of disparate dragonriders, book readers have already begun to speculate whether or not certain conflicts, like the famed Battles of the Gullet and the Honeywine, will play out before House of the Dragon Season 2 comes to a close.
It's looking increasingly likely that the show's Season 2 finale will feature, at the very least, the start of the Battle of the Gullet, a critical naval attack that greatly shifts the tides of House of the Dragon's central civil conflict yet again. That is, on the one hand, an exciting prospect, given the Battle of the Gullet's cinematic potential. However, House of the Dragon will have to be careful in its forthcoming finale if it wants to avoid hitting its viewers with too much emotional whiplash or — even more importantly — becoming repetitive.
Major House of the Dragon spoilers ahead.
House of the Dragon just gave Rhaenyra her most triumphant moment to date, but how long will her recent victory last?
The Battle of the Gullet is a surprise attack that is launched by the Triarchy against the Blacks' Velaryon fleet after Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) reaches out to them with an alliance offer. The Triarchy ultimately loses the battle, but not before costing the Blacks dearly. Around one-third of Corlys Velaryon's (Steve Toussaint) fleet is lost, Rhaenyra's youngest son, Viserys II, is kidnapped by the Triarchy before the conflict even begins, and — most devastatingly of all — Rhaenyra's eldest son and heir, Jacaerys (Harry Collett), is slain along with his dragon Vermax during the battle. For all these reasons, the Battle of the Gullet is considered a major turning point in the Dance of the Dragons that shifts the power swiftly back in the Greens' favor.
Rhaenyra's new dragonriders, Hugh (Kieran Bew), Ulf (Tom Bennett), Addam (Clinton Liberty), and (in Fire & Blood, at least) Nettles, all prove themselves capable of being formidable forces during the battle, but the conflict nonetheless marks another step back for Rhaenyra and her supporters. House of the Dragon should, therefore, be careful about how it positions the Battle of the Gullet within the context of its story, especially if it intends to depict the entire naval conflict in its finale this Sunday. It is, to put it simply, a battle that risks sending House of the Dragon's second season out on an extremely similar note as its first.
House of the Dragon's debut season, after all, famously ends with Rhaenyra losing one of her sons, Lucerys, and suffering an emotionally and strategically heavy defeat. Jace's demise during the Battle of the Gullet is an extremely similar plot point. The series is, consequently, currently in danger of ending back-to-back seasons on what is essentially the same dramatic beat. Not only would doing so be narratively repetitious, but it would also make Rhaenyra seem even more ineffective and disadvantaged than she already has all season. The Greens have, frankly, already seemed too unwaveringly dominant this season as it is, and House of the Dragon needs to be careful not to make its central conflict so one-sided that it begins to feel dramatically static.
Rhaenyra may not know it yet, but she doesn’t have nearly as much time left with her son, Jace, as she thinks.
House of the Dragon Season 2's penultimate episode ends with Rhaenyra's first truly victorious moment in quite a while. Immediately following up the successful completion of her dragonseed plan with one of her biggest losses is the kind of move that could knock viewers too far off their feet. Game of Thrones, notably, wasn't averse to doing that. In fact, it pulled that move multiple times across its eight-season run — perhaps most effectively when it paired a scene-stealing, rousing monologue for Pedro Pascal's Oberyn in its fourth season with his horrifying murder an episode later.
House of the Dragon hasn't yet strived to be nearly as narratively brutal as Game of Thrones, though. It has generally taken a more patient, melancholic approach to many of its biggest moments and fatalities. Hitting viewers with the full force of the Battle of the Gullet this Sunday would mark such a significant rhythmic change for the show that it could frustrate and annoy some fans rather than hook them even further. So, whether House of the Dragon's Season 2 finale decides to depict the entire Battle of the Gullet or use it as a nail-biting cliffhanger, the episode will need to thread the needle carefully if it wants to avoid making multiple calamitous mistakes.
