House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 5: A Turning Point in the War for the Iron Throne

My overall verdict on this episode of House of the Dragon is simple: I liked it a lot. "I thought this excellent episode, excellent episode, because it once again gives you enough reference to what everybody's doing and what they're trying to do for their endgame," and by the end of it I said flat out, "I dug this episode a lot."

The Greens' Win at Rook's Rest Comes at a Massive Cost

The battle itself left me questioning who actually came out ahead. The greens took the castle, killed a dragon, and paraded its head through the city, but they lost a huge number of men doing it. As Alicent's brother put it in the episode, and as I echoed watching it, "did they win maybe nonetheless." That ambiguity is exactly what stuck with me: a strange victory where the king himself ends up gravely wounded and unlikely to wake.

That opens the door for Aemond to take over, and I think that reads as a win to the war hungry faction in King's Landing. He speaks to them the way a warrior is expected to, and he has, in my view, a mind for battle. But he is also, as I put it, "quietly out of his mind in the things that he does," impulsive and emotional, with a lot of issues on top of whatever strategic instincts he has.

Alicent's Claim to Rule Gets Dismissed for Being a Woman

I think Alicent's path would have been the better one for reaching peace, but the small council will not entertain it. The reasoning is stated plainly in the episode: they are not going to put a woman in charge because they think they will lose favor for it. The irony, as I see it, is that they are losing favor anyway, because the people of King's Landing are starving and worn down by the war, and they can tell they have been lied to.

Daemon's Old School Tactics Are Backfiring While Rhaenyra Recruits Dragon Riders

On the black side, Daemon is trying to do it the way that he's been doing it in the past, and it is costing him nobles rather than winning them over. Meanwhile Rhaenyra's side is playing it smarter this episode by searching their own bloodline for people who could ride the two spare dragons, which finally connects back to that bar scene two episodes earlier where someone mentioned being related to the Targaryens. I also thought the Sea Snake and his granddaughter material landed, calling one of those exchanges "a very solid scene."

What did you think of this one, too slow or exactly the breather the story needed after that battle?