Episode 2 of House of the Dragon saw cracks appearing in House Targaryen as those who want to see a man on the Iron Throne continued to play the long game.
Already, Princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) is trying to show her authority by giving suggestions during council meetings but she is being put back in her place.
This didn’t stop her, though, and she managed to avert a situation between Prince Daemon (Matt Smith) and Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans).
As King Viserys (Paddy Considine) pointed out after the event, Rhaenyra should have stayed where she was because she is the only heir, showing that the character still has plenty to learn about ruling.
But will she even get there?
As we know from Game of Thrones, this is a game for those in power and things are about to get trickier still when it comes to Rhaenyra’s position.
House of the Dragon Episode 3 details
According to Game Revolution, the title of Episode 3 of House of the Dragon is “Second of His Name.”
No official synopsis has been released for this episode, so it is difficult to deduce which character this title is referring to.
However, as Carter Matt points out, this episode will continue to deal with whether or not Rhaenyra will hold her position as heir to the Iron Throne or if she will be usurped by someone else.
Episode 2 showed Otto Hightower playing his hand — or daughter — and manipulating the situation so that the king married Alicent (Emily Carey) rather than Laena.
Now, the trailer for Episode 3 suggests his manipulation will run much further.
House of the Dragon trailer released for Episode 3
The new trailer for Episode 3 of House of the Dragon opens with Otto speaking to his daughter, Alicent.
“The road ahead is uncertain but the end is clear,” Otto said. “Aegon will be king.”
According to the book that House of the Dragon is based on, Fire and Blood, Aegon is the son of Alicent and Viserys and is, in fact, the second of his name.
The clip then gives further details about this new character, confirming he is the firstborn son of the king, indicating quite a time jump between Episode 2 when the king had only just announced his intention to marry Lady Alicent, as now Aegon is a young child.
Rhaenyra appears to struggle with not only the fact that a male heir might take her spot in line to the throne but that she should marry and produce her own offspring to cement her position.
But, all of that seems moot when it appears that Rhaenyra is surprised by the Crab-Feeder (Daniel Scott-Smith), a character that was hinted at in previous episodes of House of the Dragon.
As pointed out by Comic Book, the conflict between Westeros, the Crab-Feeder and the Stepstones has been growing and Lord Corlys (Steve Toussaint) spoke to Daemon regarding this at the end of Episode 2.
If Daemon were to clear up this conflict, he could gain good ground when it came to support in Westeros and give him a stronger claim to the Iron Throne.
How this all unfolds remains to be seen, though, and viewers will have to tune in on Sunday night to find out more.
House of the Dragon airs every Sunday night at 9/8c on HBO Max.
I mean if you read the books or did the research, you know how this ends and it’s NOT good.