House of the Dragon Recap With Spoilers: Season 2, Episode 7

Believe it or not, House of the Dragon Season 2 ends next week. Sunday night saw the debut of the season’s penultimate episode, as the biggest storyline on the show finally became the main focus. One of the riderless dragons found a companion at the end of Episode 6, and Rhaenyra is looking to find matches for the other two. All of this, of course, is building to an even more violent and devastating war between Targaryen factions. WARNING: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for House of the Dragon Season 2! Continue reading at your own risk…

The Next Dragonrider Arrives

Sunday’s edition of House of the Dragon picks up right where last week’s episode left off, as Rhaenyra flies out to meet the mysterious dragonrider that has taken flight on Seasmoke. When she confronts Addam of Hull, expecting some pushback, he immediately bends the knee and says Seasmoke sought him out. He pledges loyalty to her and is the first domino to fall with this next wave of dragonriders.

What Rhaenyra doesn’t know, however, is that Addam is Corlys’ son. Addam simply tells her that he is low born, which eventually moves her to put out a call for anyone who has silver hair or could be of Valerian descent to try and bond with Vermithor or Silverwing, even if you aren’t high born. She gets pushback on this from all sorts, including some in the council, the dragon keepers, and her own son, but she continues with the plan. This gets people like Hugh and Ulf to Dragonstone to try and answer the call. More on that later…

Learning of Addam’s ability to ride a dragon, and always thinking of his late wife’s words, Corlys starts handing more responsibility to Alyn. There’s a moment where he brings up Addam’s bond with Seasmoke to his older brother, saying he worries he may lose Alyn to the skies as well. But Alyn replies that he is “salt and sea,” echoing the words that Laena said to Corlys when she turned down his offer to be heir to Driftmark. It’s Alyn’s work that gets word about the dragonrider search to King’s Landing, and helps ship the possible riders back to Dragonstone.

A Struggling King

Things aren’t going well in King’s Landing. As Aegon tries to recover from his wounds and the citizens continue their restlessness, Alicent decides it’s time for a change of scenery. She takes one member of her guard out into the woods to stay for a while, with no set plan or timetable for return.

Aegon continues to try and walk again, but his road to recovery is a bumpy one. Larys insists that he keep up a ridiculous pace, even though the king is exhausted, because be believes needs the young king back in charge.

There’s also a tidbit near the end of the episode involving Alicent’s family that could have a profound impact down the line. Aegon and Aemond’s younger brother, Daeron, has been growing up in Oldtown, and is known there as a good, respectable young man. He also has a dragon, Tessarion, who Aemond is informed has finally started taking to the skies, adding a potential ally for his forces.

A Star Is Born

Remember when Lyanna Mormont burst onto the scene in Game of Thrones and became an instant fan-favorite, despite being the youngest character on the show? House of the Dragon got its own Lyanna in the form of Oscar Tully, who has now taken over as the head of House Tully and Lord Paramount of the Trident.

Oscar is in charge of the Riverlands, as all of the houses in the area have a loyalty to House Tully. Daemon summons him to Harrenhal, along with the rest of the Lords of the Riverlands, to finally put together his army. Oscar makes it clear that he can’t stand Daemon, and is one of the few people to actually put the King Regent in his place. But he knows that his family swore an oath to Rhaenyra, so he agrees to help Daemon.

What Daemon didn’t expect, however, was for Oscar to turn things back around on him and call out Lord Blackwood for his horrible crimes against the Brackens, crimes that were actually instructions from Daemon. Oscar knew that Daemon ordered Blackwood to do heinous things to his rivals, but also knew that Daemon couldn’t acknowledge that in front of the other lords, and that he would need to punish Blackwood in order to gain their respect. Oscar called for Blackwood to be detained and face retribution, forcing Daemon to behead the man who had been his most powerful soldier in the Riverlands.

Oscar hasn’t been around long, but he’s made an immediate impact.

The Dragonseeds

Before heading to Dragonstone to try and ride a dragon, Hugh tells his wife that his mother worked in a brothel in King’s Landing, and that she was actually the sister of King Jaehaerys, who served before Viseerys. He has Targaryen blood in his veins, just as Ulf claimed to.

An entire group of silver-haired people were taken down into the pit to try and tame the massive Vermithor. The dragon attacked, killing most of the group. When a young woman was about to be killed, Hugh stepped in to save her, standing face-to-face with the beast and offering himself as a sacrifice instead. Rather than kill him, though, Vermithor bowed, connecting with Hugh and allowing him to become his rider. 

It’s worth noting that family connection. Vermithor hasn’t had a rider since Jaehaerys, who is apparently the brother of Hugh’s mother. Perhaps Vermithor noted the same blood running through his veins.

While trying to hide from Vermithor, Ulf ran into another cave in the pit, where he was confronted by another dragon, Silverwing. When he thought he was going to be attacked, Silverwing lowered her head, allowing them to bond.

The final scene of the episode saw Ulf ride Silverwing over King’s Landing, causing Aemond to summon Vhagar to follow them. He backs off when he nears Dragonstone, though, as he sees a group of multiple dragons gathering, led by Rhaenyra.