Ep.2: Queen’s Landing (with Bethany Antonia and Abubakar Salim, Co-Head Writer/Executive Producer Sara Hess and Director/Executive Producer Clare Kilner)

The Official Game of Thrones Podcast: House of the Dragon - HBO

Episode 2 of House of the Dragon's third season explores the devastating aftermath of the Battle of the Gullet, focusing on political fallout, personal loss, and shifting alliances. Key characters grapple with grief, bet

Key takeaways

• Victory comes at a terrible cost, leaving victors weakened

Transcript preview

What have you done? What have you done? Chase? Welcome back to the official Game of Thrones podcast House of the Dragon. I'm Greta Johnson. And I'm Gretta Johnson and I'm Jason Concepcion. Today dragons are knocking on King's Landing's door. It is all happening. Jason I can't believe it. We're going to get into it. We are discussing episode 2 of season 3, which was written by Sarah Hess and directed by Claire Kilner. And today we'll be joined by both Sarah and Claire and Claire Kilner to discuss this episode. Sarah Hess is House of the Dragons co-head writer and executive producer and Claire Kilner is the director of this episode and also an executive producer. We're going to talk to them about those climactic 20 minutes and this major turning point in the war for the Iron Throne. And after that, we are also going to talk about the aftermath of the aftermath. of War in the Gullet with Bethany Antonia who plays Baylor and Abubakar Salum who plays Alan of Hall. And if you missed it last week we had a special bonus episode of the podcast. It was sponsored by Chase Sapphire Reserve for business and it featured director Lonnie Perra steer and a panel discussion with the shows cast and crew that was at ATX TV Festival in Austin. All right. Time to get into it. Let's go take Kings landing. If your father could see what it's come to, you would never have imagined it. Speak no more. So our severed head count is two now. Two severed counts. Two for two in the season, really. Three if we count last episode. So it's three total for the season thus far. Fair enough. Okay, okay, okay, good, good. Thank you for keeping track of that. Okay, so first I feel like we have to discuss what to me is one of the biggest themes of this. episode which is the aftermath of the Battle of the Gullet and the fact that victory at what cost I think is what I keep thinking about with this episode you know I mean Corless I think says it best if this is victory I hope I don't see another one I mean it's a Pyrrhic victory or so it appears at this moment the kind of victory where the victor is left so weakened that you wonder can they continue the loss of jaces is devastating not not just emotionally but politically and I don't know what do you think does it was it worth it I don't know I mean I guess maybe we should even start by saying do you think it is a victory corollus calls it a victory baila calls it a victory I have it's a victory they have king's landing yeah the triarchy fleet is destroyed yeah although at the cost of most of corollus's fleet and daman has been on a winning streak in the riverlands Yeah, clear victory, but again, they're severely weakened. I mean, just the death of Jace is just so terrible. There's that moment in the beginning of the episode when Rainier sees Jace's body and faces her small counsel. Let's take a listen. My queen, I have failed you. And what good would that do? Will it wake my son? Will it change the truth of his folly and yours? And yours? All of you who knew what you said has done is stood by. Are your lives to not forfeit? Have you not betrayed your queen? and she's not wrong. I mean if people had their instructions they knew what we they were supposed to be doing and Chase we talked about this last episode yeah headstrong kid yeah was not necessarily listened to with I think some very reasonable critiques of the overall strategy and so one would understand that maybe he would seek to do something like this and if the rest of her small council and Queen's Guard and the people around her had just been more scared of her. This is where I'm wondering, do you think she should take Sir Marbrand's head here? Oh, God, that's such a good question. I don't know. I think she's in too much grief to be able to make a good decision. Yeah. I agree with you. Because I think it's a, the problem is that even the people who support her. don't seem to think that she's got the juice to lead. Because if they did, they would never have let Jase do this. Right, they wouldn't have locked her up. They would not have locked her up and they would have thrown their bodies in front of it. And the fact that they didn't, I think she's quite right to be mad at everybody. For sure. Well, I think we also have to just shout out Emma Darcy's performance in the scene. Incredible. much more about the scene and kind of where Rainier is at later in this episode in our interview with Sarah Hess and Claire Kilner. Okay so someone else who I imagine you have pretty strong words for is Rayna in the Vale speaking of the aftermath of the battle. Yeah, man I want to have so much I do have so much compassion for her but it's also just like girl what are you doing? I mean not to mention that she's putting Lady Jane Erin in a very very tough position. because Lady Jane brings the news that Jace is dead. And I think she's quite right to believe that Renira is gonna really want to kill whoever she feels is responsible. A thousand percent. Yeah. I think she's just like whoever's writing sheep stealers going down. Right. I mean. And so I think I think Renee is very lucky that Lady Jane is like yeah, you can stay here. But of course, like, we can never interact again. I guess the relationship is like, I don't know you're here. Right. I don't know you. Don't ask. Don't tell. It's not my problem. Yeah, let's play a moment from that scene. Yeah. You're supposed to be on a ship to Pent House. So I need asylum, my lady. I had nowhere else to go. How dare you asylum? You run from my charge and you bring disaster to my doorstep. The Queen will be hunting you. I would say you had lost all sense but that I doubt you had any in the first place. Don't come back here. Do you want a dragon or not? You said yourself you were deceived in your dealings with the Queen, taken for a fool. You wanted protection, I offer it now. You said yourself you were deceived in your dealings with the Queen. Taken for a fool. You wanted protection, I offer it now. What do you make of this deal? I don't think Reyna's qualified? to make that deal, like she can't control that dragon. I think you're right. I agree with you. Jane doesn't know that. That's a very good point, uh-huh. But I completely agree with you and I think that, you know, the idea that it's true that Renira in the realm writ large doesn't know that it was heard. I mean partly it's also wild I think about like just the level of desperation that Reyna would have to be at to want to go back to the veil. She has nowhere else to go. She should come clean because I think there's a world in which she could say, hey, you got another dragon. Right. It is kind of a wash because you did lose one and and also your son. But here's the good news. We have another dragon. She probably should try to do that. But she just prefer this, which is to live in seclusion. And for Lady Jane, I guess. to the extent that she would have the protection of a dragon, I guess you could see a world in which people would say, well, there's a wild dragon there, don't, you know, it's not controlled by anybody, but you have to be aware of it. And so I could see the upside for Lady Jane, but it's a tremendously dangerous for her. Well, it is dangerous, but it's also not costing her that much, right? I mean, she doesn't have to actively help take care of Rina. She's like, essentially, I don't want to see you and do you and do your thing, I mean she also has plausible deniability if she needs it too. Right, what dragon? Oh, I don't. What? No, no, I don't know anything about that. I don't know. I don't know anything about that. Two other characters dealing with Fallout from the gullet without fully realizing it are Larison Eagon, of course they weren't there. But it does seem as if the chaos of war is in a strange way working in their favor. No kidding. Yeah, this is a storyline. This is a storyline I have no idea. I have no idea. I have no idea where it's going to go. I have no idea where it's going to go. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very. It's a wonderful road movie. I love the moment where Larry's like, what's going on? opens the door and is like, okay, not what I predicted would be happening, which is the hierarchy, apparently inland and fighting. He goes, I am surprised. This is a wonderful moment. come into it against Drenera. That doesn't seem to come very well. I was really struck by Egan stabbing the guard. Mm-hmm. You really get a feeling of the rage that he has that is pent up in him. Yeah, I mean you really get that sense too of just how completely out of control he is of all of it. Do you think he trusts Laris? Or what is there? What does he think of this relationship? I don't think he has a choice but to trust Laris at this point at this point. Right. But I do. would cut and run with any opportunity. You know, I don't think he feels like he owes Laris anything either. I think you're right. I think he must understand deep down that he needs Laris, but I think the second he feels that he doesn't necessarily need Laris is in trouble. This show continues to excel at scale. I gotta say one of the most incredible sequences in this episode is... Oh man. scale of Vegasar coming in is so it's wild. I mean you don't stand a chance against Amand on Vegas. I think the only chance you have if I could coach up the Heron Hall defenders and other defenders for a moment wait for him to come he throws the chain ladder down and it takes him like a minute to get down the thing because Vegas is like three stories when he's climbing down. Don't pop out afterwards. That's too late now. It is too late. Again when he's climbing down, but it gives you an idea of, I mean that's dragon is vast. It is so big. Yeah, she's massive. I mean, Aeman and Vaguar take down a host of people one on one. I mean, it was scary the ease with which they took the castle. Yeah, don't you think? Well, I mean, it's, yeah, it's like, especially after D. peed out. It's like, well, what do you think was going to happen? Simon, the Castellan of Heron Hall. His son tried to be like, no, no, no, don't go over there to talk to him, which was my reaction as well. Why are you getting so close to him? You can talk to him from across the table. But it was interesting to see how malleable he's been in the face of multiple incursions into Herron. Yeah, pretty chill. He's like, oh, oh, you guys, Okay. Yeah, hey, I mean, it is a pretty interesting strategy. Yeah. It's like he's got nothing to fight with. So it is, you just sort of have to, like he's bending the knee, you know? Yeah. It was a sad end for him. So while Amund takes Heron Hall, Damon travels from the Riverlands back to Dragonstone. He's heard the news. He knows it's bad. And of course, Damon gets pulled away from his big post-vict victory party. very interesting. Didn't it feel as if they were improvising like it was a freestyle session? Nobody would, did somebody like sit and write the verses out and he was going, hand these out now we're gonna say them? It felt like we're going in the round if you have a verse, yeah. Pop out and drop your verse, Oscar, now you Lord Dustin, now you Damon, the callback is Fish Feed, and then we go on to the next verse. I didn't know they did it. like that in Westerus. They're having fun! It would seem like a great time. It did seem like a great time. One thing that I found really surprising and interesting about this episode is the number of times Damon kind of gives Renira pep talks. Yeah, like you can do it. Yes, you got it. Yes, we got to go, let's do it, you know? Like over and over I feel like he really is there. He has to kind of urge her along at every step of the way. Yeah. Yeah, we gotta do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we gotta do it. He brings it. He brings up. He brings up. to your point as a kind of coach him up moment like to kind of gird her for this final fight and she's crying in her bed I mean she's a wreck I know and it's it's quite a big card to play and and I think to Damon's somewhat credit I do I do believe he sincerely thinks that Renira has to do this that I don't think he yeah I think he takes that vision quite seriously It does seem like we saw a real shift in Damon in season two after seeing that vision because there was question of like is he just going to try and take it all for himself? In his interpretation of it, quite vital that Renira becomes queen and sits on that throne that literally the safety and security of the world depends on it and that you know whether she thinks, whether she thinks the vision of Daneras hatching the dragons as Reneera and his symbolism or not, he really believes that she needs to take the throne and needs to do it now. Quite an important speech I thought. For sure. So yeah, how would you rank their marriage at this point? How they doing? I think they need each other. Couples goals or? In a very twisted way, kind of, right? In a very twisted way, kind of. In a sense that she needs his strength in this morning. She clearly needs the pep talk, right. Right. Right. And he needs. And he needs. And he needs. And he needs. And he needs. And he needs. And he needs the. her legitimacy and we talked about this in previous seasons. Deep down he knows that he's not the guy. He's had ambitions to win the throne but I think deep down he understands like that's not I wouldn't be good at it that's not me. Yeah. And so he really needs her to hold the realm together, hold their family together and I think all of that makes them a pretty dynamic pair that again I know that they're related. quite closely related to each other as a uncle and niece. Yeah,