What happens in Season 2, Episode 1 – ‘A Son for a Son’
WARNING: Major spoilers for Season 2, Episode 1 – ‘A Son for a Son’, ahead.
Following the death of Lucerys in the season one finale, House Targaryen is split into two - The Greens (Hightower faction) and The Blacks (Velaryon faction).
While The Greens reign from King’s Landing, with King Aegon II on the Iron Throne, The Blacks have created a base at Dragonstone, declaring Rhaenyra their Queen.
Picking up around the same time of the season one finale, Prince Jacaerys arrives in the North, meeting with Cregan Stark in order to assure their allegiance to his mother Queen Rhaenyra in the upcoming civil war.
But their meeting is interrupted with news of his brother Lucerys’s death at the hands of Aemond and his dragon, prompting him to return home.
Rhaenyra, devastated by the death of her second son, has flown off in a desperate attempt to process the loss and find anything that may remain of her son’s body.
This effectively leaves Daemon in charge, who has started preparing for war – fuelled further when he discovers his former lover, Mysaria, returns and he becomes aware she has previously been feeding Otto Hightower secrets and gossip from King’s Landing.
Meanwhile, at King’s Landing, Alicent has taken a lover in Ser Criston Cole, and spends her days trying to make Aegon take his role as King seriously.
When Rhaenyra returns home, she is fuelled by vengeance, and demands Prince Aemond. Daemon sneaks into King’s Landing, and hires two men recommended by Mysaria to cut off Aemond's head and return it to him in exchange for cash.
The pair infiltrate the Red Keep under the guise of rat catchers in order to execute their plan, but find Queen Heleana in the nursery with her infant twin children.
Ignoring Daemon’s specific instruction to kill Aemond, they execute Jaehaerys, Helaena and Aegon’s toddler son, and heir to the throne.
Who’s on Team Black and who’s on Team Green?
Currently, Team Black consists of:
- Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen
- King Daemon Targaryen
- Lord Corlys Velaryon
- Princess Rhaenys Targaryen
- Jacaerys "Jace" Velaryon
- Lady Baela Targaryen
- Lady Rhaena Targaryen
- Ser Erryk Cargyll
Team Green currently consists of:
- King Aegon II Targaryen
- Queen Helaena Targaryen
- Alicent Hightower
- Ser Otto Hightower
- Prince Aemond Targaryen
- Ser Criston Cole
- Ser Arryk Cargyll
- Lord Larys Strong
- Lord Jason and Ser Tyland Lannister
You can find out more about the characters and their allegiance here.
Meet Cregan Stark
Cregan Stark is better known as The Wolf of the North, head of House Stark and Lord of Winterfell during the period later defined by the Dance of the Dragons.
Cregan assumed his position at the age of 13, following the death of his father, Rickon, with his uncle, Bennard Stark acting as regent until he was an adult.
He would remain a prominent force in The North during the reign of four kings.
During the Dance of the Dragons, he opted to maintain the vow he’d sworn in front of King Viserys, and pledged allegiance to The Blacks for Rhaenyra to be Queen.
Ser Criston Cole and Alicent’s relationship
In a change to the books, season two episode one reveals Ser Criston Cole has, once again, broken his vow of celibacy and has started sleeping with Alicent Hightower.
However, even in their relationship, the ghost of Rhaenyra holds weight on both of them – even down to them sleeping together in the same chambers Cole took Rhaenyra’s virginity.
The production team made a deliberate choice in doing this, with shots between Cole and Rhaenyra in season one being echoed by Cole and Alicent in season two.
Explaining the decision, production designer Jim Clay said: “There was a nice irony in that she would end up in Rhaenyra’s apartment.
“We wanted it to be apparent that there was a constant memory of Rhaenyra being in this room, so we kept the architecture and the position of furniture.”
Showrunner Ryan Condal added: “Ah, sweet irony. It's all very, very messy. The Red Keep is a very incestuous place!”
However, Emma Cooke, who plays Alicent, thinks that her relationship with Cole marks a change in the Dowager Queen - and it’s something she’s secretly wanted for years.
“I think that sort of flame for him has sort of lived very quietly in Alicent this whole time, and I think they became closer as he became her personal Knight and her sworn protector,” she told the official House Of The Dragon podcast.
“Strange things happen in grief, and in death, and sex is sort of like the antithesis of death, really.
“I think, even though she's grieving the loss of her husband, she sort of feels liberated from being this caretaker.”
What does magnanimous mean?
During the course of the show, King Aegon is attempting to find his moniker – and one of his drinking buddies-turned-knights introduces him as ‘Aegon The Magnanimous’.
This is an odd choice, considering it means generous or forgiving, especially towards a rival or less powerful person.
What Aegon fails to understand though is that monikers – like Aegon The Conqueror, Jaehaerys The Wise and Viserys The Peaceful – are given by his people, rather than picked.
And despite his seeming efforts when hearing petitions this episode, viewers are already aware he is far from magnanimous.
He’ll get a moniker eventually – with the name Aegon The Usurper already being batted around the Kingdom, whether he likes it or not.
Who are Blood and Cheese?
The characters nicknamed Blood and Cheese have cemented themselves quickly on House Of The Dragon as barbaric, cruel and vengeful.
Whether it’s kicking Cheese’s pet dog, or beheading the heir to the throne, the pair have no idea what chain of events they’ve triggered with their reckless decision-making.
The characters originally mentioned in George R.R. Martin’s book The Song Of Ice and Fire, set 200 years after the events of House Of The Dragon.
They are spoken about by Catelyn Stark who notes their names are “lost to history”.
Blood is a former Gold Cloak, a soldier who served under Daemon as a member of King’s Landing’s City Watch, who fell on hard times after being stripped of his position when he murdered a sex worker in a drunken rage.
Cheese is the Red Keep’s rat-catcher, and as such has become aware of the nooks and crannies of the castle, meaning he can scurry about undetected.
In the show, this is expanded and tweaked slightly, with Blood maintaining his Gold Cloak status, and Cheese in need of clearing some gambling debts.
Another change is, in the books, they were hired for the murder by Mysaria on the request of Daemon, rather than Daemon doing it himself.
The third Targaryen child
A Son For A Son ends in brutal fashion with the death of young Jaehaerys - his death in the book is somewhat different, and far more devastating.
The TV series has, at times, cut down on cast by merging two characters in the book into one – and this is somewhat the case for Jaehaerys.
In the book, Helaena wasn’t alone in the room, but was with Alicent, as well as her THREE children – twins Jaehaerys and Jaehaera, as well as their third child, a son called Maelor.
Helaena is forced by Blood and Cheese to pick which of her two sons they should kill, and she’s left devastated when they deny her the opportunity to die in their place.
Eventually, she chooses Maelor, with theories as to why she chose Maelor range from her thinking he was too young to understand what was happening to him, to her protecting Aegon’s bloodline with Jaehaerys the heir to the throne.
But to torture the Queen further, they opt to taunt the child for their mother choosing him, before beheading Jaehaerys instead anyway.
The traumatic event sends her into a state to the point that she can no longer look at Maelor, upset that she had chosen him to die.