Written by Ryan Condal
Directed by Alan Taylor
Helaena (re Jaehaerys): "They killed the boy."
It's been 20 months since the events of the first season finale and while time have moved on for us as viewers, it's been a somewhat slower pace for everyone else. Alliances have been forged and revenge is in the air. Basically, things just got a whole lot worse than before.
I might as well talk about the last scene first because it's still the biggest takeaway from this episode. Getting to the Blood (Sam C. Wilson) and Cheese (Mark Stobbart) story was always going to stoke controversy. If they had stuck to the actual story, I doubt the discourse would've been much better.
In the book, both Aegon II and Helaena had three children but for this show, it's two and instead of being forced to choose between sons, Helaena basically signed her son's death warrant after the episode gave us that one scene with the character to build towards the horrible event itself.
This revised version of the infamous book scene certainly doesn't hit as much as the book version but considering the lack of Maelor, I guess it had to do. Still though, did we really need Helaena to walk in on Alicent and Criston having sex? Saying that, I doubt it's something that Helaena will focus on for the time being.
Keeping with the Greens, we had Aegon II attending his council meetings and being both impulsive in some regards while attempting to curry favour with the locals by listening to their problems. I'm still not an Aegon II fan but this episode at least tried to make him a bit more dimensional than he has been so far on the show. Now if he could just get Otto and Larys in line, he might have some hope as a king. Probably not.
Pivoting towards the Blacks, Rhaenyra was in full on grief mode and her few words of the episode stirred Daemon's whole scheme with Blood and Cheese. He meant Aemond but those idiot would be assassins thought murdering a four year old was the way to go. Indirectly, Daemon has managed to make everything worse.
The death of Lucerys was felt throughout the episode for both sides of the war. We got something of a funeral for Luke with characters such as Jacaerys, Rhaenys and Corlys all having their moments within the episode to dwell on Luke's death. On top of the grieving though, the Blacks were also making waves in securing allies and causing one disadvantage for the Greens.
- I love the new title sequence. A beautiful tapestry of the prominent members of both Greens and Blacks along with new cast members.
- Lord Cregan Stark (Tom Taylor) narrated the opening scene as we made a brief return to both Winterfell and the Wall. Cregan chose Team Black as did Lady Jeyne Arryn.
- Other new cast members included Kieran Bew as Hugh Hammer and Abubakar Salim as Alyn of Hull.
- Daemon captured Mysaria and only spared her life when he realised he could use her connections to get to Aemond. Larys also seemed to be turning Aegon II off keeping Otto as his hand.
- Aegon II had no problem attempting to humiliate Tyland during the council. The latter has also taken over as the Master of Coin.
- Chronology: A few days since the events of The Black Queen.
A Son For A Son might divide audiences with that last scene but for an opening episode, it did kick things off on a more brutal note. Both sides have innocent blood on their hands and both sides are going to have more blood drawn before we're even halfway through the season. I'm hooked once again.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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