‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2, episode 5 recap: For the women, it’s war on two fronts

By Brian Lowry, CNN

(CNN) — Editor’s Note: This story discusses plot points from “House of the Dragon” Season 2, episode 5.

While both sides absorb the fallout from the battle of Rook’s Rest in episode 4, one message comes through loud and clear in “House of the Dragon’s” latest chapter: the women in this patriarchal society must fight wars on two fronts.

For Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), the indignities come from her council of advisers, as well as her headstrong husband Daemon (Matt Smith), who continues to have really weird dreams while more brazenly plotting to personally acquire power.

Rhaenyra articulates her predicament clearly at the end, complaining about how she had to stay prudent and apart from the war despite her own dragon-riding credentials, saying that she was “sending others to fight and be felled in my name,” before concluding with a sense of determination, “If all else fails, it is I who must fight.”

Her counterpart in this civil war and one-time friend, Alicent (Olivia Cooke), faces a similar display of disrespect at home, after the attempted fratricide by Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) that left his brother, King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), a scorched and wheezing mess – nursing burns, broken bones and internal injuries.

Aegon’s condition calls for appointing a regent, as Alicent says, to serve in his stead “until he recovers, or does not.” Yet despite her realization that Aemond has developed into something of a psychopathic monster (those Targaryen kids do grow up fast) – telling Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), “You know what he is. What he has somehow become” – the council chooses to elevate Aemond.

What’s a mother to do? In this case, feel angry and betrayed.

“We have given the war to the dragons,” Criston says flatly to the woman who regularly (if sneakily) shares his bed. “A dragon rider should lead us.”

Of course, Criston engages in a misstep of his own at the outset, parading the slain dragon of the equally dead Rhaenys (Eve Best, we hardly knew ye) through the town, unsettling the common folk. That death also leaves her husband, Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), shattered and in mourning, as both sides grapple with their casualties.

Beyond that, the fifth episode represents a bit of a breather – as “Game of Thrones” and now “House of the Dragon” tend to do after major conflicts – as the warring factions seek to secure support for their war efforts, with Daemon, for one, wrestling with the demands of diplomacy as opposed to his scorched-earth tactics.

Speaking of scorched earth, there could be a lot more of it, as the closing sequence involves Rhaenyra strategizing with her son about how to neutralize Aemond and his massive dragon Vhagar. While dragon riding is a talent limited to the Targaryens, the two realize there are lots of wayward offshoots of the royal bloodline that could in theory be enlisted and turned into riders.

“A mad thought,” the Queen muses, clearly intrigued by the idea.

Then again, as Rhaenyra noted earlier in the hour, as a woman seeking to rule, “The path I walk has never been trod.”

Without clear footsteps to follow, in other words, she’s going to have to blaze her own trail – and if that Targaryen-blood dragon-riding scheme comes to fruition, perhaps literally.

“House of the Dragon” airs Sunday nights on Max, which like CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.

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