House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 6 review: Small wins for Rhaenyra

House of the Dragon Season 2 returned with a new episode on Sunday, July 21, 2024, bringing back another exciting saga from the ongoing war for succession in Westeros. After the last episode teased a variety of developments, this one finally brought forth the question of the new dragon riders for Rhaenyra Targaryen's (played by Emma D'Arcy) side and even gave some big moments surrounding the same.

Unlike the fourth episode two weeks ago, this one was another one-hour journey strongly rooted in politics and world-building instead of real war. Moreover, this episode also managed to give some scary, memorable moments with dragons without really seeing them go to war.

All in all, this happened to be another very successful episode of House of the Dragon Season 2, and with two episodes to go, things will surely up the tempo in the weeks to come.

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House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 6 cleverly divides its time to keep things interesting

Over the course of this season, House of the Dragon has already established how it intends to maintain its identity without the pressure of becoming another Game of Thrones. One strategy it has adopted for that is the focus on politics and episodes based around conversations, rather than action.

After the previous episode primarily focused on developments, this one also followed on the same track, bringing forth many important questions but not completely resolving them.

The situation at King's Landing finally hits its tipping point, giving this episode's best moments, as the smallfolk (which is also the title of the episode) grow restless with King Aemond's (played by Ewan Mitchell) treatment of the poor in his kingdom and go into a mass revolt after Rhaneyra, with the help of the White Worm, manages to play on the sentiment of the people by sending food to a starving King's Landing.

The protests and the growing anger see Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and her daughter, the Queen, getting trapped after a visit to the Sept amidst a very angry crowd. The cinematography and sound in this sequence are exceptional and remind us how the show can build tense scenes out of thin air.

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House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 6 explores inner turmoil as opposed to outside victories very well

With chants of Rhaenyra, it seems that after weeks of disappointment, the true heir to the throne has something to look forward to. But outside victories have little to do with what's raging inside.

Just like all of King's Landing, which despite having a king who is the perfect war machine, seems increasingly useless in governance, which causes all the turmoil in the first place, Rhaneyra's insides are also raging in a different direction and is hardly affected by the tiny victories of her side. As with Alicent, Rhaenyra is also struggling with the lack of confidence she inspires in her subjects, who are more keen to "protect" her than follow her.

This leads to one of the best-acted sequences in this episode of House of the Dragon when White Worm and Rhaenyra expose their vulnerabilities to each other in a touching sequence.

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The dragons have news

Another focus of this episode was finding riders for the big dragons on the Black's side. This was already teased in the previous episode, but unlike what we predicted, it did not primarily focus on this. Instead, after one failed attempt with Ser Steffon Darklyn, who was burnt to death, Seasmoke, the huge dragon, was seen with a new rider.

This was Addam of Hull, Corlys Valeryon's bastard son, whom the dragon cornered earlier. However, Rhaenyra assumed that it was the enemy who got the dragon, and flew out with her own dragon for a possible fight.

Meanwhile, in Harrenhal, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) remains in pretty much the same condition, only this time we get a cameo from Paddy Considine's Viesrys, in what is perhaps Dameon's most interesting hallucination up to this point.

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The upcoming episode of House of the Dragon Season 2 will focus on this in more detail.