‘House Of The Dragon’ Viewers Were Not Prepared For Those Cameos And That Abrupt Change In Attitude

The House of the Dragon audience — no matter whether you’re Team Green or Team Black — should be united on a few notes: (1) It was awfully funny last week to see Aemond realize that he’s been, at least temporarily, outmatched by Rhaenyra; (2) The formerly magnetic Daemon has been almost been completely wasted this season at Harrenhal and has now endured, like, six weeks of visions that were certainly orchestrated by Alys Rivers.

This week, however, the haunting of Daemon moves past beheading young Rhaenyra and watching Viserys further fall apart. By way of a Weirwood tree, he sees a montage vision of future A Song Of Ice And Fire events including Daenerys, her eggs, her blood-magic dragons, and White Walkers, which collectively (and apparently) suggest the message that “winter is coming,” which he later utters out loud. Finally, these visions are going somewhere, even if they do feel very “wtf” and almost random in execution.

These new visions miraculously lead Daemon to bend the knee to his Queen (his vision also included her on the Iron Throne) when Rhaenyra surfaces in Harrenhal upon suspicion of her husband’s treachery. His new attitude feels awfully abrupt (it sure looks like the show isn’t going to include Nettles from the book), but that oddness does not surpass what we saw go down in Daemon’s head. In an episode with very little action, at least viewers could react to the “what the hell is happening” factor:

Also, does Daemon look a little too much like the white walker general? Oh no, a fan theory might be born.

Not everyone was into this unexpected set of cameos, though.

‘House of the Dragon’s second season can be streamed on Max.