IN REVIEW: HOUSE OF THE DRAGON (S1 – EP8) The Lord of the Tides

Synopsis: In The Lord of the Tides, The title of the sea snake comes into question as Vaemond Velaryon seeks to petition the throne for succession.

The Story

Six years have passed since the events seen in last week’s show and Lord Corlys Valaryon is believed to be dead, which means that Rhaenyra’s oldest son will take the throne. But given that her children were fathered by another man. It calls their right of succession into question and one person that is particularly keen to take the title of sea snake and become the new lord of Driftwood is Vaemond Velaryon. Of course, Rhaenyra and Daemon have to move quickly and seek to strike a deal with Corlys’s widow Rhaenys.

Presiding over the succession is Otto Hightower who speaks for the King. However, Otto is likely to side with Vaemond and seeks to take advantage of King Viserys’s frailty. However, Viserys has other ideas and comes off his pain medication in order to ensure that Rhaenyra’s son keeps succession.

The Acting

Wil Johnson puts in a fairly solid performance as a driven Vaemond Velaryon who has several strong scenes before he comes to his end via Daemon’s sword. But at least he got to keep his tongue. Of course, Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith continue to scheme and work well together as Rhaenyra and Daemon seek to succeed Viserys. However, it seems that Daemon’s attitude to Viserys has softened somewhat as we get a nice moment where Daemon helps his older brother to the throne.

We also get a really strong debut performance from Ewan Mitchell as the slightly older Prince Aemond Targaryen who does his best to provoke his nephews. You can see Aemond simmering throughout the meal that King Viserys holds for the family in hopes of building some bridges and putting an end to the infighting. Obviously, this sort of thing is never going to work. This is a prequel to Game of Thrones after all. 

Overall

The Lord of the Tides mainly focuses mainly on the internal politics of the Targaryen and Velaryon families. We do get another character killed off, but we pretty much saw it coming from the off. The episode ends with an ending for King Viserys who has just revealed a secret to Alicent by mistake.