The House Of The Dragon Season 2 Episode 1 Moment Leaving Everyone Furious
Contains spoilers for "House of the Dragon" Season 2 Episode 1 — "A Son for a Son"
A small child gets murdered during the climax of the Season 2 premiere of "House of the Dragon," but viewers are really, really mad that a dog got kicked shortly before the child murder scene.
At the end of "A Son for a Son," a striking episode that kicked off the sophomore outing of HBO's massively successful "Game of Thrones" spin-off and prequel, two new characters who go by the names Blood (Sam C. Wilson) and Cheese (Mark Stobbart) infiltrate the royal chambers in King's Landing, attempting to kill Prince Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell). Despite pretty specific orders to kill a prince with an eyepatch — and there's only one of those, to be clear — the two end up in the bedchamber of Queen Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban), Aemond's sister (and sister-in-law, as she's married to her own brother, Tom Glynn-Carney's King Aegon II Targaryen). They force her to choose which of her two sleeping children will die, but ultimately take the head of her heir Prince Jaehaerys as she escapes with her daughter Jaehaera. It's horrific (though it could have been a lot worse).
On the way to kill a kid, Cheese kicks a dog — that seems to belong to him in the first place — and yells at It to "f*** off" as it runs away from the pair. Sure, a child is beheaded mere moments later, but the dog kicking was a bridge too far according to fans on X (formerly known as Twitter), like @WillMortensen3: "The real villain of ['House of the Dragon'] is that a**hole who kicked the dog."
House of the Dragon fans were really upset to see a dog hurt in the House of the Dragon premiere
Actually, a lot of people chimed in regarding the dog-kicking thing, including a fan account with the username @LordSnow (which notes that it has no official affiliation with the HBO series). "Worst moment of this episode was watching this poor dog get kicked," the account wrote along with a crying emoji. @_honeyy_ agreed, writing, "A lot of bad things happen on this show but they have crossed the line having that man kick his dog." As for @Winged_Leo, they re-examined some of their priorities: "Am I a bad person for being more angry at Cheese kicking his poor stray dog than at the horrible thing that happened a few minutes later in 'House of the Dragon?'"
User @BennyGrinn did go ahead and point out the ridiculousness of this entire situation, writing, "'House of the Dragon' commentary rn is like "I understand murdering a child but KICKING A DOG??" @claireeb1497 just hoped it was fake: "Um please tell me the actor didn't actually kick the dog in that House of the Dragon scene...." As for @TheLastAmanda, they were clear about their demands for the show, saying, "First episode of #HouseoftheDragon has had disappointingly little dragon action given where the last episode of the first season left off. And now they've kicked a small dog. Show me dragon fire & carnage! Leave the dog alone."
Wait — why did a child die on House of the Dragon?
Due to all of the hand-wringing and upset over the dog kicking in "A Son for a Son" — which, to be clear, was unnecessary and rude! — it's easy to overlook that the guys responsible for mistreating a dog follow up animal abuse with child murder. So why does all of this happen in the first place?
At the end of Season 1 of "House of the Dragon," Aemond and his nephew Lucerys Velaryon (Elliott Grihault) — son of the self-proclaimed Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) — both find themselves at the stronghold Storm's End to curry favor with House Baratheon, with Lucerys going to bat for Team Black and Aemond representing Team Green. On their way out, Aemond picks a fight — largely because, when the two were children, Lucerys attacked Aemond, and the latter boy lost an eye — and the two end up battling it out on dragonback, with Lucerys atop his smaller steed Arrax and Aemond riding the legendarily large dragon Vhagar. When Arrax successfully injures Vhagar with a blast of fire, Aemond is no longer able to control her, and she bites Lucerys and Arrax into pieces, killing the younger boy ... leaving Rhaenyra devastated and hellbent on revenge. In "A Son for a Son," Rhaenyra's husband and uncle Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) hires Blood and Cheese, but clearly isn't specific enough, as they end up killing young Prince Jaehaerys instead of Aemond.
This murder will obviously send shockwaves throughout Westeros in the episodes to follow ... to say nothing of the dog-kicking. "House of the Dragon" airs new episodes on Sunday nights on HBO and Max at 9 P.M. EST.