‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2, Episode 6 Recap: The Black Queen’s Gambit

Season 2, Episode 6

The hug lasts 45 seconds before they kiss. Yes, I counted. In the terms of that episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” where Larry hugs Auntie Rae for a little too long, it’s nine “five Mississippi”s. And like any long, drawn-out take on this densely packed show, it stops everything in its tracks.

For three quarters of a minute, we watch empathy, respect, gratitude, warmth, heat, curiosity, desire and, finally, passion all play out in the silent embrace between Queen Rhaenyra and her friend and counselor Mysaria. For the first time in their lives, each of these two very different people has found somebody she sees as an equal, and who sees her as an equal in turn, and the thought quickly goes from comforting to intoxicating. Dragons are flying, men are burning, reigns are teetering, but for as long as that embrace lasts, the world of “House of the Dragon” exists between these two women’s arms.

But this week’s episode of “Dragon” specialized in all kinds of people getting the things they want and need — or trying to, anyway — in all kinds of ways. Rhaenyra and Mysaria’s interrupted clinch was just one example.

In King’s Landing, the acting regent prince, Aemond, is throwing his weight around. He boots his mother from his small council, and rejects Lord Larys Strong for the position of hand in favor of his cunning but loyal grandfather, Otto Hightower. He then sends Ser Criston — the man who knows he tried to murder his brother, King Aegon — off to root Daemon out of the hotly contested Riverlands, with his uncle Ser Gwayne Hightower in tow. The two men look as if they still haven’t washed off all the ash from their previous encounter with a hostile dragon, and this time Aemond is playing coy about when, or even if, he’ll fly out to protect them.

Aemond saves his harshest cruelties for his big brother the king, whom he torments in his sickbed, the threat of murder hanging thick in the air. “I remember nothing,” the barely conscious Aegon repeatedly croaks, clearly scared for his life. Fortunately for Aegon, though, someone else recognizes what’s going on: the Clubfoot, Larys Strong.

In his most emotionally unguarded moment to date, the cagey Master of Whisperers lays bare the pain and humiliation of a lifetime of being looked down upon because of his physical deformity and disability. This, he says with a tear falling from his eye, is the life Aegon now has to look forward to. But it comes with an upside: He will now be underestimated, and he can use that to his advantage.