Welcome to HotD, the officially unofficial podcast for House of the Dragon on HBO. I'm Jim.

I'm Aaron. Today we're talking season one episode eight, the Lord of the Tides. Aaron, I assume you've seen this at least once more. How do you?

How does it strike you now? I think it's clearly my favorite episode of the season. Like everything kind of led up to this.

Like this is the, this is the, I think answer to the trade-offs of the time jumps versus telling, you know, 20-ish years of history of the show, just so you get to this point and, you know, Viserys is ascending the throne and Damon put in the crown on his head and his, you know, just looking around at his family, right, you know, and his last night on Earth and all likelihood.

This all builds up to this and I just think that like, yes, there have been weaknesses when it comes to time jumps and character replacements and actors stepping in and out of roles.

But the overall strength of this episode, I think rebukes or approves that those, those risks were worth taking because I don't see how you get to here.

And you know, as someone that's this red house of the dragon and that was my main concern the entire time is like, how can they, you know, the, the sizzles all here, the big battle scenes, the portrayals, the conspiring, the sex, the tall, the, it's all there and fire and blood, but like it's just like, you know, why do you care about any of this stuff?

And I cared so much and I found that like, even as I watched it multiple times, like the same parts, like, you know, Damon put in the crown or, you know, Damon helping his brother to the top of the iron throne, put in the crown on his head, still hits.

I notice other things like, you know, the fact that the way they frame the shot is it's, it's Viserys kind of going towards Ranera, you know, because she's standing in front of the throne when then he's like, I kind of fixed on her with his vision.

And then yeah, just how much he loves his family at the end and how it's so close. I felt like they filmed it is so close to doing, to healing this riff single handily through sheer force of will and love.

I just thought it's great. I thought it's great. It seems like it really delighted everybody, you know, you, like it seems like it's very satisfying for Damon to take Damon's head and leave his tongue.

It's very satisfying to see, you know, Damon and Damon kind of squaring off and thinking, oh, this is going to be really interesting sometime in the future.

I just like I said, this they haven't even gotten to the good, the quote unquote good stuff that I would have suspected him to get to in the narrative of the dance of dragons and their crushing it. Yeah, I love it. Why about you?

Yeah, no, my opinion is not changed much since the first watch on Sunday night. I think this is a great episode. I wouldn't say it's my favorite, but it's definitely way up there.

They've all been so good though. I think there are very few missteps so far in the show. I've been super impressed and this is.

Yeah, I like how it's it's both paying off a lot of stuff in the past and setting up more stuff for the future. Like you said, that Damon, Damon, Stairoff, there in the great hall or wherever they are is definitely something I'm looking forward to in the future.

I want to see what happens with core list as he make it back to see is he pleased with all the decisions that have been made in his absence.

Is he angry that maybe the you know the king's brother killed his brother right there's a lot of a lot of nuance in that because yeah, he kind of gets what he wants, but also.

He's a brother so yeah, that's all super interesting, but yeah, I mean, those small I say small moments what I mean is is the less flashy moments right the moments with the king looking around his family and thinking if it could only be like this, you know, I this is this is how I wanted everyone to be.

That is is really just kind of heartbreaking in context because he's getting that final moment he's going to die by the end of this episode and everything is probably going to fall the shit is my assumption.

I thought it's a good looking episode to from the opening like Indiana Jones shots of Damon going there and getting a fresh bunch of Syracuse legs.

To just the big sweeping shots of King's landing and Dragonstone to the intimits dimly lit light of the dinners to the thunder and lightning of Reneira asking her father to protect her.

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