'House of the Dragon' Season 2, Episode 6: “Smallfolk” Review
Smallfolk is the first episode directed by Andrij Parekh and the first episode of the second season to be written by Eileen Shim, who had previously written the first season’s eighth episode The Lord of the Tides. It is fitting, therefore, that she return to pen this episode, which includes a renewed focus on House Velaryon’s offspring, legitimate or otherwise. Part of this is through the return of Seasmoke, whose master vanished in the previous season and is presumed dead. It is the intention of Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) to find a new dragonrider to make use of Seasmoke to further Rhaenyra’s cause.
Meanwhile, we are reacquainted with the two brothers on Driftmark, serving Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) as ordinary seamen. Alyn (Abukabar Salim) and Addam (Clinton Liberty) both have the chance to build on their dynamic with each other, as well as the contrasting views they have towards their father. Alyn has little interest in pursuing special treatment for being Lord Corlys’ natural son, even as Corlys himself shows a profound interest in him. By contrast, his brother Addam is left to brood in the corner, lamenting how he has spent his life serving his own kinsmen as if he were just another one of the smallfolk. That situation changes over the course of the episode, leading to a cliffhanger which will doubtless have serious consequences for the last two episodes of the season.
Whilst that is going on, Rhaenyra has also cooked up another scheme with her advisor Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) to win over the people of King’s Landing. As the Velaryon fleet cuts off sea trade to the capital city, the people are starving whilst the Greens squabble amongst themselves. The fact that Rhaenyra’s forces are responsible for the sea blockade is conveniently forgotten, but the audience will hopefully recall how manipulative such a tactic is in the grand scheme of things. In the meantime, though, characters such as Ulf (Tom Bennett) and Hugh (Kieran Bew) are amongst those starving crowds, growing more and more disillusioned with the Greens, while Rhaenyra offers them food as an incentive to earn their support. The Greens, meanwhile, are becoming more fractured, thanks in large part to Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell). By this episode, he has firmly assumed command in the name of his badly wounded brother Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney). Mitchell has proved his worth as an actor throughout the second season, but this is a chance for him to really stand out as a formidable presence in this series’ well-stacked cast.
And as always, Olivia Cooke proves to be one of the best parts of this series. She is once again given some incredible scenes with her sons and brother (Freddie Fox), allowing Alicent a chance to realise the part that she herself played in the series’ events. As things spiral out of her control, and her influence diminishes with each passing episode, Alicent is left to see just how lost her children are, be they Aegon, Aemond, or Helaena (Phia Saban).
If one could summarise the themes of this episode, a good case could be made for the term “shifts in power”. Across the scope of this civil war, the events have forced all sides to reconsider their positions, and to make new plans in response to the old ones falling apart. There is Aemond Targaryen, for one, who asserts his newfound authority by removing his mother from the small council. This further drives a wedge between Alicent and her former lover, Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), who throws his lot in with Aemond. By contrast, Lord Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) fails to ingratiate himself to Aemond, only to seek out Aegon instead. In one of the episode’s best scenes, Larys opens up to the injured Aegon, revealing the pains of being a cripple in Westeros. He claims to mean it as a warning for Aegon, letting him know what he himself can expect now that he’s become crippled by dragon-fire. The genius of this exchange, of course, is that we can never be fully sure whether Larys is being 100% genuine, 100% manipulative, or some strange mixture of the two. For a character which could easily have been a redo of Varys or Littlefinger in Game of Thrones, Larys Strong is his own brand of mysterious sociopathic Machiavellian.
Mysaria, meanwhile, has her own tragic origin story, bonding with Rhaenyra over their shared experience of being women who were manipulated and used by the men in their lives. It leads to a moment which has already taken the fandom by storm, and for good reason. One of the show’s biggest triumphs is how they have expanded Mysaria’s character from the book, where she, much like Alicent, is a very one-note character on the page. It is clear to any book reader that whatever changes they might make, the show creators know what they are doing. They are very faithful to the source material while also expanding upon it in (mostly) believable ways.
Although some might see this as containing more filler, it’s telling (at least from this book fan’s perspective) how many scenes are setting up important future events. This includes such scenes as Lord Jason Lannister (Jefferson Hall) arriving at the Golden Tooth with his army from the Westerlands, Aemond sending Tyland Lannister (Hall again) to make an alliance with the Triarchy in Essos, Alicent’s conversation with her brother about her youngest (and so far, unseen) son Daeron, even that one scene with Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) and her cousins in the Vale. Yes, even Daemon has finally seemed to reach a destination with those strange visions. It’s also nice to see the return of King Viserys (Paddy Considine) to give Daemon a vision which isn’t going to make people squirm in their seats.
Smallfolk is well named, ultimately; it does a fine job portraying how the upper class uses them, exploits them, and manipulates them as war threatens to destroy all they hold dear. Ulf, Hugh, Addam, Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin), Mysaria, and Alyn all have chips on their shoulders about their stations in life, but it’s clear that they will all play huge roles in this war, almost as much as the Targaryens themselves. We also see rumblings of how the smallfolk can become a power in and of themselves, rising up against their rulers, even for a moment. It is a dangerous harbinger of how much will surely change for the realm during civil war, and yet also how little will change at the same time.