Enter the Dragon. Welcome. The Myth. The Man. The Legend. Of Daemon Targaryen.

Daemon pulled off a full Terminator-John Wick moment in the ‘Second of His Name’ episode of the House of the Dragon that announced in no uncertain terms that the series just officially started.

The unruly Targaryen goes into psycho mode, bludgeoning a messenger sent from his brother, the king, with word of aid, to the brink of death. Then he takes off, sailing on a one-man mission to assassinate the masked general Crabfeeder and his unholy hordes of men. Early in the episode, Daemon and his dragon had opted for a Roast Crab approach, roasting the Crabfeeder’s men on a dark shore, before he was repelled by flaming arrows. Daemon, hit by an arrow, retreated with his dragon, but he gets the last laugh, as in the dark bloody climax, a gore-caked Daemon is seen dragging the dismembered body of the Crabfeeder into the ocean.

Quick recap. Episode 3 is set three years after the events of episode 2. When we last saw him, King Viserys Targaryen had announced to the Small Council his intention to marry Alicent Hightower. Now King Viserys and Queen Hightower have a son, Aegon, and the episode opens with scenes from Aegon’s second birthday celebrations. Episode 2 ended with Daemon and Corlys striking up a partnership to deal with the Triarchy and its apparent leader, the Crabfeeder, and that sets the undertone for this episode, as Viserys is seen agonisng about what to do about his brother apparently losing the war.

The episode shows that King Viserys is a weak king. In one scene, while his minions hold a stag for him to murder it in some sick ceremony, he stabs the stag once, but he only wounds it. The stag squeals in abject horror, but he fails to immediately act, and only after the suggestion from an aid, he delivers the fatal coup de grace. The soldiers, sickened by their weak king, give him a polite golf clap for his impotent efforts.

King Viserys knows that Rhaenyra needs to get married, but then makes an error in saying that she can make the choice of who she will be married to. His promise not to supplant her as heir comes off as weak and will only bite him in the ass later as well.

He continues to show his incompetence as it is only when Queen Alicent intervenes and finally convinces him to send aid that he sends off a messenger, apparently to his near-dead brother, which triggers the episode’s final apocalyptic scene.

The serpentine Hightower plays up the incest card again when he encourages the king to betroth Rhaenyra to Prince Aegon, her two-year-old brother. When Hightower says wedding them would assure everyone that House Targaryen wasn’t fractured, he can only manage a weak: “I came here to hunt” and not ‘begone with you Hightower, you (expletive deleted) pervert’.

As for Rhaenyra, it is clear that her friendship with Queen Alicent is now on the verge of being kaput after they have a tense conversation in the episode’s opening scenes. Later, when the ladies in waiting try to throw shade on Rhaenyra for defending her uncle, it is Queen Alicent who sticks up for her, saying Daemon made his own mistakes and that Rhaenyra is a more appropriate heir. Maybe there is hope for that friendship after all.

But the episode belongs to Daemon, who for all those who came in late, is the younger brother of current Westeros ruler, King Viserys I Targaryen. He’s also the uncle of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen who, by the end of the first episode, has been named heir to Viserys’s throne. He’s hot-tempered, ambitious, and quite aggressively violent by nature and he lives up to that billing.

After approaching the Crabfeeder’s cavernous hideout with a white flag, he kneels and waits for his moment. Once the men get close enough, Daemon begins the slicing and dicing. First, he hacks and slashes his way through men with his dagger, and then begins carving the hapless men up with his sword even as arrows swish past his head. He sprints to avoid them before picking up a few, only to pause, just long enough to begin his attack anew. It is a brutal scene of which John Wick himself would be proud. Then Daemon’s dragon shows up to torch the archers and reinforcements arrive, and the slaughter is on in earnest.

The legend of Daemon Targaryen has only just begun. King Viserys is definitely in trouble now.

Can’t wait for episode 4.