‘House Of The Dragon’ Viewers Are United After Watching The Show’s Worst Character Failing Upward In Every Way

Last week, the dragons came back, along with those who ride them and all the drama between the two sides in House of the Dragon. The season premiere’s title, “A Son For A Son,” turned literal when Daemon hired Blood and Cheese to take out Aemond, and they decided that a grandson would do. This led to the brutal murder of Jaehaerys while his mother, Helaena, fled in terror to find Alicent getting it on with the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, who really should have been doing his job. Somehow, Criston has even grown worse than Larys Strong, which is saying plenty.

The second episode began with the fallout from that failure by Ser Criston, and he kept failing with every turn. In fact, he ended the episode by failing upward to an infuriating degree. This began with Criston attempting to tell King Aegon II that he was “sleeping” during the attack. Of course, the audience noticed the guilty looks that Alicent and Criston wore, too.

So much for “honor” and “purity”:

Criston followed this hot mess of a meeting by deciding to guilt-trip Ser Arryk Cargyll over Jaehaerys’ death and drag him for his unclean cloak, which Criston characterized as disrespecting “a symbol of our purity.” Criston further remarked, “Will you so easily sully our ancient honor?” Soon enough, the identical twin had agreed that he “must restore grace” and headed to Dragonstone in order to kill Queen Rhaenyra. What could go wrong?

As the final scenes of this episode revealed, plenty went wrong with Criston’s plan. Aegon, of course, was thrilled with Criston arranging for an attack on Rhaenyra and booted Otto as the King’s Hand. Who got the job? Criston. Meanwhile, Ser Erryk was about to apprehend his brother for launching an attack in Rhaenyra’s quarters, and the battle turned fatal for both twins.

Yep, the twins perished amid a confusing fight, in which Erryk technically prevailed but then decided that he, too, should die. And who came out ahead again? Criston. He is clearly the worst character.

House of the Dragons airs on Sunday nights.