‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Finale Ending Explained: Will Alicent’s Plan Work? What is the Battle of the Gullet?

House of the Dragon Season 2 finale was quite the shocker — for strange reasons. Instead of ending the season with a massive battle or a major character death, the HBO hit merely seeded heavy drama for the future. Throughout House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 8 “The Queen Who Never Was,” we got visions of future Targaryens, prophecies foretelling key character deaths, and a whole lot of foreshadowing. So what did it all mean? And what can we expect for House of the Dragon Season 3?

**Spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 8 “The Queen Who Never Was,” now streaming on Max**

The House of the Dragon Season 2 showed Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) a literally chilling vision of the future of Westeros, including the sights of Bloodraven (Joshua Ben-Tovim), the White Walkers marching south, and Daenerys holding her newborn dragons. Now that he understands the existential threat posing the realm, Daemon is all-in on Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), affirming his loyalty to her as queen.

During Daemon’s visions, he saw Rhaenyra sitting atop the Iron Throne, something that Alicent (Olivia Cooke) all but guarantees with her eleventh hour decision to go to Dragonstone. Clad in the blue of her youth, Alicent agrees to let Rhaenyra take King’s Landing while Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) flies to Harrenhal. Something that’s agreed to take place…in three days time. So in Season 3.

Elsewhere, Helaena (Phia Saban) rejects her brother Aemond’s plan to join him atop her dragon Dreamfyre in battle. In fact, she goes so far as to reveal that she not only knows he purposely burned Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), but that he is doomed to die in the God’s Eye.

And if you didn’t feel sufficiently teased, the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale gave us tons of foreshadowing for bloody battles to come. The Dragonseeds — Hugh the Hammer (Kieran Bew), Ulf (Tom Bennett), and Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty) — suit up to burn up rival cities while the Triarchy agrees to sail to the Gullet to fight the Velaryon fleet. Oh, and Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) is still chasing, but not taming, a wild dragon in the Vale.

It all felt a bit like foreplay with no climax, if you’ll excuse the raunchy metaphor. However, the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale also veers from George R.R. Martin’s books in profound ways. It’s a baffling finale that will leave fans thirsting for more…particularly the hyped Battle of the Gullet.

So what was the big deal about Alicent’s decision? How does it change a lot from the books? And what is the Gullet? Why is it so important? And why does it seem HBO is setting up a completely explosive third season of the show?

House of the Dragon Season 2 Ending Explained: Does Alicent Choose Rhaenyra’s Side in the Books?

One of the moments in House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 8 that will likely have some readers confused is Alicent’s decision to broker a peace with Rhaenyra.

On the one hand, Alicent’s choice to secretly negotiate an end to the war makes sense. Throughout House of the Dragon Season 2, she’s been confronted with the reality that she helped wrongfully put Aegon on the Iron Throne and the realm is suffering for it. Not only that, but as Rhaenyra has seven dragons to Team Green’s three, there’s no way for them to survive. With Aemond off the deep end, burning cities in anger, and Aegon incapacitated, Alicent makes the calculation that by bending the knee to Rhaenyra, she, Helaena, and Jaehaera might be able to live a quiet life.

Alicent is cool with giving Rhaenyra King’s Landing, but she balks at her childhood friend’s insistence that Aegon must die. Rhaenyra pushes Alicent, though. Noting it’s “a son for a son.” Alicent ultimately agrees. She will clear the way for Rhaenyra to take King’s Landing without bloodshed and Aegon will be beheaded. Peace will prevail?

Not so fast: as we see in the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale, Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) has convinced Aegon to flee King’s Landing to wait out the impending conflict. So what’s going to happen when Rhaenyra arrives in King’s Landing and, oh, there’s no Aegon? She’s probably going to be mad at Alicent, reigniting the feud, I’d suspect!

What is the Battle of the Gullet? (House of the Dragon Season 3 is Going to Be Very, Very Bloody)

While we sadly didn’t get the hotly-anticipated Battle of the Gullet in House of the Dragon Season 2, we were treated to an epic amount of build up for it. Triarchy Admiral Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn) gleefully announced that her fleet would be sailing for the Gullet on the morrow and Corlys Velaryon also left Driftmark with his ships.

The Gullet is the narrow strait of water where Driftmark and Dragonstone both are located. King’s Landing sits on the Gullet’s western edge. (The Blackwater Bay opens onto the Gullet, which opens onto the Narrow Sea.) It’s the exact body of water that Team Black has held in blockade all season, cutting King’s Landing off from shipments of food. If the Triarchy is on its way there, they mean to challenge Team Black directly.

In George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, the Battle of the Gullet is considered one of the bloodiest naval battles in history. In the end, Team Black sort of wins, but at catastrophic cost. Jace (Harry Collett) and his dragon both die, Rhaenyra’s younger sons — currently sailing on a ship to Pentos — are scattered, presumed dead, and Corlys’s seat of High Tide with all its treasure are destroyed. Entire towns are burned to the ground, never to be built again.

All of which is to say, House of the Dragon Season 3 is going to be bigger, bloodier, and more horrific than anything we’ve seen yet.