This is a recap of the most recent episode of HBO’s House of the Dragon. It contains spoilers. That’s what a recap is.

Credits! Which bring with them two new additions to the “Die, You!” Tapestry!

1. Li’l Dead Jaehaerys, lying in state. (That embroidery-vine that creeps along and slices him across the neck? A nice touch. A nice, mean touch.) 2. The executed ratcatchers of King’s Landing, hanging from the walls of the city.

I like this! It’s kind of like a “Previously On …,” but in mixed media (colored thread and bloodstains).

Oh and: I just now noticed how accurate the tapestry’s renderings of Aegon II and Rhaenyra are. Aegon’s sporting a haughty smirk, while Rhaenyra just looks P.O.d. Spot on!

We open on a stretch of river (the Red Fork) by an old mill where some cows are grazing on the border between the lands of two Riverlords – House Bracken and House Blackwood. A young knight, Ser Amos Bracken, is confronted by a young knight of House Blackwood. (This may or may not turn out to be Benjicot Blackwood; if so, he’ll be back.) The Brackens have declared for Team Green (Aegon II), while the Blackwoods are, fittingly enough, Team Black (Rhaenyra). They fight, and we smash cut to …

The aftermath of the first armed conflict of the Dance of the Dragons: The Battle of the Burning Mill. Ser Amos is dead, as are many soldiers and at least one cow. RIP, Ser Loin.

On Dragonstone, they bury Arryk and Erryk side by side. Jacaerys seems concerned that Rhaenyra isn’t on a war footing yet. (This will be a theme of the episode – lots of old dudes thinking young Rhaenyra is too soft and unprepared.)

But Rhaenys the Unfailingly Awesome and Inviolately Right knows what’s up, because knowing what’s up is like her entire deal. She approaches Rhaenyra by the gravesite, having correctly sussed out that this incandescently stupid effort on Team Green’s part means that someone sensible like Otto Hightower is no longer advising Aegon. She urges Rhaenyra to reach out to Alicent one last time, to avoid the slaughter that dragon-on-dragon combat will surely bring.

In the Red Keep, Criston Cole seems to have gotten the news that Operation: Twinsies! went pear-shaped. As he walks to the Small Council he, and we, learn that Aegon has dismissed Cole’s fellow members of the Kingsguard and replaced them with the king’s loutish drinking buddies.

We also learn that Cole chooses not to wear the badge of the Hand of the King, instead pinning it to his chair at the Small Council table. I’d like to say this tells us something meaningful about Criston Cole besides “Hates to accessorize,” but I’m not sure it does.

At the Small Council, there is squabbling. There is also Aemond, seated at the Council, which is a new development. He’s fiddling with that coin he found last week. Aegon is also fiddling with something – the Valyrian steel dagger. Yes, that dagger. The one that belonged to Aegon the Conqueror, the one inscribed with the prophecy of the Prince that was Promised, the one that will, in a 150 years or so, be used by the assassin hired by Littlefinger to take out Bran Stark, the one that Arya will then use to kill Littlefinger, and the one that she will use to turn the Night King into so much shaved ice.

Criston resolves to take a small number of soldiers out to seize the small castles near King’s Landing, add their soldiers to his number, and ultimately march on Harrenhal in the Riverlands, which has declared for Rhaenyra. It’s basically the plan he and Aemond came up with in the season premiere, with one revision: Aemond and Vhagar will not provide him air cover – they’ll stay behind to protect the city. Alicent isn’t thrilled with this plan – or with Cole.

On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra thanks Mysaria for warning the guards about the whole Arryk/Erryk michegoss. Mysaria, in return, asks to be a member of Rhaenyra’s court, because Rhaenyra showed her mercy. During this scene, the dragon Seasmoke, once ridden by Rhaenyra’s first husband Laenor, flits about in an agitated manner. If you didn’t put a pin in that plot thread last week, do it now. It’s coming back.

Pencil’s out; we’re gonna be throwing a lot of names at you

Rhaenyra meets with Rhaena. Player Scorecard Time: Rhaena is the younger of the two daughters that Daemon had with his late wife Laena; her older sister is Baela. Baela has a dragon called Moondancer, but Rhaena is dragonless.

Rhaena (Phoebe Campell) and Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy).

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Rhaenyra instructs Rhaena to gather up Joffrey (the youngest son Rhaenyra had with Laenor, but actually Harwin Strong), and the two very young sons that Rhaenyra had with Daemon (who are named Viserys and, resigned sigh, Aegon, whom we refer to as Aegon the Baeby to distinguish him from King Aegon the Aess). Rhaenyra is sending them to stay with her cousin Lady Jeyne Arryn in the Vale for safety, and wants Rhaena to go with them. Rhaena mentions the dragons Tyraxes and Stormcloud. Fill out your dragonspotting cards: Tyraxes is a very young dragon bonded to Joffrey, Stormcloud is another hatchling bonded to Aegon the Baeby.

Rhaenyra mentions that even the Vale isn’t safe, and that Rhaena should eventually take them across the narrow sea to the city of Pentos.

Daemon, astride Caraxes, arrives at the gloomy, cursed, rainy ruin of Harrenhal, in the Riverlands. Harrenhal is the largest castle in Westeros, but these days it’s mostly abandoned and crumbling into the mud.

He’s greeted by Ser Simon Strong and his grandsons, and behaves in his predictable, preening, mistrustful, jerkface manner. A young woman enters and casts an appraising gaze at him. He inquires about Simon’s loyalty to his great-nephew, Lord Larys Strong, who serves King Aegon the Aess. Simon dismisses this and accuses Larys of having his own brother and father killed (he’s right about that; we saw it happen last season); Simon makes it clear he’s bending the knee to Rhaenyra. Daemon clouds the issue by insisting on being referred to as “Your Grace” – which is to say, as the King, and not just the Queen’s consort. No, it’s not subtle, but it is Daemon.

Daemon’s plan is to gather up the armies of the Riverlands and garrison them at Harrenhal. To that end, he demands to speak with Lord Tully, who heads the Great House of the Riverlands.

Stately Gwayne’s manner

Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel).

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Back at the Red Keep, Criston Cole is about to depart with five men to seize the nearby castles in King Aegon’s name. Cole’s sporting a new, battle-ready Caesar cut that does not look great on him, I guess so his war-helmet fits better? Alicent insists that her brother, Ser Gwayne Hightower, join the party. Gwayne’s got flowing, lustrous red locks, so there goes my war-helmet theory. He’s a bit of a snot to Criston, but it’s not like Criston doesn’t deserve it. Go nuts, Gwayne. Snot away. Snot like the wind.

On Dragonstone, around the Painted (But Not Actually Painted, Technically Glowing) Table, Rhaenyra’s advisors urge her to seize the moment while she’s waiting for their armies to gather – those from North, and the Vale, and the army Daemon is ostensibly building in the Riverlands – and send the dragons out to burn every Green stronghold to ash.

Rhaenyra slaps them down, knowing that their plan would escalate the war into a dragon-on-dragon conflict that no one would survive (NOTE: But that would be very very cool to look at and make for some pretty awesome television).

Gerardys (Phil Daniels), Ser Alfred Broome (Jamie Kenna), Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), Baela (Bethany Antonia), Lorent Marbrand (Max Wrottesley), and Jacaerys (Harry Collett).

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On Driftmark, Rhaenys brings her man Corlys a pick-a-nick basket that, she makes clear, she didn’t make herself, because of course she didn’t, she’s Rhaenys. She broaches the possibility of replacing the current heir of Driftmark (young Joffrey, whom they know was fathered by Harwin Strong and not their son Laenor), with Rhaena, their by-blood grand-daughter. Keeping it in the family.

Rhaena leaves for the Vale with the various moppets, the two hatchling dragons and – the show takes time to establish this, so it’ll probably be on the quiz – four dragon eggs.

At the Red Keep, Queen Helaena proves that she may be spacy, but she’s not dumb. The reason she hated having all those commoners stare at her during the funeral procession was not revulsion, but shame – she knows that their kids die in far greater numbers; why should her grief be placed above theirs? Got a good head on her shoulders, does Helaena. Pity it doesn’t run in the family.

King Aegon the Aess is being fitted for armor, as he intends to fly out on Sunfyre to help Criston Cole’s mission. Larys Strong meets with him and deftly scores a neat two-fer. 1. He convinces him that if he does leave King’s Landing, Alicent and Aemond will seize control and 2. He gets Aegon to name him Master of Whisperers.

A ruthless, cunning advisor and a ridiculously pliant king? What could go wrong?

Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Larys Strong (Matthew Needham).

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Guy walks into a bar …

Cut to the Street of Silk in King’s Landing, where we catch up with Ulf, the guy we saw stealing an apple and stumbling across the hanged ratcatchers last week. In an impressive tracking shot, we follow him as he enters a boisterous tavern, glad-hands a bunch of folks, sits down at a table and starts spinning a tale about his true parentage. He claims to be half-brother to both the late King Viserys and Prince Daemon and is, like Daemon, uncle to Queen Rhaenyra.

In so doing, he introduces a term we’ll probably be hearing a lot of, in the coming weeks. “Dragonseed,” i.e., an illegitimate child of Valyrian blood (read: House Targaryen and House Velaryon).

Just then Aegon the Aess enters with his repellent homies, dragging with them a squire for whom they will enjoin the services of a sex worker. Ulf’s loyalties to his kin Rheanyra dissolve like beer foam, and he leads a cheer for the king.

Another contract-fulfilling Brothel scene: Aegon stumbles across his brother Aemond with his favorite sex worker, and proceeds to be even more of a jerk to him than his baseline-level jerkiness, which is, let’s recall, a tremendous lot. This scene isn’t doing much work except to remind us that Aemond doesn’t hold his older brother Aegon the Aess in high esteem, a thing we already knew.

On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra mournfully regards some of the toys belonging to li’l Viserys and Aegon the Baeby, which are metal and sharp and pointy, because Westeros ain’t got a Consumer Product Safety Commission. She puts away Tetanus: The Playset and reads a note from Alicent that she’d previously ignored.

On her dragon Moondancer, Baela discovers Criston Cole, Gwayne and the small company of men. (You’ll recall that Baela had been tasked by Rhaenyra to monitor the comings and goings of Team Green around King’s Landing.) She chases them into a forest and loses them.

Back on Dragonstone, the news of Cole’s mission causes Rhaenyra’s council to go back to their sword-rattling, urging her to cry havoc and let slip the dang dragons of war, already.

Daemon (Matt Smith) at Harrenhal.

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At Harrenhal, the cursed castle is giving Daemon creepy, if a bit-on-the nose, dreams. In one, he happens upon his wife-niece Rhaenyra as she was back in the day (welcome back to the stage, Milly Alcock!). She’s stitching li’l Jaehaerys’s head back on his body.

Daemon wakes up (OR DOES HE) (no yeah just kidding, he totally does) and comes across the young woman who earlier in the evening looked him up and down like a side of Valyrian beef. She tells him he will die in this place. This is Alys Rivers. She’s a thing.

In sept, shun

On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra tells Mysaria that she wants to speak directly with Alicent to try to prevent the war. Mysaria says that it will be easy enough to smuggle Rhaenyra into the city (wait, really?) and that Alicent only goes outside the walls of the Red Keep to light candles in the Grand Sept. If Rhaenyra were to go there, she could talk with Alicent in private, queen to dowager queen. (WAIT, REALLY?)

This seems like a dumb plan, but then, dumb plans are fast becoming Standard Operating Procedure on this show: First you had Operation: Blood and Cheese, then Operation: Twinsies! and now Operation: Two Queens Stand Before Me.

Rhaenyra and a bodyguard (Ser Steffon Darklyn, former member of the Kingsguard), dressed as members of Westeros’s holy order, make it to the Grand Sept with an ease that borders on the ludicrous but that is impossible to get truly mad about because why get hung up on realism in a show about dragons? Rhaenyra’s bodyguard waits in the courtyard (why, though?) as Rhaenyra enters the sept.

Alicent arrives with her security detachment, who also wait in the courtyard, because Alicent is not now and has never been in any danger whatsoever so it’s cool don’t think about it STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.

Alicent starts lighting candles, Rhaenyra sidles up to her and threatens her with a dagger. They proceed to have an angry, whispered discussion that nobody around them thinks is at all noteworthy because evidently Alicent has a known habit of bellying up to altars and getting into heated, hissing exchanges with the nuns. Must be Tuesday.

Anyway, never mind, let’s just try to enjoy this moment, because here’s Olivia Cooke and Emma D’Arcy back on our screens, together, and – oh, happy, unlooked-for bonus! – nobody’s mentioned negronis yet.

As for what they are talking about, well. It plays out something like this:

RHAENYRA: Uch, men are the worst, so eager for battle, not like us sensible gals, right, girlfriend?

ALICENT: Surrender!

RHAENYRA: Let’s talk terms.

ALICENT: Terms, shmerms, you totally Pez-dispensered my grandkid.

RHAENYRA: That wasn’t me and anyway your dragon bit into my kid like he was trying to see if he was a jelly or a custard donut. Usurper!

ALICENT: Me? I’m no surper! Viserys changed his mind!

It goes round like this for a while, but then we finally get to the meat of it. Alicent explains that a not-entirely-coherent Viserys, on his deathbed, spoke Aegon’s name, and mentioned the prophecy of The Prince that was Promised.

I like what D’Arcy does with this moment – they let us see the knowledge that Alicent clearly misunderstood Viserys’s final words hitting Rhaenyra like a thunderbolt. We see shock, then realization light up Rhaenyra’s features – and then, finally, frantically, hope. “It was just a story he used to tell … about Aegon the Conqueror,” she says, and becomes insistent: It’s a mistake! It can be corrected, and thousands of lives could be saved! All Alicent has to do is acknowledge it!

Alicent, of course, has meanwhile embarked upon her own emotional journey with an entirely different destination – disbelief, then doubt, then worry (could Rhaenyra be … right?) – but then finally: Resolve. No, there was no mistake, and anyway it’s too late. War is already here.

She gets up to leave, and tells Rhaenyra to hit the bricks. Why she doesn’t immediately have any of the guards standing right outside the sept’s door seize Rhaenyra and chop her into a fine bloody tartare-like mince is anybody’s guess. I guess we’re supposed to see it as her recognition of the friendship they once shared, but boy howdy does it not make sense.

I probably don’t need to tell you that this whole scenario with Alicent and Rhaenyra having a secret, last-ditch meeting is a pure show invention – nothing remotely like it exists in the book. And it’s attempting to do what most show-invention scenes attempt to do, which is to invest the book’s thin and broadly drawn historical figures some measure of the weight and depth they need to emerge as fully dramatized characters.

From where I’m sitting, all it’s done is give Alicent still another chance to implicate herself in the carnage to come, which she promptly seizes. The one thing that was keeping Team Green from coming across like the show’s clear, abject, capital-V Villains was the possibility that Alicent had made an honest mistake at Viserys’ bedside. But this episode establishes that even if she did, and she knows she did, it wouldn’t matter. She’s all in. So, uh: Mwah-hah-hah, I guess?

Parting Thoughts

• We got a Sir playing a Ser this week. The great British actor Sir Simon Russell Beale played Ser Simon Strong, and in just a few lines, he made the character seem … lived-in, enfleshed. He could easily have portrayed him as frightened and obsequious, or indolent and pompous – the script would have supported those readings. But instead he played him as someone who’s simply resigned to his lot in life in a way that seemed kind of charming. Warm, even. And warmth, in the world of Westeros, is notable. And risky.
• Were you okay with the smash-cut to the end of the Battle of the Burning Mill? Shades of the first season of Game of Thrones, when Tyrion got knocked unconscious at the beginning of the Battle on the Green Fork (and saved a big chunk of the production budget in the process). But then, there’s precedent – Bilbo Baggins spent the Battle of the Five Armies in The Hobbit unconscious, too. And by hand-waving away the Battle of the Burning Mill like it did, the show neatly underscores its military insignificance, as it was really just an excuse for two long-feuding Houses to beat the medieval crap out of each other. 
• Last season I worried that we’d never get to see D’Arcy and Cooke share the screen again. I figured the plot had moved them both past any chance to exist in the same room believably. Key word there: Believably. So no, I didn’t buy it, and no, I don’t think it added much, but I did like seeing them trading lines again.
• Just a periodic check-in on how we’re doing on pacing. The section of the book Fire & Blood that covers the Dance of the Dragons is roughly 182 pages. With this episode, we’ve only covered about 42 pages of it. That’s a little less than a quarter of the story told so far. It’s not a precise gauge, granted, because so much of what the show’s doing is invented; very little that happened in this episode, for example, happened in the book. But in terms of the simple chronology of events, it’s useful.

This is the part where I admit two things — neither of which I’m proud of. First, it was only then, several months in, I realized I’d made a colossal blunder when trying to hang my precious high-tech feeder out of squirrels’ reach. I’d measured the recommended five feet off the ground sure enough, but failed to account for the elevation afforded by a nearby tree stump that cut that distance in half. Within 10 minutes of realizing my error, I moved the feeder to a non-stump-adjacent location. Voila! My immediate problem was solved. As of this writing, it’s been 40 days without a squirrel breach.

Second, even though I’d won the battle by accomplishing exactly what I’d set out to do, I refused to give up. I’d waged this war too long and invested too much. How could I sit back when my friend’s guava tree continued to be routinely ransacked and my co-worker’s avocados savaged and tossed to the ground with grubby-pawed abandon?

And worse yet, what if they decided to come for the single — and so far unscathed — orange tree just now starting to show pea-sized fruits in my backyard? No, I needed closure. But before I started investing in owl-shaped, light-up motion sensors (these exist) or blasting C-SPAN across my yard at all hours, I needed someone to tell me if protecting L.A. backyard fruit trees (humanely, remember?) was even possible.

And that’s how I ended up on the phone explaining my situation to Roger Baldwin, a UC Davis Cooperative Extension specialist who focuses on human-wildlife conflict resolution.

“You’ll find various chemical repellents that are marketed and sold [to combat them],” Baldwin told me. “But there’s nothing that’s ever been proven effective against tree squirrels. So I wouldn’t anticipate there being anything that you could spray to really keep them away. [And] there’s no kind of sound devices or ultrasonic devices or lights or strobes — or anything like that — that’s really been proven effective.” (He did note that some repellents might work on a short-term basis until the wily critters adapt.)

“No,” Baldwin said, “there’s nothing that’s guaranteed to work when you’ve got fruit trees, which are an abundant food source, and tree squirrels. … But, like with your bird feeder, if you had an isolated tree — meaning nothing else around for a good 10 feet and nothing overhanging it — and its lowest branches were a good five or six feet off the ground, you could put a metal ring around the trunk to keep them from being able to climb it. But basically this is almost never going to happen.”

He added that even trapping, which might be an option for those willing to consider the squirrel death penalty (in California, the eastern fox squirrel can be trapped and euthanized humanely — but not released elsewhere), would likely be only a temporary solution. “Invariably there’s someone — probably more than one person — on your block feeding squirrels,” he said. “And other squirrels will likely move in. And there’s not much you can do about that. There are too many access points.”

Sensing where things were headed, I cut to the chase. Based on Baldwin’s 16 years of experience, did I have any viable options beyond accepting that my backyard would forever be shared with whatever eastern gray fox squirrels wished to have their run of it?

“There’s probably not a lot that can be done to keep the squirrels from the fruit and the trees given the different limitations that you’ve discussed,” he said. “Yes, it’s more about realistically just learning to live with the squirrels.”

Perhaps sensing my dismay, Baldwin offered a tiny glimmer of hope.

“Sometimes, if you’ve got a very aggressive dog in your backyard — one that can chase squirrels effectively — that can sometimes help reduce problems,” he said.

We’re a dogless household, and the notion of getting a dog just to vanquish a squirrel (or three) felt wrong. (I’m sure our two cats would agree.) So I’m accepting defeat on that front and keeping my focus on the no-longer-under-attack bird feeder.

But so help me, the minute one of those hairy little heathens helps itself to the fruit of my orange tree, the phrase “dogs of war” is going to take on a whole new meaning on my backyard battlefield.

Many Americans assume that timidity — or its close cousin, shyness — is solely a negative trait. In our culture, calling an individual timid suggests that he is carrying anxiety, fear, and a lack of confidence. And while some of these associations might be accurate, we could also choose to see this attribute for its potential values. Timidity might go hand in hand with thoughtfulness, deliberateness, even a rich and full interior life.

Enter Jonathan Todd’s new middle-grade graphic novel, Timid. The bright cover on the book alludes to the potential for all these characteristics, from the bad to the good, captured in a single image. A Black tween sits behind an oversized red composition notebook with cartoon sketches splayed across its cover. He is wide-eyed, his oversized glasses poking out from behind the book. The rest of his face is almost completely obscured, as four giant sweat drops jump off his forehead. He is obviously anxious, clutching his book with two huddled arms. But what else is going on behind the surface?

Images from Jonathan Todd’s Timid.

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Written and drawn by a longtime cartoonist and comics educator Jonathan Todd, who has dedicated the book to “anyone who has ever felt alone,” the semi-autobiographical Timid follows the boy on the cover, 12-year-old Cecil Hall. He is a 7th grader whose family moves from Florida, where they have been living for most of his life, to Massachusetts. From the beginning, it’s clear that Cecil knows exactly who he is and who he wants to be—a future famous cartoonist. But it’s not always easy for him to express or act on his desires. It’s also obvious that others around him, in part because he is so quiet, don’t always take his preferences into account.

Cecil’s father, who grew up in a public housing project, thinks his son needs to be tougher, because it was toughness that got him through his own childhood. His sister thinks he is not showing enough pride in his Blackness, and she advises him to befriend other Black children at his new school immediately.

Cecil knows that his family members are only looking out for him, but it’s his gentle, soft-spoken mother who makes him feel most relaxed. Though their relationship is often relegated to the sidelines, the few quiet scenes showing them alone together reflect a Cecil completely at ease. His mother knows how to let him simply be himself, and she trusts he will find his way on his own terms.

Pages from Jonathan Todd’s Timid.

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Meanwhile, at school, Cecil struggles to adjust, particularly in finding a friend group. He is confused by the difference in social make up from his previous school to this new one. Among other changes, what he notes almost immediately is how kids at Webber Middle School are a lot less integrated. This is problematic, for example, when he has to figure out which table to join for lunch—the Black children mainly sit at their own, separate table.

Organized into 14 chapters illustrated in deliciously bright colors, Timid’s offbeat, cartoony drawing style captures the powerful emotions that drive young people’s lives. Above all else, Cecil wants to be recognized, by his peers and the adults around him, as an artist—to carve out an identity for himself based on the activity that brings him the most joy and fulfillment. Though he may, at times, have difficulty asking for what he wants in a direct manner, he takes chances in his own way. After several false starts, he strikes up a friendship with Sean, another Black student. They share a love of storytelling and Star Trek. They enter, and come in second, in a comic contest.

On the outside, Cecil may seem overwhelmingly timid, but upon closer look it’s clear he is full of bravery. Sometimes bravery just materializes in disguise.

Tahneer Oksman is a writer, teacher, and scholar specializing in memoir as well as graphic novels and comics. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.