I was originally planning to write about House of the Dragon’s Season 2 finale this week, but it’s already Thursday and the takes have been dispensed. My opinions are the same as everyone else’s: some great scenes — I loved Corlys’ bastard son telling him off — but overall a bit anticlimactic. Good as an episode, lackluster as a finale. Not a good place to leave us while we wait two years for another season. And the choice to just sideline Daemon at Harrenhal with repetitive scenes for more than half the season is truly baffling.
We don’t need to get deeper into it than that.
Instead, I’d like to point your attention to something House of the Dragon-related you maybe haven’t seen. It’s a YouTube video where British actors Ewan Mitchell (Aemond Targaryen) and Tom Glynn-Carney (Aegon Targaryen) try New York City foods.
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It’s a piece of promotional content in the BuzzFeed/Hot Ones genre of celebrities playing a game or doing something where they get to have fun and show their personality. It’s a perfectly fine genre that I have participated in many times, sometimes with genuinely entertaining results, in my humble opinion. Most of the time, they’re pretty unremarkable. But this one, where two lads eat New York food of questionable provenance, made me feel so opinionated that I have to review it.
This type of video is a success if it produces a moment that gets clipped out and becomes a viral meme. This happened with a previous House of the Dragon video, when Emma D’Arcy said their drink of choice is "A negroni, sbagliato, with prosecco in it” and Olivia Cooke replied “Ooh, stunnin’.” It’s a small moment, but there’s something about the rhythm in which D’Arcy reveals the drink and Cooke genuinely finding it “stunnin” that sticks in your head when it’s broken out to Instagram Reel length. D’Arcy seems charismatic, and D’Arcy and Cooke have chemistry together. And it’s quotable; you can order "a negroni, sbagliato, with prosecco in it,” and the bartender can say “ooh, stunnin,” in response. Perhaps most importantly of all, it helps define who Emma D’Arcy is. You didn’t know anything about them before House of the Dragon; now you know they’re sensual and sophisticated. The Max promo team that made this video probably went out for negronis, sbagliato, with prosecco in them after this moment went viral.
The Max promo team was probably hoping for a similarly memeable outcome from Mitchell and Glynn-Carney eating New York food, but it didn’t happen, I think for two reasons.
One is that this kind of light-hearted promo doesn’t seem like a natural fit for Ewan Mitchell. Mitchell appears to be soft-spoken and serious in real life. Which makes him perfectly suited to play the brooding and intense Aemond, but not to be a funny reaction guy in a viral video. He has a ton of onscreen charisma, but it’s mostly in his posture and his chin.
Glynn-Carney, who as a performer is able to find Aegon’s humanity even at the character’s most depraved, is more extroverted than Mitchell, but it seems like Mitchell’s lower energy wins out over Glynn-Carney’s attempts to draw him out. Glynn-Carney is trying to joke around, but Mitchell has a hard time going there with him. The moment that could have been the video’s viral breakout is when Glynn-Carney joshes Mitchell as “a little skinny thing” like a hot dog, but it mostly falls flat because it’s not that funny to begin with, and then Glynn-Carney over-sells it with his cackle, while Mitchell under-sells it by not reacting much. They seem like good lads, but this off-the-cuff format doesn’t suit them. I like them, but I don’t come away from this video with a sense of their star power.
I did learn that Ewan Mitchell likes to stack two slices of pizza on top of each other and eat them like a “little sandwich,” which is weird and funny. Good specific character detail there.
Speaking of pizza, that brings me to the second reason why this video doesn’t really work: the New York food choices are bizarre.
Like what is this Hell-style pizza?
Where did they get that? Where did they film this that that’s the pizza they ended up with? Are they even in New York? Was the pizzeria out of everything except one normal slice and no-cheese-onions-green-peppers? They couldn’t have sent a PA to Joe’s? You can’t even fold that sh*t, it would crack in half. Glynn-Carney says he’s never tried New York’s dollar pizza. I think he has. HBO got Two Bros for these two bros.
But at least pizza actually is an iconic New York food.
You know what isn’t? Pork rinds and Takis.
There’s absolutely nothing New York-specific about pork rinds. And Takis are specific to teenagers on the A train, but that’s about it. I think pork rinds and Takis are supposed to signify New York Hispanic foods, which is pretty hilarious. They didn’t have time to go to Washington Heights for mofongo con chicharron, so they got pork rinds and blue Takis instead. Poor Ewan Mitchell having to eat a blue Taki. That’s horrible. It probably burnt a hole in his stomach lining. He’ll never be the same. Somebody commented on YouTube “Ewan on Hot Ones when?1 He’d pass away.” He really would. He’s not built for Da Bomb.
There are a lot of iconic New York foods not accounted for here. No chopped cheese is pretty surprising. Pastrami was probably too difficult to obtain, but it’s missed. I wonder what the Targaryen boys would have made of an egg cream. Or Kennedy Fried Chicken. Or Chinese food that’s different from the British-style Chinese food they’re used to.No curry sauce, only duck sauce.
Also, bacon egg and cheese on a bagel is for uncultured rubes. Get it on a hard roll or go back to Iowa.
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I shouldn’t be so hard on this video. I know how these things get made. The production team had a limited time and budget to put it together and they did the best they could. The video is fine. But think about how much better it could have been with a little more investment. They could have featured individual restaurants, and made it more resonant as two young British guys experiencing New York for the first time, which would have made it more distinctive.
The black-and-white cookies are perfect, though. I love black-and-white cookies. Look at this perfect black-and-white cookie magnet my wife made.
In conclusion, I miss the food in New York City. I lived there for a decade, and grew up in the metro area. Now I live in the Bay Area, where the food is great, but it’s not the same. The pizza here has a sourdough crust, seasonal vegetables, and no sauce. It’s better than that sad-ass pizza they gave the Targaryen brothers, though.
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I like the “Hot Ones when?” meme. It’s fun to demand that people go on Hot Ones.
