It’s ten years later, and we have the same old Westerosi troubles. And yet episode six brings a markedly better narrative, some real bite to the major characters, and a slew of little tykes who just might start gutting each other before they come of age. House of the Dragon is hitting its stride with the kind of underhanded plotting and grotesque malfeasance we’ve come to expect from George R.R. Martin’s highborn — those that make it safely out of the womb, that is.
“The Princess and the Queen†is bookended with birth scenes. The space in between is filled with roasting eggs, unhatched eggs, gifted eggs, and one particularly weird Aeg — Aegon, the firstborn son of Viserys and Alicent, flaxen-haired menace, and hyper-public masturbator. The hints here aren’t subtle — House of the Dragon knows that any show about succession must necessarily deal with wombs and their avatars — but here, the show makes the most of the metamorphic motherhood of raising dragons.
The last time we saw Aegon, he was a little lad, running about at his second name-day celebration, ogled over by doting nannies. Now he’s developed into a young man (played by the excellent Ty Tennant, grandson of Peter Davison, the fifth Doctor in Doctor Who, and stepson to David Tennant, the tenth Doctor), eager to spill his seed all over the rooftops of King’s Landing and bully his nephews and younger brother to the point of serious emotional harm. Aegon is the leader of the pack of new Targaryens, made up of his curious and gentle sister Helaena (Evie Allen); their dragonless and mocked brother Aemond (Leo Ashton, who plays the role with admirable restraint); and Rhaenyra’s curiously brunette, bruiser sons, Jacaerys (Leo Hart), who goes by Jace, and Lucerys, who goes by Luke (Harvey Sadler). The crew is a little tinder box of monarchical conflict, waiting to ignite.
One of the central trademarks of Game of Thrones was that its children were often its most intriguing characters, subject to the winds of narrative, blown off course by events too big for them to control, and then launched into lives they did not expect. Their development was treated with the same generosity as the growth of adult characters — the grownup Starks may have treated season one Arya like a silly little girl, but the writers never did. Game of Thrones also established early on that the stakes for child’s play were high; in the second episode, Mycah the butcher’s boy is slaughtered off the King’s Road after Arya hits Joffrey and events spiral out of control. House of the Dragon has a similar approach to the smallest Targaryens: The prank the others play on Aemon — sending out a pig with wings to greet him in the dragon pit — is schoolyard cruelty, but its ramifications are much more significant. As Alicent (now played by a fantastic Olivia Cooke) later screams into Aegon’s face, he and Aemond ought to stick together, to remember that Jace and Luke are their rivals for the throne. Instead, Aegon is taunting his brother into the kind of froth that won’t end well for anyone. Imagine the rot that can set in for a royal family when brother turns against brother.
Then there’s the scene in the training yard. Ser Cristan Cole, now a close confidante of Queen Alicent and willing to use the c-word in front of Her Majesty, has a major stake in her sons Aegon and Aemond, especially the elder. In his opinion, any child of Rhaenyra, “a spider who stings and sucks her prey dry,†does not deserve the Iron Throne. (He might be encouraged by jealousy about his former lover.) So when the young boys spar with wooden swords, Cristan’s attention is on cheering and instructing the tow-headed boys instead of their nephews. Ironically enough, this lands him in the same position he put Joffrey Lonmouth in the last episode: on the ground, with his face nearly flattened by a man much stronger than he. While at first it’s a scuffle among mismatched boys (with Jace notably launching a fierce counter-attack after Aegon gains the upper hand), Harwin and Cristan’s follow-up fight is a proxy for the larger scheme playing out in King’s Landing. Even if Viserys claims this succession is solidified and Rhaenyra and her children will take the throne, their suspicious paternity has opened up a new avenue for Alicent to put Aegon on the throne.
Many rounds of applause to Emma D’Arcy as the new, older Rhaenyra: their introductory scene is a squishy-sounding, moan-filled labor and delivery, and they manage to leave all the melodrama out of it. Right away, this new Rhaenyra is a far more confident woman than she was ten years ago at her wedding. She commands party boy Laenor with an easy flick of her tongue, and she knows when to relent and regather her power. While I had serious doubts that any woman might make that walk across the castle mere moments after a drug-free birth, D’Arcy does grit well and even made the placenta’s splashy delivery a real moment. (The whole affair weirdly called to mind Kate Middleton, made to march out of the hospital and stand for a photo call hours after giving birth to the future king of England, though Middleton had the advantage of a glam team and modern medicine.)
Of course, the elephant in this episode’s room was the clear fact that Harwin Strong is the real father of Jace, Luke, and newborn Joffrey. Rhaenyra and Laenor vowed to at least try to produce their own heirs, but there must have been equipment failure somewhere along the line, because Jace, Luke, and Joffrey all bear their fathers’ dark brown hair. “Do keep trying, Ser Laenor,†Alicent intones from her bemused perch. “Sooner or later, you may get one that looks like you.†I don’t know if Punnett squares work the same with Westerosi DNA, but Rhaenyra’s kids have a hair color problem even more pronounced than Cersei Lannister’s. By rights, the little Velaryon/Targaryens should have the silver locks both parents possess. The grotesque racist attacks on House of the Dragon’s casting were always foolish, but now even more so; none of Laenor’s three “children†have inherited a single feature from him, and the court can see that fact plainly. (One weird moment: Alicent remarks that “it’s a wonder their eggs ever hatched,†but the boys’ Targaryen maternity is more than enough to ensure the blood of the dragon courses through their veins.)
Over on Essos, Daemon and Laena (Nanna Blondell) await the birth of yet another little Targaryen. They have lived as guests of the Pentoshi prince Reggio Haratis for many years, raising their daughters Baela (Shani Smethurst) and Rhaena (a doleful Eva Ossei-Gerning) there. Daemon has settled down to a professorial life of reading by the fire, with the occasional dragon firefight air show put on for fun. Laena sees him as moody and depressed — saddened that he can no longer seduce his niece and murder with abandon, perhaps — but this broody new attitude looks good on him. Even his hair has improved!
But this cozy little family breaks down in one episode. Laena’s death-by-dracarys scene is remarkable — it’s the first time we’ve seen a dragon knowingly bestow mercy on its rider this way to put Laena out of the miserable septic infection and shock that awaits her. But again, we can only wish that House of the Dragon would slow its roll, give us time to know these characters, mourn their deaths, and feel more for their left-behind children. Laena’s demise leaves Baela’s and Rhaena’s destinies up in the air. Daemon wants to stay in Essos and use their dragons to aid the Pentoshi in their fight against the Triarchy, which has gained new power through an alliance with Dorne. Laena wanted to move the family back to Driftmark, raise their children in the place she grew up, and settle down even more. But after her death, a newly unhinged Daemon may not settle for anything.
Laena isn’t the only one to meet a fiery end in this episode. First, Harwin loses his position as Commander of the City Watch, then his father insists on his removal to their family seat at Harrenhal in order to let the controversy around his relationship with Rhaenyra simmer down. The last we see of him is driving his shoulder into a wooden door in the castle, trying to break his father free from a massive fire. Harrenhal is already a cursed place, completed on the very day that Aegon Targaryen arrived in Westeros and began his conquest; the dragon Balerion roasted Harren and his sons alive inside the castle. Every family that has since inhabited it has died out.
But this fire was an inside job, plotted by another Strong — Harwin’s sneaky little brother Larys, who tells his beloved Queen Alicent that he acted on her coded instructions. This is fratricide for political gain, just the kind of delicious familial warring we are looking for in Westeros, made all the more grisly by the methods Larys uses. (Those tongues are snipped out to keep the arsonists from talking.) If only we had ever seen the two interact together, to understand their relationship better, to get a sense of how one brother can grow up honorable and strong and the other huddle in the shadows and whisper in the ears of the noble.
Alicent is horrified, though now that Lyonel Strong is dead, she’ll get what she wants — her father might stage a return to King’s Landing and perhaps step back into his role as King’s Hand. And plenty more people are on the move. Rhaenyra is departing for Dragonstone as a measure to keep her family safe, Daemon may be sailing across the Narrow Seas, and hopefully — hopefully — this narrative can open up even more and take up the room it needs and deserves.
From the Ravens
• If the shock of Game of Thrones was that it killed its lead character, Ned Stark, before the end of the first season, the shock of House of the Dragon is that its male lead keeps clinging to life no matter how sickly he grows. His body is a victim of his power, slowly rotting off in the same way he is losing control of his kingdom. Viserys can’t let go of the notion that his family will someday experience their own after-school special conversion and turn towards each other with love and acceptance, a blindness that is wreaking havoc.
• Rhaenyra makes two offers at the small council meeting: a dragon egg from Syrax for Aemond and a betrothal between Jaecerys and Helaena. We’ll have to wait to learn if either is accepted.
• Aemond isn’t the only Targaryen child without a dragon. In Fire & Blood, Rhaena’s first dragon died just hours after it hatched and she spent years hoping for the successful birth of a new dragon. That’s the place we find her here — keeping her egg toasty warm and hoping it will produce.
• Speaking of dragons, now that Vhagar is untethered to Laena, he is free to choose a new rider. It stands to reason that either Rhaena or Aemond might bond with her and therefore control the largest living dragon, the one that Tyrion Lannister once remarked was so big a horse could run down its gullet. It’s the last remaining dragon from the time of Aegon I’s conquest of Westeros, and — funnily enough — the dragon Laena once questioned Viserys about when she was a child, walking with him in the gardens while he contemplated marrying her.
• Daemon’s course varies greatly from how it’s laid out in Fire & Blood. In the book, he returns to Driftmark with Laena about a year after his girls are born.
• Larys’ “What are children but a weakness, a folly, a futility…†speech is on par with any of Tyrion’s or Littlefinger’s great orations. This is the kind of writing we need to see more of.
• After Larys explains himself to Alicent, he remarks, “I feel certain you will reward me when the time is right,†and plucks a red flower. Surely, in a world heavy with symbolism, that flower has meaning, but what?
• Similarly, Larys and his cronies don beetles as their sigils. They creep and live in the dirt, but is there more to it? (Helaena Targaryen has a similar fascination with things that crawl …)
Correction: This recap has been updated to reflect Emma D’Arcy’s use of they/them pronouns.
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