Rhaenyra gives birth to another child, stoking the fires of gossip around the castle: that her children are not her husband's, and that her father the King willfully overlooks it. Queen Alicent maneuvers subtly against her former friend, bemoaning the dearth of true allies at her call -- until one proves loyalty to her with a horrifyingly grand gesture. Meanwhile, in Essos, Daemon is invited to settle down, far away from the political machinations of King's Landing -- a prospect his wife utterly rejects.
A few weeks ago, I latched onto the notion that House of the Dragon is The Crown with CG, a staid and regal drama adorned with eye-catching visuals. This week's larger time jump, and re-casting of several characters (yet not others?) certainly supports this perspective. But I now want to introduce a corollary to the "how this is like The Crown" theory: most episodes feature at least one superbly executed and genuinely moving scene... even as the whole of most episodes doesn't feel entirely satisfying.
From a bird's eye (dragon's eye?) view, it feels easy to again make the case that "not a lot happened" in this week's episode of the show. We skip 10 years of time, and yet for where we wind up at the end of the episode, you could almost hope to have skipped "10 years and a month." A lot of screen time this week is devoted to the family squabbling between Alicent's children and Rhaenyra's... yet the conclusion, in which Rhaenyra abandons King's Landing with her family, feels like it sweeps off the table all that conflict that was built up over the course of the episode.
The episode also just felt long, perhaps in part due to a big subplot for Daemon that didn't really seem to go anywhere. He's still out there on the periphery, still taking wives for expedience and not holding onto them. The circumstances here are, of course, vastly different from what happened with his first wife. Nonetheless, it's still unclear how any of these events really feeds into the larger narrative.
And yet, I find myself thinking well of this episode, when I find myself thinking of specific scenes within it. The opening sequence was a real stunner in both writing and filmmaking. Rhaenyra being forced to visit Queen Alicent immediately after childbirth was tremendously revealing of several characters: it showed Rhaenyra's strength and resolve, how calcified and embittered Alicent has grown, how absent and flighty Laenor has been, and how Viserys' wits have declined by choice even as his health has declined more. All of that was delivered in an apparently single-take sequence that showcased stunning sets, unbelievable camera work, intricate choreography, and pitch-perfect performances by new and old cast members.
The ending sequence was not as impressive, yet was still chilling. Larys' full unmasking as a calculating psychopath, willing to sacrifice his own family for political advancement, shows him to be one of the most dangerous people in this new "game of thrones" (which my husband jokingly called the "JV league," commenting on how Alicent was not nearly the skilled player that Cersei was).
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