Note: This story contains spoilers from “House of the Dragon” Season 3, Episode 2.
“No one’s having a good time.”
That’s how “House of the Dragon” star Olivia Cooke put Season 3 when speaking to TheWrap, especially after the shocking actions that ended Episode 2, aptly titled “Rhaenyra the Cruel” — with Rhaenyra ascending the throne but killing Alicent’s father to do so, setting off yet another series of events that are sure to end in more carnage.
It began, of course, with the Season 3 opener with the highly anticipated Battle of the Gullet, but one key player wasn’t present to fight for Rhaenyra’s right to the Iron Throne.
Instead, she was locked in the castle at Dragonstone upon the orders of her son, Jacaerys (Harry Collett), squashing what D’Arcy sees as the “real momentum” Rhaenyra’s campaign had prior to being met with a locked door.
“There’s something about that act of being prevented from pursuing your desire against your will that is profoundly sort of infantilizing,” D’Arcy told TheWrap. “There’s something about control under the guise of protection that feels particularly insidious and feels like a quite familiar tool in the sort of patriarchal armory, and I think Rhaenyra is deeply familiar with it. I think it’s tiring and … it’s profoundly frustrating.”
That said, D’Arcy noted, “you can’t blame a teenager for being a teenager.” And ultimately, Jace was the one who paid the price in battle as he fell to his death.
Rhaenyra isn’t told about Jace’s death, she’s shown his lifeless body carried in by the castle guards, eliciting an emotional moment of grief from Rhaenyra that D’Arcy chose to be driven by denial.
“It’s an impossible reality that’s sort of dawning, and so … when she says, ‘What have you done?’ … I wanted to actually ask it — I didn’t want it to become rhetorical, I wanted her to hope to get enough hope for an answer,” D’Arcy said.
Jace’s death prompts Daemon (Matt Smith) to return to Dragonstone, where he comforts Rhaenyra, while applying just enough pressure for her to understand the urgency for their next move: taking the Iron Throne at King’s Landing.
“Whether he’s right or wrong in it, I think he tries to sort of assert some sort of political council, and he’s sort of an errand boy, really, he’s flying around collecting gold, collecting this, collecting that,” Smith said of Daemon’s role to Rhaenyra. “I think it kind of creates an underlying tension in him where he just wants to get on and go and dominate, and, and start, in his mind, what is a sort of holy war.”
Meanwhile at King’s Landing, Alicent (Olivia Cooke) has been preparing the guards for Rhaenyra’s arrival, coercing them to stand down as she takes the throne. The orders prompt Alicent to dodge accusations of treason while she’s at it, but Cooke knows it’s not that simple.
“She probably thinks that the kingdom is so corrupt at this point that everyone’s sort of committing treason,” Cooke told TheWrap. “I think she is just trying to survive, save herself, save Helaena, save Jaehaera, not ruin Helaena’s legacy. She’s just trying to get out of there. She’s trying to escape and do whatever she can — she doesn’t want any part of it anymore.”
It’s all the more impressive that Alicent’s mission to ensure a smooth transition isn’t thwarted by the unwelcome advances from both her staff as well as her son, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) who forces a kiss upon his mother in Episode 1. Cooke revealed she found the kiss “shocking” to read, but it ultimately fit with the “unreciprocated Oedipal undertone with their relationship” that she’s understood from showrunner Ryan Condal and EP and writer Sara Hess.
“She’s always felt that it was sort of like a missing link — something that she couldn’t quite understand and couldn’t quite reach with him, and then it suddenly made very, very clear,” Cooke said. “But again, he’s one of the most dangerous men in the kingdom, and any perceived rejection is going to maybe get her killed so … she’s trying to tread very carefully.”
Alicent’s efforts are ultimately successful, with the majority of King’s Landing making way for Rhaenyra and Daemon once they arrive. But before Rhaenyra takes the throne, there’s one thing left to be done: execute Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) the usurper in accordance with Rhaenyra and Alicent’s Season 2 deal. With Aegon having fled with Larys Strong (Matthew Needham), however, Daemon finds the next best thing: Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans).
While Rhaenyra had wrapped her head around executing Aegon, the prospect of her victim being Otto, Alicent’s father and her own father’s right-hand, throws her off her game.
“I was very aware that there are sort of a number of people from Rhaenyra’s childhood in the room at the moment that she kind of finally ascends and I was sort of interested in what that does to a person … when we make journeys home and the sort of regression that happens kind of in spite of ourselves,” D’Arcy said. “Otto was her father’s best friend, he knew her as a child … I think it dissolves some of the armor actually being seen by those sorts of historical relations.”
Nonetheless, Daemon is insistent that is must be Rhaenyra that makes the final blow due to “the statement that it makes, sort of politically and emotionally to the people that are around and to the rest of the realm,” according to Smith. “There’s an authority and a violence to it that I think sends … the right message,” he said.
Rhaenyra winces through the execution, but delivers the blow that releases Otto’s head from his body and onto the floor, enabling her to finally ascend the Iron Throne.
Her moment of unabashed victory is interrupted, however, when Alicent and Helaena enter into the throne room to see Otto dead. The discovery isn’t an immediate one as Alicent makes her way through the “massive” room, with Cooke remembering back to the long stride of Paddy Considine’s King Viserys.
“There’s a long distance to travel, and Alicent doesn’t immediately see what the commotion is about until she’s right there in front of her dead father’s body,” Cooke said, noting that Alicent hasn’t heard from her father in quite a long time, leading her to connect the dots that he could’ve been Rhaenyra’s prisoner and “this is the first thing that she’s enacted as a leader to show political strength.”
“I think she feels incredibly betrayed, and like she was caught up in yet another person’s scheming … it feels like it was all for nothing, and she’s in a worse position than where she started,” Cooke said. “I don’t know … how that relationship can move on from that, at that point … it’s a huge betrayal.”
Seeing Alicent’s reaction of betrayal and heartbreak robs Rhaenyra of her triumph, according to D’Arcy. “I wanted her to be sort of uncomfortably revealed, actually, I think that’s probably what Alicent’s gaze does,” D’Arcy said. “She sees through any of the any artifice or armor that Rhaenyra might have built up.”
Episode 2 leaves off with the wordless exchange between the dueling heroines, and Cooke teases a good deal of “carnage” to come as the penultimate season continues.
“No one’s having a good time, basically, but there’s fantastic new characters and different dynamics with original characters that that we see for the first time,” Cooke said. “It’s huge this season.”
“House of the Dragon” airs Sundays at 6 p.m ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max.
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