‘House of the Dragon’ Recap: A Scandal Rocks the Red Keep
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 1 Episode 4, “King of the Narrow Sea.”]
If you picked up on a possible, uh, tension between Daemon (Matt Smith) and Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) during that necklace scene in the premiere, “King of the Narrow Sea” just took that subtext and made it text.
Yep — in true Thrones fashion, there’s an intimate moment where the uncle-and-niece pairing takes off in earnest this episode. Granted, they’re Targaryens, so perhaps the real surprise is that it’s not all that jaw-dropping. The Targ family is known for intermarrying, and as far as the age gap, that seems par for the course for Westeros. Will it still shock those who hadn’t read the source material? Possibly.
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But before any of that happens, there are a few plot developments to note. First is that another time jump of a few months has passed. Rhaenyra’s father is still trying to help her find a husband, but the princess despises the formalities and returns from her father’s latest matchmaking excursion early… just in time to see Daemon. What’s Daemon doing in King’s Landing? He’s come to make amends with his brother and to surrender his “crown” as “King of the Narrow Sea.” He gives up both the Step-Stones and his crown, and as Viserys embraces him, it seems the bad blood has run out. (Obviously, that won’t last.)
Later, at a courtly gathering, Rhaenyra has a chat with Daemon about how she resents her duties. Namely, she hates being forced to take a husband and produce offspring. Daemon insists that marriage is but a political contract, and that once one enters into it, they are free to do as they like. For men, that might be true, Rhaenyra says, but that’s not the case for women. “My mother was made to produce heirs until it killed her,” Rhaenyra says in High Valyrian. “I will not suffer the same fate.”
Nonetheless, she does have some freedom — if she steals it. Daemon leaves a disguise in her room and instructions to go through a secret passage to find him, and soon he, wearing a cloak, and she, disguised as a commoner boy, walk together through the Flea Bottom streets. Rhaenyra seems truly happy until they watch a skit about the Targaryen succession, which mocks her as being beloved, but “feeble.” She storms away as Daemon tells her that if she intends to rule over the common people one day, despite what she might think, their wants and perceptions are of consequence.
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And as for what she wants… next, Daemon takes her into the bowels of a pleasure house, where he pulls her close. “Marriage is a duty, yes,” he says as he kisses her, “but that doesn’t stop us from doing what we want. From f**king who we want.” Rhaenyra kisses him back, he shoves her against the wall, things get steamy… but when they’re done, Daemon runs off, leaving a confused Rhaenyra by herself in the brothel. She returns to the castle, where Ser Criston (Fabien Frankel), unaware that she’d ever left, waits outside her door. She draws him inside by stealing his helmet, and then they passionately make love. (All of this is contrasted with a decidedly less romantic “love scene” between Alicent [Emily Carey] and Viserys [Paddy Considine]; poor Alicent looks like she’d rather throw herself off the Red Keep’s walls than be in bed with the king.)
But Rhaenyra’s fun night has long-lasting consequences for almost everyone involved. Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) receives word from his sources that Rhaenyra was “coupling” with her uncle in a pleasure house, and once he passes along that information to the king, Viserys is livid. His matchmaking rests on the condition that Rhaenyra is a maiden, and if word gets out that she’s been “soiled,” the line of lords interested in her will grow short.
Alicent confronts her about it, and she insists nothing happened. Across the castle grounds, Viserys confronts his brother, who says much the opposite. He asks Viserys to wed Rhaenyra to him, so they might restore their house to its “proper glory.” Viserys sees through that and realizes it’s not Rhaenyra that Daemon really wants: it’s power. He banishes him from King’s Landing and tells him to go back to the Veil.
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From there, Viserys and Rhaenyra have an uncomfortable chat. Both angry and disappointed, he tells her she’ll now be marrying Laenor Velaryon to secure a political alliance between their houses. “And what will you do about the vulture that perches upon your throne?” Rhaenyra asks him, meaning Otto Hightower.
The last piece to fall in the scandal is Otto, who Viserys is now convinced conspired against him. He comes to see his marriage to Alicent as the political bargaining play that it was, and he suspects Otto of starting the rumor about Rhaenyra in order to get him to disinherit her and name Aegon, Alicent’s son and his grandson, as heir. He dismisses Otto as his hand, saying that it’s now impossible for him to trust his council given that he cannot be impartial. As the episode ends, a Maester comes to Rhaenyra with an abortion tea from her father, meant to “rid [her] of any unwanted consequences.”
House of the Dragon, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO
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