As last night's House of the Dragon began, I wondered how Alicent's faction were going to deal with Rhaenyra taking the throne. By the end, I felt foolish for even thinking this was ever a possible scenario. And it mostly came off as very credible, giving us another nice episode that made me immediately want to watch a production of Richard III afterward.
Alicent finds, to her evident shock, that most of the small council has already been plotting how to install Aegon as King in the event of Viserys' death. Ser Christon the Unaging unceremoniously murders the one dissenter (whether or not it was on purpose, I'm not sure).
Watching the gears turn throughout the keep and the city as the machine slowly turned Aegon from the Royal Fuck Up to the Sure Thing was fascinating.
Last week, when Alicent misunderstood Viserys' dying words to mean he wanted Aegon to be heir, I wasn't sure if I liked the plot twist. Now I'm sure I don't because it doesn't make sense for Alicent, despite clearly having misgivings about replacing Rhaenyra with Aegon, to so doggedly support Aegon for the role. Realistically, I think she'd be questioning at this point if she really did understand Viserys or, even more likely, if he was really of sound mind when he said it. It just doesn't add up, with how much effort Viserys clearly expended to support Rhaenyra's claim in the previous episode.
I liked the focus on the common people of King's Landing in this episode. That was always a complaint I had about Game of Thrones, that we never had a clear sense of who the common people were or what they thought. It does make sense, in a way, because the show is from the point of view of the wealthy families and even the most broad minded among them are pretty disconnected. A good example is shown at the end of the episode when Princess Rhaenys crashes her dragon through a hall crowded with civilians, apparently little concerned that she's obviously killing and injuring dozens. At first I thought, well, these are the first casualties of the civil war. But then Rhaenys marched her dragon up to the assembled Alicent, her kids, and Ser Otto . . . and didn't kill them. It's sort of absurd. It's like Sir Lancelot in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, running in and slaughtering everyone, but then stopping at the most prominent villain and saying, "Behold, I am merciful!" Clearly, Rhaenys thought the civilians to be just so many koopa troopers. It was silly. I'm not sure it was intended to be.
At any rate, the show is still mostly brilliant and I'm looking forward to next week's finale.
House of the Dragon is available on HBOMax.
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