The kids aren’t alright in the latest episode (but Rhaenyra and Daemon are).
Laena Velaryon is dead and the Targaryen and Velaryon clans have assembled at Driftmark for a burial at sea.
Everything is about to change and he knows it.
Olivia Cooke, Paddy Considine, Evie Allen, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Shani Smethurst.Ollie Upton/HBO
He takes the dragon on a joyride of the island and the surrounding ocean, thus waking the castle.
This doesn’t sit well with Baela, who says Vhagar was hers to claim.
Aemond, as vicious as Aegon is callous, punches her.
Steve Toussaint, Shani Smethurst, Eve Best, Eva Ossei-Gerning.Ollie Upton/HBO
When Rhaenyra’s children arrive to lend a hand, a fight breaks out.
The resulting fallout is explosive.
Alicent responds by demanding an eye for an eye.
Ty Tennant, Olivia Cooke.Ollie Upton/HBO
Alicent unsheathesthe Valyrian steel dagger inscribed with the Song of Ice and Fireand tries to do it herself.
Rhaenyra attempts to stop her, triggering a rabid outburst from Alicent: “Where is duty?
Where is sacrifice?”
John MacMillan.Ollie Upton/HBO
Alicent has followed the rules, sacrificed her own happiness in service to the realm.
To Alicent, it’s unfair.
“Now they see you as you are,” replies Rhaenyra.
Matt Smith.Ollie Upton/HBO
This causes Alicent to strike with the blade, which draws a deep wound in Rhaenyra’s wrist.
Blood falls to the floor.
It’s Aemond who defuses the situation.
“It’s a fair exchange,” he says.
“I may have lost an eye, but I gained a dragon.”
That’s certainly one way to look at it, and he’s not alone.
Vhagar is “worth a thousand times the price he paid.”
Furthermore, Otto is proud of his daughter.
“I’ve never seen that side of you,” he says.
“Now, for the first time, I see you have the determination to win.”
The game of thrones, of course.
It’s an ugly game.
They’ll have some competition, though.
Laena’s funeral brings together Rhaenyra and Daemon for the first time in years.
“You abandoned me,” she tells him.
“Look what my life became without you.”
She longs to be desired again like she was by Harwin.
Extinguished sparks are reignited between the two and they consummate what they began so many years ago.
This union is about more than lust, though.
Together, her claim to the throne wouldn’t be so easily challenged.
There’s just one problem: Laenor (John Macmillan).
Later, Laenor admits his failure to Rhaenyra.
Rhaenyra is sweet to him.
“You are an honorable man with a good heart,” she assures him.
“It is a rare thing.”
He recommits himself to her and their union.
A futile gesture, but an honorable one.
(Let us not forget thathe’s already killed one spouse.)
Still, this unsettles Rhaenyra.
She doesn’t want to be a tyrant, killing those who obstruct her path to power.
According to Daemon, there is no other way.
Rulers must be feared.
If Laenor dies, she worries, the realm “will whisper that I am somehow responsible.”
Suddenly, it dawns on her: “They will fear what else we might be capable of.”
When you’re facing as much opposition as she is, that could be a good thing.
It appears Qarl agrees, as we see him draw his sword on Laenor in Castle Driftmark.
A fight ensues as a squire watches on in horror.
They believe it to be Laenor.
Earlier in the episode, we saw dissension between Corlys and Rhaenys.
For Corlys, that doesn’t matter.
“History does not remember blood,” he says.
“It remembers names.”
With Laenor dead, the threat of his name’s longevity has been thrown even more into question.
A sad thing, then, that they don’t know Laenor is still alive.
Rhaenyra and Daemon, meanwhile, are married.
They were always meant to burn together.
