*Spoilers up to episode 4.*
We’re at the halfway point of the season now! No apparent time-jump this time, and we’re treated to an episode with a strong mix of political maneuvering, pomp and ceremony, and Westerosi violence.
Rhaenyra has agreed to marry her cousin Laenor Velaryon, but there are extenuating circumstances. She denied the (ultimately untrue) rumors that she and Daemon hooked up in a brothel, but no one knows that she actually slept with her personal Kingsguard protector, Ser Criston, on the night in question. After Laenor’s parents consent to the engagement and the Velaryon crew comes to King’s Landing for extended nuptial celebrations, basically everything goes down.
Okay, there is so much at play here. Otto Hightower has been ousted as the Hand of the King due to coming to Viserys with the Rhaenyra/Daemon rumors that, while not entirely true, had definite substance to them, and he’s whispering in Alicent’s ear about the steps she needs to take to keep herself and her children safe from Rhaenyra’s eventual rule. Laenor’s dad Corlys hasn’t let go of the fact that Viserys married Alicent instead of Corlys’s daughter (when Laena was twelve, by the way—this show, I tell you,) and that makes the betrothal question rather fraught. Ser Criston has been agonizing over the fact that he broke his Kingsguard vow of chastity to be with Rhaenyra, and that has him swimming in guilts and doubts. And naturally, Daemon stirs the pot with his mere presence.
It’s a Seven Kingdoms wedding, so you know shit’s about to get real. We also have a goofy group dance at the feast, a perilous conversation that’s done in by a lack of proper nouns, and the lovely fact that, for all of their differences, both Viserys and Rhaenyra are united in their disdain for Jason Lannister. Ha!
Your weekly Paddy Considine detour in this week’s Other Doctor Lives: Viserys’ health is continuing to decline, which makes the vultures still circling over the issue of Rhaenyra’s succession even more pressing. The king is blatantly unwell and everybody knows it, but Viserys is still putting on a largely transparent effort to fake it when he needs to. In private, though, when it’s just him and his new Hand, he’s been thinking a lot about his mortality and his legacy. “I often think that in the crucible, I may have been forged a different man,” he rues, wondering what sort of king he might have been if he’d truly been “tested” as a conqueror or a leader in war. Viserys is weak and exhausted and falling apart, and Considine is simply killing it.
After a short but impactful scene at the start of the episode, things go quiet for a while on the Daemon front—he’s talked about, but not seen. However, the wedding festivities bring everybody into the same cauldron of simmering tension, and goodness knows Daemon isn’t going to be left out of that. Last week, Daemon was all too happy to let Viserys think he had slept with Rhaenyra, thus “ruining” her virtue and offering to marry the “soiled” former maiden. Viserys wasn’t having it, given that 1) Daemon’s already married and 2) he’s hasn’t altogether given up the Iron Throne, so he most likely sees Rhaenyra as a path to sidestepping her succession and getting it for himself. So making an appearance at Rhaenyra’s wedding feast? Awkward at best, treasonous at worst.
Other events in the episode make this situation even more tense. It’s so interesting to watch Daemon be confronted (by people other than his brother or anyone else he actually cares about.) In these scenes, I love the way Matt Smith plays him as alternately steely and playful, putting on a cavalier air as he toys with his accuser, all the while carrying an undercurrent of “just try and mess with me.”
It’s also really interesting to watch his scenes with Rhaenyra, even as they get uncomfortable—oh, those Targaryens. Both of them have the whole blood-of-the-dragon thing going on, so they’re fairly similar in temperament and Rhaenyra gives as good as she gets. That’s probably part of the reason Daemon likes her, because she’s tough and impulsive and doesn’t back down from a fight. But at the same time, when she challenges him, it sort of puts him on the wrong foot. I think he genuinely cares for her in his way, but he also feels threatened by her and she’s standing in the way of what he wants. I honestly don’t know what he’s going to do as this continues to unfold.
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