*Premise spoilers, which include spoilers up through episode 5.*
In talking about House of the Dragon’s time jumps, I’ve previously brought up Downton Abbey, but in this episode, we take a step Downton Abbey never tried: a single jump large enough to prompt recasting several major characters and using makeup to visibly age others. We’ve moved ahead ten years since episode 5, and let’s just say all is not harmonious.
Rhaenyra has just given birth to her third child, which only furthers the ongoing tensions between her and Alicent. The queen, who already knows about the princess’s youthful tryst with Ser Criston, can’t help but notice that none of Rhaenyra’s kids have the Targaryen/Velaryon white-blond hair, and she’s adamant that this is a brazen insult to the crown. Meanwhile, off in Pentos, Daemon and his second wife Laena Velaryon are also preparing for their third kid, considering the possibilities for their future.
After taking us through the first half of the season, Milly Alcock and Emily Carey are out as Rhaenyra and Alicent, replaced by Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke as the adult versions of their characters. That’s a tricky move to pull with two of the show’s leads, but on the whole, I think it comes off well. Cooke looks pretty similar to Carey, so that transition was easy to buy on a visual level. I’m disappointed that, ten years later, Alicent has only gotten angrier and more resentful toward Rhaenyra—she’s also teamed up with Ser Criston, who’s definitely revealed the hateful side of his Nice Guy self. Meanwhile, I feel like I need to see more of D’Arcy to really get a feel for their take on Rhaenyra, just because she’s a character with a lot of sides to her, and we haven’t seen all of them from D’Arcy yet. But they definitely know how to portray Rhaenyra’s stubbornness and fire. This is a Rhaenyra who, upon hearing that the queen has commanded to see her newly delivered baby, is prepared to limp through the palace to Alicent’s chambers with the placenta still inside her. She takes every opportunity to be ferocious, good god.
As both Alicent and Rhaenyra now have children old enough to be genuine characters, we see some more of them as well. Prince Aegon and Rhaenyra’s boys bully Alicent’s youngest, and Ser Criston, who’s in charge of teaching them swordplay, bullies Rhaenyra’s boys. It’s all highly unpleasant and toxically masculine—Aegon is quite the little shit in particular. However, these scenes do finally give us some scenes at the Targaryen dragon pit, which is pretty cool.
The biggest surprise of the preview for episode 6 was the fact that Viserys was still going to be alive. After episode 5 had him coughing, having nose bleeds, and fainting—the trifecta of Impending TV Death!—I thought there was no way he was going to make it another ten years. But my favorite ineffectual king is still hanging in there! Viserys is feebler than ever and struggles with a lot of basic duties. While Alicent’s presence at the small council meetings is likely motivated by her desire to keep a paranoid eye on Rhaenyra, it’s probably justified by saying she’s there because Viserys can’t manage on his own. But even though Viserys was never a strong-willed king and is most definitely fading, he still has a little fight in him. Once again, he’s able to summon some strength to protect Rhaenyra from injurious rumors, and I love the way he simply refuses to let people get away with unspoken insinuations. We saw it with Otto in episode 4 and we see it again here. Whenever people try to dance around a subject and make knowing allusions, Viserys looks them in the eye and dares them to say it out loud. It’s such an interesting quality of his, and Paddy Considine does a masterful job playing it.
Like I said, Daemon is currently in Pentos. At the wedding in episode 5, he and Laena started getting cozy, and here, we see them with two girls and another child on the way. Not that’s it’s the most loving of relationships. When Laena points out that he’s restless, saying, “You do not sleep!”, he snaps back, “How can I with you haunting my every move?”
It seems they’ve spent the last ten years traveling (mostly outside of Westeros?) After being offered a chance to put down roots in Pentos, Daemon is considering it while Laena longs to return home. This is a Daemon we haven’t quite seen before. He claims to be glad to be away from “the political scheming, the endless shifting of loyalties and succession.” And I’m not sure what to make of it. I mean, does that sound like the Daemon Targaryen you know? Yes, Daemon never had patience for the small council’s politicking, but he’s always been a game-player and a shit-stirrer. Am I really to believe he’s content so far from the action?
But maybe the time away has mellowed him? Certainly, Matt Smith is playing him, on the whole, like a more subdued Daemon; I don’t see the same prowling look in his eye or his posture. One especially interesting moment comes when Laena declares, “We are the blood of Old Valyria. We don’t belong here.” Calmly, he responds, “Valyria is gone, we don’t belong anywhere.” Again, that doesn’t sound like Daemon, who we’ve often seen preoccupied with his place and what’s owed to him based on who he is. But it’s an introspective line, one that makes one wonder.
He’s too good as a wildcard to be permanently taken off the board, so I’ll sure he’ll be back in the thick of things much sooner rather than later, but for now, it’s intriguing to see a Daemon who says he’s no longer interested in playing the game, even if that’s still him trying to convince himself.
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