After the season premiere brought the long-awaited Battle of the Gorge, Dragon House kept the momentum going with this week’s “Queen’s Landing.” We saw some important meetings and some surprising displays of grief.
In a recent Dragon House press day attended by io9 and other journalists, cast members Matt Smith (Daemon Targaryen), Emma D’Arcy (Rhaenyra Targaryen), Olivia Cooke (Alicent Hightower), Steve Toussaint (Lord Corlys Velaryon) and Abubakar Salim (Alyn of Hull) talked about the monumental moments their characters faced in episode two.
Perhaps the only truly heartwarming moment of the entire episode was when Corlys, who managed to survive the Battle of Gullet, although his castle, High Tide, did not, cemented his relationship with Alyn and Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), his illegitimate children whom he is finally embracing. Her granddaughter, Baela (Bethany Antonia), who lost her fiancé, Rhaenyra’s eldest son Jace, in battle, is also part of this newly formed family unit.
“I think in a moment of sobriety…Corlys would be pleased,” Toussaint said of Sea Snake forging relationships with his previously estranged relatives. “I don’t know if he’ll still be there when we have that scene. I think he’s still grieving the loss, not just of his wife and stuff, but of (High Tide),” Toussaint said.
“But I think for someone who at this stage is learning the importance of human and family connection, I think he would be happy. I mean, he offered the ‘inheritance’ to Baela initially in the second season, (but) she says, ‘I’m not right for that.’ So I think he longs for a connection. I think after Rhaenys passes away, he gets agitated, just looking for something to hold on to. So I think he would like that. I think it would be ideal to create something new.”
Salim thinks Alyn has an equally optimistic feeling. “I think for Alyn there’s a sense of not necessarily peace, but I think it’s a step toward peace. And I think there’s a real recognition of that, a recognition of, like, ‘Look, it’s still a journey, but what a journey to be a part of now… at least we’re not doing this alone, Addam and I; we’re doing it together because of what we’ve been through,'” he said.
“I think also as an audience, as an actor watching it, it’s the only peaceful family, the only family that’s united, a hopeful family, (outside) all these other horrible families that are spread across Westeros. So yeah, it’s really, it’s a really beautiful, hopeful moment.”
Much less hopeful in episode two is Rhaenyra, whose quest to become Queen of the Seven Kingdoms takes another detour when she discovers that Jace has been murdered. Sure, he defied her and forced her to stay locked in her room while he went off to battle, but it’s a tough blow to lose another child.
In “Queen’s Landing,” D’Arcy is given a lot of space to inhabit Rhaenyra’s pain. Still, that didn’t make it any easier for them to perform the scene.
“If I’m honest, it’s the one scene in the show that I kind of dreaded filming and was pretty evasive about for a while,” D’Arcy admitted. “But part of that is because the relationships we have on the show and the friendships we form are very real… There’s always an art-imitating-life aspect to a character’s death because we lose a member of the troupe, and so those days necessarily have an atmosphere. I think for Rhaenyra, Jace’s death is an insurmountable loss, honestly. I think it’s unprocessable, and I think there’s something very brutal about her paying the ultimate price for her ambition even before fulfill its objective.” He sat (on) the throne. It feels like a particularly harsh sentence for the character, but I think that actually grief sometimes simplifies things, and in the scenes that follow, I think it offers him a kind of nihilism in that final part of the journey.
Another great Dragonstone moment comes when Daemon, Rhaenyra’s perpetually absent husband, returns from Harrenhal to support her in her plan to take King’s Landing. He’s been away so long that he doesn’t realize that his former lover and conspirator, Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), is now deeply embedded in Rhaenyra’s inner circle.
For his part, Smith was thrilled to further explore the inevitable tensions that arise once he realizes that Mysaria and Rhaenyra now have their own special relationship. Is Daemon jealous of this development? Suspicious? It’s a little bit of both, Smith said.
“I always pushed the writers to explore that particular trio of relationships because I think it’s really entertaining dramatically,” Smith explained. “And I think Sonoya is such a beautiful, sharp actress that I love being on screen with her. And I think, strangely, Mysaria really brought Daemon out of his pain with his brother in some ways and really strengthened him, and there was a whole world in which he could have fled to the mountains with her. There is a deep, very, very deep affection for her even though there is a sense of betrayal. So I think it’s a many-edged sword, it’s not even It’s double-edged, it’s triple-edged, you know what I mean? It’s really complicated and there’s a charge of energy when all three of them are in the room.”
Speaking of energy shifts in the room, io9 had to ask Cooke exactly what expression is on Alicent’s face at the end of “Queen’s Landing.” She has just been brought to the throne room and sees, in quick succession, Rhaenyra sitting on the Iron Throne… and her missing father, Otto, lying dead on the floor with his head newly separated from his body.
What does Alicent feel at that moment? It’s simple, according to Cooke.
“Actually, I think it’s white-hot anger,” Cooke said. “Alicent doesn’t know if Otto has been Rhaenyra’s prisoner this whole time, and this is the first thing he’s done as ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, this big, flashy political act. She has no idea. And she also doesn’t know if the deal he made (with) Rhaenyra has been fulfilled on his end: has he just been another pawn in someone else’s game? So I think she’s just saying, ‘Okay, well, fuck you, it’s on.'”
We’ll find out what happens next Sunday, when a new episode of Dragon House arrives.
Want more io9 news? See when to expect the latest Wonder, star warsand trip to the stars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe in film and televisionand everything you need to know about the future of doctor who.
