I Kind of Hate ‘House of the Dragon’s Bonkers Alicent and Rhaenyra Meet Up in the Sept

House of the Dragon has always played fast and loose with Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin‘s books by design. That’s because the source material for the newest HBO series set in Westeros is a book called Fire & Blood that literally plays with the notion of false narratives, lost history, and propaganda within its very text. Martin’s own writing has given House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal free rein to suggest Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) killed Lucerys (Elliott Grihault) by accident, Rhaenys (Eve Best) crashed Aegon II’s (Tom Glynn-Carney) coronation with her dragon Meleys, and that Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke) were childhood best friends. None of these notions are found in Fire & Blood, but they help deepen the drama and heighten the stakes of the HBO show.

House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 3 “The Burning Mill” ends with one such invented scene and, for once, I find myself wondering if the writers maybe went a step too far. It’s not that I didn’t love watching two actors who sparkle opposite each other get to share the screen again. It’s just that the narrative decisions made to manufacture this non-canon meeting begin to boggle my mind the more I interrogate them.

**Spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 3 “The Burning Mill”, now streaming on Max**

House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 3 “The Burning Mill” features a bonkers secret meeting between Rhaenyra and Alicent in the middle of Kings Landing’s great sept. The plan? With Mysaria’s (Sonoya Mizuno) help, Rhaenyra has smuggled herself into the city with just like, one guy, as protection. She’s gambling on a septa’s habit to keep her safe. After all, she’s going to corner Alicent while she’s doing her sad daily prayers to the Seven to see if there’s any shot at peace at all.

Rhaenyra is able to accomplish this part of the mission and manages to sneak up on and sit next to Alicent. She then literally holds the Dowager Queen by knifepoint to ensure she doesn’t cry out that, “Hey, Rhaenyra is here.” It somehow works. I mean, I get that Alicent is all for self-preservation, but she’s also a woman in over her head, desperate to secure her family’s victory, and eager to spare the ruination of the realm. Other versions of this character would have definitely done the math and wagered that either Rhaenyra was bluffing or that their lives were both worth forfeiting to stop the war right there and then.

But let’s get back to the incomprehensible reality that in House of the Dragon, Rhaenyra’s plan works, and yet, it doesn’t.

Rhaenyra attempts to appeal to the Alicent who wrote to her in earnest looking for peace after Lucerys’s untimely death. However, the problem is that Daemon (Matt Smith) has since ordered the murder of Alicent’s grandson Jaehaerys. The dominos have already fallen. It’s too little, too late, and war is unavoidable.

Worse, perhaps, when Alicent reveals that Viserys’s (Paddy Considine) last words suggested to her that Aegon is the “Prince that Was Promised,” Rhaenyra asks if her father revealed the secret of the Song of Ice and Fire to the Hightower side of the conflict. Alicent’s dumbfounded horror confirms to Rhaenyra that there’s been a “mistake.” Alicent refutes this and slyly tells Rhaenyra to leave before she’s discovered.

So Rhaenyra’s daring mission into the heart of Kings Landing was for naught but to confirm to both Alicent and Rhaenrya that war is on, Alicent mistook Viserys’s final words, and neither of these women has a great grasp on strategy.

Look, if Alicent wants to prevent bloodshed, which she claims she does, she should have cried out. If Rhaenyra cares so much about preserving her claim, she should never have secretly put herself in danger by going to Kings Landing for this fools’ errand.

Again, it’s nice to see D’Arcy and Cooke act opposite each other, but my mind gets frazzled when I think how illogical this scene is. No one notices a random septa with silver hair is bothering the queen? Alicent keeps quiet that Rhaenyra is in Kings Landing? Rhaenyra agrees to this harebrained scheme to begin with?

If anything, it reminded me of one of the most ludicrous storylines in Game of Thrones‘s later seasons, when Dany (Emilia Clarke) dispatches a “SEAL Team” of her best warriors beyond the Wall to capture a live White Walker that they will bring to Kings Landing to show Cersei (Lena Headley). Maybe it sounded fun, but it’s absolutely bonkers from a common sense perspective. (Though, I will give House of the Dragon this, Alicent and Rhaenyra’s candlelight chat made a tad bit more sense than that storyline. A tad.)

The good news is this scene is overshadowed by an overwhelming amount of utterly cool moments in the rest of the episode. Daemon gets to deal with the creepy vibes of Harrenhal, Baela (Bethany Antonia) gets to give Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) a fright, and we get to see Aegon don the Conqueror’s Valyrian steel armor. The Alicent/Rhaenyra meet up will just exist in my mind as some sort of fan fiction moment: a feeble attempt to make Westeros’s version of Charli XCX’s “The girl, so confusing remix with lorde.”