House of the Dragon recap: Aegon rages as Rhaenyra discovers Daemon’s betrayal

As a maid rushes bloodied bed linens from Prince Jaehaerys’ nursery, chaos reigns in the Red Keep. Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) howls, “I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them all!” as he destroys the model of King’s Landing his father, Viserys, spent so many hours building. Whether he’s mourning for the boy or not, he knows such a deadly strike on his house shows his weakness as king. “Traitors and villains! They dare strike at me! I am the King! This is war! I declare war!” he bellows as his servants try to calm him down.

As Aegon rages, his brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) finds evidence in his chamber that he might have been the assassin’s intended target. It’s unclear whether he passes that information on to anyone else in the Red Keep, but even if he did, Otto (Rhys Ifans) soon realizes they should use the gruesome deed to the Greens’ advantage and blame the crime on Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy). 

When the furious Aegon calls a Small Council meeting, he wants to know where they all were when the assassins were threatening their king – no matter that he was drunk in the throne room when the killers walked right past him. Criston “the Worst” Cole (Fabien Frankel) comes in for an especially harsh dragging for his absence in the royal family’s hour of need – though he was certainly filling Alicent’s need at the time –  and Aegon is about to start on his guilty-feeling mother when Larys (Matthew Needham) interrupts. He tells the king they caught one of the assassins trying to escape King’s Landing with little Jaehaerys’ head in a sack. Aegon wants the man’s blood, but Otto wants information about who ordered the murder. 

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Otto explains to the king that “Jaehaerys will do more for us now than a thousand knights in battle.” The crime is so horrendous that the realm will rally to their side. He proposes they give the young prince a funeral procession worthy of a Targaryen so the smallfolk can see what Rhaenyra’s treachery has wrought. Alicent and Helaena (Phia Saban) will follow behind the body because “the realm must see the sorrow of the crown, a sorrow best expressed through its most gentle souls.” 

Queasy about blaming Rhaenyra without cause, Alicent reluctantly agrees with her father’s plan and must convince the fragile Helaena that this public display of grief is part of their duty since “a blow to the king is a blow to the realm.” While the procession works as expected on the smallfolk, who condemn Rhaenyra and cleave to their mourning queen, it’s hell on the panicking Helaena. She finds no comfort from Aegon, who walks right past her afterward without a word of consolation.

Aegon has just come from murdering the assassin Blood (Sam C. Wilson) after he readily confesses that Daemon Targaryen sent them to do the foul deed. When Aegon finds out the other assassin was a ratcatcher employed by the family, he has every single one of them – including Cheese (Mark Stobbart) – hanged before their weeping wives and mothers. There goes all that goodwill he just built up with the smallfolk. 

Meanwhile, Criston the Worst has been grappling with his failure to protect the king’s heir, but projects his own guilt onto everyone else, from Rhaenyra to his Kingsguard. After watching Jaehaerys’ bloodied bed dragged from the nursery, he turns his fury outward and goads Ser Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor) into traveling to Dragonstone. In the guise of his identical twin Ser Erryk (Elliot Tittensor), Arryk can kill Rhaenyra and end this war. Arryk knows this is a suicide run but feels he needs to uphold his family’s honor after Erryk fled to Rhaenyra’s side with her father’s crown.  

When Otto hears about the death of the ratcatchers and the stunt with Ser Arryk, he hits the ceiling of the Red Keep. He yells at Aegon for throwing away the approval he bought with his child’s blood. Aegon has had about enough of his grandfather’s hectoring ways. “I wish to spill blood, not ink!” 

Otto invokes the much-missed wisdom and forbearance of Aegon’s father, Viserys. When Aegon points out his father made him king, Otto snarls back, “Is that what you think?” For this insolence, Aegon strips Otto of his office and makes Criston Hand of the King in his place. 

After hearing what Aegon has done and that Otto is leaving to see if Alicent’s third son Daeron (he lives!) has any more sense than his brothers, Alicent finds Aegon weeping over his father’s ring, but turns away before offering words of comfort. Though she and Criston have been trying to resist each other out of guilt, when she finds him in her chambers, she slaps him repeatedly before they succumb to frantic sex. Though it’s clear this is an act of lust for Alicent, keeping the new Hand of the King in her thrall might be the best way of keeping Aegon under her control.  

Rhaenyra’s horror reveals a betrayal close to home

Back at Dragonstone, Rhaenyra is clearly horrified that she’s being blamed for Jaehaerys’ death. Her council openly doubts her innocence before Rhaenys (Eve Best) reminds them to mind themselves. Even if Rhaenyra had no part to play, the Great Houses won’t rally to a woman accused of beheading a babe in his bed. Westeros has seen a lot of bad behavior from their royal family, but that is a step too far. 

Daemon (Matt Smith) remains mysteriously quiet during the whole meeting until Rhaenyra realizes he’s the culprit behind the murder. In private, they have a huge blowout that’s been a long time coming and winds up being a spectacular acting showcase for D’Arcy and Smith. Although he’s blown a gigantic hole into his wife’s claim to the throne, Daemon claims it isn’t his fault that the two idiots he hired killed the wrong prince. Rhaenyra looks like she wants to decapitate him in return. She realizes she can no longer trust him, admitting, “I never trusted you, wholly, much though I wished to, willed myself to.”

It’s clear as they fight that even if he did place the crown on her head, Daemon still thinks of the Iron Throne as his birthright and not hers. He believes he would have been a better ruler than Viserys, Rhaenyra, or Aegon – though that one is a low bar – and Smith’s previous work as Prince Philip on The Crown makes the scene an interesting echo of the fights he had with another queen in another time. Since the claim to the throne is in contention, Rhaenyra realizes her husband might claim it for himself. Trust permanently broken between them, Daemon storms off and leaves Dragonstone for Harrenhal on the back of Caraxes.

A distraught Rhaenyra tends to her young blonde sons, Viserys II and Aegon III. It's obvious she’s deeply bothered by what befell Jaehaerys and worries for her children. She refuses to let Jace (Harry Collett) ride his dragon Vermax to keep an eye on King’s Landing and instead sends Daemon’s daughter Baela on Moondancer. Baela and Jace’s easy conversation about Jace’s father Laenor and his biological father Harwin Strong demonstrates that not only are they too sane for this family, they might be too decent for Westeros as well. 

Though Daemon left Dragonstone in a huff, Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) still remains and is brought before Rhaenyra to answer for her participation in the Blood and Cheese plot, which she disavows. Rhaenyra soon discovers that Mysaria was Daemon’s intended bride those long years ago when he stole a dragon egg for his supposed son. Despite that fact, Rhaenyra realizes that Mysaria has been surviving on her wits in this harsh realm and earns her grudging respect. She grants Mysaria’s release, not yet knowing that this act of grace will save her life.     

As Mysaria departs Dragonstone, she sees Ser Arryk Cargyll arrive by boat. Having just left Ser Erryk’s company, she realizes what is about to happen. Rhaenyra has already had a horrible, no good, very bad day and can’t sleep as Ser Arryk infiltrates her chambers. Since she’s awake, she scrambles out of bed as Ser Erryk, seemingly alerted by Mysaria, rushes in to confront his brother. The twins clash steel on steel, and it’s hard to keep track of which Cargyll is which. Another member of the Queensquard arrives to keep Rhaenyra out of harm's way, but after Erryk kills Arryk, he, in despair at having killed his twin, kills himself with his own blade. If these are the types of plans Criston the Worst is about to unleash as Hand of the King, Westeros is in for a very bloody Dance.   

Notes from the Archmaester

• After meeting Alyn of Hull in the last episode, this week we meet his brother, Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), who has a prophetic sighting of Laenor Velaryon’s old dragon, Seasmoke.
• It’s clear the Hulls are related to Corlys, but whether they are his illegitimate offspring or another from House Velaryon is still unclear.
• Otto mentioned the long-unseen Daeron Targaryen this week, but since his casting hasn’t been announced yet, we might not see him until season 3. 
• It wouldn’t be a Game of Thrones show without a visit to a brothel, and this week, we saw Aemond has developed a relationship with the older prostitute who recognized him last season when he was looking for his brother. He admits to her that he feels bad about Luke’s death and she reminds him that it’s the smallfolk who suffer when princes misbehave. 
• Book readers know the part Aegon III plays in Targaryen history, so Rhaenyra handing him a dragon to play with was a nice bit of symbolism.