‘House of the Dragon’ Season One, Episode 9 Recap

In the Game of Thrones universe, penultimate episodes are the most likely to pummel viewers with spectacular feats of warfare choreography, or shock them with cruel twists. Ned Stark's beheading, the Battle of the Blackwater, the Battle of the Bastards, the Battle of Winterfell — they all took place in the ninth episodes of their respective seasons, upsetting the unspoken agreement with viewers that finales got all the pizzazz.

This ninth episode is a strange beast (especially considering that Miguel Sapochnik, who directed a number of the battle-heavy episodes listed above, is a showrunner for House of the Dragon). There are those dragon pyrotechnics at the end, when Meleys pummels through the masonry of the Dragonpit floor like the T. rex roaring through the banner at the end of the first Jurassic Park, but for the most part "The Green Council" is a game of cat and (drunk) mouse.

Rhaenyra doesn't make an appearance — a fitting decision, since she knows nothing of her father's death, the coup to knock her from the accession, and the mini civil war brewing inside the larger one. Instead, this episode belongs entirely to Alicent, who has come a long way from the benign little mold that the show's writers haplessly locked her into for the first half of the season. (Olivia Cooke got all the good stuff — and made the most of it.) This Alicent is calculating but sympathetic: we watch as her shell hardens and crackles over 24 hours after she learns of Viserys's death. Her tears are genuine, but so is her newfound determination to assert herself as the interpreter of her husband's, ahem, final wishes.

Even if Alicent hadn't misinterpreted Viserys's last-breath mumblings about "Aegon's dreams" and the Song of Ice and Fire, Otto and the Small Council (poor Beesbury excluded) would have routed Rhaenyra from the throne and installed Aegon the Asshole anyway: They had a plan of succession as detailed as the Queen of England's funeral cortege. (The problem with the authority of the monarch is that it's worth less than nothing after said sovereign croaks.) Alicent wants her eldest son on the Iron Throne, but is appropriately horrified by her father — her moral certitude flip flops rather realistically — and won't stand for the scheme to eliminate Rhaenyra, Daemon, and their kiddos. The paternal bond and Alicent's usefulness may be all that keep her alive as she stands in the way of (this part) of Otto's plot. Consider what happened to Lord Beesbury, whose head ends up a cracked egg on the Council's table. Dissent, quashed.

This is a campy, capey episode, and the hunt for Aegon offers abundant opportunities for courtiers and sworn swords to don their trusty hoodies. Alicent and Otto each send out a duo to search for Aegon and anoint him in the light of The Seven: as the episode stretches on it becomes more clear that this is a ruse without a point. Finding Aegon won't keep Rhaenyra alive — Alicent might have spent the time sending a thousand ravens to Dragonstone to warn the princess that she was now a marked woman. Instead, she dispatches Criston and a resentful Aemond into the city to dig up the heir unapparent. The combo is an intriguing one: Criston and Aemond both see themselves as the embodiment of valor. Criston — who has twice smashed a man's head in while others looked on — is really just a vengeful ex, but he thinks he believes in Alicent's divinity as Queen Consort. Aemond's inferiority complex is so vast that he clearly could use a 15-minute chat with Better Help, but he does make a solid point: He studies the kingdom's history, can beat practically anyone with a sword in hand, rides the largest extant dragon, and is generally more deserving of the crown. But birth order is a bitch when you’re born into the ruling class.

Speaking of birth order, Otto's emissaries to find Aegon are Sers Arryk and Erryk of House Cargyll — identical twins with a very particular mid-aughts sexy-scummy-indie-band-beard look. We’ve only briefly seen one of them once before: last episode, Alicent mistook Arryk for Erryk, which makes complete sense, considering their appearance and the fact that George R.R. Martin bestowed names on them that can only be differentiated by a tiny wiggle of the epiglottis. Then again, a mix-up may be the point of the Wakefields of Westeros.

They finally find Aegon — underneath an altar in the Sept? — thanks to … Mysaria? Who is also an advocate for disadvantaged fight club children and goes by the name the White Worm? Forgive the question marks, but this logjam is the product of some very hurried narrative swerves and a timeline so rushed that I found it easier to tell apart Arryk and Erryk than to discern what in the seven hells was going on here. Mysaria, whose accent borders on the offensive, meets with Otto (lookin’ good in a hood) to let him know that she’ll reveal Aegon's location if he shuts down the kids’ swing ring. Aemond and Criston just so happen to see this take place, in a capital city teeming with people and narrow passageways. A sword fight on the steps ensues, and Aegon ends up in Aemond's clutches.

Aegon is a begrudging king-to-be, and who can blame him? ("I have no wish to rule, no taste for duty. I’m not suited!" is a hilarious but self-aware thing to yell when someone is trying to make you the most powerful man on the continent.) Holding Blackfyre, the Valyrian steel sword wielded by Aegon the Conqueror, turns him on, though, and the pageantry gets his blood pumping. Alicent thinks she can offer him counsel (essentially, don't kill your step-aunt/half-sister) but we’ve all seen that look before. King Aegon will not be known as "the Peaceful."

Let's take a moment of silence to honor the absolute bullshittery of that express coronation. I refuse to believe that Westerosi soldiers would make a sword archway for their new king to run through, like he's coming out of the tunnel at the AFC East Championship. There was also, I shudder to remind you, some slo-mo. And lastly, Ser Criston Cole, fancy knight from nowhere, has no authority to crown the new goddamn king. HE MURDERED SOMEONE IN A MEETING YESTERDAY.

Princess Rhaenys, who had to sit around for a whole season looking justifiably irritated, finally gets her due. Her counsel to Alicent is wise — "you desire not to be free but to make a window in the wall of your prison" — and once again she makes the honorable decision, refusing to support Aegon's claim in exchange for Dragonstone, and her freedom. Bizarrely, Alicent tells her that she should have been queen, that her claim was valid and her instincts for the job better. But Rhaenys partially supports Rhaenyra because she once shared her situation. As the firstborn, Rhaenys's claim was passed over because of her gender. In a bid to woo Rhaenys, Alicent contradicts herself.

Released from her chamber by one of the Cargyll twins ("I cannot let this treachery stand"), Rhaenys is carried into the Dragonpit by the crowds. A forerunner to Cersei Lannister's devilish ingenuity, Rhaenys bets on what lies beneath the floor, and heads below to reconvene with her dragon. Flying stones and stomping dragon feet take out a few dozen commoners, but when Meleys bellows, it's more than a threat to blow the wigs off the blond usurpers on stage. It's a declaration of war.

• Rest in peace, Lord Beesbury, we hardly knew ye, and we shake our fists at how wasted Bill Paterson was in the underwritten role.

• Sorry, but that hat Criston wears as a "disguise" makes him look like a dirty condom.

• Aemond and Criston deem themselves too pure to find Aegon in King's Landing's dens of iniquity, but Arryk and Erryk discover something far more alarming than an orgy. Aegon frequents a fight club for the children of Flea Bottom, complete with sharpened nails and filed teeth. In a corner sits a dirty tow-headed toddler, one of the future king's many bastard progeny.

• "Do you love me?" "You imbecile."

• Who does Larys work for? The best guess is both Otto and Alicent; if anyone is working both channels, it's him. But only one of them pulls off her shoes and stockings so Larys can indulge his foot fetish with a little in-the-pants yank. Plenty of public servants are ready to do her bidding, but only Larys offers to off anyone (in this case, the treacherous Thalya, who spies for Mysaria), who gets in her way.

• Of course the people of King's Landing cheer when Aegon pumps his sword in the air like Rocky gone rogue. They most likely anticipated mass execution and instead they got a 30-minute break from their eternal drudgery.

• Daemon can fly through fire unscathed. But can all the Targaryens? Is that why they don't run when Meleys comes roaring through the floor? It sure seems like Rhaenys could have taken out everybody right there, but she didn't.

Update: An earlier version of this recap confused Driftmark and Dragonstone. It has been corrected.

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