House of the Dragon recap, episode nine: Which twin is which, damn it?
Two different actors. Playing two different characters. And it was impossible to tell them apart. Such was the struggle for Thrones fans this week.
SPOILER WARNING: We shall be discussing episode nine of House of the Dragon in detail. If you haven’t seen it yet, stop reading now!
We would normally summarise the situation at the end of the previous episode in a bit more detail before launching into things, but this week it’s simple: King Viserys is dead.
Now comes the fallout.
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Episode nine recap
The episode begins with some piano from composer Ramin Djawadi, which is always a sign that serious Game of Thronesing is about to happen. And before I forget, shoutout to Djawadi for the entire score here – it’s the best we’ve heard all season.
Viserys’s death is discovered in the small hours of the morning, and is conveyed to Queen Alicent via her handmaid Talya, who we recently discovered is an informant for the spymaster Mysaria (you will remember her for her borderline unintelligible accent).
Alicent tells Talya to stay put, so the handmaid sets up a candelabra at the window of the Queen’s chamber, sending a signal to the city below.
The Queen goes straight to her father, Otto, and tells him about her last conversation with Viserys. She has taken the drugged up, incoherent ramblings of a dying man to be a clear, unequivocal instruction to put her s***head rapist son Aegon on the throne.
With that goal in the Hightowers’ minds, the Small Council meets in secret. It emerges that, unbeknownst to Alicent, her father had hatched a plan to install Aegon as king long before now, conspiring with most of the council’s members. She is not best pleased about this.
Nor is doddery old Lyman Beesbury, who refuses to believe that Viserys changed his mind about the succession and voices support for Rhaenyra’s claim – until Criston Cole, temperate as always, pulverises his face on the table.
We spent all season wondering why each council member had a little ball in front of him. Here, at last, is the answer: so one of the spheres could smoosh Lord Beesbury’s eyeball.
Tyland Lannister says the royal treasury will be divided “for safekeeping”. Meanwhile Otto intends to replace two captains of the City Watch who remain loyal to Rhaenyra’s husband, Daemon. Classic coup stuff.
He also plans to murder the Princess before she can draw support to her cause. Alicent objects to this, though when pressed, she can’t provide a better idea.
So, Otto orders the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Harold Westerling, to take a detachment of knights to Dragonstone and kill Rhaenyra. Ser Harold instead removes his white cloak and sweeps out of the room.
My main note here is that it’s nice the showrunners finally gave Harold’s criminally under-utilised actor, Graham McTavish, something to do.
Otto and Alicent emerge from the council meeting to discover an important problem: the wee prick they intend to crown is missing. Aegon slipped out of the Red Keep in the night and no one knows where to find him.
So, to sum up, both the Queen and the Hand want to make Aegon king, and to do it quickly, before Rhaenyra can learn of her father’s death and press her claim. But they disagree sharply on what to do about the Princess.
So it’s now a race. Whoever finds Aegon first can pressure him to follow their preferred course of action.
Otto turns to a pair of Kingsguard knights, the twin brothers Arryk and Erryk Cargyll. Our only previous interaction with these two was in episode eight, when Alicent got one of their names wrong. It would have been nice to have a bit more set-up, and to have given them different hairstyles or beards or something, because 99 per cent of the time they are completely indistinguishable.
Anyway it’s important to note that Ser Erryk is Aegon’s sworn protector, which means he knows the Prince and is well ware of his various, ahem, character flaws.
Alicent of course turns to her loyal knight/face splatterer Criston, who descends into the city with Aegon’s brother Aemond.
So we have the Cargyll twins looking for Aegon on Otto’s behalf, while Criston and Aemond search on the Queen’s behalf.
As each pair interacts, we learn a few things. Erryk believes Aegon is unfit to be king, while his brother Arryk thinks they should trust Otto’s judgment. And Aemond thinks he would be a far better king than his brother.
It transpires that Aegon is in the custody of Mysaria, who is of course aware of Viserys’s death, despite all the secrecy. She reveals Aegon’s location to Otto and the Cargylls in return for a promise to clean up the city’s fighting pits, where young children are being forced to maim each other for sport.
The spymaster gives Otto a warning that sounds as though it will be important going forward: the highborn players in the castle can only hold power when the people of the city allow it.
Armed with Mysaria’s information, Team Otto reaches Aegon first, but they’re followed by Team Alicent. A sword fight breaks out in which Erryk, disgusted by the Prince, abandons his brother Arryk, enabling Criston and Aemond to take Aegon back to the Queen.
While all that was happening, Alicent visited Rhaenys inside the Red Keep. The Lady of Driftmark, her loyalties unclear, had been locked in her chambers, the idea being to stop her from flying to Dragonstone and warning Rhaenyra about the Hightowers’ plot.
Alicent gave Rhaenys her best pitch, trying to convince her to join the Greens. The scene ended without Rhaenys giving an answer.
Meanwhile, in the throne room, Otto gathered all the lords and ladies of the court and told them to pledge fealty to Aegon as the new heir. A handful refused and got carted away to the dungeons.
Lord Allun Caswell, who we’ve seen be sympathetic to Rhaenyra a few times throughout the season, pretended to support Aegon before trying to flee the keep on horseback. Larys Strong stopped him. We later see that Lord Allun has been hanged.
That catches us up. So, the race ends with Aegon in Alicent’s possession. She goes to her father and tells him the plan going forward: generous terms will be sent to Rhaenyra, and Aegon will be crowned in the dragonpit at dawn in front of the peasantry.
Her son will wear the crown of his namesake Aegon the Conqueror, the first Targaryen king, not that of his father Viserys.
An exhausted Alicent returns to her chambers and finds Larys hanging out by the fireplace. You thought this guy was creepy before? Well guess what, it turns out the guy with a clubfoot is really into feet, and has been trading secrets for glimpses at the Queen’s.
In this scene, he tells Alicent about Mysaria’s network of spies inside the castle. Interestingly, Otto knows about these spies and has allowed them to remain in place – we in the audience already know he has benefited from Mysaria’s information multiple times.
Alicent tasks Larys with murdering Mysaria. We need not discuss his price.
Before dawn, Ser Erryk breaks Rhaenys out of her chamber and escorts her from the keep. He’s wearing a pouch over his armour. We don’t see what’s in it but rest assured it is not a meaningless costuming detail.
Erryk’s plan is to find a ship and sail to Rhaenyra on Dragonstone. Rhaenys doesn’t want to leave her dragon, Meleys, behind. Where is said dragon? Why, at the dragonpit, where Aegon is about to be crowned.
The pair are separated by a throng – it’s the last we see of Erryk in this episode – and Rhaenys ends up in the crowd of proles observing the coronation.
The soon-to-be king, meanwhile, is being transported to the venue in a carriage with his mother. Alicent tells him about Viserys’s supposed dying wish. The boy, at least, has the good sense to be sceptical, pointing out that his father never liked him.
The coronation takes place, and Aegon is named Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. The crowd is less than enthusiastic at first, but eventually warms to the idea, and the cheers of the common folk seem to hit the spot for Aegon – after years and years of fruitlessly craving the love of his parents, the adoration of the masses appeals to him. His reluctance to be king melts away.
But. While Aegon was being anointed, Rhaenys slipped away into the bowels of the dragonpit, and now she bursts through the floor on Meleys’ back (this moment is what Helaena’s persistent muttering about a “beast beneath the boards” was all about).
Rhaenys has a chance to immolate the entire Green faction – Aegon, Alicent, Otto, Aemond, Criston, all of them – foil the coup attempt and stamp out any possibility of war. Something stops her.
Kinslaying is an egregious crime in Westeros, so perhaps that is a factor in her thinking. She may also be reluctant to murder Alicent, who has leapt in front of Aegon to shield him, after their conversation earlier.
Whatever her reasons, Rhaenys leaves the new King untouched and flees the city on dragonback. When she reaches Dragonstone in the season finale, Rhaenyra will learn of her former friend’s treachery – and then, presumably, the Dance of the Dragons will begin.
Twitter: @SamClench
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