Targaryens gonna Targaryen on this week’s ‘House of the Dragon’
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[Note: Contains spoilers for the “Game of Thrones” series through Episode 4 of “House of the Dragon”]
Allow me to take a deep sigh before attempting to settle comfortably into a review of this frequently uncomfortable episode of television.
This week, well, quite frankly, Targaryens gonna Targaryen.
This family may have managed to hold onto power for several centuries in Westeros, but that’s not for lack of deceit, lying, backstabbing and general chaos.
Mixed in with all of that drama is the family’s longstanding penchant for incest. And again, at the risk of making yet another unsavory argument, there’s already precedent for that in this universe. Daenerys Targaryen was good and ready to marry her nephew at the end of “Game of Thrones.” And as many time jumps as this show has already given us, presumably both Rhaeyra and Queen Alicent are adults in the modern, legal sense of the word.
That doesn’t make me feel any better about a sex montage where our couples are a middle-aged man and his teenage queen, and an uncle with his teenage niece.
To be fair, this scene accomplishes its goal, which is to drive home Rhaenyra’s point to Alicent about the metaphorical — and semi-literal — prison that is medieval motherhood. Rhaenyra doesn’t just want to be a royal broodmare. She wants to have some agency and make her own choices. Alicent, on the other hand, finds herself in the exact stable Rhaenyra is talking about, as the king wastes no time trying to extend the family tree not long after she’s given him a second child.
More ‘House of the Dragon’ stories:
• Episode 3 review: Everyone’s on the hunt in this week’s ‘House of the Dragon’
• Episode 2 review: A good man makes a real bad decision on ‘House of the Dragon’
• Episode 1 review: ‘House of the Dragon’ gets back to the backstabbing we loved in ‘Thrones’
• TV Talk: HBO recaptures ‘Game of Thrones’ political dynamics in ‘House of the Dragon’
The fact that Rhaenyra uses this agency, and her night of freedom, to fool around with her uncle and then to bed Ser Criston Cole, should be a young woman taking control of her life. And at least her tryst with Criston is romantic (again, though, to be fair, Criston Cole doesn’t have a choice in this situation. He’s the help. Even if he doesn’t want to do this, it’s going to happen).
Her sexual interlude with Daemon in the pleasure house was icky in almost every possible way. It is difficult to imagine the pre-modern hygiene, uh, atmosphere of a King’s Landing brothel.
Daemon Targaryen continues to be a confounding presence, almost a purely chaotic character in the alternate pursuit of his own pleasure and power. He comes back with a trash crown, then immediately gives it up. He tells his niece that she needs to take control of her life and prepare for the trials of ruling a kingdom, only to take advantage of her. Maybe that’s too strong. In the parlance of the show, Rhaenyra is “a woman grown,” and she has already shown that she’s Daemon’s equal on a political level.
It takes two Targaryens to tango.
Speaking of which, the king is in bad shape. During the aforementioned sex montage, we see that not only is he losing fingers, he’s now got festering wounds all over his body. (Another contributing factor to the overall ickiness! Yes!)
He immediately balks at the idea of Rhaenyra marrying Daemon. At first, I thought that match would be a good way to solve most of his current political problems. But no. Daemon is too unpredictable. And whether or not the king believes he seduced Rhaenyra, the idea that he could — along with most of his other previous behavior on this show — means he could eventually have her under his thumb.
Rhaenyra agrees to marry Laenor Velaryon to put an end to the Daemon rumors, and she also puts into motion my favorite part of this episode.
Catch you later, Otto Hightower.
Rhys Ifans has done a great job portraying a put-upon, jumped-up second son who wants to play the game of thrones but just doesn’t quite have the finesse. King Viserys calls him to account for scheming to undermine Rhaenyra’s place as heir, takes the Hand’s pin rather unceremoniously and sends him hobbling back to his brother Hobert.
And now the real scheming can begin.
In the streets of King’s Landing, Rhaenyra got a public survey of what people think when it comes to a queen on the Iron Throne. She might be “the Realm’s delight,” but primogeniture is just as delighted to rear its ugly head. That unpopularity clearly extends to other lords like Hobert. At the end of the day, dumping Otto as Hand is just another bad decision for Viserys, who is sending Otto home to his brother with all of his knowledge about the royal family, and with his daughter as the king’s only confidant.
If Viserys were smart, he’d send Daemon on a mission to root out the Hoberts of the kingdom and set them straight by whatever means necessary. That would be a good use of Daemon’s unique talents, and it would get him out of King’s Landing without forcing him home to his wife … speaking of which, I pray that nobody has to actually portray that poor woman, who has been the subject of nothing but awful insults for four episodes now. It would actually be great if she turned out to be a truly beautiful woman, but maybe she’s a redhead, and Daemons just hates red hair. That would be a very Daemon Targaryen move.
Next week is going to set up a real romantic quadrangle between Daemon, Ser Criston, Rhaenyra and her soon-to-be-official beau, Leanor Velaryon. Question: when two dragon-riders get married, do they tie metal wine goblets to the back of their dragons and fly off to their honeymoon?
“House of the Dragon” airs Sunday nights on HBO Max.