After last week’s House of the Dragon , the charge of that secret sept meeting lingered. It was bold enough for Rhaenyra to just go, to broker the entire operation through Mysaria’s whispers and leave her advisory council lost in their endless arguments over strategy. But what really stuck was how Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke played it.
The shock of that first contact, as it gave way to the shared intimacy of their former lives as friends, before a total collapse into the personal and political realities of the current schism. Death was definitely a participant in Rhaenyra and Alicent’s dialogue. But what will linger from HOTD Season 2 Episode 4 is all of the dying at full volume, as dragons and their riders go beast mode on one another over a traditional field of battle.
Used to be you could bring your own battering ram, outlast your target’s archers, and breach a castle’s defenses. But winning a battle with siege weapons, infantry, and cavalry isn’t as simple with no less than three dragons duking it out in the skies above. As pure spectacle, the Battle at Rook’s Rest promises thrills to come.
But its outcome has massive implications for rule over Westeros and the deadly dramas of this fantasy world we can’t stop watching. But first! Milly Alcock returns again to HOTD as the Ghost of Rhaenyra Past, and she’s putting into words the thoughts Daemon doesn’t wish to confront. “You created me,” she tells him as she sits on a version of the Iron Throne.
.
