House of the Dragon’s director breaks down Rhaenyra and Alicent’s pivotal encounter

After several episodes, House of the DragonRhaenyra Targaryen (Emma Darcy) and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) finally reunite on screen in Season 2, Episode 3. With their relationship at the heart of the series and the civil war looming in Westeros, episode director Geeta Vasant Patel knew this encounter had to be an unforgettable one.

“We wanted it to feel monumental,” Patel told Mashable.

The realization of that monumental effect began with the scene in which Rhaenyra disguises herself as a septa and sneaks into King’s Landing to make her way to the Grand Sepulchre. It was originally written as three lines in the script and was meant to take three to four hours to film, but Patel and showrunner Ryan Condal decided to expand it to heighten the suspense.

“We shot it from every angle to make it a thriller,” Patel said of filming the scene in which Rhaenyra and Alicent arrive at the sept, which took an entire day to film. “It was like… OceanThis is the scene.

Besides thrillers, Patel has also game of thrones Moment: Cersei Lannister’s shameful walk from the Temple of Baelor to the Red Keep. “This is similar in that it’s someone staring at a destination and holding their breath in the hope that they’ll get there,” Patel explained. “So by the time she gets to the Temple, we’re already charged up.”

Patel described Rhaenyra and Alicent’s real-life conversation as “the litmus test so far,” and she, Darcy, and Cooke drew on their previous work together in season 1’s eighth episode, “The King of Tides,” in preparation for filming. That episode sees Rhaenyra and Alicent’s closest rapprochement, with Rhaenyra thanking Alicent for her loyalty to Viserys (Paddy Considine) and Alicent declaring that Rhaenyra would make a “fine queen.” In their final scene together, Rhaenyra says she will ride her dragon back to King’s Landing, alluding to their renewed bond.

The last time Rhaenyra and Alicent were together was in “The King of Tides.”
Credit: Ollie Upton / HBO

“In The Elder Scrolls of Tides, the two women make vows to each other,” Patel says, “but Rhaenyra witnesses her father prove that he loves her and that she is his heir.”

But Alicent betrayed that promise and her newfound trust when she placed King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) on the throne, upending Rhaenyra’s perception of her relationship with her father in the process. After being by her side for so long, did he really abandon her with his final breath?

That question hangs over Rhaenyra when she is reunited with Alicent. “Rhaenyra may seem like she’s come to King’s Landing to stop the war, but she’s really come to find out if her father loved her, to look Alicent in the eye and ask, ‘Have you really changed your mind?'” Patel said.

The conversation is also a chance for Rhaenyra and Alicent to remind each other of the love they once shared. “[The scene]is about Rhaenyra and Alicent’s relationship,” Patel said. “[Rhaenyra]says, ‘You promised you wouldn’t turn your back on me,’ and Alicent wants to say to her friend, ‘I never meant to do that. This is not my fault. I meant to make you queen.'”

And yet the character-driven drama of this scene leads to a revelation that may have profound effects for the entire kingdom. In an attempt to convince Rhaenyra that Viserys wanted Aegon to succeed, Alicent recounts her late husband’s dying words. Rhaenyra soon realizes that Alicent has misunderstood Aegon the Conqueror’s prophetic dream, a reference to A Song of Ice and Fire. How will Alicent respond now that she knows her grave mistake?

“Alicent getting this new information is a really important moment that she’s going to understand in future episodes,” Patel said. “In that moment, she stands her ground and she sticks to it. I think it’s very human in that way. Sometimes when someone tells us we’re wrong, we have that moment where we think, ‘No, I’m not wrong,’ and then a day later we realize, ‘I was wrong.’ It’s one of those human moments where the writers did a great job of making it nuanced in a way that we can all understand.”

For Rhaenyra, meanwhile, the realization that Alicent will never budge energizes her approach to the war going forward. “When Rhaenyra came to King’s Landing, she wanted to make a deal with Alicent. The problem is, she never offered Alicent anything. There was no collaboration, she never did anything to work together,” Patel said. “So when you come out of that scene, Rhaenyra is thinking, ‘I have no other choice. I have to go to war with you.'”

To quote Aegon II, “Then there is war.”

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