The mourning after
We are in Driftmark and will be here for most of the episode. The late, extra-crispy Laena, self-burninated last week, is laid to rest as our main characters and their children gather at the edge of the sea. We don’t see the body (or what’s left); her coffin is sarcophagus-style with a carved face and body. Laena’s uncle, Vaemond Velaryon, reads the eulogy in the Valyrian tongue as we glimpse all the mourners, including Otto Hightower, again wearing his jaunty Hand of the King pin. Was there no other qualified job candidate on ZipRecruiter? Vaemond talks about Velaryon blood and how it must never thin. Everyone shifts and looks uncomfortable, given all the recent alliances-by-marriage, except for Daemon who just giggles. Ropes pull Laena’s sea-cophagus past the edge of a platform where it falls into the water. Does it float away majestically into the distance or catch fire? No. It sinks right at the edge of the shore, straight down, like someone’s old boot. She’s now Laena the bottom of the sea.
The worst-ever wake goes on for 10 minutes of screen time with everyone giving pointed looks, especially Rhaenyra and Daemon, who avoid each other across the outdoor plaza. Alicent’s spooky daughter Helaena plays with a spider as her brothers Aegon and Aemond ponder whether they’re supposed to marry her. Aegon, who keeps sexually harassing servants, gets drunk on wine. Jace is asked by Rhaenyra to comfort Laena’s daughters, but he’s upset about his own father’s recent death. Laena’s daughters do bond with Jace, especially the taller of the twins, Baela, who holds his hand. Meanwhile Corlys talks to Jace’s younger brother Luke (short for Lucerys), telling him that when Jace is king, he’ll lead Driftmark as Lord of the Tides, just like Corlys. Luke doesn’t want that. He says that if he’s in charge of Driftmark, that means everyone’s dead. Well, that’s the Westeros way.
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Laenor, out of sorts, is waist-high in water at the shore, crying. Corlys notices and angrily sends Qarl Correy to go retrieve his “patron” which is Westeros for “secret boyfriend.”
Viserys asks Daemon to come back home to King’s Landing. Daemon says his home is in Pentos now and he refuses a return to the king’s court. Rhaenyra notices Daemon leaving and follows him out. The king, exhausted, tells Alicent he’s going inside to bed, but calls her “Aemma,” the previous queen. Viserys is like milk five years past the expiration date.
Down the stone stairs, Otto finds Aegon slumped over drunk. He kicks the boy and drags him back upstairs. The sun has disappeared and the lighting is murky and dim like they’re doing a “Dolores Claiborne” crossover.
In the main court, Corlys and Rhaenys argue. Laena’s mother laments that her daughter wanted to return home, but Daemon denied her. Corlys defends Daemon, saying her death wasn’t anyone’s fault but the gods. Rhaenys wants Laena’s line of succession to pass to Laena’s daughter Baela, not to brother Laenor as planned. Rhaenys says they should declare it while everybody’s at Driftmark, to honor their daughter’s memory. A second ago, she wasn’t concerned with legacy or ruling, but now Rhaenys says Laenor’s kids aren’t part of the Velaryon bloodline. She takes Corlys’s hands, but he pulls them away roughly, saying history doesn’t remember blood, it remembers names. How about the name Rude Husband of Driftmark?
The inevitable coupling
Rhaenyra and Daemon walk on the beach for what feels like hours. They restate a lot of what we already know or could guess: the princess and Laenor did try to conceive children of their own, unsuccessfully. Daemon floats the theory that Alicent was responsible for the deaths of Harwin and Lyonel Strong, something Rhaenyra doesn’t want to believe. The princess is bitter that Daemon abandoned her at King’s Landing when she was a girl. She wants to know If Daemon loved Laena. “We were happy enough,” he mutters. Then, exactly as expected, they’re engaging in fiery dragon smoochie-smoochies, right out in the open for everyone to see (if it wasn’t so dark). They find a convenient nearby beach shelter in which to have sex. Daemon seems to perform fine; perhaps someone gave him a blue pill made from dragon tooth.
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How to train your dead aunt’s dragon
A confused and shaken Aemond witnesses the pair go off together. He goes to the beach where Laena’s enormous dragon, Vhagar, is sleeping. It awakens, training a huge eye on the boy. Aemond stands his ground even as the dragon sniffs at him. Vhagar tries to go back to sleep, but the boy keeps pestering. Annoyed, the dragon revs up to breathe fire, but Aemond raises a hand and yells Valyrian. The boy and dragon are face-to-face. They bond. Aemond climbs the dragon, commanding it to fly, and suddenly he’s the luckiest boy in the world. Laena’s daughters witness him taking off with their mom’s dragon and he almost falls off, but it’s still a thrilling ride. Aemond screams during a huge dive and is nearly killed by a flock of birds, but he’s a long way from being teased with a winged pig.
The fallout over this dragon ride begins. As Aemond leaves the dragon to go inside the castle with the swagger of a boy who just got all his Christmas and birthday gifts at once, he’s confronted by Laena’s daughters, plus Jace and Luke. The younger sister, Rhaena, says the dragon was her mother’s and hers to claim. Aemond, with no shame to speak of, says she should have done so sooner. He’s got a pig she can ride. “It would suit you,” he tells her. She lunges for him, but he knocks her down. Baela punches Aemond in the face. He punches her right back. All the kids gang up to administer a beatdown on Aemond. He fights them off enough to grab Luke by the neck and threaten him with a stone to the face. He says, cruelly, that the boy will die in flames just like his father. Jace pulls a knife but drops it when he’s attacked by Aemond. Jace throws sand in Aemond’s eyes while Luke grabs the knife and slashes. The knife cuts a screaming Aemond right across the face, including his left eye; blood pours through his fingers. Finally, knights arrive to break up the fight.
More knives out
Viserys, who could have avoided all this drama by dying 10 years earlier, is furious. He blames his knights for not watching over the children. Aemond’s wound is being treated but he’s lost the eye. Alicent slaps Aegon for getting drunk instead of guarding his brother. Corlys and Rhaenys show up, followed by Rhaenyra and Daemon. It’s a full-blown family reunion. All the children, plus Alicent, start screaming accusations, causing the king to demand silence. Rhaenyra and Alicent keep going, accusing each other’s kids, but it all comes back to the huge dead elephant in the room: the parentage of Rhaenyra’s sons. Which, really, isn’t what the fight was about, but leave it to Rhaenyra to put the king in the position of having to acknowledge that Laenor isn’t their biological father. Rhaenyra calls it treason to even talk about it and tries to trap Alicent into admitting she spread the rumor. Alicent asks for Laenor to speak, but he’s conspicuously absent.
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The king questions Aemond about the rumor, trying to get him to say where he heard it. The boy glances at his mother Alicent, but doesn’t name her. He says Aegon instead. The king angrily goes at Aegon, who says, “We know, father. Everyone knows. Just look at them.” The king ignores that and quickly changes the subject. He wants the infighting to stop. “We are a family!” he yells, to a boy with one eye, two feuding moms, parents who just lost their daughter, and Daemon the sociopath. The king demands apologies all around. Alicent, teary and fed up, says that’s not enough. She wants the debt repaid. She wants the eye of one of Rhaenyra’s boys, like a proper Disney villain. Viserys thinks that’s going way too far. Alicent, undeterred, commands Ser Criston Cole to go pluck the eye of young Luke. Cole wisely stays put.
In a callback to last week’s glossectomy scene, the king says anyone who talks about the boys’ parentage will have their tongue removed. Just as Rhaenyra thanks her dad and turns away, Alicent grabs the family dagger from the king’s side and gets stabby. Cole tries to intervene but is body- blocked by Daemon. Viserys and Otto all tell Alicent to release the blade as the queen and the princess struggle. Alicent lobs accusations at Rhaenyra, but Rhaenyra shoots back that now everyone sees Alicent as she really is. As they disengage, the blade slashes Rhaenyra badly on the arm. Alicent finally drops the dagger. Aemond breaks the long silence that follows. He says it was a fair exchange: he lost an eye but gained a dragon. The king declares that this is now over, which would have been nice 10 minutes ago. Aemond comes to Alicent, laying his head on his mother’s shoulder.
Everyone’s plotting
Later, Otto drops in on Alicent in private. She thinks he’s there to lecture her, but it’s just the opposite. Otto is thrilled to have seen her ferocity. “We play an ugly game,” he tells her. “Hollywood Game Night”? He finally sees in Alicent a determination to win. Otto advises being penitent. By the way, Aemond’s new dragon is worth 1,000 lost eyes, in Otto’s opinion.
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Rhaenyra’s gigantic arm wound is being sewn up. She looks like Sally from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Laenor appears. He missed the drama of his son’s nose getting broken and his wife almost bleeding to death. He’s got regrets, from not defending his sister to maybe not loving his kids enough. Rhaenyra brings up their failed attempts to conceive. “I hate the gods for making me as they did,” he laments. His wife thinks he’s a good man with a good heart, and it’s rare. Laenor knows things aren’t working; he wants to recommit to their home instead of running off with Qarl to The Stepstones. Rhaenyra isn’t thrilled by that.
In the carriage ride on the way to the boat to leave Driftmark, Alicent apologizes to a sickly looking Viserys. As the ship carrying the king leaves Driftmark, dragons follow. On the boat, sneaky Lord Larys offers his services again to Alicent. She says it’s not necessary, but thanks him for his (treacherous) service. “I shall await your call, my queen,” he says, with a simpering smile.
The brisk, convoluted path to marriage
On the shore, Rhaenyra and Daemon watch the ship leave. They talk about fire and the sea, but really they’re forming a plan. “I need you, uncle,” the princess says. “Let us bind our blood,” she adds in Valyrian. She wants Daemon as her husband and king consort. But … what about Laenor?
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Daemon approaches Ser Qarl at The Stepstones and explains to him that with great riches someone could disappear across the sea. He wants Qarl to offer a quick death to someone, one with witnesses. Daemon kills a man on some stairs and takes the body to set up the real plan: Qarl fights Laenor in the same great hall where Corlys usually presides. Qarl says, “You have always looked down on me,” and they sword fight. We hear Daemon in voice-over tell Rhaenyra to “set him free.” A boy watching the fight runs to get guards. Corlys, Rhaenys and guards arrive a short time later only to find a burned body in the fireplace. They think it’s Laenor.
Daemon and Rhaenyra get married in a ceremony that involves cutting the middle bottom of their lips and kissing. Their four children witness the ceremony. They passionately embrace.
At the shore, two men get on a small rowboat together. Qarl is with Laenor, his head shaved, off to start a new future together. They faked Laenor’s death and freed Rhaenyra up to marry Daemon. So much plot, chewed up so quickly! If your head is spinning, that’s a feature, not a bug.
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