The week the place we have now to say goodbye to Home of the Dragon’s Milly Alcock and Emily Carey and welcome in Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke within the roles of the older Rhaenyra and Alicent, respectively.
Thank The Seven, D’Arcy and Cooke each slide seamlessly into the characters we already know, although each the princess and the queen have barely more durable edges now {that a} decade has handed between Episodes 5 and 6.
However the actress swap is basically the smallest deal on this hour FULL OF DEALS, together with Rhaenyra’s post-birth trek by the Pink Maintain and that end-of-hour revelation about how devious Larys actually is.
Learn on for the highlights of Episode 6.
IT’S A BOY! | We hear D’Arcy’s Rhaenyra moaning earlier than we see her, and after we do see her, she’s in precisely the spot she’s lengthy feared: giving delivery. She’s attended by septas and all the pieces goes in keeping with plan; she labors for a second or two, then her son is born, and all is effectively. Rhaenyra appears to be like completely happy and drained and sweaty as she cradles him to her, however the postnatal buzz is harshed when a servant arrives and publicizes that the queen desires the child dropped at her. So Rhaenyra rises to dress, and doesn’t even cease when she delivers the afterbirth standing, as a result of there’s no manner in hell she’s not accompanying her minutes-old son.
Laenor (now performed by Chewing Gum’s John Macmillan) meets her within the hallway, joyful about their child, perplexed by the queen’s request and unable to cease himself from asking a boneheaded query. “Was it terribly painful?” he wonders, and the look Rhaenyra offers him is GOLD. We get the sense that they’re very a lot nonetheless pleasant with one another; when she periodically has to cease and take a breath whereas her uterus freaks out in her stomach, he begs her to show round. However she presses on, whilst everybody they go stops to stare. “That is absurd,” Laenor says. And but, they march on, working into Ser Criston (nonetheless Fabien Frankel) at his publish outdoors the queen’s quarters.
Inside, the queen instantly notes that Rhaenyra needs to be resting. “I’ve little doubt that you’d choose that, your grace,” the princess shoots again. A startlingly old-looking Viserys enters and begins cooing over his grandson, whom Laenor publicizes will likely be known as Joffrey, although that doesn’t appear to have been a joint choice. “I do imagine he has his father’s nostril,” the king notes, and the LOOKS that go amongst Alicent, Rhaeynra and Laenor are one thing. “Do preserve making an attempt, Ser Laenor,” Alicent whispers to the brand new dad earlier than he leaves. “Ultimately you may get one that appears such as you.”
Trailing blood everywhere in the hallway on their manner again, Rhaenyra takes Laenor to job for naming the child with out consulting her. Then they go to their two different sons, who’re hanging out with Ser Harwin and who’ve chosen a dragon’s egg for his or her little brother’s cradle. Talking of LOOKS, there are some mighty vital ones that go between the princess and Ser Harwin “Breakbones” Sturdy, who’s the commander of the Metropolis Watch. And the older boys definitely don’t have Laenor’s coloring. Hmmm.
AN OPEN SECRET | Rhaenyra and Laenor’s older sons undergo coaching within the dragonpit with Viserys and Alicent’s sons Aegon and Aemond. Aemond is the one one and not using a dragon, and the opposite boys mock him for it. So after they depart, he creeps down into the warren the place the dragons dwell and virtually will get flambeed for his troubles. When Alicent finds out, she desires Viserys to do one thing about Rhaeynra’s youngsters (though Aegon was simply as complicit within the taunting). Then she brings up the not-so-hidden secret that every one three of Rhaenyra’s sons look nothing like their father. “Nature is a factor of mysterious works,” he says, however she gained’t be swayed. So he flat-out says “Don’t converse of this once more,” and she or he’s left to vent to Ser Criston. “The Princess Rhaenyra is brazen and relentless, a spider who stings and sucks her prey dry,” calling her a spoiled see-you-next-Tuesday earlier than remembering that he’s speaking to the queen — who, for the document, doesn’t appear bothered and undoubtedly thinks the identical factor. Additionally, Criston, honey? GET OVER IT.
Ugh, Aegon is masturbating as he stands, bare, within the window of his bed room when Alicent barges in, inflicting him to cease and fumble for canopy as he falls into the room. (Good individuals of the Pink Maintain’s decrease ranges, might ye by no means know what ye barely escaped.) She warns him to be nicer to his brother, stridently reminds him that everybody apart from Rhaenyra thinks he’s the successor to the throne, then instructs him to dress.
Elsewhere, in Pentos, Daemon and Laena (now performed by Nanna Blondell) — who’s pregnant — showcase their dragons by using them for a crowd. Later, at a dinner, the prince of Pentos makes them a proposal: They’ll transfer to Pentos and receives a commission handsomely for it in alternate for lending their dragons to the trigger when and if the necessity for conflict arises (which it appears to be like prefer it may, as a result of the Triarchy has allied with Dorne). Later that night time, Laena is indignant that Daemon is even contemplating the deal.
Laena finally goes into labor. However issues go badly, and fairly quickly it’s clear that neither she nor the child goes to make it. So as a result of she’s an absolute badass, she limps all the way down to the place the dragons are saved and, in her bloody nightgown, orders her steed to “Dracarys!” her into the candy hereafter. Daemon finds her simply because the dragon does as ordered; the look on the prince’s face is tough to learn.
COLE V. BREAKBONES! | Again in King’s Touchdown, Viserys and Lyonel Sturdy watch because the king’s 4 oldest grandsons prepare within the yard with Ser Criston. The knight treats Aegon and Aemond higher than the opposite two, and when Harwin notices and mentions it, Criston has Aegon and Rhaenyra’s oldest son, Jace, battle. Jace is youthful and far smaller than Aegon, although he hangs in there. It will get heated, with Harwin and Criston yelling at one another and Criston egging Aegon on to play soiled. Ultimately, Sturdy steps in to cease Aegon from beating Jace into the mud, and Cole taunts him about it.
“Most males would solely have that form of devotion for a cousin, or a brother,” Ser Criston airily notes, “or a son.” And that’s when Harwin jumps on prime of him and hits him again and again, to the purpose that others have to tug him off. When Lyonel yells at his son for placing all of them at risk, Rhaenyra overhears all the pieces — together with his reminder of the very actual menace that Harwin, the princess and their kids may very well be exiled and/or killed if individuals discover out the reality.
Rhaenyra is ruminating on all of this, in addition to coping with a really sore chest because of nursing woes, when Laenor and a pal burst in, drunken and singing loudly. The pal leaves when Rhaenyra asks, and Laenor goes on and on about how excited he’s at the potential of conflict and of having the ability to head out to sea once more. She’s like DUDE. STOP. PEOPLE ARE SAYING NOT-GREAT STUFF ABOUT US. And she or he provides that he’s sorely mistaken if he thinks their son’s “true father” goes to desert them “to go carousing by the Slim Sea, waggling his sword and winking at his sailors.” He counters that he has performed his half “faithfully, for 10 years” and thinks he’s owed one thing. “You don’t desert your publish when the storm lashes,” she says, and when he doesn’t agree, she instructions him to stay in King’s Touchdown “and at my facet.”
WHERE THERE’S SMOKE | On the finish of a subsequent small council assembly, Rhaenyra stands to talk. “I’ve felt the strife between our households of late, my queen, and for any offense given by mine, I apologize. However we’re one home, and lengthy earlier than that, we had been mates,” she says. Then proposes bethrothing her son Jace to Alicent and Viserys’ daughter Helaena. However then the princess’ breasts begin visibly leaking by her costume, derailing the entire endeavor. Alicent says they’ll think about the matter and everybody leaves, averting their eyes from Rhaenyra’s torso.
“How sweetly the fox speaks when it’s being cornered by the hound,” Alicent tells her husband afterward, however he’s excited in regards to the proposal. “You might do what you want, husband, when I’m chilly in my grave,” she responds. Their dialog is interrupted when Hand of the King Lyonel Sturdy seems to resign his publish, given what occurred within the yard with son Harwin. The king says Harwin has been ousted from the Metropolis Watch, and isn’t that sufficient? “Forgive me, your grace, however it isn’t,” Sturdy says. “There’s a shadow over my home, and it grows ever darker. I can not serve you with integrity.” Viserys urges him to call mentioned shadow, and Alicent practically drools over getting Rhaenyra’s affair on the document. However Sturdy gained’t put a high quality level on all of it, to her excessive dismay, and due to this fact Viserys gained’t settle for his Hand’s resignation.
ONE LAST STAB | Alicent takes an emotional lap across the citadel earlier than returning to her quarters for dinner with Lord Larys, Lyonel’s different, gossipy son. They talk about the Hand of the Kign’s tried quitting and Viserys’ “willful blindness.” The queen muses about how her father, the previous Hand, wouldn’t hesitate to inform Viserys the reality, had been he nonetheless round. Larys factors out that even Otto wouldn’t be neutral. “No, however he could be a fan of me!” she cries.
Subsequent, we minimize to a dungeon filled with males sentenced to demise. Larys gives them “mercy” in the event that they associate with his plan, however we don’t hear the particulars. And the following factor we see, one of many prisoners is voluntarily having his tongue minimize out.
On a morning quickly after, Harwin bids his farewell to Rhaenyra and the youngsters; the princess barely holds it collectively as her lover kisses the toddler’s head. When he leaves, she tells the boys, “We’ll alternate letters by raven! It’ll be enjoyable!” However all Jace desires to know is whether or not Breakbones is his dad. A ruffled Rhaenyra says he and his brothers are Targaryens, and that’s that. However not lengthy after, she finds Laenor coaching within the yard together with his new object of affection and publicizes that they’re leaving for Dragonstone. Oh, and she or he’s cool together with his plus-one.
“Deliver him,” she says, nodding towards Laenor’s sparring associate. “ We’ll want each sword we are able to muster.” When the household finally decamps, they’re noticed by three of the prisoners Larys addressed earlier, all sporting cloaks and a bee brooch that matches the one in Larys’ cane
The Bee Bros are also current within the aftermath of when Harwin and Lyonel — and plenty of others — are killed in a fireplace at Harrenhal. When she hears the information, Alicent is horrified to seek out out what Larys has made occur. However he appears fairly unbothered after murdering his father and brother. In spite of everything, “I really feel sure you’ll reward me when the time is true,” he says
Now it’s your flip. What did you consider the episode? Pontificate within the feedback!
