Shortly after a decade time jump in last week’s episode of House of the Dragon, tensions continue to rise in Sunday night’s seventh episode.
After disappearing for several episodes after being removed as the Hand of the King, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) returns in the seventh of 10 House of the Dragon episodes entitled Driftmark.
The title of the episode is the island south of Dragonstone that is home to House Velaryron as tensions between Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke) rise.
Otto Returns: After disappearing for several episodes after being removed as the Hand of the King, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) returns in the seventh of 10 House of the Dragon episodes entitled Driftmark
Tensions: The title of the episode is the island south of Dragonstone that is home to House Velaryron as tensions between Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke) rise.
The episode begins with a tomb being prepared, the body of Lady Laena, who was killed by her dragon after failing to give birth to her child.
The Velaryon and Targaryen families are all present at the ceremony when suddenly Prince Daemon (Matthew Smith) starts laughing for some reason.
Her cairn is thrown into the sea and rests on the bottom as we watch dragons fly over the ceremony.
Rhaenyra approaches her son Jace and asks where his father is and tells him that their cousins could use a kind word from him, but he doesn’t want to.
Criston tells Alicent that Larys has been staring at her since they arrived when we see Jace approach his cousins and offer a kind word as his mother suggested.
Corlys approaches Lucerys and says he doesn’t want to be Lord of the Tides because that means everyone will be dead.
Last week’s episode – The Princess and the Queen – advanced the narrative by a full 10 years, with Olivia Cooke taking over the role of Queen Alicent from Emily Carey and Emma D’Arcy replacing Milly Alcock as the older, adult Princess Rhaenyra.
The episode ended with Rhaenyra getting fed up with life in King’s Landing and returning to her family’s ancestral home, Dragonstone.
It had been stated in previous episodes that Rhaenyra would secretly let her husband Laenor (John Macmillan) live his gay lifestyle as long as they remain married as part of their duties to the Crown.
Adult: Last week’s episode – The Princess and the Queen – advanced the narrative by a full 10 years, with Olivia Cooke taking over the role of Queen Alicent from Emily Carey and Emma D’Arcy replacing Milly Alcock as the older, adult Princess Rhaenyra
Return: The episode ended with Rhaenyra getting tired of life in King’s Landing and returning to her family’s ancestral home, Dragonstone
While Rhaenyra and Laenor are an interracial couple, all three of their children are white as it has been revealed that Harwin Strong (Ryan Corr) had a secret affair with Rhaenyra and fathered their children.
Despite the obvious looks from the children, making it obvious that Laenor is clearly not their father, King Viserys (Paddy Considine) doesn’t want to hear any gossip on the matter and even subtly threatens his wife if she brings it up again.
The king is clearly content to live a lie, although a fight with Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) results in Hand of the King Lyonel Strong (Gavin Spokes) sending his son back to his home in Harrenhaal.
Laenor: While Rhaenyra and Laenor are an interracial couple, all three of their children are white as it has been revealed that Harwin Strong (Ryan Corr) had a secret affair with Rhaenyra and fathered their children
Last week’s episode ended in quite a shock when Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) betrayed his own family to try and forge an alliance with Queen Alicent.
Larys hired a series of criminals (before cutting out their tongues) to follow Lyonel and Harwin to Harrenhaal when they set fire to their chamber, killing them both.
Queen Alicent was clearly terrified by the revelation of his exploits, as Larys told Alicent in the trailer that in order to be an effective queen, she had to be “feared”.
Terrified: Queen Alicent was clearly terrified by the revelation of his exploits, as Larys told Alicent in the trailer that she needed to be “feared” in order to be an effective queen