House of the Dragon recap: episode six – TV deaths don’t get more horrific than that

Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching House of the Dragon. Do not read on unless you have watched episode six.

‘Let us put aside these childish quarrels’

It was always going to come to this. After five hours of intermittently thrilling, occasionally turgid courtly drama, HBO have pulled their big switcheroo. For many, it won’t be a surprise. The producers didn’t exactly advertise the fact that a major time-jump was coming (10 years, as it turns out), or that key young cast members were about to be swapped out for older actors. But they didn’t hide it, either. The question was: would this gamble pay off? Would a new cast breathe fresh life into proceedings, or would it feel weird and off-putting?

The episode begins with a painful delivery – and it won’t be the last. This time it’s Princess Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) in the birthing bed, surrounded by midwives as she pushes out what we’ll soon learn is her third son, ostensibly by her hand-wringing husband, Laenor Velaryon (John Macmillan). But she hasn’t even passed the afterbirth before a summons comes: Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) wants to inspect the child right away. Rhaenyra is not about to let him out of her sight, so it’s off through the Red Keep, step by painful step, with the child in her arms and Laenor fussing by her side.

‘I do believe he has his father’s nose’

Already, things feel different. Milly Alcock was a terrific young Rhaenyra but D’Arcy is a force of nature, determined and relentless. But every unstoppable force needs an immoveable object, and that is Cooke as Alicent. As the pair come face to face in the Queen’s chambers, we can feel every minute of those intervening years, a decade of mistrust, backbiting and jockeying for position. Not that doddery King Viserys (Paddy Considine, in worryingly convincing old-age makeup) notices any of it; he is just happy to meet his newest grandson, and proud that someday soon his beloved daughter will follow him on to the Iron Throne, and her eldest son after her.

And here is the boy in question: young Prince Jacaerys Velaryon (Leo Hart) with his little brother Lucerys (Harvey Sadler), escorted by a strapping swordsman with a distinct resemblance to both. This is the commander of the City Watch, Ser Harwin “Breakbones” Strong (Ryan Corr), who has been Rhaenyra’s paramour since the tragic end of her fling with Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). Regal children with dubious parentage was, of course, a central thread in Game of Thrones, and this programme seems likely to follow suit – a mite repetitive, perhaps? Still, given that a common bone of contention for Dragon-haters has been that this show is not enough like its predecessor, maybe that’s a good thing.

‘You are the challenge, Aegon’

It’s not long before we meet another character putting out powerful GoT vibes: Alicent and Viserys’s son Prince Aegon Targaryen (Ty Tennant). With his ice-blond locks and spiteful temperament, he echoes both the petulant exile Prince Viserys Targaryen and the child tyrant Joffrey Baratheon, whose untimely death robbed the show of its best villain. After teasing his dragonless younger brother Prince Aemond (Leo Ashton) by fitting wings to a pig, Aegon next appears proudly masturbating from his bedroom window over the rooftops of King’s Landing. For the doubters, this must be the most comfortingly GoT scene in the series so far, at once shocking, hilarious and beautifully illuminating when it comes to character.

We learn more about Aegon later in the training yard, where both sets of boys are being put through their paces by Ser Criston – who, it appears, has suffered no punishment for his brutal murder of Ser Joffrey Lonmouth one episode and 10 years earlier. Was this thanks to Alicent’s patronage, or did he make up some story to excuse his behaviour? Either way, the years have turned Ser Criston bitter: he loathes Rhaenyra with the passion of a spurned lover, and that hatred extends not just to her children but to the bullish Ser Harwin. It’s another superb scene of character-building, with the King’s presence on the battlements echoing that of Ned Stark in the very first episode of Thrones. But where Ned was a wise, observant father, Viserys is just a baffled old man, hoping these very different boys can all just get along.

‘The wise sailor flees the storm as it gathers’

That is never going to happen, because not only is Aegon a bully, but his mother is behind him all the way. Alicent has become a mistress of whispers, spreading word around the court that Laenor is not the father of Rhaenyra’s children. Her co-conspirator in this is Larys Strong (Matthew Needham), brother of Ser Harwin and son of Lord Lyonel, the King’s Hand, who tries to resign when the ugly rumours start flying. But Viserys refuses to let him go, so Lyonel takes the next-best step of removing Harwin from court and returning him to the family seat of Harrenhal: a chance for the show to stretch its legs with a welcome visit to a familiar location.

Not that this episode is as Red Keep-bound as its predecessors. Because finally, there is a proper secondary story developing: the voyages of Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), who appears to have spent 10 years plying his way up and down the Narrow Sea, crashing in the manses of various free-cities noblemen, poring over old books and selling his flying, fire-breathing services to the highest bidder. He has even got a family in tow: the redoubtable Laena Velaryon (Nanna Blondell) and their two daughters – one, Baela, a dragonrider; the other, Rhaena, hoping to be.

‘There is more than one way to bind yourself to a dragon’

The matter of dragon-riding is clearly going to be another important thread, and it’s an intriguing one: who does and doesn’t prove worthy, and what effect does it have on their self-image? Whether little Rhaena is still going to want to ride after the fate that awaits her mother remains to be seen. This is the episode’s second and far grimmer nativity, as Laena realises that neither she nor her unborn infant are going to survive the birthing process and decides instead to die swiftly, by dragonfire.

It’s a brutal scene, but not quite as shocking as what is happening half a continent away back in Westeros, as three tongueless ex-convicts put one of Harrenhal’s towers to the torch, burning both Ser Harwin and Lord Lyonel on the orders of his own son, Larys, who presumably now stands to inherit the lot. Alicent’s shock at this development is telling – she’s a schemer, sure, but she hasn’t gone full Cersei quite yet, and the fact that her closest collaborator has just knocked off his entire family is still a bracing bit of news.

It’s only left for Rhaenyra to scoop up her family and swan off to Dragonstone, there to rally supporters to her cause and set the stage for the real wars to come. It is a wonderfully auspicious ending to the most enjoyable episode of House of the Dragon so far, a thoroughly convincing proof of the time-hopping concept for the showrunners.

Additional notes

• It should be noted that this still isn’t the show’s final cast. Several of the younger actors, notably the children of Rhaenyra and Alicent, are set to switch again at some unspecified point in the future.

• There has been some grumbling about the VFX in the series so far, but the dragons in this episode looked incredible, from an edge-of-the-seat dragon-taming lesson with the scaly, juvenile Vermax to Laena’s vast, swooping she-monster, Vhagar.

• His role may have been to lurk in the shadows of his wife, Rhaenyra, but Laenor promises to be a fascinating character in his own right, a once-proud man beaten down by his years at court and desperate to get back in the field. Excellently played by Macmillan as the ultimate third wheel, he was pathetic in both senses of the word.

• The death of Ser Lyonel and the departure of Rhaenyra leave the door wide open for the return of that peerless plotter, Alicent’s father Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), as King’s Hand. Larys, too, seems eager to have the old dog back, but how will these two ruthless strategists play off each other? Will Larys’s methods prove too bloodthirsty even for Otto?

Nudity count

A brief flash of Prince Aegon’s royal bum-cheeks aside, everyone was a bit too busy scheming to get into anything recreational.

Violence count

Some heated prince-on-prince horseplay in the training yard was followed by a nasty ruck between Ser Harwin and Ser Criston, but the real culprit this week was Larys Strong. Not content with de-tonguing three jailbirds, he then sent them to bump off his own brother and father. Compared to that, even Daemon looks like a responsible member of society.

Random Brit of the week

When the cast changes again I’ll be sad to see the back of Ty Tennant, as that snipey tosser Prince Aegon. He was an absolute joy here, smirking and self-possessed in the very best GoT tradition. Still, Tennant will be fine: not only is his dad, David, a former Doctor, but he already has a regular gig in an Anglo-French adaptation of HG Wells’s War of the Worlds (starring Gabriel Byrne) that is apparently on its third series. Is it just me, or has this show flown totally under the radar? It sounds fun!