By Kaleena Rivera | TV | October 20, 2022 |
By Kaleena Rivera | TV | October 20, 2022 |
(spoilers for episode nine)
The king is dead, and a kingdom is now in peril, all thanks to a misunderstanding that sounds straight out of Shakespeare. Plans to install the worst possible option as king are in motion before Viserys’ body has even been tended to. Long brewing hostilities have given way to the beginning of a multi-year-long civil war, bringing us to the opening of what shall be known as the Dance of the Dragons.
Too bad its inception is brought about in the most underwhelming episode of the season.
For a series that opened with a slightly slow burn (when compared to the significantly faster pace midseason), it’s quite remarkable that the penultimate episode would be the one in which I would start to begrudge the pacing and creative choices of a show I’ve largely enjoyed, but here we are.
The top of the hour brings about some solid intrigue, especially with the revelation that despite Alicent’s heavy involvement with the Small Council, Otto and other council members have been secretly making arrangements intended to be carried out the moment Viserys dies. I appreciate the layers of internal conflict Alicent expresses here. The thought of murdering Rhaenyra and her children, the youngest of whom are mere toddlers, genuinely disturbs her; seeing her child ascend to the throne was a vision that never came at the cost of the life of her husband’s daughter who was also once a dear friend. At the same time, however, Alicent’s precious moral fortitude is about as substantial as tissue paper, because when Otto proceeds to order Ser Harrold to go to Dragonstone and kill Rheanyra, all the fight leaves Alicent. Thankfully, Harrold, in an impressive display of honor, refuses to follow the order, tearing off his Kingsguard cloak before exiting the room.
The episode largely goes downhill from there. Much of this has to do with the fact that the search for Aegon isn’t very interesting yet it takes up the lion’s share of the episode. This is where I’m forced to admit that despite my patience with the large and frequent time jumps the show has engaged in—with the notable exception of the deaths of Laena and Harwin—the debt accrued from that economic storytelling has now become costly. The “race” between Otto and Alicent’s individual parties lacks the urgency the writers clearly want us to experience, largely because there’s no desire on audience members’ part to see Aegon be found. The search is further dulled by the fact that one of the teams, Sers Arryk and Erryk Cargyll (Luke and Elliott Tittensor), are practically strangers to us, which means that the emerging conflict of loyalties between the two brothers holds no weight whatsoever. Previous episodes have done a fair job of injecting some heart and meaning into characters who quickly come and go (see: that impressive hulk of a man, Harwin Strong), but that care isn’t applied to these two, much to my consternation.
Even the combination of Criston and Aemond, characters we have a far better grasp on, provide us with little additional insight into either themselves or the plot. There is the matter of Aemond’s resentment towards his feckless older brother, and for one exciting moment, during Criston and Arryk’s sword fight while Erryk wordlessly looks on (a betrayal that should have felt huge lands with a thud), it seems like there’s a chance Aemond might do something about it. But Criston appears before anything of consequence can happen, having let his opponent go despite the large amount of evidence demonstrating his willingness to kill with little cause, as seen by the horrific death of Lord Beesbury (much as I despised Criston for that violent act, many viewers’ professed confusion over Criston’s lack of punishment is puzzling in itself considering the growth in public awareness over sanctioned violence used in law enforcement).
Despite having Aegon once again in hand and on his way to be king, Alicent ends up losing regardless. Her attempt to stand up to her father at last falls flat despite her best effort: “You look so much like your mother,” he tells her after she lays out her expectations in no uncertain terms, his last attempt at manipulation before she storms off. Then there is, of course, the now infamous foot scene between her and Larys. It’s been the source of many a meme and more than a few exclamations of revulsion, though the true horror is from the fact that Alicent isn’t a willing participant. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a foot fetish (it’s no different than experiencing arousal from breasts or any other body part), but when Larys’ hand moves into his pants as Alicent uncomfortably turns away, it becomes a scene plucked out of a horror movie. The men in Alicent’s life are formidable allies but they’re all monsters to varying degrees.
It’s these men that Rhaenys hopes to use as a wedge to turn what’s objectively a bad situation into something that works in her favor (“Have you never imagined yourself on the Iron Throne?”). Her power and intelligence is what makes her a noteworthy character, and I’ve spent the season waiting for her to have a big moment worthy of her majestic presence. She does, indeed, receive her big dramatic moment this episode, crashing through the floor of the great hall during the coronation just as Aegon was beginning to warm to the idea of this king thing (God help everyone) on the back of her dragon, Meleys. It’s an awesome moment that turns into a headscratcher a minute later, when Rhaenys, fully able to stop the onset of civil war with one simple “Dracarys,” holds back instead. On one hand, there’s an argument that can be made for Rhaenys’ act of mercy: there’s a logic behind not murdering the royal family, including the newly crowned king, in front of hundreds of witnesses and potentially damning the Targaryens in the eyes of the whole kingdom. But it’s an explanation that strains credulity, and the stretch required to justify Rhaenys’ lack of action snuffs out the awesomeness of the moment.
While previous episodes have also been afflicted with the occasional leaps in logic, this is the first episode where the writing feels as though it’s giving way to some external pressure. Moments like that awful foot scene and Rhaenys on her dragon feel like first drafts that were ushered through the production process. Some thorough reworking would have gone a long way towards making scenes like this add something of substance or at least make more sense.
Next week is the big finale, and despite the glaring faults in this week’s episode, I believe that the return of Rhaenyra and Daemon will bring things back into focus again (in that the balance of familiar characters with ample development will be restored). Now that we’ve traversed the twenty-year span necessary to bring us to this point, there should be no substantial time jumps in the near future, which means that the pitfalls that come with characters coming in and out of the action should be greatly mitigated. Of course, now is also when the danger becomes truly great, which means that we may soon regret the desire to become attached to these people once war begins to bear down on Westeros.
Kaleena Rivera is the TV Editor for Pajiba. When she isn’t desperately wishing for someone to kill off Criston Cole already, she can be found on Twitter here.