House of the Dragon: Explanation of the final scene between Alicent and Rhaenyra

There are no massive war sequences in the season 2 finale of The Dragon HouseUnlike the Battle of Rook’s Rest in the midseason episode “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” the finale, “The Queen Who Was,” does not end with a dragon showdown, replete with fire-breathing and mass casualties. The climax of the final hour of Season 2 is, instead, a nearly ten-minute conversation between Alicent and Rhaenyra, two women often rendered powerless in a patriarchal system that leaves little room for diplomacy but who are in fact the two people with the greatest ability to stop a supposedly inevitable war.

The scene is still a kind of face-to-face. But tonally, it’s the opposite of a classic Game Of Thrones The conflict. It’s quiet and measured, not loud and chaotic. It features two women and leaves the men completely out of the frame. It’s stripped down to the basic elements of a scene—well-written dialogue exchanged between two complicated characters played by exceptional actors. And it carries more emotional weight than most of what’s happened in this somewhat limp season of George R.R. Martin’s inspired prequel.

Conversations like this between Rhaenyra and Alicent, whose disagreement over the rightful heir to King Viserys’ throne lays the foundation for everything that happens in this series, are the best parts of The Dragon House. We’ve only had two this season: in episode three, when Rhaenyra secretly goes to the church to talk to Alicent, and in Sunday’s episode, when Alicent shows up unannounced at Dragonstone. In the first, Rhaenyra pleads with Alicent to find a path to peace and is shocked when Alicent reiterates her claim that in his dying moments, Viserys named Aegon, his son with Alicent, heir to the throne rather than Rhaenyra, as he had publicly promised. In the second, Alicent has realized her miscalculation and offers to help Rhaenyra claim King’s Landing as “conqueror,” betraying her son and the Greens’ cause.

None of these moments appear in the book that inspired the series. But showrunner Ryan Condal and his writers have understood from the beginning of the series that the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent is what makes the series strong. The Dragon HouseThe first season invested a lot of time in building the bond between these two characters, both as childhood confidants (then played by Milly Alcock and Emily Carey) and as adults, now Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, who become stepdaughter and stepmother and must negotiate all the shifting loyalties that come with that role change. The Dragon House we invested that time so that we would invest in them, and it worked.

With Rhaenyra and Alicent relegated to different locations throughout Season 2, it’s become much harder for them to share screen time. But it feels natural, character-wise and thematically, that they’d try to connect. The fact that Rhaenyra and Alicent are both willing to put themselves in harm’s way to do so speaks to their ability to see things beyond most of their male counterparts. It also speaks to the power of childhood friendships. From a young age, they’ve developed a comfort and trust in each other that’s the foundation of who they are. That trust may be completely shattered, but it still exists, even in fragments. Rhaenyra and Alicent share an instinct to fix things (an instinct my colleague Nate Jones disagrees with) rather than to cause more destruction. At this point in the narrative, every conversation they have is accompanied by the subtext that maybe, just maybe, there is a way out of all this violence and misery, a glimmer of something called hope.

Geeta Vasant Patel directed both of these sequences and framed them in a similar way, emphasizing close-ups of the two characters speaking and reacting to each other. In the first conversation, the two are supposedly praying, so they are looking straight ahead most of the time, only occasionally turning to look at each other, a cinematic choice that implies that they cannot yet fully see each other. In the second, the two are staring into each other’s eyes, the camera lingering on their profiles, a visual suggestion that they are perhaps closer to a compromise or at least a willingness to try to understand each other.

Patel focuses the camera on Alicent’s face as she struggles to give Rhaenyra permission to take her son Aegon’s leadership if Alicent helps Rhaenyra storm King’s Landing. Rhaenyra has lost a child and knows that grief all too well. She knows what sacrifice she’s asking of Alicent when she offers “a son for a son.” She asks it anyway because she understands the often ludicrous demands of leadership that Alicent still doesn’t.

For almost a minute after Rhaenyra makes this request, neither of them speaks. Alicent blinks back tears and can’t come up with a response. In some ways, she’s unprepared for this moment. Rhaenyra tries to hold her trembling jaw steady but can’t quite do it. Tears form in her eyes, though she manages to keep them from spilling over. You can sense how much they need to hold hands but can’t or won’t. The dead air remains between them, a lack of sound that makes the viewer lean in closer to see and hear what’s going to happen next. When all goes quiet, it’s human nature to stop and assess the situation. When all goes quiet The Dragon HouseThis is a signal to pay close attention because what is happening is important.

The emotional stakes couldn’t be clearer, and you feel it in this exchange in a way that, frankly, you don’t always feel when watching The Dragon House(I’m sure I’m not the only one who faints during one of Daemon’s hallucinations or the Greens’ many small council meetings.) This is partly because D’Arcy and Cooke are so focused whenever they’re acting across from each other. The way their bodies share space—moving closer but not too close, searching each other’s gazes for solutions and comfort—speaks to the deep and complex personal histories their characters share.

When Rhaenyra rightly takes Alicent to task for suddenly changing her mind only after realizing she no longer has any political capital—“You always think you can have everything you want without paying too high a price”—she stands steadfast in front of Alicent, looking her straight in the eye. Rhaenyra makes sure Alicent knows she sees her in the best light: the woman who wants to avoid war, especially without too much embarrassment.

Later, when Alicent tries to end their discussion prematurely—“Let’s just end it here, please,” she demands, exhausted—she steps away from Rhaenyra. A wide shot shows a greater distance between them as Alicent declares her vulnerability: “I have given myself over to the mercy of a friend who once loved me.” Then, as Alicent describes the freedom she imagines for herself after somehow disappearing after the coup with her daughter and granddaughter, she makes another offer to Rhaenyra. “Come with me,” she says, and steps forward, closing the physical gap between them by a small but noticeable margin. This absurd offer is the request of a sheltered little girl who longs for her best friend and doesn’t see the incongruity of suggesting that Rhaenyra seize the throne and then disappear to relax forever in their version of Barbieland. It’s also an honest and sincere offer.

Rhaenyra jumps reflexively, then steps forward a few inches as well, indicating that part of her wishes she could join Alicent but is pragmatic enough to know she can’t. “My place is here, whether I like it or not,” she says, her eyes averting from Alicent’s as she briefly contemplates a future that can never come to pass. “That was decided for me long ago.” That last comment is a statement of fact and an acknowledgement of the difference between their two situations that Alicent still can’t see. It’s also a stark reminder that being queen was always her destiny, and that Alicent is the only one of them who has ever doubted it.

This conflict between predestined commitment and free will is at the heart of The Dragon Housea series in which the characters continue to walk dangerous paths and, unlike Alicent, cannot imagine an exit strategy due to prophecies and traditions that dictate their actions. In the context of the central relationship of this series, we are able to feel most effectively the grief rooted in this discord. As soon as Alicent leaves, Rhaenyra drops her façade. The muscles in her face relax and worry seeps in for Alicent, herself, and what they have tentatively agreed to do. She is both a woman with enormous power and a woman who lacks the most basic element of independence: the ability to do what one wants with one’s own life.

None of this would resonate if The Dragon House didn’t slow down and take a moment to let us watch Rhaenyra and Alicent work out their problems in real time. If Rhaenyra does follow through on Alicent’s proposal, which would be a significant departure from Martin’s source material, there will likely be more conversations and interactions between them. There’s nothing in this series I’d like to see more of. Their connection is what best amplifies the core themes of The Dragon HouseThis is also what gives it its fire.