House of the Dragon Episode One Summary: Let the Chaos Begin

What is the? difference between Rhaenys and Rhaenyra? Will there really be another woman on the Iron Throne? What was that vital bit of plot you missed at the start of the action? And how do they keep those wigs clean?

Don’t worry, read our recap for episode one below. Needless to say, Spoilers galore.

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The heir with the hair

Fittingly for a show that revolves around the line of succession, we start House of the Dragon with a ceremony of naming the heirs.

The current king of the seven kingdoms, Jaehaerys I, is growing old and has no heir. In the running for his replacement are his two grandchildren, Viserys (Paddy Considine) and Rhaenys (Eve Best).

The sky is gloomy. The camera filter is dark. Everyone wears wigs of surprising platinum white; Paddy Considine’s makes him look like a thumb.

To no one’s surprise, he is the one chosen to rule after Jaehaerys, making him Viserys I.

Meanwhile, Eve Best does an excellent pout as a woman who is understandably offended that she passed over for kingship because of her gender. Hey guys.

Meet the family

Our first glimpse of the present (or the past day, depending on the timeline you’re working on) is from young Rhaenyra – played by Milly Alcock – rides her dragon Syrax across the skies of King’s Landing.

It’s quite majestic, especially when the clouds part and we fly around the High Sept and Red Keep with them. We’re back in Westeros, baby; let the chaos begin.

This Westeros is very different from the war-ravaged place we’re used to: the lighting is Instagram filter quality, the clothing is perhaps even more lavish, and everyone generally looks better nourished and happier.

Well, most people do: in addition to Rhaenyra and her boyfriend Alicent Hightower, we also meet Rhaenyra’s mother, Aemma, who is heavily pregnant and doesn’t seem to enjoy it at all.

“We have royal wombs, you and I,” she says to a startled Rhaenyra. “The maternity bed is our battlefield.”

“I’d rather be a knight and go to battle in glory,” replies Rhaenyra. Can someone say ‘foreshadowing’?

Roundtables

Politics seems to be as big a factor in House of the Dragon as Game of Thrones – get ready for endless chat scenes around the secret council tables. In this one (the first of many), Viserys is joined by the Hand of the King (Otto Hightower, played with a withered sort of arrogance by Rhys Ifans), Lord Corlys Velaryon (Rhaenys’ husband and the richest man in Westeros; played by Steve Toussaint) and several other followers.

Expecting a son, Viserys has organized a knights tournament for the week Aemma goes into labor to celebrate his birth.

He seems more likely to count his chickens but the rest of his Privy Council are happy to spoil him and instead spend most of their time whining about money as the Free Cities are a bit rebellious on the other side from the sea in Essos, and about Viserys’ brother Daemon, who has taken charge of the city guard and provided them with some rather neat golden cloaks with which to strike justice. He clearly has a flair for the dramatic.

daemon little brother

What would this show be without its house psychopath? We meet Daemon (a shady Matt Smith) in person a few minutes after the council meeting – he’s the first person we see lounging on the Iron Throne. And what a throne it is: much more brutal and massive than its Game of Thrones predecessor, with a kind of walkway made of swords that any hapless monarch should not be impaled on taking off. Metaphor, much?

Undeterred by the scandal that he was caught with his behind on the spikiest chair in the realm, Daemon exchanges some pompous gibberish (aka Valyrian, the Targaryen native) with Rhaenyra and gives her a gift: a necklace made of Valyrian. steel so she can “own a piece of our ancestors”.

How sweet – less so in the next scene where he tells his lovely new city guard how he transformed them from “stray dogs” into “dogs ready for the hunt”. Daemon’s dogs then head to King’s Landing to embark on a crusade that involves cleaning up the streets by chopping off the appendages of several criminals (including an unlucky soul whose rather important piece of his on-screen anatomy is deleted). Reader, I cringed.

So does Viserys, who brings out a grinning Daemon during the debrief to tell him he’s gone too far. Daemon is Viserys’ heir, but as will be clear at this point he doesn’t exactly behave like that, he spends his time in brothels in King’s Landing to avoid going home to the woman he can’t. stand out. In addition, he is rather too hot-headed and tyrannical for most people’s comfort.

Gore galore

Fortunately for everyone’s stress level, the tournament finally begins and, almost simultaneously, the long-awaited royal baby decides it’s time to come in.

But while the greats of King’s Landing watch young knights pummel their brains on the battlefield (to Daemon’s horror, he is outright beaten in jousting by all-unknown Ser Criston Cole), Aemma’s job doesn’t go smoothly: Viserys visits her bedroom to be told that the baby is breech and that he must decide whether to save the child or possibly lose them both.

What follows is a scene so grim it can’t really bear to be printed, except to say the Caesarean is happening, mostly on screen, Aemma dies and the baby soon follows.

Viserys is clearly traumatized (as are the viewers), and at the funeral that follows, Rhaenyra is tasked with burning the body of her mother and baby brother with an order to her dragon.

“I wonder,” she asks an unusually sad-looking Daemon before doing so, “If my brother has lived in those few hours, my father has finally found happiness.”

It’s succession again (but with dragons)

At the heart of House of the Dragon is the issue of Viserys’ succession, and this becomes acutely apparent in the days following Aemma’s traumatic death. Soon Viserys’ cabinet is attempting to name him an heir, while subtly suggesting that the unhinged Daemon is best replaced by Viserys’ daughter, Rhaenyra.

Needless to say, the king is not very pleased and storms out.

“I will not be forced to choose between my brother and my daughter!” he gets it (just as well, since Daemon is eavesdropping behind a secret screen). He snaps around the table while the Privy Council decides whether it’s wise to place a woman on the Iron Throne.

“No queen has ever sat on the Iron Throne,” one bellows. “If order and stability are so important to this council, maybe we shouldn’t break 100 years by naming a female heir,” added another. It seems they prefer stability and strong government with Daemon over chaos with Rhaenyra.

Undeterred by Viserys’ tantrum, the wily Otto Hightower then suggests to his own daughter, Alicent, that the king might need some female companionship.

“Maybe you’re wearing one of your mom’s dresses,” he says to a petrified Alicent as she leaves the room. Thanks Dad; there’s nothing like the pressure to create some more male heirs for the kingdom.

Daemon then moves on and gets into trouble at the brothel, roasting Viserys’ dead son Baelon on his cronies as “heir for a day”. Understandably, Viserys is furious, and what follows is a rather epic scene where he effectively banishes Daemon from King’s Landing, releases him (if that’s a term indeed) and tells him to go home, to his wife. Daemon looks furious and the chances of him actually obeying his brother’s orders seem slim at best.

Prophecies and Payouts

The positive side of all this drama for Rhaenyra seems to be confirming her place in the line of succession. Viserys calls her to the secret shrine/cemetery for Balerion, one of the ancient dragons of Aegon’s conquest, to tell her the good news.

“You are your mother’s very best, and I believe, as I know she did, that you could be a wonderful reigning queen,” he tells her. “Daemon is not made to wear the crown, but I believe so.”

He also tells her the great secret passed on from king to heir: that winter is indeed coming.

“Aegon foresaw the end of the human world. It’s to start with a terrible winter, coming from the far north,’ he tells her.

“Aegon saw absolute darkness riding on those winds, and whatever dwells in them will destroy the world of the living. When this great winter comes, Rhaenyra, all of Westeros must go against it. And if the human world is to survive, there must be a Targaryen on the Iron Throne, a king or queen strong enough to unite the realm against cold and darkness.”

Chills.

As the riveting music plays, we cut to shots of the Westerosi lords swearing allegiance to Viserys – and to his new heir, Rhaenyra… into the skies on Dragonback. Undoubtedly, disaster will follow.

verdict

Big and grand, House of the Dragon kicks off its first season in style. There’s basically everything you could ever want from a Game of Thrones spin-off on this show: gore, sex (but no sexual assault – executive producer Sara Hess has explicitly said there will be none of that in this show, which may tempt back fans who were put off by it in the original series), political banter, wildly ambitious courtiers and dragons. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it does the job so well, what’s not to love?

It’s also an excellent fist to maneuver the pieces into place for episode two. Now Rhaenyra is the heir to a country that may not want a woman on the Iron Throne at all; Daemon may be contemplating rebellion and Otto Hightower has a few royal grandchildren in mind. Oh, and Viserys isn’t getting any younger. Plus, we’ve only seen two dragons so far. Roll on episode two…

House of the Dragon will be streamed on NOW and Sky Atlantic