‘House of the Dragon’ Season 1, Episode 7 Recap: An Ugly Game

Season 1, Episode 7: ‘Driftmark’

And also you thought your final household gathering was a nightmare …

Funerals are not often blissful events anyplace. However this week’s “Home of the Dragon” reminded us — because the physique of the deceased tumbled into the ocean and her brother wandered in after it; as one cousin obtained inappropriately wasted; as one other stole a dragon after which fought his half-nephews, breaking the nostril of one in every of them and getting his personal eye slashed out in return; because the drunk cousin accused his half-nephews of being illegitimate, breaking the seal on a darkish (if open) household secret; because the sister-in-law took a dagger to her stepdaughter, who had simply returned from sleeping together with her uncle; because the dad and mom got here downstairs to discover a man they assumed was their son burning of their hearth — that issues are a little bit further in Westeros.

What a journey, huh? The truth that I went together with most of it — with one massive exception — attests to the energy of the performances, to the power of the episode author (Kevin Lau) and director (Miguel Sapochnik) to weave all the above right into a largely credible hour of drama, and to the truth that at this level, nothing appears out of bounds for this nutty household.

Alongside the best way, we noticed the dropping of a number of narrative sneakers. For one factor, Rhaenyra and Daemon lastly obtained collectively, their pairing on the seaside (together with the existence of Daemon’s two daughters) suggesting that his efficiency points are behind him for now, not less than. Much more noteworthy: They later managed to tug off a comfy vacation spot marriage ceremony with zero murders. (Although I’m unsure why they went to the ache and bother of ceremonially mixing their blood, seeing because it’s largely the identical blood.)

Otto is again by the king and queen’s facet, capable of supply a hand within the molding of the would-be inheritor, Aegon the Ridiculous. Depart it to Aegon, by the best way, to lastly say the quiet half out loud relating to the Robust bastardhood of Rhaenyra’s sons. “Everybody is aware of,” he informed Viserys. “Simply take a look at them.”

And but, even listening to it spoken plainly by his personal son was not sufficient for the king to desert his daughter.

The minor miracle on the core of “Home of the Dragon,” when it really works, is how the recognizable household dynamics could make all the objectively bonkers goings-on really feel virtually relatable. Most of us, I believe, have been celebration to household secrets and techniques or another inconvenient fact that individuals near us have held at bay by the sheer power of their very own denial. On Sunday, we lastly obtained affirmation that Viserys’s is a sort of voluntary denial, born not of obliviousness however of a cussed need to carry the household collectively, even when the hassle has been doomed to failure from the start of this story. (Such magical pondering, too, is a recognized household phenomenon.)

“This interminable infighting should stop, all of you!” Viserys shouted on the bickering kin, bleeding youngsters and everybody else. “We’re a household! Make your apologies and present good will to 1 one other.”

Such exhortations, at this level within the present, would appear inane coming from a much less proficient or much less dedicated actor. Paddy Considine has all the time had a exceptional means to telegraph a number of feelings and motivations concurrently. As Viserys fades, his desperation to maintain his household considerably intact is each pitiable — any semblance of unity will certainly die with him — and poignant, a sort of raging in opposition to the dying of the sunshine for a ruler who senses that his efforts can be futile and his legacy a wash, at greatest.

Simply as Viserys holds the middle of the prolonged Targaryen clan, Considine does the identical for the present itself. So I’m barely involved about what “Dragon” turns into when he and Viserys inevitably shuffle off the stage.

As a result of one drawback with a narrative so overstuffed with incident and so singularly centered on one narrative — the “ugly sport” of thrones Otto alluded to — is that every one it takes is one misstep, one errant blade, to puncture and deflate the entire thing.

Which is what occurred when Alicent charged Rhaenyra with that dagger, the “massive exception” I discussed earlier.

Alicent was apoplectic about her husband’s continued indulgence of Rhaenyra and understandably undone by Aemond’s harm. I used to be even virtually prepared to just accept her loopy demand of a literal eye for an eye fixed as an indication of her excessive misery within the second — any father or mother, in Westeros or anyplace else, would possibly say irrational issues when confronted together with her disfigured youngster. However the escalating silliness of her response, climaxing because the queen and princess traded barbs over the clutched dagger till Alicent lastly drew blood, tipped the drama into farce.

I suppose the confrontation was designed to as soon as once more foreshadow the battle to come back between these ladies. After they had been separated, the presumable competing factions stood dealing with each other: Rhaenyra, Daemon and the Sea Snake on one facet, Alicent and Ser Criston on the opposite. It additionally revealed the fierce, doubtlessly lethal depth Alicent will apparently deliver to the battle.

As for the place that depth got here from, I assume we’re imagined to take it on religion that the ten years we didn’t see instilled a murderous rage inside her. As with Daenerys’s incineration of King’s Touchdown in “Recreation of Thrones,” it’s an odd flip that doesn’t actually jibe with what we or anybody else have noticed within the character.

“I’ve by no means seen that facet of you, my daughter,” Otto mentioned later. Neither have we, Otto. Neither have we.