“Driftmark” is the best episode of House of the Dragon yet, but that ending…

“Driftmark” is probably the best episode of House of the Dragon yet. We get lots of excellent moments, a raising of the stakes, and then a big twist I’m still torn about. But we’ll get to that…

“Driftmark” opens on Driftmark, the seat of House Velaryon. Both branches of the Targaryen family have gathered here for Laena Velaryon’s funeral: Alicent and her brood and Rhaenyra with her sons. The first chunk of the episode is devoted to a glide-through of the funeral party. We drop in on various interactions, some more interesting than others. Anytime we get Matt Smith and Paddy Considine onscreen together is a highlight, although Daemon wants none of Viserys’ offer of reconciliation. Aegon is the only person here who doesn’t seem down in the dumps, and that’s only because he’s too big of a drunk asshole to be sad; I liked Otto Hightower, who’s back as Hand of the King, picking his unruly grandson up by the scruff of the neck and carting him off to bed.

Rhaenyra and Daemon reunite separately, later, during a moonlit walk on the beach. This is the first time we’ve seen them together since Emma D’Arcy took over the role of Rhaenyra, and it’s worth the wait. There’s still chemistry between them, but they’re both older, sadder and wiser. Daemon engages in a bit of revisionist history by saying he “spared” Rhaenyra the burden of his companionship these last several years, as if he wasn’t completely willing to go all the way had circumstance and impotence not intervened. It’s easy to lie about the past; you’re never going back there.

Anyway, it’s a mature conversation between two people who have always been drawn to each other but could never be together…mostly because Rhaenyra was a child and Daemon is her freaking uncle. But I surrender: the show has gotten me to stop caring about the incest and kinda-sorta root for these two. They consummate their long-simmering tension on the beach in a sex scene that goes on a little too long.

How to train your dragon, Westeros style

While Rhaenyra and Daemon reconnect, Aemond Targaryen — the kid who was pining for his own dragon last week — sneaks out of bed and seeks out Vhagar, the largest dragon in the world now bereft of her rider. The short version: he successfully mounts her and flies her into the air.

The long version is that this whole sequence is an emotional roller coaster that had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I was nervous when Aemond tentatively tried to climb on top of this behemoth, amused when he couldn’t stop screaming after she took flight, and thrilled when he finally got the hang of it.

The special effects are out-of-this-world great; it’s obvious that the team made it a priority to give these dragons more distinct looks and personalities than they had on Game of Thrones, and it’s really paid off. Craggy, ungainly Vhagar is the most memorable dragon we’ve gotten on either series by far. She holds up her end of the scene beautifully. She’s a star.

The whole sequence could feature in a much more innocent movie about a young boy finally finding his destiny atop a dragon, but this is a Game of Thrones show, so it quickly comes down to earth. Daemon’s kids Baela and Rhaena see Vhagar take flight and alert their cousins Jace and Luke, all of whom are there to meet Aemond as he struts up to the main gate. This is a change from George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, where Rhaenyra’s youngest son Joffrey fetches his brothers after Aemond pushes him into a pile of dragon dung, and I like it better. As Rhaena points out, she intended to claim Vhagar as her own; Vhagar was her mother’s dragon, after all. But Aemond believes that claiming a dragon is a first-come-first-serve kind of pursuit. It’s a believable conflict and sidesteps the fact that Joffrey is a freaking baby.

Things come to blows between Aemond — who is feeling mighty proud of himself after claiming the world’s mightiest dragon — and the other four kids. It’s believably rough; if the kids were a few years older they might talk out their differences, but they were raised by prideful people and there’s a lot of kicking and screaming and biting and punching. Eventually Aemond calls Rhaenyra’s kids bastards, which is when the knives come out. It’s an accident, it’s a mishap, it’s a good argument for restricting kids’ access to weapons, but an over-eager Luke eventually slashes Aemond up the eye.

Eye for and Eye

The kids are found by the guards, and soon every adult in Driftmark is awake to watch the king try and handle the situation. What follows is probably the best scene the show has produced so far. There are lots of great moments. I liked the kids all screaming over each other trying to explain what happened; this is essentially a child’s squabble gone sideways, but it has the power to upend kingdoms, which is a great example of why Martin’s writing is so compelling. It always comes back to the characters, with as few MacGuffins as possible.

I liked Viserys, always flailing to try and keep control of the situation, asking Aemond where he heard that Rhaenyra’s kids were bastards, and Aemond reluctantly naming Aegon. I liked Alicent slapping Aegon and asking where he was during the whole affair. I liked Rhaenys instinctively protecting Baela and Rhena now that their mother is gone. Daemon did surprisingly little considering what a firestarter he is, but director Miguel Sapochnik made sure to get a few shots of him in the corner, observing intently. We know a lot of these characters pretty well by now, and it’s electrifying to see them go at each other.

Alicent and Rhaenyra are the prizefighters here. Alicent wants revenge; she asks Viserys to remove one of Luke’s eyes in repayment for the eye Aemond lost, and when the king refuses, she orders Criston to do it (he wisely reads the room and demurs). And then she just yanks the Valyrian steel dagger off her husband’s belt and tries to do it herself, only for Rhaenyra to stand in her way. The dialogue between the two crystalizes their conflict. While I didn’t want Alicent to succeed, I understood where she was coming from, which is a huge step forward in me getting invested in her as a character. I even got where Otto was coming from later when he told her she showed an impressive amount of determination, however violent and crazed she seemed. Alicent has watched Rhaenyra flout society’s expectations of her, unfair as they are, for years, and feels immensely resentful given that she always did everything that was asked of her. It’s about more than the eye. It was electrifying to watch.

This event raises the stakes for everyone. There’s no going back. People in Alicent’s camp have openly called Rhaenyra’s kids bastards. The queen slashed her hand with a Valyrian steel blade. The storm is coming for Rhaenyra and she needs allies who are prepared to face it. She needs Daemon Targaryen.

And that brings us to the final, controversial part of the episode…

The tragic “death” of Laenor Velaryon

Rhaenyra asks Daemon to marry her, in part because there’re clearly attracted to each other, and in part because she figures that with him at her side, people would be less willing to challenge her claim to the throne. He is a dangerous man in a way that Rhaenyra’s current husband Laenor — who isn’t present during the Eye for an Eye blowup, probably because he was too drunk and sad over his sister’s death — is not. But they can’t get married unless Laenor is dead. So…

In Fire & Blood, Laenor’s lover Qarl kills him; Qarl’s motives aren’t entirely clear, but the fact that Laenor is dead isn’t in dispute. House of the Dragon takes a different tack. Offscreen, Laenor, Rhaenyra, Daemon and Qarl conspire to stage Laenor’s death. Laenor and Qarl abscond to parts unknown, leaving the path open for Rhaenyra and Daemon to marry, which they do in a small ceremony witnessed by their children.

My thinking evolved on this one. At first I hated it, and not just because it changed the book. I thought the twist ending did a disservice to several of the characters, particularly Laenor himself. Towards the end of the episode, he has a sincere conversation with Rhaenyra where he recommits himself to his marriage and his children, but apparently now he’s willing to give up his life and jet off across the Narrow Sea to live in comfortable obscurity? Will he not miss his parents, whom he is cruelly tricking into believing he is dead? Will he not miss his kids, whom he is willingly abandoning? This seems like a selfish act from someone we’ve been given to believe isn’t a selfish guy.

But after cooling down, I started looking at things from a different angle. Like I said, it’s clear a storm is coming for Rhaenyra, and Laenor doesn’t seem like the guy best equipped to handle it. With Daemon at her side, Rhaenyra has more of a chance of weathering what’s on the way. Also, she’s much more likely to produce trueborn children with Daemon than with Laenor, which could help mollify people afraid of sitting a bastard on the Iron Throne. So maybe Laenor chose to move aside in favor of Daemon because he thought that would give his family a better chance of survival? And the appeal of running away somewhere where he could live more openly with a man of his choosing would have been appealing, too, even if the cost was high.

But if this is the case, the episode should have done a better job of drawing out Laenor’s motivations, of giving us a better look inside his head. A couple times now, House of the Dragon has sprung twists on us that seem to come out of nowhere with little setup; I’m thinking also of Criston Cole snapping at a wedding and killing Laenor’s boyfriend, a murder it’s still baffling that he wasn’t punished for. I don’t like that instinct.

This also raises questions about the rest of the story. Laenor has a dragon, Seasmoke, who he is also abandoning. Seasmoke plays a role later on. Will Laenor being alive affect that? Will he die still? I don’t know, and I’m nervous the show is changing things in a way that raise questions it’s not prepared to answer.

We can cross that bridge when we come to it. As it stands, “Driftmark” is a fantastically executed hour of TV with a question mark of a twist at the end.

House of the Bullet Points

• Kudos to composer Ramin Djawadi for some stirring music during the funeral scene.
• Corlys Velaryon’s brother Vaemond was talking an awful lot about the importance of pure blood during Laena’s funeral. He’s making cloaked comments about Rhaenyra’s children, which is why Daemon guffaws. I won’t spoil anything specific, but they’re setting up a moment from Fire & Blood here.
• They set up Aegon’s marriage to Helaena, who continues to be weirdly obsessed with bugs. Odd adaptation choice, that. In Fire & Blood, she’s described as a happy, friendly girl.
• Rhaenyra calls Alicent’s faction “the greens” for the first time. That’s pulled right from the book, but it’s a little weird here because we didn’t get the big green dress-vs-black dress scene. I just wanna reach into this show and adjust things ever…so…slightly…
• Part of me that worries that the writers let Laenor live so we at home wouldn’t see Rhaenyra and Laenor as overly heartless. If that’s true — and I don’t know that it is given that they’ve both done some shady stuff, particularly Daemon — it’s hypocritical, because Daemon fully murders a guy who then plays the part of Laenor’s corpse; it’s just not a guy we know and like.

Episode Grade: A-

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels