Cast of House of the Dragon

With a new cast, shock torchings and GoT-level villains, this is brutal, brilliant television that sets the stage for the wars to come.

It is a wonderfully auspicious ending to the most enjoyable episode of Alicent’s shock at this development is telling – she’s a schemer, sure, but she hasn’t gone full Cersei quite yet, and the fact that her closest collaborator has just knocked off his entire family is still a bracing bit of news. That is never going to happen, because not only is Aegon a bully, but his mother is behind him all the way. He has even got a family in tow: the redoubtable Laena Velaryon (Nanna Blondell) and their two daughters – one, Baela, a dragonrider; the other, Rhaena, hoping to be. This is the episode’s second and far grimmer nativity, as Laena realises that neither she nor her unborn infant are going to survive the birthing process and decides instead to die swiftly, by dragonfire. Alicent has become a mistress of whispers, spreading word around the court that Laenor is not the father of Rhaenyra’s children. And here is the boy in question: young Prince Jacaerys Velaryon (Leo Hart) with his little brother Lucerys (Harvey Sadler), escorted by a strapping swordsman with a distinct resemblance to both. It’s another superb scene of character-building, with the King’s presence on the battlements echoing that of Ned Stark in the very first episode of Thrones. After teasing his dragonless younger brother Prince Aemond (Leo Ashton) by fitting wings to a pig, Aegon next appears proudly masturbating from his bedroom window over the rooftops of King’s Landing. Rhaenyra is not about to let him out of her sight, so it’s off through the Red Keep, step by painful step, with the child in her arms and Laenor fussing by her side. Milly Alcock was a terrific young Rhaenyra but D’Arcy is a force of nature, determined and relentless. The producers didn’t exactly advertise the fact that a major time-jump was coming (10 years, as it turns out), or that key young cast members were about to be swapped out for older actors.