[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2.]
“Blood and Cheese” changed everything. The brutal events at the end of the House of the Dragon Season 2 premiere plunged the Targaryen civil war into depths previously unknown, and the aftermath in King’s Landing and Dragonstone were revealed in the second episode of the season.
The dark hour marked a change in Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Daemon’s (Matt Smith) marriage, whilst the guilt felt by Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) for where they were during the deadly event spurred very different reactionary measures. Smith and Frankel break down how “Blood and Cheese,” and their characters’ roles in it, will reverberate through the season.
As Smith explains to TV Insider, there was already a “chasm” between Daemon and Rhaenyra after the deaths of son Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) and stillborn daughter Visenya in Season 1. Daemon’s attempt to avenge Luke in the Season 2 premiere only widened that divide.
“It creates a huge chasm between them and the ripple effects of that are pretty ghastly for both of them,” Smith tells TV Insider. “And it leads them both down very different paths.”
Indeed, trust was broken for Rhaenyra in Episode 2 after she learned that Daemon hired the assassins who murdered the young Jaehaerys. Like in the Season 1 finale when Daemon hosted a war council while Rhaenyra struggled in labor with Visenya, Daemon took matters into his own hands to avenge his stepson. Rhaenyra accused him of doing this for his own gain, weakening his wife’s standing throughout Westeros and her own council in the process. Daemon denied that claim, saying he acted out of his love for Rhaenyra.
Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Helaena (Phia Saban) in Prince Jaehaerys’ funeral procession in House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 (Theo Whitman / HBO)
They couldn’t come to an agreement, and Daemon left Dragonstone on Caraxes without saying goodbye to anyone and ignored daughter Baela (Bethany Antonia) as he departed. Reconciliation is going to be difficult for Daemon and Rhaenyra, Smith says, noting that we’ll see the couple separated much more this season than last. “Very much so,” he admits. They’re separated “literally, metaphorically, emotionally, all of it,” he notes. “There’s a lot of work to be done to even begin about coming back around and reconciling their relationship.” And reconciliation would look much different for both of them, he confirms.
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Frankel says the fact that Criston was “abed” with his lover, dowager Queen Alicent, instead of protecting Jaehaerys riddles him with guilt. “It’s the driving force for the rest of the season, certainly for him,” Frankel tells TV Insider. “I can’t speak to what Olivia, what Alicent’s narrative is in that way. But for Cole, that’s his biggest source of guilt.”
We saw him act out of guilt in Episode 2 when sending Ser Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor) to Dragonstone to assassinate Rhaenyra. He did this through no order from his superiors, just like Daemon, drawing an ironic parallel between the two central couples of the story. Criston was rewarded by the grieving Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), who named him Hand of the King after firing grandfather Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans).
Despite literally trying to murder her in 202 and harboring clear anger for her throughout the years of Season 1, Frankel tells TV Insider, “I don’t think Criston hates Rhaenyra, or at least that wasn’t something that I’ve been playing.” He doesn’t think Criston resents his first love either.
Emma D’Arcy as Rhaenyra Targaryen in House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 (Theo Whitman / HBO)
“I think it’s pain,” he says. “It’s the pain of heartbreak, and that’s been carried through for him through the course of the show.” If Criston and Alicent do hate Rhaenyra, Frankel notes that he doesn’t “think Olivia and I consciously played that.”
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What would Daemon think if he heard Rhaenyra’s childhood best friend (whom many fans believe share a romantic connection, whether the characters know that of themselves or not) and her first romantic partner were hooking up?
“‘Oh, that’s to be expected.’ I think that’s what they’d say,” Smith jokes. “Rhaenyra would probably have more of an attitude towards it. I don’t think Daemon really cares to be honest. I don’t think he’s really interested in that. He’s always just had eyes for one person.”
That one person now believes he intended to murder a child. Smith comments on whether Daemon didn’t give an alternative target to Blood (Sam C. Wilson) and Cheese (Mark Stobbart) if they couldn’t find Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) on purpose.
“Sometimes you don’t answer these questions for characters,” he says. “These are really good questions, but they’re really good questions for an audience to answer. I think Daemon acted out of the impulse of vengeance and a sense of injustice on behalf of his wife. Honestly, I think he did it with honest intentions and it’s gone horribly, horribly, tragically wrong.”
You can say that again.
House of the Dragon, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO, Streaming on Max
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