By: Kelly Kearney
Ever since Rhaenyra took the Iron Throne, problems have been piling up, and the majority of them can be traced back to Ormund Hightower. The people of the Kingdom are struggling, the City Watch has been almost entirely decimated, and even some of her most trusted supporters seem to be drifting away from her orders. King’s Landing is on the verge of collapse, just as Rhaenyra’s army is only two weeks away from bringing an end to the King Daeron movement. On top of being pulled in every direction with no clear way out of any of them, Rhaenyra now has Alicent and Helaena attempting to escape, proving that even her ability to control her captives is slipping.
In the sixth episode, the problems continue to pile up, but this time, there may finally be a chance to fix her Aemond problem. It’s going to require Rhaenyra to trust an old friend while asking favors from friends she recently angered to help keep her people safe while she tries to take out two of her enemies at the same time. She juggles a lot of schemes and angry men in this episode, which delivers a bloody, chaotic hour that sets up the story for the remaining episodes of the season.
“We light the way!”
…is an old Hightower saying that Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) uses to ignite the fiery fight in what’s left of his quickly diminishing army. After coming across a group of fallen Rivermen, the battlefield leaves Cole confused. Is there another band of warriors fighting the Blacks that he doesn’t know about? It would have to be a large force to wipe out such a massive swath of men. As Cole and his soldiers make their way across the field, they discover the bodies he assumed were dead were actually a trap. The Rivermen played possum, and when Cole’s guard is down, the “dead” spring back to life, kicking off an intense battle. It’s brutal, with swords clashing, blood flying, and plenty of heads cracked open like melons on the receiving end of Cole’s mace. He and his men manage to fight until every enemy is dead. Then he looks toward the horizon and realizes he’s surrounded by the Winter Wolves.
Cole pulls out the handkerchief Alicent gave him before he left on this mission, wraps it around his sword, and prepares to fight to the death. He never gets the chance to raise his sword again as three arrows from the bow of Alysanne Blackwood (Annie Shapero) pierce his chest and head, killing the knight where he stands. Goodbye—and good riddance—to a man willing to do the unthinkable all in the name of a woman who was sick to death of him before he even left on this crusade. At least Alicent’s brother, Gwayne (Freddie Fox), had more brains than brawn. He abandoned Cole’s suicidal plan just in time to survive the Winter Wolves, who surround the rest of Cole’s men and rip them to shreds.
Next, we head to the Red Keep, where Daemon (Matt Smith) and the Small Council are at odds after the massacre of the Gold Cloaks. Daemon isn’t interested in discussing anything except burning the men who murdered his men. So when Torrhen (Dan Fogler) agrees with Alyn (Abubakar Salim) and Sabitha Frey (Sarah Woodward) to let Winter Wolves and Oscar Tully’s (Oscar Barnes) soldiers root the traitors out in combat, the prince crashes out and hurls his cup at the Master of Coin. It will take at least two weeks for that Black army to make their way to Tumbleton, and until then, the city and the Red Keep are not safe. Daemon wants justice to be swift, brutal and undeniably Targaryen. He once again pushes Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) to wield her power like Aegon the Conqueror, but she doesn’t want to barbecue her own people just to get rid of Ormund (James Norton) and this kid King. Instead, she tries to reel Daemon back in with a few promises and a warning about who he is refusing to obey. His insubordination in front of the Small Council is becoming a problem. She’s already facing criticism in the streets; she doesn’t need it inside her own castle too. To calm his anger over the city being left unprotected, she orders Alyn to find his father and bring more Velaryon men to defend King’s Landing. She also sends assassins after Ormund, hoping to put an end to this infiltration of traitors and murderers within her city.
In the meantime, she meets with a small contingent of Baratheons who have recently decided to bend the knee to the queen. Their casual demeanor quickly brings out her queenly tone. The men she requested are busy fighting the Vulture King in the south and can’t spare anyone for King’s Landing. Last she checked, she was the Queen, so these constant refusals are beginning to crack her royal façade. If they cannot protect the city from her enemies, they can go to Tumbleton and act as her assassins taking Ormund and “King” Daeron (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) out.
Traitors in the King’s Landing
On the outskirts of Tumbleton we catch up with Ulf (Tom Bennett) and Hugh (Kieran Bew), who are stationed waiting for any sign of Aemond (Ewan Mithcell). We see their dragons are a mated pair, cuddling together while their riders sit around bored out of their minds waiting for Vhagar, who may never show up. Ulf is growing disillusioned with his assignment, especially the order to stay out of the pubs. Have their lives really improved since claiming dragons? He’s not so sure. The money is nice, but what’s the point if you can’t enjoy it? He misses the old days, the warm meat pies, and the relative peace of Viserys’ kingdom.
Back at the castle, Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Helaena (Phia Saban) are discovered inside the walls trying to make their escape. When Rhaenyra finds out, she rushes to their quarters, and the two old friends finally have it out. Helaena is pregnant, and Alicent assumed that meant the Queen would eliminate any threat to her throne. Rhaenyra is offended that Alicent automatically expects the worst from her, but Alicent pushes her for the truth. If that baby is born a boy, he will either spend his life as a captive or end up dead. Rhaenyra can’t deny it, and after a few beats, she understands why a mother would want to protect her child. The problem is, a usurper King, a missing murderer and his massive dragon, and another new Hightower sending murderers to sow discord throughout King’s Landing means Alicent’s house is now her enemy. Despite all of that, Rhaenyra still allowed both her and Helaena to remain in the castle. Sure, they’re under guard—but apparently not enough of one if they keep finding ways to escape. Any other king would have taken their heads for the disrespect alone, not to mention the terrible optics of helping the enemy and allowing them freedom from within the Red Keep. Rhaenyra won’t do that to her old friend, but she is adding two guards outside their door and ending their yard privileges. From this point forward, it’s a permanent lockdown for Alicent and Heleana. They did this, Rhaenyra points out, to themselves.
After laying down the law, Rhaenyra steps outside Alicent’s quarters and finds Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuna) waiting for her. She fills the White Worm in, who conveniently feigns ignorance about Helaena’s pregnancy. She’s supposed to be the Queen’s ears—the walls that listen—so not knowing about a royal pregnancy should immediately raise suspicion. But it doesn’t. Rhaenyra’s plate is simply too full to notice. She misses the clue that her most trusted confidante may not be nearly as loyal as she believes.
Speaking of disloyalty, Daemon tries to assemble what’s left of the Gold Cloaks for another pep talk, but after their commander and twenty-five of their brothers were murdered, they’re not exactly eager to keep defending the Queen’s city. Not only are they being slaughtered by an assassin, they aren’t even getting paid for the risk. One by one, they quit, leaving an enraged Daemon shouting after them and calling them cowards.
Without the Gold Cloaks, King’s Landing is vulnerable to even more chaos. So, Alyn seeks out Corlys (Steve Toussaint) for more defenders and finds him hanging Triarchy survivors as he finishes cleaning up what’s left of the pirates from the Battle of the Gullet. Corlys is still furious with Rhaenyra for refusing to legitimize his sons, so he has no interest in returning to the Red Keep or risking more Velaryon men.
Eventually, Alyn reframes his outrage as hypocrisy. It took Corlys far longer to acknowledge his own sons than the Queen has had to make her decision. That finally gets through to him and Lord Corlys agrees to help. He even shares a bit of information he’s heard about Tyland Lannister surviving the Gullet and is making his way toward Rook’s Rest. What nobody knows is that Tyland isn’t traveling alone. He also has a supposedly dead king and his hobbling Hand, Larys, in tow. With that information, Alyn heads back to King’s Landing.
We jump over to Rook’s Rest, where Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) is burying the body of the man Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) killed. Larys (Matthew Needham) and Aegon are still planning to travel East, but Tyland makes an attempt to change their minds and head to Casterly Rock instead. As the two go back and forth, a contemplative Aegon asks Tyland if he thinks he was a terrible person. Tyland does his best to dance around the question while also admitting, in the nicest way possible, that yes, Aegon is indeed awful. For that truth, Aegon simply smirks like he already knows it.
Family Ties That Bind
Back in the Vale, we see a lonely Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) eating berries from her hiding spot when she sees her sister Baela (Bethany Antonia) and her dragon searching for Vhagar high in the skies. She misses her family, and probably human interaction, because let’s be real, Sheepstealer isn’t exactly a conversationalist. She wants to see Baela and takes off after her, breaking her promise to Lady Jeyne (Amanda Collin) to remain hidden.
Over in Harrenhal, Aemond and Alys (Gayle Rankin) grow closer. Now that Aemond is healing, he’s starting to get that itch to leave and search for Vhagar, but Alys tries everything to convince him to stay. A missing Vhagar keeps him safe because everyone assumes a dragon and rider never part ways. Could it also be possible his dragon is actually protecting him by staying away? That’s Alys’ theory. Everyone might hate the Prince and be out for his head, but not her and not his dragon. She appreciates what Aemond is and, more importantly, what they could create together. All this flowery, flirtatious talk has one goal: to play on Aemond’s emotions so she can claim Harrenhal as her own. With a Prince by her side along with his massive dragon, nobody would question her right to the haunted castle.
After Lady Jeyne pushes someone down the endless abyss of the Moon Door, Rhaena arrives and is immediately confronted with a smack across the face for her disobedience. She apologizes but admits Baela never saw her and left the area before Rhaena could reach her. Lady Jeyne reminds Rhaena that not only is her life at risk if the Queen finds out she is alive, but so is everyone in the Vale. Staying hidden ensures they won’t face the queen’s fiery revenge. Then, Lady Jeyne threatens to toss Rhaena through the Moon Door next time if she breaks her promise and leaves her cave again. Unfortunately, that won’t be so easy now that Rhaena is deep in her homesick feelings. She realizes she dreamed of one day riding her own dragon, and when that dream finally came true, it ripped the rest of her life away. Now Sheepstealer is all she has.
But it is not all Beala has. After flying around the Kingdom in search of Vhagar, she is exhausted. She pauses her search to meet with Alyn, who hopes Baela can speak to her grandfather about his refusal to look past Rhaenyra’s failed promises. Corlys favors Baela, so maybe he will listen to her? The conversation lands on what the two have a lot in common, They both have fathers who left them behind on their journeys to greatness. That common ground builds some serious chemistry, and Baela and Alyn kiss.
After arriving in Tumbleton, Gwayne fills Ormund and Daeron in on why he abandoned Criston Cole. No matter how he explains that Ormund is losing this fight, he fails to convince the stubborn man that he is anything but a coward. Ormund is too full of himself, sowing discord throughout the Kingdom and believing that killing the Gold Cloaks gives him the upper hand. He is arrogant, insulting, and all too willing to make cruel comments about Gwayne’s sexuality. He even makes an awful remark suggesting that Daeron, who clearly likes Gwayne, might want to stand with his back to the wall, just in case.
The more time we spend with these two, it is clear Daeron hates Ormund and his plans to make the boy King. As he and Gwayne leave, Daeron privately shares how angry he is that Gwayne left him in Ormund’s charge. He begs Gwayne not to abandon him again, but even dragon fire couldn’t convince Gwayne to stay anywhere near Ormund and the fight that’s coming. Considering Gwayne is next in line to inherit House Hightower once Ormund dies, his decision to head back to Oldtown makes even more sense.
Prophecies in Red
Back in the Red Keep, Helaena is embroidering her prophecies about Aemond into a tapestry. We see red thread sewing the image of her icy-eyed brother, seemingly lying in a pool of blood with a woman standing over him. Could she be the one sewing the past, present, and future into the opening credits? Possibly, because there will soon be a woman paying Aemond a visit, but we’ll get to that later.
Alicent sees the image and rips the tapestry from Helaena’s hands, which leads us back to Harrenhal, where Alys kills a young stable boy looking for Aemond. Then, to really seal the deal and keep Aemond by her side, she pulls out the magic chest containing five dragon eggs, an ancient clutch from Helaena’s dragon, Dreamfyre. “Have you forgotten your history?” she asks. “There is ancient strength here.” The ancient Queen Rhaena first claimed the dragon, and when she retired to Harrenhal, it joined her. Over time, it left behind a clutch of five eggs that remained hidden for 100 years after the Queen’s death. The eggs warm when Aemond and Alys hold them, which only solidifies her plan to turn herself into the Lady of the Water and him into the Dragon Lord of Harrenhal. Two cursed lovers occupying the seat of the gods, her vision for them is hard to look away from. If those five dragons hatch, they could build a dynasty, and Aemond would be nearly unstoppable.
In the throne room, his sister, Rhaenyra holds court to hear from her people. They are unhappy with the state of the Kingdom–hungry and scared now that the Gold Cloaks are dead. It seems they are beginning to question her power, and as the discord sown by Ormund makes its way to her throne, it literally cuts her. She tries to hide the blood, but she is shaken and storms out, leaving her people confused and angry. The last King to bleed on the blade of the Iron Throne was her father, Viserys, and from that day on, he slowly withered away as his Kingdom descended into chaos. For Rhaenyra, that drop of blood must feel like a bad omen.
While his wife is having a mini-panic attack, Daemon heads to Flea Bottom dressed as a Gold Cloak, hoping to lure out the anonymous assassin. It works, and he grabs a man who happens to be a former Red Keep guard–the one Alicent convinced to open the doors and let Rhaenyra in to kill Aegon. The man now refers to himself as one of the People of the Seven Kingdoms, a movement with no banner or allegiance other than King Daeron.
He laughs in the Prince’s face, practically daring Daemon to kill him. He has no fear as he is one of the Faceless Men of the Many. Killing one won’t kill the movement. Fans might remember the Faceless Men from Arya Stark’s time training with one at the Temple of the Many in Game of Thrones. They had no allegiance to any one person, so this feels like an early glimpse of the kind of movement that could eventually evolve into Arya’s story.
Daemon isn’t interested in listening to any of this gibberish, so he gives the man an earful, literally, by driving his dagger through his ear and getting his first taste of revenge against the traitors who killed his men.
Already in no mood to deal with men who refuse the Queen’s orders, Daemon runs into Ulf in the streets of Flea Bottom making his way through the market. Ulf was ordered to stay in the castle when he wasn’t on Vhagar-watch, and here he is, casually strolling through the streets with a smile on his face. Daemon instantly reminds Ulf that he may be a Dragonseed, but he will never truly be an equal to the Targaryens. With an anti-Rhaenyra movement forming and Daemon feeling increasingly helpless about how to stop it, he takes his bad mood out on the disobedient Ulf. He knocks Ulf to the ground, stands over him, and reminds him exactly what will happen if he ignores the Queen’s orders again. Ulf is left humiliated as the people watch the Prince abuse his power and hold it over a man who could technically be family. That level of humiliation, especially when it keeps coming from the hands of this pompous Prince, could come back to haunt Daemon. Ulf is already unhappy with Rhaenyra, and now this public shaming could turn that resentment into a treasonous grudge. After all, he has a dragon too, and the Queen’s power comes from her handful of dragons. If Daemon keeps pushing him, Ulf may eventually decide he has nothing left to lose.
Rhaenyra is Running Out of Supporters
And after Hugh shares his feelings about the Queen and their current assignment, some of his complaints finally break through. Hugh knows Tumbleton could soon become the site of a full-scale war, with dragons raining down fire to oust the Hightower traitors. That means his wife, Kat (Ellora Torchia), could be in danger. The Queen may need her new Dragonseeds, but their families are probably expendable, even if no one would ever admit it. This pushes Hugh to hijack a trader’s cart and sneak into town to find his wife.
Just as Hugh arrives, Rhaenyra’s assassins show up wearing Baratheon armor and ready to bend the knee to King Daeron. Covered in mud and filth from fighting and traveling, their stench immediately bothers Ormund, who tries to remain civil but keeps backing away from their odors. And just as he is about to welcome them into what’s left of his army, Gwayne suddenly drives his sword into one of them and starts hacking away at the rest.
They aren’t Baratheons coming to join their fight, they’re assassins sent by the Queen to kill Ormund and Daeron. Gwayne makes quick and bloody work of the group, and when it’s all over, Ormund, the delicate flower he claimed Rhaenyra was, vomits all over the place. Gwayne saves the day, and earns Ormund’s begrudging respect.
Meanwhile, Hugh tracks down Kat in Tumbleton, and their reunion isn’t exactly all hearts and flowers. At first, they embrace, with Kit in shock and relief assuming he was dead, but when she learns he left to become a Dragonseed in an attempt to pull their family out of starvation, she doesn’t understand. She blames him for the years they spent apart and the abuse she suffered while traveling the road in search of a better life. Her family was there to help her through it while he was off riding dragons. If he expects her to leave them now, then he doesn’t know her at all. And frankly, judging by the way he grabs her and demands that she come with him, she doesn’t want to know this version of her husband. His aggression, combined with everything she has suffered because of a choice he made that she never asked him to make, convinces Kat to stay with her family, even if it means dying beside them.
Hugh has no choice but to let her go when guards hear them arguing. He can’t stay in the city, being there was never part of the Queen’s plan. Now both Dragonseeds have disobeyed Rhaenyra’s orders and have a reason to be less than loyal to her. That can’t be good for her longevity on the Iron Throne.
Back to Gwayne, after Ormund apologizes for his rude remarks, he agrees to let him return to Oldtown. After that assassination attempt, Gwayne has a change of heart and decides to stay in Tumbleton. Besides protecting Daeron from future assassins, Ormund is not to be trusted. His push to become King Daeron’s Hand could have dire consequences for the Kingdom and the young King’s survival.
Mothers Forced to Make Terrible Choices
Speaking of children facing death, Alicent meets with Rhaenyra again and offers up Aemond’s location if the Queen helps Helaena stay sane and safe. Her daughter is a dragon dreamer with the gift of foresight, something that could come in handy for an embattled Queen. Alicent then tells Rhaenyra that Aemond is in Harrenhal. Rhaenyra is interested, but only if Alicent goes to Harrenhal and kills Aemond herself.
Later, we see Alicent preparing to travel to the cursed castle when she has a mother-daughter chat with Helaena about why she was pushed into marriage with Aegon. Alicent admits it wasn’t her choice, Helena’s grandfather, Otto Hightower, planned the marriage as a power move. Her only fault was that she never tried to stop it.
Still, Alicent didn’t mind the closeness she and Helaena built while remaining in the Keep. Alicent had nobody other than two toxic and disappointing sons and a castle full of men who never took her seriously. Having her daughter by her side, even when she wasn’t always in her right mind, was a comfort.
After their talk, we see Alicent cloak up and head out of the Red Keep, en route to Harrenhal, while Rhaenyra works through her guilt by standing over the bed of her sleeping son, Joffrey (Oscar Eskinazi). Will Alicent be able to kill her son? Will she even make it past Alys, or will she wind up just like that stable boy?
As the episode draws to a close, Rhaenyra receives a message from Ormund mocking her attempt to assassinate him and the newly crowned King. This happens just as Corlys sends his men to King’s Landing to help, only for Jon Roxton (Joplin Sibtain) and a group of Hightower soldiers to attack him under the cover of darkness. We hear plenty of carnage, but we never actually see whether Corlys is killed, so for now, we’re just assuming he is. But don’t count the Seasnake out just yet. That man has more lives than a cat. If he is dead, that’s yet another problem for Rhaenyra, who is quickly losing control of her Kingdom and leaving herself open to an uprising from the commoners, the Lords she fed rats to, and now her own Dragonseeds. There are tough days ahead for the Dragon Queen.