Note: The following story contains spoilers from “House of the Dragon” Season 2 Episode 8.
The “House of the Dragon” Season 2 finale saw yet another dramatic confrontation between Rhaenyra and Alicent, which star Olivia Cooke said found Alicent as her “rawest self.”
“It’s massive that Alicent travels to Rhaenyra — it’s treason,” Cooke said in HBO’s featurette diving into Season 2 Episode 8. “If Aemond found out, head on a spike. But it’s also to look Rhaenyra in the eye as my rawest self.”
In the Season 2 finale, titled “The Queen Who Ever Was,” Alicent (Cooke) finds passage to Dragonstone, desperate to speak with Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) about bypassing an even bloodier war that’s just around the corner in Westeros. Alicent made a plea for peace by offering Rhaenyra to take the Iron Throne peacefully while Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) is away at Harrenhal.
As Alicent came before Rhaenyra ready to end the civil war, Cooke said Alicent sheds “whatever power or queenly status [she] had,” telling Rhaenyra, “I was wrong — take it. I don’t want anything to do with it. I’m done.”
“She’s had this journey of self-actualization and she’s got a lot of power within her,” Cooke said. “And I think she feels much more capable.”
For Rhaenyra, who recently gained three new dragonriders that now outpace the power of Team Green, Alicent’s offer isn’t a necessity to take the Iron Throne, though it would certainly speed the process along and avoid a further bloodbath.
“It’s funny to be offered a huge gift at the point where you think you already have what you need,” D’Arcy said in the video.
By the climax of their conversation, Alicent consented to the reality that Rhaenyra will have to kill Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), which EP Sara Hess noted is a “huge” victory for Rhaenyra of which Alicent previously wouldn’t have conceded, and leads Rhaenyra to truly believe Alicent.
“Rhaenyra has these new dragonriders, she’s just gotten Daemon back, she has this big army,” Hess said. “If she wanted to, she could probably win this war herself, but at the cost of thousands and thousands of lives. And then she’s sort of given this backdoor by Alicent.”
All episodes of “House of the Dragon” are now streaming on Max.
