HBO‘s House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 2 ends with a new monarch on the Iron Throne, but their first act of power might portend still more horror and bloodshed to come.
**Spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 2, now streaming on HBO Max**
This week’s House of the Dragon ends with Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Daemon (Matt Smith) taking King’s Landing with the help of Alicent (Olivia Cooke), the new dragonseeds, and one slippery head of the City Watch. When Rhaenrya and Daemon arrive at the Red Keep, they only have a small force of guards still loyal to the Hightowers to face down. Daemon essentially cuts through most of them easily. So what we get to see is a weirdly exciting (and kind of sexy?) sequence of royal husband and wife, Targaryen uncle and niece, retaking their home from usurpers.
“It felt good,” Emma D’Arcy told DECIDER. “I mean, it’s funny, right? Sometimes there are parts of our job where the sort of the fictional world mirrors the real world.”
“The Red Keep set kind of is the heart of the show, I think. It’s a set that’s been there longest, and you have this huge castle, all in the right order, in this sort of single sound stage, and it kind of is the nucleus of the production,” they said. “I’d been out on ‘satellite Dragonstone’ for however long. There is a feeling and a thrill, I think, that comes with being back at the heart of the action. Yeah, it felt good to go home.”
“Yeah, it kind of does feel like home,” Matt Smith said, “that part of the set.”
When the duo arrive in the throne room, there’s a moment where it seems all hope might be lost. The City Watch, led by Ser Luthor Largent (Tom Cullen) arrives behind them, filling the space and cutting off an exit. However, Ser Luthor is happy to join Team Black. Not only has Alicent already begged him to do so, but he remembers the day that Daemon Targaryen — former head of the City Watch — gave him and all the other officers their beloved gold cloaks.
Before she can take the Iron Throne, though, Rhaenyra wants to get rid of Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney). She is infuriated to learn that he’s slipped away. Daemon, however, discovers a fitting replacement for her fury. Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) was secretly played in the dungeon last season by Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) and Daemon insists that Rhaenyra executes him in front of her new subjects.
So what happens? Does Rhaenyra kill Otto? Why does Rhaenyra need to kill Otto? Here’s everything you need to know about how House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 2 ends…
House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 2 Ending Explained: Does Rhaenyra Kill Otto Hightower?
Yes, Rhaenyra Targaryen kills Otto Hightower in House of the Dragon. It takes her multiple, messy tries — even borrowing Dark Sister! — but she eventually beheads her father’s former Hand.
This is exactly what happens in George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood; when Rhaenyra retakes King’s Landing after the Battle of the Gullet, Ser Otto is the first person to be beheaded as a traitor.
What’s not in Fire & Blood is the effort, physical and emotional, it took for Rhaenyra to do this herself. After killing Otto, she almost struggles to ascend the Iron Throne. Emma D’Arcy told DECIDER that they found this scene rather “interesting” because Rhaenyra still sees Otto as her father’s best friend; i.e. someone who was in a position of authority when she was still a child.
“I mean, there’s quite a sort of literal metaphor about destroying the old regime, a sort of death of the older generation in order to make way for the new,” D’Arcy said. “My desire was that by the time she sort of crossed that threshold — and for the first time, killed someone by her own hand —the child in Rhaenyra is revealed.”
“In some way, the homecoming, which can happen when we go back to the family home, we can be sort of regressed anyway. But I sort of wanted this to be the most extreme version of that, so that by the time she sits on the throne, her adulthood has kind of abandoned her,” they said.
“I mean, there’s quite a sort of literal metaphor about destroying the old regime, a sort of death of the older generation in order to make way for the new.”
Emma D’Arcy on Ser Otto Hightower’s death.
Immediately after Rhaenyra beheads Otto, Daemon executes the vile Lord Jasper “Ironrod” Wylde (Paul Kennedy) in short order. When DECIDER asked Matt Smith why Daemon didn’t also kill Otto, he had a rather political answer.
“There’s an element of counsel about it, in a way,” Smith said. “I think of it as a statement to the ‘smallfolk’ or to the people that we’re in front of, particularly. It’s a statement of intent to go: this is the true queen… There’s a touch of political theater about it in a way.”
Smith went on to point out that like Rhaenrya, Daemon does have a personal history with Otto: “Even though there’s been such a tete-a-tete with Otto and Daemon, particularly over the years, they grew up together in really close proximity. His brother, that was his best friend, actually, and they probably spent so much time socially together, and whilst there’s a glee in it, I think it’s a double-edged sword, that death.”
“It’s sort of the cherry on top of a very shit cake.”
Olivia Cooke on Ser Otto Hightower’s death.
Otto’s death is more than a double-edged sword for Alicent. This week’s episode ends with Alicent and Helaena (Phia Saban) being foiled in their plan to flee the city. They are brought directly to Rhaenyra and get to see that the new queen’s first act was to kill their family’s patriarch.
“I think in that moment, Alicent is just trying to compute what her next move is,” Olivia Cooke told DECIDER. “But seeing her slain father with his head chopped off in front of her, who hasn’t been returning her letters for a very, very long time, she doesn’t really know what has happened to him. It’s sort of the cherry on top of a very shit cake.”
Will Rhaenyra be able to stabilize the Seven Kingdoms and be the ruler she wants to be? Or will that “very shit cake” be served to her?
House of the Dragon returns next Sunday, July 5 at 9 PM on HBO and HBO Max.