My Review of House Of The Dragon's 1x04: "King Of The Narrow Sea"

 

Written by Ira Parker

Directed by Clare Kilner

Daemon (to Viserys): "I want Rhaenyra, I'll take her as she is. Give me Rhaenyra to take to wife and we will return the House of the Dragon to it's proper glory."

It's weird. I think audiences when watching Game Of Thrones were horrified by the idea of Jaime and Cersei yet found themselves rooting for Daenerys and Jon and now the same has happened with Rhaenyra and Daemon. Although we absolutely shouldn't, but in fact we want those two to get together and yes, going by the book, it will happen eventually.

This episode however really did lay the ground work for their future union in style. Things opened with Rhaenyra at Storm's End, bored out of her mind and rejecting every suitor without so much as giving any of them a chance to argue why they'd make for a great future husband. This was also to the frustration of Viserys and even Alicent to a certain extent as Rhaenyra cut her tour short by two months and headed home, just in time for Daemon's return.

Rhaenyra could barely contain her happiness at seeing Daemon again and he in turn tried to offer her another perspective of having a political marriage. Then the episode went down the Aladdin route and both Daemon and Rhaenyra slipped into the poorer side of King's Landing where venturing into a local brothel became something of an eye opener for the latter.

There's a section in the Fire And Ice where Daemon taught Rhaenyra how to seduce a man and this episode clearly adapted that idea with the two of them being in a very compromised position. Rhaenyra and Daemon are clearly attracted to one another, almost had sex, only for Daemon to stop it and Rhaenyra to later have sex with Ser Criston, whom she's also been very attracted to and has insanely good chemistry with.

Of course, Otto being the scheming shit heel he's been all season so far had Rhaenyra followed and couldn't wait to tell Viserys about his daughter's trysts. Points for Viserys for openly calling Otto on his ambitious scheming and even more points for Rhaenyra into getting Viserys to do what we've all wanted done to Otto since the first episode and have the latter removed as Hand. 

Sadly though, I don't think Otto will go away quietly and will find other ways to be a thorn in Rhaenyra's side.  Not to mention Viserys clearly didn't believe Rhaenyra either, considering he had his maester bring her some moon tea to end the episode. That's something Rhaenyra might need in the future when she does marry Ser Laenor, which isn't a prospect that she's especially keen on.

As for Alicent, this episode saw some interesting facets to her. She seemed keen to reconnect with Rhaenyra then confronted her stepdaughter/former best friend about those rumours of Daemon. She also went from helping Viserys in his bath to being completely miserable when having sex with him. Not to mention she seemed to struggle with her own babies this week. Out of all the characters, Alicent definitely had the worst time of it this week.

- Rhaenyra was with Ser Criston and Lord Boremund Baratheon (Julian Lewis Jones) at Storm's End. We also got to see Samwell Blackwood cut down a Bracken to size. 

- Daemon named himself the King of the Narrow Sea but offered his crown to Viserys as a gesture of good will. Caraxes was the only dragon to appear in this episode. Daemon alluded to his wife being unable to have children. 

- Ser Harwin Strong, another one of Rhaenyra's admirers was amused by her masquerading as a boy in King's Landing. 

- For book fans, this episode gave a not remotely subtle hint about the nature of Rhaenyra's eventual fate. 

- Corlys planned to wed Laena to a rival from Braavos while Mysaria has moved up in the world since her last encounter with Daemon.

- Chronology: It's been a year since the previous one. Rhaenyra and Daemon haven't seen each other in four years.

King Of The Narrow Sea easily turned out to be the best episode of the season and while I shouldn't root for Rhaenyra and Daemon, it's kind of hard not to, isn't it? It's so easy to see why these two are drawn to one another when they're so similar and it was fantastic to see Otto get a temporary comeuppance even if I'm convinced he'll still be around to annoy.

Rating: 9 out of 10