(House of the Dragon spoilers will be found below.)
This week’s House of the Dragon yielded so much chaotic glee, which sparked hard-hitting emotions. Vaemond Velaryon f*cked around and found out what it was like to keep one’s tongue while losing one’s head. And after Daemon Targaryen pulled off his part of that stunt, he later participated in the funniest interaction of the of the week, but before that happened, a quieter and profound moment went down in the throne room.
That would happen during the agonizing walk of King Viserys I — also literally on his deathbed throughout the episode — as he hauled himself onto the Iron Throne to reaffirm Rhaenyra’s place as heir. Members of the Targaryen/Hightower and Velaryon houses (assembled to hear petitions on the succession of Driftmark) stood and watched Viserys as he demonstrated incredible resolve despite his many ailments (for which, not incidentally, Paddy Considine has offered insight). As the king struggled to ascend to his intended destination, his crown fell off and clattered to the floor. Rogue Prince Daemon scooped it up, proving that he (finally) had his brother’s back.
according to @EW
The fall of the crown from King Viserys head in episode 8 was by a mistake, but it was captured by Matt Smith “Damon targaryen ” at the time, and the scene was filmed and came out with this masterpiece pic.twitter.com/lXfuNTdIXs
— 𝑆𝐻 (@ll0sherry) October 10, 2022
This followed an unusual display of discomfort from Daemon while he and Rhaenyra first visited Viserys’ bedroom, and Daemon struggled to make eye contact with his brother, who was in terrible pain. As it turns out, though, the crown did not fall off Viserys’ head in the script, but when magic started to happen during rehearsals and shooting, and Matt Smith improvised picking up the crown, director Geeta Patel felt that this should happen onscreen. Via Entertainment Weekly:
“When we were shooting that — I think the rehearsal again, the first day — the crown fell off of Paddy’s head and Matt picked it up and we just kept going. We didn’t stop [filming]. There was a discovery there of this moment. So then the three of us got together and they were like, ‘We felt this. This felt like the turning point in our relationship.’ … We decided to shoot it both ways with the crown falling off and with the crown not falling off… I was so thankful that accident happened, that the crown fell off because it proved to be, at least for me, quite a heavy moment and quite a turning point for a storyline that had started in the pilot: Hey, I want your crown and by the end here I’m gonna put the crown back on your head and I’m gonna help you to your throne.”
The moment was a telling one with Viserys still insisting that he was “fine” and both he and Daemon knowing that wasn’t the truth. The squirrelly brother then ended up helping his more upstanding counterpart in the seemingly smallest but most powerful way. As Patel revealed, Daemon’s scripted speech during the subsequent dinner scene actually got axed because this crown moment did the job in communicating the brothers’ repaired dynamic. Then the show bid farewell to a Targaryen king and (thanks to an inadvertent communications f*ck up from Viserys while delirious on milk of poppy) hello to a bigger civil war.
HBO’s House of the Dragon airs on Sundays at 9:00pm EST.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)