[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2.]
“Blood and Cheese” changed everything. The brutal events at the end of the House of the Dragon Season 2 premiere plunged the Targaryen civil war into depths previously unknown, and the aftermath in King’s Landing and Dragonstone were revealed in the second episode of the season.
The dark hour marked a change in Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Daemon’s (Matt Smith) marriage, whilst the guilt felt by Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) for where they were during the deadly event spurred very different reactionary measures. Smith and Frankel break down how “Blood and Cheese,” and their characters’ roles in it, will reverberate through the season.
As Smith explains to TV Insider, there was already a “chasm” between Daemon and Rhaenyra after the deaths of son Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) and stillborn daughter Visenya in Season 1. Daemon’s attempt to avenge Luke in the Season 2 premiere only widened that divide.
“It creates a huge chasm between them and the ripple effects of that are pretty ghastly for both of them,” Smith tells TV Insider. “And it leads them both down very different paths.”
Indeed, trust was broken for Rhaenyra in Episode 2 after she learned that Daemon hired the assassins who murdered the young Jaehaerys. Like in the Season 1 finale when Daemon hosted a war council while Rhaenyra struggled in labor with Visenya, Daemon took matters into his own hands to avenge his stepson. Rhaenyra accused him of doing this for his own gain, weakening his wife’s standing throughout Westeros and her own council in the process. Daemon denied that claim, saying he acted out of his love for Rhaenyra.
