‘House of the Dragon’s Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith Break Down Season 3’s Brutal Iron Throne Cliffhanger

Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 2.

Only two weeks into House of the Dragon‘s return, the penultimate season has already dropped more than a few shocking bombshells. While the premiere began with the devastating Battle of the Gullet, which saw several characters’ fates either sealed or ultimately left a mystery, Episode 2 affords Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) little time to grieve the most personal loss of her eldest son, Jacaerys (Harry Collett), before she has to make a more decisive move on King’s Landing. Yet her arrival on dragonback, alongside Daemon (Matt Smith), isn’t met with the reception that she anticipated — and without Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) or Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) to dispatch, a secretly imprisoned Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) ends up taking their place, but the moment itself ultimately rings hollow, especially after Rhaenyra’s initial attempt to execute the former Hand of the King doesn’t go as planned, especially when Alicent (Olivia Cooke) enters the hall immediately afterward.

Ahead of the show’s premiere, Collider had the opportunity to speak with several House of the Dragon cast members about their characters’ most pivotal moments in the first two episodes, including D’Arcy and Smith. Over the course of the interview, which you can watch above or read below, the two discuss Rhaenyra’s reaction to Jace’s death (and why D’Arcy “dreaded” the scene the most out of any other moment in Season 3), that less-than-triumphant claiming of the Iron Throne in Episode 2, and whether Rhaenyra and Daemon’s marriage will face any other obstacles now that the show has scrapped Fire & Blood‘s Nettles plotline.

COLLIDER: Emma, I did speak with Harry [Collett] yesterday; obviously, Jace’s fate is set up in this initial episode, and it carries over into Episode 2. Rhaenyra’s reaction to being confronted with Jace’s body, starting with that denial… it feels like you watch her go through the grief process right there. How did you prepare for that scene and her exploring all those emotions in that moment?

EMMA D’ARCY: If I’m totally honest, it’s the only scene in the series that I sort of dreaded, and I think I probably was quite avoidant about it for a while. But how did I approach it? If I’m honest, the real sense of privilege of a recurring character and getting to be with the show for a number of years is having a honed operating system that you kind of trust, and that you can run these big events through, and to trust the output of.

Harry was totally beautiful on the day. I’m always struck by the extraordinary intuition of actors. We didn’t really speak in the morning, and he gave me kind of a wide berth, but we hadn’t talked about it in advance. Then at lunchtime, he found me very briefly and just said, “I didn’t know what would be best, but I just thought it could be some space.” He’s a beautifully, incredibly caring and deeply thinking person. So, I think sometimes — maybe this is just me, but I probably do require something sort of slightly sacred about those days, where you do just have to stay in it. You have to honor, I suppose, the size of the ask, and certainly Harry did that very, very beautifully. And I was extremely relieved when the day was over on that occasion.

‘House of the Dragon’s Emma D’Arcy Explains Why Rhaenyra Is Actually “Rudderless” on the Iron Throne

“I felt there was an opportunity in that scene to look at how power and the pursuit of power, the toll that that takes on identity, on the body, on one’s sense of self…”

Image via HBO

The second episode really feels like it’s just blow after blow — not just in terms of the grief, but also these unexpected turns that the story takes, especially with Rhaenyra and Daemon going to King’s Landing. It culminates in a scene that I wanted to ask both of you about, which is Rhaenyra reclaiming the throne. It’s a moment that feels anything but triumphant. I was curious about how the two of you wanted to approach not just Rhaenyra ascending the steps to the Iron Throne — it feels like she’s physically staggering to get there — but also the look that she shares with Daemon once she’s seated on the Iron Throne.

MATT SMITH: I’ve not seen it yet, so it’s interesting. I didn’t know there was a look there at the end. I mean, I remember doing it with you, obviously, but I think you could probably speak more to that.

D’ARCY: I haven’t seen it yet either, but I’m happy to hear your read, because I certainly thought there was a lot of scope to kind of rob that moment of its triumph, which, for my money, feels honest in a family where the political ambition and the personal, interpersonal strife are sort of part of the same thing. I felt there was an opportunity in that scene to look at how power and the pursuit of power, the toll that that takes on identity, on the body, on one’s sense of self, so that by the time she does finally claim that seat, so long dreamt of, she’s kind of rudderless in some way, and actually may be finally claiming the sort of thing that could actually cause an identity crisis. I think that’s kind of interesting.

Looking ahead to the rest of Season 3, one thing that book fans may have been surprised by is that the show is dispensing with the Nettles storyline. That was a point of strife for Daemon and Rhaenyra in that original story, but are there any threats to their dynamic, their relationship, that you can tease or set up this season? Despite what we saw at the end of Season 2, with Daemon publicly swearing fealty to Rhaenyra, are there obstacles that their marriage is going to face?

SMITH: Yeah, of course. Of course. There’s so much going on on a grander scale in terms of fronts of war, politically, and then the personal relationships that are sort of encroaching, encroaching, encroaching like a sort of swarm of flies. Then, amidst all of that, you’re trying to balance an actual relationship between yourself when you have two slightly different attitudes towards how to achieve the same goal.

D’ARCY: Absolutely.

SMITH: There’s a lot of wrestling that has to take place, I think. There are some big peaks and troughs that come in within that, without giving too much away.

New episodes of House of the Dragon Season 3 premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.