O brother, where art thou? Identical twins Ser Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor) and Ser Erryk Cargyll (Elliott Tittensor) face off against each in the climax of episode two of House of the Dragon season two, “Rhaenyra the Cruel,” leaving both twins dead as the bloodshed begins to escalate in Westeros. On Vanity Fair's Still Watching podcast hosts Hillary Busis, Richard Lawson, and Chris Murphy unpack the compounding effects that the eye-for-an-eye violence has on the Hightowers, the Targaryens, and the citizens of Westeros. Plus, “Rhaenyra the Cruel” director Clare Kilner drops by the podcast to chat about filming Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen’s funeral procession scene and returning to the director’s chair for House of the Dragon for season two.
After Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) unwittingly causes the death of Prince Jaehaerys, Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) is awoken in her bed chambers by Ser Arryk of King’s Landing, who has been sent by Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) to infiltrate Dragonstone to impersonate his identical twin brother, a member of the Queensguard, and kill the queen. Luckily for Rhaenyra, Ser Arryk’s murder plot is foiled by Ser Erryk at the last possible minute. They duel to the death, with Erryk murdering his own brother and then taking his own life shortly after. “That was the worst reboot of Parent Trap I’ve ever seen,” says Murphy.
Outside of the Dragonstone, Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower’s (Olivia Cooke) family is falling further into disarray as her grief-stricken son King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) grows increasingly petulant and bloodthirsty after his young son’s death. He hastily declares war on Rhaenyra and Dragonstone and hangs all the rat catchers in King’s Landing, much to the chagrin of his grandfather Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans). After chastising King Aegon for his rash and bloodthirsty decision, Otto is officially removed as Hand of the King, and replaced by one Ser Criston Cole.
Aegon’s rashness seems as though it will have a negative impact on Westeros writ large, though “it’s not always clear in Westeros how important it is to have the support of the people,” says Busis. Lawson agrees, noting the episode’s focus on the laypeople’s reaction to the feuding between the Hightowers and the Targaryens. “All these people are terrible. Don’t the locals know that?” he says.
The episode, at 72 minutes, turned out to be the longest of the season. Despite its supersized length, there were darlings that Kilner had to kill in order to craft the episode—most notably during Prince Jaehaerys’s funeral procession. “We shot so much footage for the funeral,” says Kilner. “And we thought, Oh my goodness, we’ve got to have that first beat before setting off on this procession, which is really heartbreaking and really hard. Alicent and Helaena had to deal with everyone watching and looking.”
Kilner says that she pulled some images from Princess Diana’s funeral to brief the extras for the scene, which was shot in Spain. “I grew up in Argentina, so I speak Spanish,” she says. “I speak to them to find out what personal experience of grief you’ve had, and to bring that with you and for everyone to really individualise it, so that it’s not just one crowd doing one thing.”
Kilner directed multiple episodes in season one of House of the Dragon, and speaks at length about what it was like returning to the Game of Thrones prequel series for season two. “What is so nice about coming back for season two is you have the trust of the actors, the showrunner, and the writers,” she says. “So you can be a little bit more daring when there’s longer scenes. Sometimes you want to lose the formality.”
But just because she’s a veteran House of the Dragon director doesn’t mean that she was able to always tell apart Luke and Elliott Tittensor, the identical twins that played Ser Arryk and Erryk. “I love those boys so much, but they do look so similar, and I still get them mixed up,” she says. “We were in a really big moment of the scene, and we got halfway through and I just ran in and quietly said, ‘Remember you’ve got to kill the queen.’ And he’s like, ‘Clare, it’s Elliott.’ Everyone just burst into laughter. And I didn’t do that once. I’m ashamed to say I did that twice.”
This article originally ran as ‘How Princess Diana’s Funeral Inspired House of the Dragon's Somber Procession' in Vanity Fair.
