House of the Dragon teaser reveals Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke’s grand debut

We’re now at the halfway point of House of the Dragon season 1, and that means there’s going to be a major changing of the guard.

Milly Alcock and Emily Carey’s time playing Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower is seemingly at an end after the release of episode 5 this week. A new sneak-peek teaser that dropped Sunday night confirms that Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke will now officially make their debut as the adult versions of the lead characters in House of the Dragon episode 6. They will presumably maintain those parts for the remainder of the series.

D’Arcy and Cooke were among the first ones announced in the cast back in December 2020 when plans for the Game of Thrones prequel were getting into gear — showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik revealed they would be the leads of House of the Dragon. But in a surprising move, the series began with Alcock and Carey playing younger versions of the two main characters.

We also didn’t know before Sunday’s reveal exactly how long the younger stars would be involved on the show. George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, which serves as the basis for House of the Dragon, barely gets into the characters of Rhaenyra and Alicent in their earlier years, and instead introduces them as adults at odds with each other. That’s why it was such a shock to spend so much time with Alcock and Carey in these roles.

House of the Dragon will now drive the story more steadily towards the events of the Dance of the Dragons, which is a pivotal civil war in Westeros history that breaks out within House Targaryen over succession. Rhaenyra is still the chosen heir of her father, King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine). But — spoiler warning for anyone who isn’t up to date with the show! — with Viserys having now conceived a son, Aegon II, with his new queen, Alicent, there is dissent among his court with some preference to see a male sit on the Iron Throne.

House of the Dragon

Ollie Upton/HBO Emily Carey and Milly Alcock as young Alicent and Rhaenyra on ‘House of the Dragon’

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House of the Dragon

Ollie Upton/HBO Olivia Cooke’s Alicent Hightower stares down Emma D’Arcy’s Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen in HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon.’

Condal, who co-created House of the Dragon with Martin, previously explained to EW how important the decision was to start with Rhaenyra and Alicent in their youth.

“They are central female characters who are at once credited and also blamed with this particular war,” he said. “Because the history is written by men, we were really interested in the dynamic forces that a certain medieval level of innate chauvinism puts on the two women. Our show is, at its core, the story of the dissolution of this very close female friendship that began in a very young and impressionable point in these girls’ lives.”

So far, each episode of House of the Dragon has featured a time jump. Between episodes 1 and 2, about six months had passed. Between episodes 2 and 3, it was closer to three years. And so forth and so on. We’ve seen some actor swaps to signify that passage of time. For instance, kid actor Matthew Carver played Laenor Velaryon in the first episode, but by episode 3 the character was portrayed by Theo Nate. The same goes for Laena Velaryon, who was once played by Nova Foueillis-Mosé and is now portrayed by Savannah Steyn.

House of the Dragon episode 6, with D’Arcy and Cooke as Rhaenyra and Alicent, will air on HBO and stream on HBO Max Sept. 25.

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