House Of The Dragon Season 2’s Same-Sex Kiss Was Unscripted

This article contains spoilers for “House of the Dragon” season 2.

“House of the Dragon” season 2 has been firing on all cylinders. The high court drama and political scheming are thrilling and full of backstabbing and intrigue. The action has delivered on the promise of medieval nuclear war by bringing dragons into battle and unleashing absolute hell and obliteration upon the masses. Particularly compelling this season is the juxtaposition between Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke), both struggling with being women in a patriarchal world but from very different perspectives — with Alicent particularly getting a taste of her own medicine as she is now acting surprised over being ignored for being a woman despite backing a rebellion-turned-civil-war because she didn’t support a female ruler of Westeros.

Their story is the core of the show, the most important relationship, and the cause of this entire war. The writers of the show understand this. First, they gave us an entirely original scene written for the show that puts the entire Dance of Dragons in a new light because it doubles down on this being a very avoidable tragedy, a misunderstanding that broke down a family, and the realm at large. Compared to “Game of Thrones,” which had to condense an incredibly detailed and epic-in-scope book down to a manageable 10 hours per book, “House of the Dragon” has the opposite as a feature. It has a relatively straightforward narrative relatively light in character details. This allows the TV show to expand and give us insight into the story in a way not even the book does, like the aforementioned meeting between Alicent and Rhaenyra. It also allows the show to explore a completely new aspect of Rhaenyra’s character not present in the books, resulting in an unscripted same-sex kiss scene in season 2, episode 6, “Smallfolk.”

By the end of “Smallfolk,” Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) and Rhaenyra are quickly growing closer, the two women mutually respecting each other and sharing in their isolation and pain as Mysaria becomes a trusted advisor to the queen and her plan to incite a social revolution bears fruit. At the end of the episode, Rhaenyra leans in and kisses Mysaria. It’s a tender, emotional moment, and as Mizuno explained to Vulture, the idea came to her and D’Arcy at the last minute:

“It wasn’t scripted as a kiss. It was scripted as an intimate moment that got interrupted, and it was unknown where the scene was going to go. Emma and I both strongly felt that we didn’t want it to be queer-baity in any way, and we wanted to step back, look at it, and take care of it. But it just felt right. It would be a kiss.”

“We were standing quite far apart and they felt that, in the moment after Mysaria reveals this vulnerable story, Rhaenyra would just want to hold her. Because Rhaenyra does have passion and empathy,” Mizuno continued. “It was such a gorgeous hug, and the kiss came so organically from that. It was very vulnerable and very tender, and then it was really nice. And then you stop thinking and it gets really passionate. It was very considered. We rehearsed it but it was also totally organic.”

The kiss, and it confirming that Rhaenyra is bisexual, also recontextualizes her relationship with Alicent as something even more complex than we initially thought. Their closeness, their love for each other and ultimately their violent falling out makes even more sense with some romantic element involved. 

In an interview with The New York Times after season 1, Cooke talked about the eroticism of Rhaenyra’s relationship with Alicent. “I don’t know if Alicent knows what it feels like to feel those things now,” she explained. “There’s layers and layers of repression; sexuality and lust are probably a prehistoric, sedimentary layer by now. From Alicent’s point of view, I don’t think she’s that self-aware, in terms of what she’s feeling, to know what’s propelling her to reach out to Rhaenyra again.”

Likewise, writer Sara Hess told Variety that “there’s an element of queerness to [Rhaenyra and Alicent’s bond].” Even D’Arcy recently told Variety that, even if the word “queer” is not in Rhaenyra’s lexicon, the character is still “really sexual” and that there was “great intimacy within her early relationship with Alicent.”

New episodes of “House of the Dragon” premiere Sundays on HBO and Max.