That was the other possibility, but the way that scene was edited, with the final shot showing only Alicent’s face (and no indication that the girl was fine after quaffing that potion), and what seemed to me like a faint choking or falling sound, that she might have switched the moon tea for poison. It seemed unnecessarily ambiguous to me.
Given some of the things he said before the throne, it seemed to me that Vaemond was advocating male-preference if not male-exclusive inheritance.
The Targaryens have the most awkward family gatherings.
I thought when Alicent hugged Helaena after she asked where Dyana was, it meant “so sorry, you haven’t heard, she’s dead”. But, since the girl who brought the drink to Alicent is working for Daemon’s ex, what is the ex going to do with that information? Who would care that a servant girl was killed to cover up Aegon’s proclivities? In GoT nobody cared that Joffrey killed Roz. With that in mind, maybe she is not dead.
I really thought Viserys was going to fall over on the swords when he was trying to get to the throne. It would have been a fitting end to literally be killed by the throne itself. But it was great to have his moment with Daemon and they needed his deathbed confusion to sow the Aegon misunderstanding into the family dynamic. Maybe they shouldn’t give so many relatives the same name.
Aemond is vicious. He is never going to play nice. “The strong boys.” Jace and Luke need to watch their backs. I like that they and Daemon’s daughters seem happy enough with their marriage arrangements.
I thought this was a good solid episode, finally ramping things up near the end of the season. It will be interesting to see if they follow GOT’s episode 9 pattern.
Aemond is his generation’s Daemon. It looks like Daemon realizes that, too, based on the way he looked at him.
I’m so lost at this point. I mean, I get the overall picture but the intricacies / politics are getting hard for this newbie to follow. Still digging it but certainly missing a lot of little things. Aside from the main conflict is who will / should inherit the throne (Aegon or Rhaenyra) I’m not clear what all the other squabbles are about. Just peripheral family members taking sides? Could someone maybe point me to a good site that explains all the minutae in a way that someone who has not read the books could understand? I chuckled last night thinking " all these white haired people look the same to me" 
Really? The plot seems pretty simple to me, and I haven’t read the source material.
The conflict you identified is the central conflict and is at the heart of almost all the interactions we see.
The only other one I can think of in the most recent episode is the situation with the Velaryon inheritance.
In that one, Corlys Velaryon’s designated heir is his grandson Lucerys Velaryon, who is Rhaenyra’s second son.
However, Corlys’s brother, Vaemond Velaryon, believes he should be Corlys’s heir, because Lucerys isn’t really a Velaryon by genetic parentage.
Corlys’s (presumed) widow, Rhaenys (King Viserys’s first cousin), is being asked to take sides between Vaemond and Lucerys.
The complications with Rhaenys include: (1) that she believes that she should be the current queen, because she thinks she had a better claim than Viserys, and she was passed over only because she was not a man, (2) she knows that Corlys wanted Lucerys to be his heir even knowing that he is probably not genetically Corlys’s grandson, and (3) she believes that Rhaenyra is responsible for the murder of her son Laenor so she could marry her uncle Daemon.
So it seems that Rhaenys has every reason to takes sides against Rhaenyra. And Rhaenyra even suspects that Rhaenys might even make her own petition to be her husband’s heir.
Does that help? Any other situations you are wondering about?
Though he lost his temper, Jace seemed more in control of the situation than Aemond. Asking the young woman (whose name I can’t remember) to dance made him look more elegant that Aemond’s stomping around. Again, Viserys is really a decent guy and it’s weird that his sons are so terrible while his grandsons seem to have inherited his essential decentness.
100%.
Tyrion, Bronn, Varys, Cersei, The Hound, The Mountain, Melisandre, Arya, Brienne, to name but a few. All had uniquely distinctive characters and dispositions which gave the show real potency. Even though HOTD has a smaller main cast, and much more time to devote to each individual, somehow its characters seem less fleshed-out and interesting.
Don’t get me wrong, I am actually quite fond of having Viserys as a good-man-as-king (albeit perhaps not perfectly suited to the role) - and the whole Alicent vs Rhaenyra soap opera is all well-and-good narratively speaking. But so many of the characters are just plain forgettable.
Thanks so much, Ascenray. I guess I wasn’t as far off as I thought. So, Vaemond and Lucerys are both contenders for Corlys’s position, not Viserys’s throne, right? And Corlys’s brother is the one who got chopped(?)
You got it
By comparison, yeah, that’s my overall impression, too, MrLee.
I think the Queen did give the poor raped servant girl poison.
Aemond’s mocking, and punning, toast of his “Strong” cousins was devilishly clever. And it was heartbreaking to see the Queen and the Crown Princess close together, with some semblance of their former friendship restored, before the family dinner broke up.
Daemon’s helping his brother up the stairs to the Iron Throne, and his beheading of the angry claimant, were both awesome - “Let him keep his tongue.” Yikes!
Did they use CGI on the actor playing the King? His gauntness, let alone his ravaged face, seemed like more than makeup could do.
Helaena Targaryen, Alicent’s daughter and Aegon’s sister-wife.
The bug girl.
The prophetess.
She muttered something about something being “under the boards”? What do you suppose that might refer to?
Did you notice that Rhaenyra and Daemon’s elder son is also called Aegon? I’m surprised that they didn’t show Alicent reacting to that.
Here is a pretty good summary of the episode for those who might need some. It points out some things I missed myself (no spoilers)
I’m starting to think that the two actors who have played Alicent have given some of the most subtle performances on the show.
Again, my considered view is the production values are incredible, the acting within the limitations of the script good, the show entertaining. I will watch it - it is better than most.
The plot is simple and none of the characters is especially memorable. Though Thrones had more memorable characters, the actors chosen to play Brianne, The Hound, The Mountain, Tyrion and Khal were very physically distinct.
Characters like Littlefinger, Varys, Cersei and many more were all better developed and just more interesting even in the first season. This is not a knock against House, more to emphasize what a truly well-written and complex show Thrones was despite inevitable grumbling (though justified).
I doubt you can make up a hole in someone’s face.