House of the Dragon stars explain why their season 3 reunion is so nerve-wracking to watch

At the end of season 2 of House of the Dragon, Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) cut a deal with her childhood best friend-turned-political rival Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) that would allow Rhaenyra to take over King’s Landing but protect Alicent’s children. The bargain quickly went wrong as King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) secretly fled the city. Alicent and her daughter Helaena were caught trying to do the same. House of the Dragon season 3 episode 3 deals with the fallout from the failed escape, as Alicent finds herself a prisoner in her old palace and tries to figure out how to work with Rhaenyra to protect her family and the Seven Kingdoms.

“They’re sort of at opposite ends of a seesaw or scales,” Cooke told Polygon in a virtual interview. “Both of them can’t have power at the same time. But I think when Rhaenyra sneezes, Alicent catches a cold. No matter where they are, they can’t help but feel the ripple effects of each other’s actions and also recognize and see what each other are going through because they’ve been in these positions themselves.”

Alicent helped rule Westeros when her husband Viserys’ health declined, and Rhaenyra gets a taste of just how hard that was during this episode as she has to grapple with food and candle shortages and a rat infestation. The burden of leadership is especially heavy given Rhaenyra is still reeling from the death of her son Jace in the Battle of the Gullet.

“Her journey to the throne comes so in the shadow of her son’s death that I feel like she’s sort of acting on his behalf,” D’Arcy said. “This is a political family whose personal relationships are so fundamentally enmeshed with this political ambition. If Rhaenyra’s name enters the history books, her son gains a kind of immortality.”

Unable to execute Aegon, Rhaenyra kills Alicent’s father Otto Hightower, who had conspired to rob her of her inheritance and put Aegon on the Iron Throne. Episode 2 ended with Alicent seeing his decapitated body, a moment Cooke says inspires “white-hot anger” in her character.

“Alicent doesn’t know if Otto has been Rhaenyra’s prisoner this whole time, and this is the first thing that she’s done as the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, this big showy political act,” Cooke said. “She doesn’t know if the bargain she’s made with Rhaenyra has been fulfilled on her side either. Has she just been another pawn in someone else’s game? I think she’s just like, OK, well fuck you. It’s on.”

Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

Despite that feeling of betrayal, Alicent has to try to come to a new understanding as she and Helaena are locked away in the Red Keep.

“There’s an element of her love for Rhaenyra that is preserved from when they were girls and from their best friendship, but I think there’s too much water under the bridge and I think [their relationship] is beyond saving,” Cooke said. “They can never go back to who they were. They can never have a simple relationship again. It’s marred by betrayal and death and too much time having passed.”

House of the Dragon season 3 episode 3 airs at 9 p.m. ET Sunday, July 5 on HBO.