Warning: The following article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon episode 8, “The Lord of the Tides”
It may have been all but impossible to top everything “Driftmark” did and more, but the House of the Dragon crew somehow managed to make “The Lord of the Tides” an even more compelling watch. But if you were to ask its director Geeta Vasant Patel about her favorite moment, the answer would surprise you.
In a chat with Entertainment Weekly, Vasant Patel explains that she had the most fun shooting Rhaenyra’s arrival in King’s Landing and how it draws a contrast with when she was there last.
“One of the moments I loved was when we were filming a scene with Rhaenyra. It just felt like we were watching her instead of [being] with her,” she said. “It’s when she arrives at King’s Landing and she gets out of this chariot, presents herself, and is very nervous, obviously, because she hasn’t been back in so many years. This is a place that, in her mind, judged her and made her into someone she didn’t want to be, and here she is as someone who has found herself. She’s this little girl coming back.”
The crew was running out of time, but when things clicked together for the creative team present on the scene, everyone worked together to get that scene shot in 10 minutes.
“As you probably saw when you were visiting, we’re always rushing, rushing, rushing. Out of time, especially that day,” Patel continued. “We don’t have any daylight left. I had this thought of, ‘Well, why are we watching her coming out of this chariot? It feels like the story is actually the moment right before she comes out.’ So the cinematographer Katie [Goldschmidt] and I were like, ‘Okay, we’ve got 10 minutes.’ Everybody, the whole crew, was on board with this idea. Everybody was about the story.”
The director called the spontaneity of the situation “one of those magical moments” where the story simply reveals to you where it needs to go. Frankly, fans couldn’t agree more as they try to pick their jaws off the floor from all the emotionally taxing and narratively intense moments in episode 8.
Something tells us that House of the Dragon is only getting started. In fact, if you thought last night’s episode was a rollercoaster, wait till you see the trailer for next week’s penultimate episode because it’s basically Robert Baratheon’s death all over again.