Hellraiser (2022) Review

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Hellraiser will be streaming on Hulu on Oct. 7, 2022.

David Bruckner's Hellraiser is an excitably reverent retooling of Clive Barker's original horror classic and the author's novella, The Hellbound Heart. Writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski take David S. Goyer's story treatment into alternate realms of sensual punishment, far from Kirsty Cotton's encounter with the Lament Configuration. Barker's Hellraiser favors ‘80s horror tendencies of a more stripped but graphic nature — Bruckner's able to expand storytelling and scope, going with a "bigger" mentality that still writhes with infernal carnal pleasures. It's respectfully indebted to Barker's psycho-sexual confrontation of eroticism and violent punishments. Yet, Bruckner never attempts to retrace what Barker's already colored outside typical horror lines — Hellraiser 2022 thematically raises hell on his newly renovated terms.

Odessa A'zion stars as Riley McKendry, an early-20s addict trying to cleanse her habits with a 12-Step Program. Brother Matt (Brandon Flynn) is her loving but overbearing housemate, who chases her out after another night when Riley stumbles home drunk after seeing new boyfriend Trevor (Drew Starkey). That night wasn't just tainted by substance abuse, though — Riley and Trevor steal an ancient puzzle box that Riley unlocks after ingesting a few pills. In a drug haze, she's visited by The Priest (Jamie Clayton), this cross between angel and demon with pins stuck into her smooth head. She warns of the box's hunger for blood and what it demands, which begins another Hellraiser tale where humans are shown sights they cannot comprehend — gory sights that flay, pierce, and strip away skin.

Clayton is a harbinger vision as Bruckner's The Priest (aka Pinhead), introducing repulsively chic new Cenobite forms. Gone are the black leather BDSM costumes; pale cadavers with exposed muscle tendons are like peeled underworld bananas. Effects artists Josh and Sierra Russell reteam with Bruckner after The Ritual and The Night House to bring concept designer Keith Thompson's Cenobites to life, honoring favorites like "The Chatterer" with the instruction to ensure silicon suits could handle mobility. There's nothing lost with Cenobites covering more ground, acting as hunt-and-stalk creatures throughout Berkshires manor grounds. From The Masque (Vukašin Jovanovic) with his flesh-stretched facial canvas being where his head should be to The Gasp (Selina Lo), an extreme upgrade to a prior Cenobite dubbed "Deep Throat,” Bruckner's extradimensional beings appear as wishmasters exiled from heaven and accomplish looking revoltingly seductive while breathing new life into the franchise.

The way Clayton nods to original Pinhead actor Doug Bradley is evident in stoic mannerisms, but Bruckner’s The Priest separates itself thanks to Clayton's performance. She saunters with spectral grace and gazes through characters as she curiously questions their darkest desires. Maybe "philosophical" isn't the right word, but close? Clayton's inquisition as The Priest is appropriately unsettling — her voice echoes an ethereal reverberation as she remains stone-faced while sniveling mortals plead for mercy. She nails the higher-power allure of Cenobites who grant box users the ultimate pleasures they seek, blurring the lines between fear and excitement to unspeakable depths.

Meanwhile, A'zion shines as the flawed addict trying to do better who still cannot deny momentary impulses. Everyone's endangered because Riley can't say “no”: Matt, Trevor, Matt's sweetheart boyfriend Colin (Adam Faison), and their other housemate Nora (Aoife Hinds). A'zion explores the trials of addiction and who gets hurt in the process, using the choices Riley is forced to make when the box starts claiming souls. In proper Hellraiser fashion, the performances of A'zion and Clayton are key — The Priest says as long as Riley possesses the box, fates are in her hands. Riley asks for repentance, howls in agony, and transitions between countless emotions that A’zion executes with emphasis that pours out of the screen.

Hellraiser is more dazzling than it is sickeningly sadomasochistic through slimy gore effects.

Elsewhere, Hellraiser 2022 transforms the sex dungeon aesthetic of Frank Cotten's attic into something vastly more marbled and elaborate. The box has six shape-shifting configurations, granting the props department freedom to redesign each geometric evolution. Goran Visnjic portrays the film's Frank-iest character Roland Voight, leaving behind his estate dedicated to decadent pleasure-seeking that eventually becomes important to Riley's unholy plot to vanquish the Cenobites. Hellraiser favors more of a puzzlemaker's oddity, benefitting from movable labyrinth houses like in Thir13en Ghosts or even escape room horrors. Bruckner digs into the godless worship of those corrupted by the box's possibilities despite its proven harm, which sometimes does too much within its a bit too bloated duration — yet exemplifies how reboots can thoughtfully recontextualize and rebirth iconic franchises.

Surprisingly, Bruckner — responsible for grotesque bodily mutilation in his Southbound segment "The Accident” — doesn't meet the extreme practical gloopiness of 1987's Hellraiser tortures. The Cenobite's first claimed target doesn't even earn a euphoric end on-screen. The filmmaker's psychologically driven dread found in The Night House plays into wonderfully trippy moments where Cenobites appear from randomly materialized tunnels or stress the regret that weighs on Riley — not the violence itself. Although, gore still exists between exposed Cenobite wounds and mechanisms that, for example, tug on wearers' nerves strung through moving gears that continually cause nagging pain. Hellraiser is more dazzling than it is sickeningly sadomasochistic through slimy gore effects as a stylistic differentiation that leaves Barker's bloodletting untouched — nor is the tone as poisonously randy.

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Valkyrie Elysium Review

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Reviving a much-loved series can be a gamble. Stick too close to the original, and the project can feel like a retread. On the other hand, reinventing it completely can alienate stalwart supporters. Over a decade after the last chapter of Square Enix’s Norse-themed JRPG series, Valkyrie Elysium departs from its predecessors’ turn-based roots in favor of a new action-heavy, hack-and-slash direction. In that transition, Elysium has established a fun and flashy combat system but sacrifices part of what made the original PlayStation game memorable: a focus on the characters and worldbuilding.

In many ways, Valkyrie Elysium feels like a Square Enix take on Falcom’s Ys RPG series rather than a return to Valkyrie Profile’s original PlayStation-era DNA. And in the way that modern Ys feels somewhat like a throwback to the PS3-era of games in terms of the structure of their worlds, combat, and progression, so too does Valkyrie Elysium. Although I’m largely satisfied with the action it serves up, Elysium is far less successful at establishing an intriguing tale.

The obedient and straight-laced deity warrior known as Valkyrie meets with her creator, the All-Father Odin, before each chapter. Their base of operations is the opulent yet sparse Asgard, which looks wonderful, but is very small with little to do besides choosing the next quest. Once she descends to the mortal realm of Midgar, the environments are much larger than Asgard. Unfortunately, the regions of Midgard, while more expansive than the godly domain, are far less fun to look at. The locations you visit are vacant of activities and life, offering an overly linear path to adventure down with little else to seek out. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of crates to smash for gems, treasure chests with valuable loot, or minuscule lore drops called Hollow Blossoms to find, but I would have liked more reasons to stray from the critical path and spectacular sights to seek out.

Valkyrie Elysium’s story has the potential to be an exciting Norse epic, but its story falters from the start.

Valkyrie’s ever-present mission on Midgar is to cleanse the spirits troubling the human world and claim its salvation in the aftermath of a disastrous war. Though the setup of Valkyrie Elysium deals with a war between gods and mythical creatures with figures like Odin, Fenrir, a rival Valkyrie, and a looming apocalypse in the form of Ragnarok in the mix, Valkyrie Elysium’s story has the potential to be an exciting Norse epic, but its story falters from the start. The main plot is slow to unfold, with Valkyrie and Odin being the only real characters in the opening hours, and yet it takes about half of the 20-hour campaign before it starts to crawl towards Valkyrie’s character development and for the central conflict to come into sight. Even when larger reveals play out in the climax, the impact of the plot is dampened by its overall predictability, and moments that should be eye-opening and emotional simply aren’t earned.

One of the biggest reveals in the final hour is completely missable if you don’t happen to explore a certain part of the map, and if you miss that you’re also locked out of one of a handful of potential endings. Your squad of Einherjar warrior spirits does add much-needed levity, personality, and exposition through their companionship and support to the battle-maiden, but much of it is for naught in the grand scheme of the story. The last few chapters focus on the humanity and agency Valkyrie has absorbed from being around her Einherjar, but when the crux of the finale comes down to a choice, whatever plays out is determined by whether you’ve collected certain items throughout the game rather than letting the player choose their fate. That lack of input from the player is disappointing, considering Valkyrie’s internal conflict of right and wrong is central to her character arc.

Each well-trodden part of Midgar is reused well in great sidequests that warrant the return.

Despite the regions of Midgard being rather small, there are only a handful of areas to explore in Valkyrie Elysium. The world lacks life, which makes sense with its impending doom, but it often feels empty to its detriment rather than like a successful atmospheric choice. Luckily, each well-trodden part of Midgar is reused well in great sidequests that warrant the return. These optional adventures offer challenging and fun combat scenarios and reward you with meaningful upgrades and items, and are a better use of time than scouring the usually barren environments for the odd treasure chest.

While I found the exploration and storytelling to be underwhelming, the driving force – and saving grace – of Valkyrie Elysium is its combat. Valkyrie is a formidable warrior on the battlefield, and while controlling her is simple, she has plenty of moves and combos to explore. Once it gets going, that is – like the plot, the ramp-up to unlocking your full set of powers and abilities is dreadfully slow. Your combat options are incredibly limited in the early hours, with vanilla light and heavy strikes accompanied by a guard and a dodge. These are par for the course when it comes to action games, and work well enough here. What spices up combat are the swappable pool of spells called Divine Arts which provides a variety of elemental, ranged, and utility spells, as well as a nifty grapple maneuver called the Soul Chain. I love the mobility the Soul Chain provides, giving Valkyrie the ability to zip to a targeted enemy and start laying in a combo before she even touches the ground.

The Einherjar provide a human view of the unfolding events.

Most regions you travel to will introduce a new reluctant Einherjar spirit to join your crusade. While the task becomes repetitive after gathering the first two, the act of collecting them and completing their backstory sidequests brings some much-needed purpose to opening hours and adds some semblance of context to those who once lived in these decimated lands. These warriors, like Eygon and Cypher, helped me to care a little about the overall story arc. Their banter, anecdotes, and opinions on the mission at hand often bring lightness and warmth to what is mostly a sterile and uneventful tale. The Einherjar provide a human view of the unfolding events and help to soften Valkyrie's narrow-minded outlook on the world and expand her horizons.

You can also summon them to fight alongside you with elementally charged attacks (and also granting elemental effects to your own attacks), making them strategically relevant in certain enemy matchups. Einherjar make crowded fights much more manageable, and it's fun to decide which to call on to make swift work of enemy hordes that would otherwise be a slog to take out with Valkyrie alone.

However, because there are only a handful of Einherjar to call upon and counter the weakness of monsters, Valkyrie also has to use Divine Arts to deal loads of damage of her own. These are powerful spells like lightning bolts, holy piercing strikes, and fire storms that look great as they exploit enemy weaknesses to deal extra damage and potentially put them into a stunned state. A gauge restricts their use, but it’s refilled quickly enough that Arts are readily available as reliable combat tools that add a much-needed visual flourish to liven up the bland and empty areas when skirmishes arise. I often lose myself in the enjoyable tension of alternating between my Einherjar and Divine Arts and building their resources back up to continue the onslaught. It's an effective distraction from the dull world and slow story, though battles are far from exempt from issues.

Many times I’ve had to fight with the camera while in close quarters with enemies because it catches on walls when you get too close. When this inevitably happens, it becomes nearly impossible to tell what’s going on around you or whether you’re even hitting the enemy you’ve comboed into the corner. Likewise, because the targeting system is tied to the camera controls, the aiming reticle tends to bounce around to different targets, and it becomes a struggle to fire off a Divine Art or Soul Chain in the intended direction. Several settings exist to tweak for the desired camera distance or lock-on preference, but I never found a good solution that left me feeling in full control most of the time.

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Till Review

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Till will hit theaters on Oct. 14, 2022.

On paper, and in its trailers, Till reads like a standard Hollywood “prestige” biopic, the kind that mines period-specific tragedy for an uplifting tale within a tightly structured time frame. But in the hands of director Chinonye Chukwu, it’s anything but straightforward. It follows Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler), then Mamie Bradley, in the lead up to and aftermath of the lynching of her son, 14-year-old Emmett Till (Jalyn Hall), in 1955. Emmett’s is one of those Civil Rights-era tales, like Rosa Parks’ participation in the Montgomery bus boycott or Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech, whose shape is widely remembered, but whose details, place in history, and wider context are often sanded down. Till leans into its biopic trappings on occasion, as it tells of Mamie’s resilience in the weeks that followed, but where it stands apart is in its approach to performance. Whatever the movie’s flaws, they may as well be rendered null by Deadwyler’s unapologetic, unrestrained portrait of mourning, which is no less than exemplary of why we go to the movies.

Few viewers going into the story will be unaware of the real events, between young Emmett’s trip to see family in segregated Mississippi and his (highly contested) interaction with a white woman, Carolyn Bryant (Haley Bennett), which led to him being kidnapped, shot dead, and dumped in a river, in one of America’s most notorious hate crimes. The film, perhaps rightly, avoids portraying this violence in vivid detail, but it pulls no emotional punches, even though it opens in Chicago several days before his visit as his mother drives him around. Emmettt, whom Mamie lovingly calls “Bo,” is a happy-go-lucky teen who wants to grow up quickly, so the potential dangers of his Southern vacation sit uneasily in Mamie’s stomach. In fact, the introductory scenes seem to switch between an unassuming, everyday fabric (of course, with the requisite racial aggressions, to give us a sense of Mamie’s head-held-high response), and a tale in which Mamie seems, on some instinctive level, aware of the viciousness about to befall her son.

In one moment, Deadwyler displays heightened maternal caution. But in the next — as the camera charges in on her, leaving Emmett out of frame and causing him to feel absent — it's as if he’s already been murdered, even though he’s right beside her in the passenger’s seat, just off-screen. What we’re watching feels less like an objective retelling and more like a memory, from some future vantage where Mamie already knows the outcome.

It’s an unexpected but deeply affecting alignment of perspective between Mamie and the audience. It plays out uncannily, with Mamie expressing regrets about letting Emmett travel, in ways that feel like guilt divined from tea leaves — “We’ve never been apart for this long,” she says; it’s only been a day, but to her, it feels like centuries — while Emmett is portrayed with a saccharine innocence. As the young Emmett, Hall brings heartwarming smiles and a sense of adolescent mischief during warmly lit scenes of laughter that may as well be dreams (kudos to cinematographer Bobby Bukowski). This is as much a narrative device to endear us to who and what was lost, as much as it is a mother’s pristine memories, preserved in amber.

When Emmett goes missing, and Mamie begins to worry about him from afar, what ought to feel like suspended animation is more of a dramatic and aesthetic lull, which carries well past the discovery of Emmett’s death. It’s the film’s only real misstep, but it’s less that Till isn’t “good” in these moments, and more that it fails to rise to the level of “excellent” like everything that comes before this section and most of what follows. It’s a waiting game, first for news about Emmett’s whereabouts, and then about retrieving his body. While each update is a knife-twist for Mamie and her family — her mother Alma Carthan (Whoopi Goldberg), her estranged father John Carthan (Frankie Faison), her fiancé Gene Mobley (Sean Patrick Thomas), and her distant cousin Rayfield Mooty (Kevin Carroll), a lawyer who decides to help — the camera seems to simply lie in wait, at a distance, for the story to take a different shape. However, once it does, this mildly frustrating anticipation pays off in the form of devastating emotional eruptions.

Like fellow fall release Blonde, Till maintains an awareness of the relationship between real-world pictures and public perception, so it uses recognizable moments as a gateway, starting first with the arrival of Emmett’s body at a Chicago train station. Mamie, barely able to stand, was famously photographed receiving her son’s coffin, and Chukwu’s re-creation of this moment shifts the film into emotional high gear. This is when Emmett’s death becomes starkly real for Mamie, and so she lets out a series of unrestrained wails as Deadwyler slips (and then plummets) into an anguished trance. It’s the kind of committed, fearless, full-bodied dramatic performance that you rarely see in American studio pictures. It would feel at home in an experimental theater piece, but it absolutely belongs in Chukwu’s frame. It’s so messy yet so intimate that it feels like something we’ve intruded upon — something we shouldn’t be watching — a sensation that becomes compounded when Mamie first lays eyes on Emmett’s bloated, mangled body and has to identify what’s left of him.

Deadwyler is the not-so-secret weapon, delivering a completely lived-in performance as a mother struggling to keep her head above water.

However, Chukwu isn’t interested in the carnage — at least not the physical carnage. Her camera is more concerned with its emotional effects, and so when we finally see what was done to Emmett, it isn’t during Mamie’s initial shock and horror, but in the subsequent tender moments, when she begins to recognize her son and his familiar contours. What follows is a tale in which Mamie wrestles with how best to preserve his memory while also reaching for some semblance of impossible justice. Once again, she knows the outcome; she has no doubt the verdict of 12 white jurors won’t go her way, despite the horrors she’s endured, but she latches on to a glimmer of hope that her fight may someday mean something.

With Rayfield’s help, she gets in touch with local NAACP chapters and even crosses paths with future Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers (Tosin Cole), but all the while, it is not her public activism that keeps the story afloat, but the private grief underscoring it, practically turning her front-facing resilience into a form of dramatic tension. We’re led constantly to wonder: when will the mask slip? Will it be when she first lets a photographer see her child — the creation of another famous photo — so the nation can bear witness? Or perhaps when she gives testimony in court, facing mountains of unrepentant racist scorn, as Chukwu refuses to cut away from her for several minutes at a time?

Chukwu’s previous film, her tremendous debut feature Clemency, featured similar unbroken close ups of Alfre Woodard, who played a warden overseeing prison executions. It was also about the effects of death and the guilt on the human soul, a story captured on her actress’ face. The director takes a similar approach to Till, and Deadwyler is her not-so-secret weapon, delivering a completely lived-in performance as a mother struggling to keep her head above water as the nation’s eyes turn towards her. If the film falters, it’s only because of its incomplete scrutiny of what it means for people to say they feel “honored” every time they meet Mamie as her fight goes on. It’s a sentiment with which she’s clearly uncomfortable, and one that complicates her son’s memory; at what point, one wonders, does a person simply become a cause, and cease to be human? This question was central to Clemency as well, but Till doesn’t investigate the idea nearly as much as it scrutinizes the contours of Mamie’s sorrow — even though the two go hand-in-hand for most of her journey, since the media spotlight, and her relationship to it, are a constant presence.

However, it’s Mamie’s fight against indignity, and the way Deadwyler turns each personal battle into an enrapturing emotional tug of war — assisted by the riveting, propulsive strings of composer Abel Korzeniowski — that allow Till to approach the same emotional highs as Clemency, even if it isn’t as nuanced or finessed. The movie is a tragedy, in which a son is seen through a mother’s eyes for the last time, and in which those eyes become windows into the most raw, vulnerable, and discomforting parts of grief, as Mamie struggles to find the right way to remember Emmett, and the right way to breathe.

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House Of The Dragon - Episode 7 Review

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Warning: the below contains full spoilers for Episode 7 of House Of The Dragon, which aired on HBO on Oct. 2, 2022. To refresh your memory, check out our review of last week's episode.

Knives and forks ready, because this week’s House Of The Dragon is a banquet, positively overflowing with the meaty drama and high emotion that we’re all here for. There’s an unusually bloodless wedding, a rare achievement for any Westerosi, but otherwise this is wall-to-wall accusations, arguments, and occasional maiming as a Targaryen family reunion sees old tensions bubble over into violence.

Our scene is Lady Laena’s funeral, where Targaryens and Velaryons gather for the first time in years (Laena’s body is assigned to the shallows, surprisingly: odd that a seafaring people would essentially sink their coffins just offshore). The ceremony is solemn – apart from Daemon (Matt Smith) giggling and awful Aegon (Ty Tennant) looking bored – but, following an extremely pointed eulogy from Laena’s uncle Vaemond (Will Johnson), the question of the parentage of Laenor’s sons hangs heavy in the air.

Emotions therefore begin to bubble up at the reception afterwards – not unlike any normal funeral, just with messier outcomes. Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) can barely take her eyes off her uncle Daemon who is, lest we forget, burying his recently burnt wife. And also her uncle. Her husband, Laenor (John Macmillan), struggles to cope with the grief he feels for his sister and literally walks into the sea at one point. His father, Corlys (Steven Toussaint), angrily sends Laenor’s boyfriend, Ser Qarl (Arty Froushan), to “retrieve your patron” in a rare lapse of control.

Daemon and King Viserys (Paddy Considine) exchange a few words, their first in years, and Daemon notes Viserys’ rapid decay in a way that’s either mocking or sympathetic – or perhaps a little of both, as is his way. But he still won’t agree to come home, and Viserys slopes off to bed, defeated. Corlys and his wife, Rhaenys (Eve Best), meanwhile, have a fascinating discussion about legacy: does it matter that Rhaenyra’s children are not of their blood? Or is the name enough to ensure a legacy? Corlys thinks that’s what matters; Rhaenys wants to live in the here-and-now and protect her true children and grandchildren. It’s a nicely subtle discussion of their allegiances that acknowledges the complicated position they’re in, and the fact that – more than perhaps anyone – they have much to lose in a Targaryen struggle for power.

Things kick off after nightfall, though the show has chosen such a dark aesthetic that it’s hard to tell. Much of this plot-heavy middle section will remind viewers of Game Of Thrones’ The Long Night because it’s unrelieved black-on-black: perhaps these showrunners will also blame viewers’ TVs for any confusion (one of those showrunners, Miguel Sapochnik, directed both this episode and The Long Night). But some squinting shows a restored Otto, still conscious of his Hand pin, ordering a drunken Aegon to bed, and missing priggish little Aemond (Leo Ashton) as he heads out to claim Laena’s dragon, Vhagar. The unbearable little shit succeeds, and one must admit displays a degree of bravery in doing so. But in usurping Laena’s ride he prompts a devastating fight with his two girl cousins – the dragonless Rhaena (Eva Ossei-Gerning) had hoped to claim her mother’s dragon – and with Rhaenyra’s sons, who are supportive of the girls (first cousins once removed at that point; stepsiblings by episode’s end. Greeting cards must be very complicated for Targaryens). Rhaena lashes out first, but Aemond holds his own and is threatening a prone Jacaerys (Leo Hart) with a rock when Luce slashes him with a knife and cuts out his eye. Cue chaos.

The entire family are woken from their beds and called into the great hall. The kids all clamour and blame one another as the maester sews Aemond up. Alicent (Olivia Cooke) is out for blood, literally demanding an eye for an eye, and prepared to get it herself if other options fail. Rhaenyra finally confronts the accusations about her sons’ fatherhood openly and publicly forces Viserys to take her side, and Alicent’s sweet, reasonable mask falls away to show the fury that lies underneath. It’s an absolute barnstormer of a scene, the centerpiece of not just this episode but the series so far, showing the battle lines being drawn between Alicent’s “greens” and Rhaenyra’s “blacks” – so called for their house colors. It’s interesting that just moments before Rhaenyra was defending Alicent against Daemon’s suggestion that she ordered Harwin’s death in cold blood; now the last traces of the women’s friendship seem to have been washed away as Alicent slashes Rhaenyra’s arm. That could cause problems to come.

Rhaenyra’s family are clearly positioned as goodies and Alicent’s as baddies, even before their majority.

It's interesting that House Of The Dragon is taking sides a little more clearly than George R.R. Martin did in Fire And Blood. There, Rhaenyra and Alicent are on a similar level of conspiracy and violence, as are their children at this age. Here, Alicent’s two boys are Joffrey-esque monsters and her daughter, Helaena (Evie Allen), is off in her own world, talking to spiders instead of people. Rhaenyra’s boys are just boys, rough and tumble but not actively malignant. It’s playing off Ser Barristen’s quote in Game Of Thrones: “Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born… the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.” No such randomness at this point: Rhaenyra’s family are clearly positioned as goodies and Alicent’s as baddies, even before their majority.

Importantly, to show that there is good in the Targaryens and you don’t have to be Luke Skywalker to feel it, there are moments of real warmth in this episode, something this season had sometimes lacked. Rhaenys comforts her devastated granddaughters, who also display a touching closeness to Jace and Luce, and Corlys tries to bond with Luce. The most moving scene, however, is that between Rhaenyra and Laenor, where they show genuine affection for one another but clearly face up to the shortcomings of their marriage. Laenor struggles to deal with his sister’s loss, and it’s clear that their attempts to juggle duty and happiness aren’t working. There are too many whispers about their son’s parentage – not even whispers: shouts – and it’s obvious that Laenor cannot ensure the boy’s safety or his own. So Daemon, Rhaenyra, Laenor, and Qarl concoct a plan. Daemon murders a random guy with the right height and build, and Qarl picks a fight with Laenor in front of witnesses; then they dump the body in Laenor’s clothes, in the fire, and the two lovers sail off to freedom.

It is a “kindness,” as Daemon calls it, to set Laenor free, and one that will create new and more fearsome whispers around both him and Rhaenyra. But it’s also a choice that causes devastation for Rhaenys and Corlys, stripped of both their children, and Rhaenyra’s sons, who have lost two fathers and gained only one. Laenor also leaves his dragon, Seasmoke, behind, because there’s no way to hide your identity with 20 tonnes of flying furnace at your back.

So the way is clear to finish on a sudden marriage. The recently “bereaved” Rhaenyra and Daemon have finally got it on – again, at night, so you have to really want to see anything beyond vague silhouettes and platinum hair glinting – and become a formidable pairing as soon as they tie the knot. She gives him a way back to power; he gives her male legitimacy in patriarchal Westeros in a way that Laenor could not. They also fancy each other’s pants off, the big perverts. Maybe together they can challenge Alicent as the king’s health fails and she solidifies her position in King’s Landing – something she’s clearly doing in her final scene with the sinister Larys (Matthew Needham). Maybe they can keep their sons alive. Maybe – given that the show gives Laenor a pass to happiness and a new life where the book did not – everyone’s going to live happily ever after. After an episode that moves things along this well, anything seems possible.

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