Why did Rhaenys let Alicent and The Green Council live? That was the question on everyone’s lips this week after House of the Dragon episode 9, the penultimate episode of season 1.

The episode picks up in the first critical hours of the morning after King Viserys (Paddy Considine) slips off the mortal coil in his sleep but not before mucking things up with his milk-and-poppy mutterings about the Prince that Was Promised. The Green Council begin to unveil their plans to usurp Rhaenyra and install Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) on the Iron Throne. Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and her father, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) first imprison Princess Rhaenys in her room. Then they quickly compel bent knees from former Rhaenyra supporters. Others—like Lady Fell and Allun Caswell—refuse and it’s off with their heads. Lord Beesbury resists and is quickly dispatched to meet his maker by Ser Christon.

After the palace coup, a mad scramble begins to find Aegon to install him as king in defiance of Viserys’s stated wish that Rhaenyra succeed him. Aegon is off to a life of decadence and perversion in the grimy precincts, the Red Light District of King’s Landing. The audience is immediately introduced to a street urchin fight club with children with sharpened teeth. We see what could be one of Aegon II’s bastard children, maybe he will be important later on. We soon find out that the White Worm has packed Aegon neatly beneath the altar in the sept. All she wants in return is the end of all the kiddie street-fighting stuff and she delivers a warning that the people could soon rise up.

Aegon II initially resists attempts to bring him back to the castle for his coronation and even offers Aemond the crown, but Aemond resists the temptation and drags him back to the Red Keep kicking and screaming.

Later, Rhaenys escapes her room with the help of defected knight Erryk Cargyll, and is soon stuck in the large crowd streaming towards Prince Aegon’s coronation ceremony which is to be held in the sept at the Dragonpit, of all places. Really bad idea, it turned out. As the ceremony goes on, Rhaenys slips away, dons her heavy armour and mounts her dragon, Meleys.

Meanwhile, Aegon, wearing the crown of Aegon the Conqueror, and his Valyrian steel blade Blackfyre, begins to warm to the role as King, firing up the people of King’s Landing by thrusting his blade into the sky as the new ruler of the realms. Then all hell breaks loose.

Rhaenys and Meleys then burst through the floorboards, killing the commoners by the hundreds, trampling them underfoot.

It is at this point that she has the opportunity to end the Hightowers’ reign once and for all. But remarkably, she doesn’t order Meleys to breathe fire and ‘dracrarys’ them to toast. Maybe it was because of a mutual level of respect earned earlier when Alicent told her ‘you should have been queen’ in a heartfelt conversation while Rhaenys was imprisoned in her room. Or maybe Rhaenys sees Alicent protecting her son in the face of incredible odds, and is moved by the act of bravery or maybe she remembers her own dead children, and instead, just allows Melys to give out a ferocious scream with flying spittle and everything. (Do dragons use breath mints?)

Then they burst out of the double doors and fly off to Dragonstone to inform Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), of the palace coup.

The season finale is called “The Black Queen,” so it looks like we’ll be tuning in to see how Rhaenyra reacts to her crown being snatched in Operation Grab Crown and start a civil war.

The season finale promises to be dark and bloody.