House of the Dragon Season 2 delivered some of its most gripping dragon action yet in episode 3, with Baela Targaryen (Bethany Antonia) and her dragon Moondancer chasing down Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). While HBO teased the scene heavily in trailers, it almost didn't make it to the screen in the first place.
As episode 3 director Geeta Vasant Patel told Mashable, her first reading of the scene left her confused. "One of my notes was, 'I don't understand why this scene is here. I can take it out and nothing changes,'" Patel said, noting there was discussion of cutting the scene altogether. However, collaboration saved this thrilling sequence.
"I worked together with David Hancock [episode writer], Catherine Goldschmidt [cinematographer] and Jason Rickwood [assistant director] to find ways to further Baela's pursuit of Criston and make it feel absolutely necessary to the story," she explained, "The starting point became getting Baela just right."
"One of the reasons I didn't care about the scene at first was I didn't care about Baela, because I didn't know her," said Patel. "We had to build her character, then get to that scene."
Season 2 marks a big turning point for Baela and her twin sister Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), with both taking on larger roles in their service to Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy). "Yet we didn't know much about them," Patel said. "One of the great things about the writing of this show is that [the writers] don't like exposition. They don't have characters come and go, 'This is who I am,' for an entire scene. So the challenge of working on this show is actually bringing exposition in between sentences, and I felt like the challenge with Rhaena and Baela was introducing them without words."
To gain a better understanding of Baela and Rhaena, and to bring that understanding to the screen, Patel, Antonia, and Campbell spent time together improvising the characters' entire backstories. What pain do they carry? What are the defining moments in their lives? While the audience might not see these moments play out on-screen, sensing the weight of them in the interactions between Rhaena and Baela would prove crucial.
"By the end of that workshop, we felt like we had found and birthed these two characters in a way that we didn't need to in Season 1," Patel said. "It was absolutely brilliant, the way the two of them were able to improvise."
Having a more concrete sense of Baela as a character helped cement her motivations in the Criston chase. "As we were figuring out how to introduce Baela, [showrunner] Ryan [Condal] said, 'She's Maverick from Top Gun,' and that crystallized it. When that decision was made, we could run with it," Patel explained.
Aside from being an ace dragonrider, Baela shares quite a bit of the confidence — and rashness — that characterizes Tom Cruise's Top Gun pilot. As we learn later in the episode, Rhaenyra is concerned that Baela disobeyed her orders to fly at a great height and not engage anyone she saw while patrolling the mainland. With a bit of cheekiness, Baela responds that she "didn't engage. Not exactly." It's the kind of defiance and "I know what I'm doing" attitude one would typically associate with Daemon (Matt Smith). Like father, like daughter! Plus, who wouldn't take an opportunity to scare the armor off of Criston Cole?
We wouldn't have gotten these character-building moments had Baela's encounter with Criston been cut entirely. Nor would we have gotten a fairly sizable plot development: After facing danger with an exposed host, Criston is now going to be leading his troops under the trees, marking a shift in how wartime will be playing out going forward.
With these elements secure, Patel felt far more confident about keeping Baela and Moondancer's flight in the episode. "We spent the time to really perfect it, even reshoot parts of it to make sure Baela was crystal clear to everyone," she said. "We worked so hard on that sequence, and it finally made it back in."
New episodes of House of the Dragon air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.
UPDATE: Jul. 1, 2024, 6:46 p.m. EDT This interview has been updated, clarifying how the sequence came together.
Topics HBO Streaming House of the Dragon
