After about a million and one time jumps, we have finally jumped to the finale of House of the Dragon season 1. And there’s a lot to discuss, because it was an action-packed hour. It kicks off with Rhaenyra finding out her father has died and Aegon has usurped her and ends with the first major death of the upcoming war. Here are all the things from the episode you might have had questions about, with the best-educated-guess answers.

[There are obviously major spoilers ahead for the episode. If you haven’t watched yet, bye!!]

Rhaenyra is handed a piece of paper.

Otto comes to visit Dragonstone and offer terms. And when he realizes he’s not getting very far, he pulls out the big guns: a piece of paper from Alicent to Rhaenyra. This is a call-back to the earlier episode of the show when the two girls were studying together and Rhaenyra ripped out a page of a book and gave it to Alicent. It’s meant as an olive branch, of sorts.

Daemon snaps.

Oof, this is a tough one. Rhaenyra and Daemon have a moment alone to talk strategy, and Rhaenyra shares the prophesy that Viserys shared with her all those years ago. Something that’s important to remember is that Daemon was technically Viserys’s heir at one point (before he named Rhaenyra instead), so maybe Rhaenyra assumed that Viserys had told him the prophecy. He clearly never did, and Daemon, when learning about this, gets really, really pissed. It’s one more thing his brother never thought he was capable of handling or knowing, and he chokes Rhaenyra. It’s inexcusable, but that’s what we’re supposed to think his motivations are in that moment. I mean, the guy did kill his first wife! But a tough episode for Daemon girlies, to be sure.

And finds another dragon??

Okay, so at one point when Daemon and Rhaenyra are trying to figure out who has more dragons Daemon mentions a few unclaimed dragons in the Dragonmont. The Dragonmont is a volcano on Dragonstone. So when we see Daemon go underground and start singing to a dragon, that’s one of those unclaimed dragons. Specifically it’s Vermithor, King Jaehaerys’ dragon (he was the king at the very beginning of this series when Viserys was named the heir over Rhaenys). Basically, he’s trying to get more dragons on their side.

Lucerys is dead.

Baby Luke! So sad. The show did make one big change from the book here, though. In the book, Aemond seems a bit more intent on killing Luke instead of what we see here, which is somewhat of a misunderstanding and accident. The show’s co-creator and executive producer explained it this way to Variety:

“Historians have told us that Aemond intended to kill Luke, but I don’t think any of them could purport to know what was going on in Aemond’s head the time. And I would also dispute the word ‘accident’ a bit,” he said. “I mean, Aemond got on his giant dragon and chased his nephew on his much smaller dragon through the clouds screaming and yelling at him, incensing his dragon and starting a fight. He didn’t know how Arrax or Luke were going to respond, and it ended in tragedy. I don’t think that was what Aemond intended when he threw his leg over the saddle, but he did a horrible, dangerous thing.”

So it’s a little more blurry in the show, but still bad. And it’s the first big death of what is going to be a long string of deaths.

Where does the story go from here?

Well, if Rhaenyra wasn’t ready for war before, she definitely is now. And she’s going to go scorched Earth on all the greens, basically. I mean, this look on her face should say it all:

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