Listen up! In this article, we’ll explain the ending of the second episode of “House of the Dragon.”
HBO’s “House of the Dragon” concluded its Season 2 premiere last week with the most emotionally brutal death in “Game of Thrones” history, and somehow “House of the Dragon” managed to double down on that impact in Sunday’s second episode.
That’s right: stoic identical twin knights Eric and Arik Cargill (played by 34-year-old identical twin actors Elliot Tittensor and Luke Tittensor) battle each other in a deadly, identical-brother brawl that ends with both brothers dead.
The tragic sibling feud between the Cargill brothers, members of the Kingsguard who took opposing sides in the simmering Dragon civil war, is the stuff of Game of Thrones lore, referenced with reverence in author George R. R. Martin’s books. In the Dragon film adaptation, the lore lives up to expectations.
“This fight has been sung about,” Elliot Tittensor told USA Today, “so our fight was going to be really epic.”
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“I think our matchup is in the top two,” Luke Tittenzer added, ranking the TV matchups. “Definitely in the top five.”
Here’s what happened in Westeros:
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We’ve been waiting for this moment ever since the once-inseparable twins were separated in Dragon, with Arick serving as Aegon II’s bodyguard (the Greens) and Erik serving as Queen Rhaenyra’s bodyguard (the Blacks).
With King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) crying out for revenge after his son and heir were murdered last week, his captain of the King’s Guard, Criston Cole (Fabian Frankel), shows his darker side by hatching a revenge plot to kill his enemy, Queen Rhaenyra (Emma Darcy), who is held responsible for the crime. (Never mind that it was actually Daemon who orchestrated the murder.)
Kor, who regularly breaks his vows of chastity as a Kingsguard alongside Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), hypocritically relies on the code of honor to convince Alik to take on a loathsome mission: disguise himself as the favored twin and sneak into the enemy’s Dragonstone to kill Rhaenyra. With a glare at Kor, Alik agrees.
“Alik has a decision to make, and it’s clearly a life-or-death mission,” Luke says, “but Alik is going to do it because he has nothing but honor, duty, and the love of his brothers.”
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In George R.R. Martin’s Targaryen historical novel Fire and Blood, Erik discovers Alik on Dragonstone, leading to a fateful battle. But in Dragon, Alik makes it to Rhaenyra’s chambers and brandishes his sword at the confused queen, who assumes it is one of her guards. Erik, sensing his brother’s deadly presence, rushes into the room just in time. The brothers begin a sword fight.
Most of the fight scenes feature the Tittensor brothers in armor and swinging long swords. “It was exhausting,” Elliott says. “No matter how good those costumes are, it’s hot, except for the sword-swinging scenes. But we gave it our all.”
The only time a stuntman was used was when Aric was thrown into the air and landed on a vase: “Thank goodness it wasn’t me because the stuntman hit the vase so hard it almost stopped time,” Luke says.
It’s hard to tell, but for most of the fight Arik is on the offensive and Erik is on the defensive – not wanting to kill his brother, but protecting the defenseless queen – and as the final sword thrust is revealed, Erik sobs and embraces his brother, who was through the sword.
“You get to see his true human side,” Elliott said, and was pleased that “at the end we get to show the world our connection as twins.”
With his assassin brother dead, Eric approaches the wary Queen and declares, “Your Majesty, forgive me.” As everyone watches in shock and horror, the distraught knight stabs himself with the sword, completing the legend’s double tragedy.
“The pain Eric felt when he killed his brother was the most intense emotion he’d ever felt,” Elliot says. “When he says, ‘Forgive me,’ he’s saying it to Rhaenyra because he’s sacrificing himself in front of her, but he’s also saying it to his brother.”
The fight is deliberately designed to be confusing for bystanders and TV viewers, but not for Elliott and Luke. “The illusion is gone for both of us,” Luke says.
Born and raised in Manchester, the twins first appeared on Showtime’s Shameless at age 11. They shared the role of Carl Gallagher in the first season before Luke left to star in the British soap opera Emmerdale.
The main difference between the twins is that Elliot has a sleeve tattoo and Luke doesn’t, but when they put on their Cargill uniforms, they look identical.
The creators of Dragon exploited that similarity by swapping the Cargill twins in a crisis. In Season 1, when Elliot couldn’t film his Dragon scenes due to a COVID-19 scare, Luke rushed in to take over. “I woke up at 7am to 10 missed calls and thought, this is bad,” Luke says. “It’s not something we do to jump into each other’s characters, but that’s definitely what they wanted.”
The twins have endured the inevitable twin misidentifications over the course of several seasons.
“There were times when I’d get called on set and I’d look around and say, ‘Hey, we need Luke in this scene, right? Let me go get him,'” Elliott says with a laugh. “We both do that sometimes. We’re used to it now.”
On “Dragon,” the two deaths from a single assassination attempt will continue to roil the show all season long.
“Things are going to get really messy,” Luke says.
“The pressure is building with more collateral damage and more body bags,” Elliott added. “Basically there’s no way back from here unless just about everyone involved in this is dead.”
