Geeta Patel on helming House Of The Dragon’s slow-burning season finale

House Of The Dragon closes its second season without big battles or dragons setting cities ablaze. Despite that lack of action, “The Queen Who Ever Was” still feels monumental because of the charged reunion of Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke) that promises to turn the tides when HBO’s drama returns in 2026.  Their conversation isn’t in the source material Fire & Blood, and it’s not the only creative liberty HOTD takes in the finale. Another big swing comes in the form of Daemon (Matt Smith), whose latest haphazard vision features a cameo from a Targaryen family member and two major Game Of Thrones characters. Clearly, the Ryan Condal-created adaptation is attempting to pave a unique path for itselfTo do so, the show entrusted Geeta Patel to bring these key moments to life. The director had previously helmed two other HOTD installments, along with episodes of Ahsoka, The Great, Dead To Me, Superstore, and The Mindy Project. This year, she also produced and directed Hulu’s true-crime drama Under The Bridge, which earned series star Lily Gladstone an Emmy nomination. The A.V. Club spoke to Patel about how she framed Rhaenyra and Alicent's big talk, why Daemon’s visions were her favorite part of the episode, and going back to her roots with projects like UTB. The A.V. Club: When did you find out you would direct the season-two finale? What did you want to achieve in the episode? Geeta Patel: Ryan called me after I had finished working on my season-one episode "The Lord Of The Tides." I wanted to do a good job on it so I was just happy that he was happy enough to invite me back. It was a very nice surprise to do the finale. After that, I got all the episodes, read them, and saw what needed to happen, which was that we needed it to feel like a big rising action moment. I challenged myself to bookend the season premiere, so I went back and watched that the theme of it was sacrifice for duty. So I kept looking for opportunities to come full circle on that theme in the finale. It's all in the writing because [episode writer] Sara Hess and Ryan had already spent probably a year making sure of it. So it's just my process of understanding and finding my way through it visually. I also just wanted to make sure that the scene between Alicent and Rhaenyra was building off of the scene in episode three, which I also directed, I don't think coincidentally. Maybe that was Ryan's intention that we were all working together again. AVC: You directed the only two scenes that Olivia and Emma share in the season. Their conversation in the finale carries way more emotional weight. What did you all want to evoke with their interaction here?GP: We wanted to feel as if there was that sacrifice made for duty and that Rhaenyra is pressing Alicent against the wall to do what she’s never done before, which is to take action. What’s interesting is that these two women were friends to begin with, and then it became an eye-for-an-eye type of relationship. Now there is so much pain behind them that this scene is a wrestling match with pain and forgiveness. They both were telling themselves, “I've moved on. I can't feel anything.” But all we saw was emotion. All we saw were these two friends who still loved each other and yet had gotten a divorce. And you ask yourself, Why are they both in this room again? It’s because they couldn't stay away from each other. Yes, we can reason that it's because of the kingdom and the realm. But when they come together, they are young girls again. Both actors together become a little juvenile and innocent with their facial expressions, like Olivia biting her nails again. Emma contours their face like a child with exaggeration. That made it grounded and real. My hat is off to Sara, whose writing brought so much humanity to the scene. It was like watching a great film with two people who’ve taken this long journey together. It could have been boring, but the writing made it nail-biting and heartfelt. AVC: At some points, they’re close and face-to-face, while at other times, Alicent is moving around almost manically while explaining herself. What was your directive to the actors? GP: It's a very collaborative experience. When we work on a scene like this, we’ve had rehearsals beforehand where we talked about the point of the scene. I mean Ryan, Sara, Emma, Olivia, and myself. What we came to is that the shift in the scene is when Rhaenyra says, “A son for a son" and then Alicent agrees. That’s what we’re building to, so if we think about that tone-wise, we’re already at a 10. The truth is also when we started the rehearsal, Emma and Olivia are such talented actors, they ran through it and started walking, and I was just watching. There is something to be said about allowing the performers to just be the characters. I do this quite a bit as a director. I say, “Okay, go ahead, do whatever you want to do.” I check that one moment that we know is about the shift and make adjustments along the way, some of which are technical because we want to make sure we can make the day if we have too many camera moves. I also thought it was lovely that at one point, there was a silence between them, so I asked them to keep that and exaggerate it if they felt it was right. I just said, “Don’t worry, keep going; we’ll keep rolling.” So those moments were beautiful and came from the two actors and me experimenting within the parameters set out. [caption id="attachment_1854881655" align="alignnone" width="800"] Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke in House Of The Dragon (Photo: Liam Daniel/HBO)[/caption]AVC: What was it like to prep with Ryan and Sara for this critical scene? GP: Ryan and Sara are extraordinary in that they're very easy to approach. One of the things I love about the show is we got all the episodes before we started shooting, so I would write all my notes and questions, mainly questions at that point. So much of what Ryan and Sara want for the show is between the lines. For example, in the first season when I did episode eight, it was about linear analysis between Rhaenyra and Alicent in that episode. I remember thinking even back then that they never say what they’re feeling, but it’s intentional. That’s a great part about Ryan’s vision for HOTD, and that's why it's so exciting to work on it because it feels very real even in a world with dragons in them. I asked them questions, but it was not for them to change the script. Instead, it's for me to understand what's intentionally not on the page. And then from there, we start molding the scenes together. I'm constantly checking in with them about what I'm thinking. I push their buttons and say, “No, no, but what about this?” Sometimes they'll say things like, “No, you’re wrong” or “Okay, sure, let’s try it.” So, at that point, I'm trying to serve them and challenge their vision in a way. As we start shooting, we usually have rehearsals for the bigger scenes, and Ryan, Sara, or one of the writers would come to help us understand what the writers intended. A lot of times, what we found in the finale rehearsals is there's something we needed [to set up] for season three, so it had to be this way. It’s valuable to have the writers there with you the whole time because they know more than we do. Or sometimes there's a change to another episode, right? So then they'll make sure that we check that. A lot of things in this episode had to do with the tone of the characters since we were introducing a few new ones. AVC: I presume one of the questions was about Daemon’s visions of things like Rhaenyra on the throne, him in the water, the Night King, and Daenerys. What went through your mind as you read it in the script about how you’d execute it? GP: In the script, it was exactly like that: a list of the moments in his vision, almost like bullet points. Ryan and Sara wanted it to feel fragmented. So my first question to them was [about] what they want out of it in terms of story because it’s such a visual moment. And they particularly didn’t want it to be too literal. So they wanted me to run with it. Their main point to me was that this vision has to change Daemon's point of view. It has to tell him Rhaenyra belongs on the throne, and everything he’s been doing this season or thinking about how his wife is putting him down and he’ll never work for her isn’t true. He needs to see that he's part of something bigger than him, which was a huge undertaking. [It was] a huge challenge for me that definitely had some sleepless nights involved because Daemon is inherently someone who only thinks about himself. He is not someone who learns lessons easily. So we needed this to be powerful, and yet there are no words in it until the very, very end. I sat down with the storyboard artist, took everything they told me, and started filling in the blanks of what I thought we needed to get to what they were saying, finding transitions visually between them to give it an organic feel. Ryan wanted the tone of this scene to feel like something specific to HOTD and unlike anything you’ve seen in fantasy television before, or even in Game Of Thrones. So I spent some time looking to give it that treatment. I was quite honored. That was one of my favorite moments in my career as a TV director, to give this my voice and put it together with the storyboard artists. Once we came up with it, I presented it to them. I’ll never forget that day.AVC: What was it like to put Matt Smith and Phia Saban in a scene? We rarely see Daemon and Heleana together.GP: It was fun to put them together, and I think they both enjoyed it too. It’s magical because Matt had been playing in this different dimension in season two.  For Daemon, it's exciting to find someone who shares his powers. Phia has always played this person who is lost in her universe, and now there’s someone else in it. So it’s random, but it also makes sense. AVC: One of the new faces you introduce is Admiral Sharako Lohar, played by Abigail Th