Will Blood and Cheese happen in House of the Dragon season 1?

We’re closing in on the House of the Dragon season 1 finale. King Viserys has died, leaving a power vacuum behind…and if there’s one thing we know about Westeros, it’s that the nobles of the land will rush to fill such a vacancy through blood and backstabbing and any other means necessary.As we speed toward the climax of the season, there are a few big events looming from George R.R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood which we may see in the coming weeks. In particular, there’s a specific moment that ranks among the most devastating in the entire saga of the Dance of the Dragons. Known as Blood and Cheese, it is one of the points of no return for this brutal civil war.While it’s certainly possible that Blood and Cheese won’t happen until House of the Dragon season 2, at this point the show has dropped enough foreshadowing that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that it will happen in the season 1 finale.We’re going to explain this event below, as well as the evidence that it may be coming sooner rather than later. There will be MAJOR SPOILERS below for Fire & Blood, and by extension House of the Dragon. I cannot stress this enough: if you don’t know what Blood and Cheese is, proceed with caution because we’re about to discuss one of the most infamous twists of the story.House of the Dragon episode 8Storm’s End had no shortage of moments that broke the Internet. Eddard Stark’s death. The Red Wedding and the Purple Wedding. Jon Snow’s assassination and resurrection. Cersei Lannister bombing the Great Sept of Baelor. Fire & Blood has its own pantheon of jaw-dropping moments that will do the same should House of the Dragon pull them off. Blood and Cheese might be the most shocking.The story is this: as the greens and blacks move to consolidate power in the wake of King Viserys’ passing, a fateful meeting happens at Storm’s End. The greens send Aemond One-Eye to marry one of Lord Borros Baratheon’s daughters and secure his allegiance; the blacks send Lucerys Velaryon with a letter from Queen Rhaenyra demanding his fealty. Borros sides with the greens, sending Lucerys back to his mother empty handed. Yet by then, too much bad blood exists between Aemond and Lucerys, on account of the whole eye-slashing incident when they were children.Aemond pursues Lucerys into a storm astride his dragon Vhagar. Luke is riding the much smaller Arrax, and stands no chance once the two dragons are joined in battle. His death at the hands of Aemond is the first instance of Targaryens and their dragons clashing during the Dance. Book fans following the show have long predicted that we’d see this battle over Storm’s End around the end of season 1, and now that the end is in sight, it does seem like the timing is lining up perfectly.Image: House of the Dragon/HBOAn eye for an eye, a son for a sonIn response for Lucerys’ death, Daemon Targaryen promises Rhaenyra that they will get their revenge. He reaches out to Mysaria, his old flame who has connections in the lower places of King’s Landing. At Daemon’s behest, she finds a pair of mercenaries to carry out a grim task. One of them is a former officer of the City Watch who was thrown out for their violent tendencies, the other a rat catcher familiar with all the secret passageways of the Red Keep. They’re nicknamed Blood and Cheese respectively.Mysaria sends Blood and Cheese into the palace where they capture Alicent. However, they don’t harm her; instead, they wait in her room for Helaena and her children to arrive for their nightly visit with the queen. When they arrive, Blood and Cheese capture the lot of them. They demand that one of Helaena’s children must be killed to make things even after Lucerys’ death…but they give her the option of choosing which one. After first trying to get them to take her life instead, Helaena reluctantly chooses her and Aegon II’s youngest child Maelor, in part because he’s only 2 and too young to totally comprehend what’s happening.In response, Blood and Cheese tell Maelor to remember that his mother chose him to die, and then decapitate Helaena’s oldest child instead, the 6-year-old heir to the throne, Prince Jaehaerys. They then leave Helaena, Alicent, and the surviving children and vanish back into the passageways of the castle.Blood is eventually apprehended at the gates to King’s Landing while carrying Jaehaerys’ head in a bag, and under torture reveals that he was bringing it to Daemon. Cheese and Mysaria vanish, evading capture.It’s a brutal moment, and whether we get it near the end of season 1 or at the start of season 2, there can be no doubt that it’s on the way. But I think we may see it in the season finale, because the show has dropped a decent amount of foreshadowing for it already.Image: House of the Dragon/HBOThe evidence Blood and Cheese could happen in the season 1 finaleWhile normal television logic would hold that including both Storm’s End and the assassination plot involving Blood and Cheese in one episode would be madness, it could work better than you might think. These two events really go hand in hand; Blood and Cheese occurs on the literal next page of Fire & Blood after the Storm’s End dragon fight. It is a direct response, a shot fired by each faction that really signals the war has begun in earnest. After that, the Dance enters a new phase of outright warfare, which sounds like a pretty good place to leave off for season 2.Events move very quickly after Lucerys’ death. As Rhaenyra first learns about her son’s murder, she also receives a letter from Daemon, who by this point has already taken Harrenhal to establish a foothold on mainland Westeros for the blacks. Daemon promises her “a son for a son,” and sets his plan in motion. Based on the way the sequence is written, it’s easy to imagine how the actual hiring of the assassins and their journey into the castle could work as a montage, similar to the ending twist with Laenor Velaryon in Episode 7. It could very easily cut to a longer scene when the actual drama starts as they capture Alicent, but all in all, this is a sequence that wouldn’t necessarily demand an excess of screen time.As for foreshadowing Blood and Cheese, House of the Dragon season 1 has actually done a fair amount. The largest hint came during the family dinner in Episode 8, when Helaena let slip one of her prophetic mutterings: “Beware the beast beneath the boards.” While it’s possible she’s referring to something else, it would make sense for this to be a nod to Blood and Cheese, both because rats scamper through the crevices of the palace and because the duo use hidden passageways to infiltrate the keep.In fact, rats have been a recurring image we’ve seen all season, first in Episode 5 where one was drinking the blood of Joffrey Lonmouth after Rhaenyra and Laenor’s catastrophic wedding, and then again in Episode 6 when Viserys is alone in his room and spies one on his mantle. On the one hand it’s easy to view this as a reference to the overall decay facing the Targaryen dynasty. But on the other, Cheese is a rat catcher, and that first rat was drinking blood. It’s possible the symbolism had more layers than we first noticed. Plus, if rats have been running amok in the castle that long, it also means that it’s entirely possible Cheese has been working in the castle for all those years as well, learning the layout as he catches the critters.Image: House of the Dragon/HBOThen there’s Mysaria. Episode 8 reminded us she was still around by showing she had a spy in the palace, one who knows about Aegon II’s assault on his handmaid. While it’s possible that Mysaria will use her position as an information broker in any number of ways over the course of the next two episodes, Blood and Cheese is pretty much the only important event from the book that’s coming up in the immediate future for her, although she’ll have more to do as the Dance goes on.Considering that, it would make sense to start bringing her back onto the scene in Episode 8, establishing that she has contacts in the castle and has done so well in the information trade over the past decade and a half that she has resources which could be helpful to either side…and Daemon knows her from way back.Let’s also ponder the title of the season finale for a moment, “The Black Queen.” Obviously, this is a reference to Rhaenyra rising to lead the black faction…but it’s also got a pretty ominous ring to it. It makes me wonder how Rhaenyra’s reputation is going to change in the finale, and nothing would cast her cause in a more sinister light than the cold-blooded murder of a child.The last point to consider is the overall arc of the season. As things stand, there are two potential big events that could end House of the Dragon season 1: either the dragon fight at Storm’s End, or the dragon fight paired with Blood and Cheese. While focusing solely on Aemond and Lucerys’ battle would be momentous, pairing it with Blood and Cheese might be even more impactful. It would show both sides being the aggressor, instead of ending on the note that Aemond is causing trouble and the blacks have yet to really get their hands dirty. Plus it would be a great bookend to Alicent and Rhaenyra’s falling out. They began the season as best friends, and if Blood and Cheese happens, they will end it as mortal enemies after murdering each other’s family members.House of the Dragon is an epic tragedy. Ending season 1 on such a bloody note might be the perfect way to drive that home.Image: House of the Dragon/HBOWhat do you think? Will we get Blood and Cheese in the season 1 finale, or do you predict we’ll be waiting to see it until season 2? Let us know in the comments!