"What I told him was, hey, if any of the artists want to come back and buy into this, you have to let me know. And he shared a letter with me that’s out there publicly that — you know, [Taylor] said, ‘I don’t want to participate in my masters. I’ve decided to, you know, not make this deal,’ blah, blah, blah. So that was the idea I was under."
Netflix’s Blonde is not so much a biopic based on the facts of the late Hollywood icon’s life as a speculative dive into her psyche, very much in the vein of Spencer, Pablo Larraín’s tribute to another iconic blond, Princess Diana. The style is similarly associative rather than linear, with ample use of fantasy, dreams, and allusions to fairy tales, acknowledging the story is an exploration of our mythic projections as much as a look at the real woman. Both films present their heroines as sensitive, guileless Red Riding Hoods navigating a forest full of wolves, always underestimated and constrained by outmoded conventions. And since their untimely deaths, the historical truths of both their stories have become shrouded in a fog of conspiracy theories and commercial exploitation (with both inspiring a hit tribute single from Elton John).
Discovering what’s fact and what’s fiction in Blonde is further complicated by the source material for the film being not Monroe’s actual life, but Joyce Carol Oates’ fictional reimagining of that life in her 2000 novel of the same name, which Oates herself has said is not a biography or even a biographical novel, but a “distillation” of the star’s life, a work of fiction. At any rate, we unpack what’s true to life and what’s legend.
While taking classes at the Actors Circle in L.A., Marilyn (Ana de Armas) meets two fellow students, Charlie “Cass” Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. Robinson Jr., both aspiring actors struggling in the shadows of their famous fathers. As free-spirited, troubled, and good-looking as Marilyn herself, the two men relate to her as her true identity, Norma Jeane Baker, rather than being blinded by her Marilyn Monroe alter ego like so many of the men she meets, and soon they are in a fun, passionate three-way relationship where she can really be herself. Even after it ends, they remain friends throughout her life (although she is unaware of how they have occasionally betrayed her confidence).
This is largely invention. In reality, neither Chaplin nor Robinson were known to be gay or even bisexual, let alone in a relationship with each other. There is no evidence that Robinson was ever more than an acquaintance of Monroe’s, although rumors of a brief affair between Monroe and Chaplin did surface in Hollywood scandal sheets. The rumors were confirmed by Chaplin himself in his 1960 memoir, in which he wrote, “One of the young girls I had a relationship with at this time [c. 1947] … was the same age as I, 21, an attractive, petite, unknown movie actress named Norma Jean Dougherty who was under contract at Twentieth Century-Fox.” However, Chaplin went on to recall, “from a professional point of view it was absolutely necessary for her to be seen together with all kinds of movie stars to get the papers interested in giving her a mention. The result was an estrangement between us, and I have not seen her for several years.”
By some accounts, it was not Monroe’s stepping out with movie stars for publicity that broke up the relationship, but Chaplin discovering her in bed with his brother Sydney.
Monroe would surely have been reacquainted with Robinson in subsequent years when he had a small role as a gangster in Some Like It Hot. However, the film omits this episode and suggests any subsequent contact after the physical relationship ended was by mail. Also, according to the film, Robinson called Marilyn shortly before her death with the news that Chaplin had died. In reality, Chaplin outlived Monroe by nearly six years.
Sadly, the real Chaplin and Robinson were nowhere near as attractive as the actors who play them (Xavier Samuel and Evan Williams, respectively).
In the film, little Norma Jeane lives with her divorced mother, Gladys (Julianne Nicholson), who frequently lashes out at her daughter, blaming her arrival for making Norma Jeane’s father, who was married to someone else, break off their relationship. Gladys’ behavior grows increasingly erratic, including putting Norma Jeane in a car and driving toward a wildfire dressed only in a nightgown, until finally she tries to drown the child in the bathtub, after which she is committed to a state institution for the hospitalization of the mentally ill. Norma Jeane is taken in by a kindly neighbor for a bit after she knocks on her door but is eventually transferred to an orphanage.
Monroe’s mother, Gladys Baker, did have a history of mental illness. Indeed, both of Gladys’ parents died in institutions for the confinement of the mentally ill and her brother died by suicide. Baker had a mental breakdown in January 1934 and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, after which she was in and out of institutions for the rest of her life.
After Gladys’ breakdown, Monroe was taken in by her mother’s close friend, Grace Goddard, who became her legal guardian. However, she left after a few months because Goddard’s husband molested her, an episode omitted from the film. She moved in with her mother’s sister-in-law and then to the Los Angeles Orphans’ Home before finding a more stable existence as a teenager with a friend of Goddard’s known as “Aunt Ana.” In 1946, after being released from the hospital, Gladys came to join her daughter there before disappearing again.
This was not Monroe’s first time in foster care. Gladys had dropped her daughter off with a foster family when she was only 2 weeks old. Monroe stayed in this relatively stable and secure environment for the next seven years, until 1933, when her foster mother judged that mother and daughter should be reunited. The actor’s communication with her mother, as the film depicts, remained sporadic throughout her life, but when she picked her stage name, she chose her maternal grandmother’s last name, Monroe.
Gladys shows little Norma Jeane a photograph of a handsome man and says that he is the girl’s father, but that she can never mention it because he was married, and people would know she was illegitimate. She reveals he also worked at “the studio” but refuses to tell the girl his name. The film suggests that the central pillar of Marilyn’s emotional life was a search for this missing father and desire to win his love, hence her marrying older men and calling them, with a distinct lack of subtlety, “Daddy.”
In fact, Gladys was married to Martin Mortensen when Monroe was born, and that is the last name on her birth certificate (although she was baptized as Norma Jeane Baker), so she would not have been considered illegitimate. That said, according to DNA evidence revealed in a 2022 documentary on French television, Monroe’s real father is Charles Stanley Gifford, Gladys’ boss at RKO studios, where she worked as a film editor (not an actress, as the film suggests), but this has never been confirmed.
As for Monroe having a father complex, she did have two husbands who were considerably older, made several attempts to track down her father, and told interviewer William J.
Weatherby, “For years I thought having a father and being married meant happiness,” but there is no proof she was as fixated as the movie depicts.
Her star rising rapidly, Marilyn is wooed by Joe DiMaggio, recently retired Yankee and national baseball hero. He promises to protect her and give her a more normal life and family. However, Monroe finds it difficult to become the Italian mama DiMaggio wants (she can’t cook, for starters), while he is threatened by her increasingly high profile and the attention she elicits from other men. During some arguments, his anger boils over and he hits her.
This is largely true. DiMaggio, 12 years older than Monroe, tried to control her career, discouraging her from taking roles that reinforced the sexualized blond-bombshell image she was best known for and encouraging her to become a full-time housewife. He also wanted her to dress more modestly and not outshine him in public. And if she broke these rules, DiMaggio, who later got treatment for anger management, was physically abusive. His son, Joe DiMaggio Jr., recalled waking up to “the sound of my father and Marilyn screaming. … After a few minutes, I heard Marilyn race down the stairs and out the front door, and my father running after her. He caught up to her and grabbed her by the hair and sort of half-dragged her back to the house. She was trying to fight him off but couldn’t.”
Despite this, DiMaggio and Monroe remained close after their marriage of nine months was dissolved. When Monroe died, it was DiMaggio who identified her body, organized the small funeral, and chose her headstone.
Blonde depicts (in gory detail) Marilyn having an abortion after her breakup with the two Juniors, although whether this was her decision and arose, as the film suggests, out of her fear that her mother’s mental instability could be hereditary or whether the studio arranged it so she could start shooting Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on schedule is left ambiguous. A few years later, Marilyn is married to playwright Arthur Miller and thrilled to be pregnant when she trips and falls while bringing a tray to a beach picnic, resulting in a miscarriage.
In fact, Monroe did have a miscarriage while married to Miller in 1956, then lost an ectopic pregnancy in 1957, followed by a second miscarriage in late 1958. As for whether she ever had one or more abortions, there’s little concrete evidence, but her friends told biographers that the driven actress had many abortions, with one friend, photographer Amy Greene, claiming that she had as many as a dozen, some of them back-alley procedures, leading to long-term reproductive damage.
The film shows an excited Marilyn meeting with studio head “Mr. Z,” a meeting that might be her big break if it results in a contract with “the studio.” Instead of an audition, she finds she is expected to perform fellatio on him. Then he anally rapes her. Later, she is told that she’s got the part (a small but standout role in All About Eve, one of her first screen appearances).
“Mr. Z” is most likely Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of Twentieth Century-Fox—the studio Monroe ended up being under contract to—who was notorious for his “conferences” with starlets and what the New York Times called a “well-documented habit of flashing his penis at women.” However, according to Monroe biographer Anthony Summers, “Monroe recalled ‘casting couch’ sex encounters, but nothing suggests any of them were with Zanuck. In interviews with almost 700 people, I encountered nothing to suggest that any Hollywood producer raped Monroe.”
In its determination to portray her as a victim, the film omits Monroe’s standing up to Zanuck once she had obtained star clout. At the time, actors under contract were expected to do as they were told. “An actress isn’t a machine,” she told Life magazine, “but they treat you like one.” After Gentlemen Prefer Blondes proved to be Fox’s highest-earning film to date, Monroe expected to be able to command roles that showed off her range as an actress. When Fox offered her yet another blond bimbo part in a mediocre project, she returned the script with “TRASH” scrawled on the title page and refused to turn up to a shoot, instead flying off to New York, where she started her own production company. A furious Fox fired off numerous lawsuits and briefed journalists against her, but Monroe stood her ground. In January 1955, Zanuck gave in, withdrawing the lawsuits, raising her salary to $100,000 per film, and giving her the power to approve the script, director, and cinematographer on all of her films.
In the film, Kennedy has Secret Service agents deliver Marilyn to his bedroom for a booty call. Busy watching the launch of the Friendship 7 rocket (no heavy-handed imagery there) while FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover berates him over the phone, the president (Caspar Phillipson, reprising his role from Larraín’s Jackie) barely greets her before indicating she should get down to business. After treating her with as much respect and affection as he would a sex doll with no needs or personality of her own, he turns his back and the agents hustle her out—all wham, bam, with not even a thank you, ma’am.
There has been gossip and speculation about Monroe’s involvement with President Kennedy from virtually the moment she became a big star, speculation that became turbocharged after she serenaded him with a breathy rendition of “Happy Birthday” while wearing the famous skintight dress at a Madison Square Garden gala fundraiser in 1962. While there is no definitive proof, the balance of gossip suggests that Monroe and Kennedy had some sort of physical relationship.
They certainly knew each other. Jerry Blaine, a former Secret Service agent in Kennedy’s detail, told People that he was with JFK when the president socialized with Monroe at Peter Lawford’s house in Santa Monica in 1961 and then again at a party in New York following the gala. However, Blaine said, “they weren’t alone,” and he “never saw any evidence of an affair. But,” he added, “I don’t know what happened behind closed doors.”
On the other hand, Tony Oppedisano, Frank Sinatra’s friend and road manager who was also close to both Monroe and JFK, declared, “it was obviously a sexual thing, and I would expect that there were feelings on her side,” basing his knowledge on conversations he had over the years with Sinatra. For Monroe, he said, it was more than a fling. “She respected him; she admired him. She loved what he was doing with the country … but she wasn’t about to break up [the president’s] marriage, so she wouldn’t let it go that far, even if she felt that deeply.”
There’s also some doubt as to whether it was more than a one- or two-night stand. According to Monroe biographer Donald Spoto, Monroe told her masseur, Ralph Roberts, that a hookup at Bing Crosby’s house in Palm Springs in March 1962, shortly after her divorce from Miller, “was the only time of her ‘affair’ with JFK. … A great many people thought, after that weekend, that there was more to it. But Marilyn gave me the impression that it was not a major event for either of them: it happened once, that weekend, and that was that,” Roberts recalled.
What seems highly dubious is that Monroe would let Kennedy treat her as dismissively as is suggested by Blonde, even though the womanizing president was notoriously not a romantic when it came to his conquests. For one thing, she was no longer an insecure aspiring starlet, but one of the world’s biggest movie stars, and had already been married to two of America’s most high-profile men and involved with numerous others (including Marlon Brando), so was unlikely to be blinded by glamour or power.
For another, according to a documentary based on 650 taped interviews Summers conducted for his biography, Monroe and JFK went way back to 1954, when he was the junior senator from Massachusetts and, having been introduced by Lawford, the two would meet for drinks at a dive bar popular with movie stars called the Malibu Cottage whenever Kennedy was in California, so it’s not like she was some sort of presidential groupie.
Yet another biographer, James Spada, maintains that after JFK dumped Monroe in 1962, Bobby Kennedy saw his chance and made his move. Oppedisano backs this up. “When things phased out with Jack, that’s when she picked up with Bobby, and I don’t think it lasted anywhere near as long or was as deep as it was with JFK,” he told People, suggesting she was motivated by wanting to get back at the president, and thought, “ ‘You’re not going to be with me, so maybe I’ll take up with your brother,’ ” an echo of her alleged affair with Chaplin’s brother.
Canadian actor Robert Cormier, who appeared in shows like "Heartland" and "American Gods," has died at age 33 after a "tragic accident," his sister says.
His sister, Stephanie Cormier, told CTV News Toronto on Wednesday the family has been left "devastated" by his "unexpected death" on Sept. 23.
"Robbie passed away as the result of a tragic accident," Cormier said. "Our family would like to thank everyone at the Critical Care team in Toronto for the compassionate care they provided Robbie and the kindness they showed our family. We will be forever grateful."
She did not release any details about the nature of the accident.
"While we are broken-hearted, we take comfort in the overwhelming love and support shown to our family by Robbie's friends, colleagues and fans," she said.
According to an obituary on the Ridley Funeral Home’s website, he is being remembered by family and friends as "an athlete, an actor, and a great brother.”
"He had a passion for helping others and was always looking to achieve more," the obituary reads. "He enjoyed movie nights with his family, and looked up greatly to his father."
Robert Cormier has died at age 33. (Instagram / _robertcormier)
"Rob's memory will live on through his passion for art and film; as well as his three sisters who meant the world to him."
In a post on Twitter, the "Heartland" production team said Cormier was a "beloved member" of the team who will be "deeply missed."
He was a member of the cast for the previous two seasons of the show.
"On behalf of the Heartland cast and crew, our thoughts are with him and his family during this difficult time," the tweet reads.
Cormier, who was born in Toronto, also made guest appearances on the defunct series "Ransom" and "Designated Survivor."
With files from The Canadian Press
Robert Cormier, a Toronto TV and film actor who played Finn Cotter on the long-running Canadian drama series Heartland, died on Sept. 23. He was 33.
No cause of death was given in Cormier’s obituary, but the actor’s sister Stephanie told The Hollywood Reporter that he died in an Etobicoke hospital after sustaining injuries from a fall.
Cormier is also known for portraying Kit Jennings in the third season of Netflix’s horror anthology series Slasher and Winston in Starz’s American Gods.
Read more: Pat John, First Nations actor on long running TV show ‘The Beachcombers,’ dies at 69
Read More
Cormier is remembered as “an athlete, an actor, and a great brother,” according to an obituary.
“He had a passion for helping others and was always looking to achieve more,” the obituary reads. “Rob’s memory will live on through his passion for art and film; as well as his three sisters who meant the world to him.”
Cormier first appeared on Heartland in the 15th season, where he played a new love interest for the show’s main character Amy Fleming, played by Canadian Amber Marshall. He is expected to also feature in the show’s 16th season, which is scheduled to premiere on Oct. 2.
Following the news of Cormier’s death, UpTV — which syndicates Heartland in the U.S. — paid tribute to the late actor with an Instagram post.
The network shared a photo of Cormier beside co-star Marshall and wrote: “Robert Cormier, aka Heartland’s Finn, was an amazing talent, gone too soon. We are deeply saddened to learn of his passing.”
Heartland’s official Instagram account also honoured Cormier, writing: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Robert Cormier. He was a beloved member of Heartland cast the last two seasons. On behalf of the Heartland cast and crew, our thoughts are with him and his family, who have asked for privacy during this difficult time.”
Cormier was born in Toronto on June 14, 1989, and studied economics at York University before pursuing his ambitions to become an actor. He graduated from the Toronto Academy of Acting for Film & Television in 2014 and landed his first major acting gig two years later when he appeared on ABC’s Designated Survivor, according to his IMDb page.
Cormier is survived by his parents Robert and Lisa, his sisters Brittany, Krystal and Stephanie, his grandmother Joanne, as well as aunts, uncles and cousins.
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Hugh Jackman will be back as Wolverine in “Deadpool 3,” Ryan Reynolds announced on his social media Tuesday afternoon. “Deadpool 3” also has an official release date: Sept. 6, 2024.
“Hey everyone, we’re extremely sad to have missed D23, but we’ve been working very hard on the next ‘Deadpool’ film for a good long while now,” Reynolds says in the video, referencing the D23 Expo in early September. “I’ve had to really search my soul on this one. His first appearance in the MCU obviously needs to feel special. We need to stay true to the character, find new depth, motivation, meaning. Every ‘Deadpool’ needs to stand out and stand apart. It’s been an incredible challenge that has forced me to reach down deep inside. And I…I have nothing. Yeah, just completely empty up here. And terrifying. But we did have one idea.”
“Hey, Hugh, you want to play Wolverine one more time?” Reynolds asks as Jackman walks by in the background.
“Yeah, sure, Ryan,” Jackman replies. The video ends with Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” — subtitled as “I will always love Hugh” — and a “Coming Hughn” teaser. The Deadpool logo appears, then is quickly sliced up by Wolverine’s adamantium claws.
Watch Reynolds’ video below.
Shawn Levy, who made “Free Guy” and “The Adam Project” with Reynolds, is directing “Deadpool 3,” which will officially join the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who penned the first two “Deadpool” films, returned to write the third. Reese has previously confirmed that “Deadpool 3” will remain R-rated, even within the family-friendly MCU.
The last time X-Men fans saw Jackman as Wolverine was in 2016’s R-rated “Logan,” directed by James Mangold. Wolverine famously died in the end of the film, and Jackman has stated repeatedly that the film was his swan song in the role. So it’s unclear how he’ll appear in “Deadpool 3.” But the character is best known for repeatedly breaking the fourth wall — on film and in the comics — and as Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently told Variety, “Anything’s possible in the multiverse.”
Reynolds and Jackman have a long superhero history together. The “Deadpool” star first appeared as the character in 2009’s widely panned “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which was the first “X-Men” spinoff to focus on Jackman’s character. That version of Deadpool, however, had his mouth sewn shut and did not feature his iconic red-and-black costume. Several years later, Reynolds got another go-round as the wise-cracking assassin in a proper, R-rated “Deadpool” movie.
The “Deadpool” films are the top-grossing “X-Men” titles of all time, each earning over $780 million worldwide. The first two films, which debuted in 2016 and 2018, respectively, were released by 20th Century Fox before Disney acquired the studio.
Meanwhile ‘Logan’ director James Mangold who famously ended Wolverine’s story once and for all (or so we were to believe) responds to the “Deadpool 3” news with a simple gif….
Kim Kardashian is proving that beauty is pain!
The 41-year-old SKIMS mogul shared a video of herself wearing a skintight silver Dolce & Gabbana dress with glittery details and lace up panels to her Instagram Story on Monday -- later shared to TikTok by pal Stephanie Shepherd. In the short clip, Kardashian displayed the lengths she'd go through for jaw-dropping fashion.
Although the gown looked stunning, the TV personality was featured hopping and teetering up flights of stairs after the dress impeded her ability to move her legs to walk normally.
The reality star appeared to be at an event for Dolce & Gabbana, the fashion house she recently collaborated with to release its spring/summer collection for this year's Milan Fashion Week.
After lots of waddling, bunny hopping, and teeny steps Kim asks in the video, "Is there an elevator?"
The hilarious clip also showed Kardashian requiring a team of security and friends to help her into her car where she sat in the backseat stiff as a board after her dress would not allow her to bend.
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
Kardashian and Dolce & Gabbana partnered to create a reworked collection of the house’s archival looks that were curated by her called "Ciao, Kim."
Per Elle UK, models walked the runway to a black and white video of the shapewear creator eating spaghetti as paparazzi cameras clicked in the background. The clothes kept a color palette that stuck to mostly blacks, metallics and leopard print and a few models wore choker necklaces with the words "KIM" in capital letters.
Alongside a video of the fashion show, Kim shared a lengthy Instagram caption that detailed her love for the house.
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
"I always loved the beautiful, quintessential 90s & 2000's looks… feminine, bold, they always made me feel so confident & glamorous," she wrote. "You could feel the moment you put on a D & G dress that the intention when it was designed & made was to celebrate the woman wearing it. To make her feel like she could do anything, be anything, own her confidence & her beauty."
Kardashian continued, "Not only did the D & G team allow me to curate the collection they also trusted me & my team to create all of the content, the short film, music & creative direction of the show, working alongside their incredible team. This process really allowed me to express my creativity without limitations."
"Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to Domenico, Stefano, the entire team at D & G & to everyone who made this show possible," she concluded her post with gratitude. "Never could I have imagined as a young girl watching Linda Evangelista & Monica Bellucci on the D & G runways that I would be creative directing a collection & show with D & G for Milan fashion week."
It’s only been one week since we watched Princess Rhaenyra, heir to the Iron Throne, wed Laenor Velaryon to strengthen both houses and her future rule. But for Rhaenyra, King Viserys, Queen Alicent, and everyone else in House of the Dragon, it’s been a long 10 years since then—and it’s almost impressive how much worse things have gotten without ever managing to finally erupt into a full war.
So yes, “The Princess and the Queen” begins with the time-jump we all knew was coming, and Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke have finally stepped into their respective roles. Rhaenyra is wiser, more pragmatic, and vastly irritated that Alicent is trying everything in her power to discredit her. Alicent has come into her own, bossing Viserys (Paddy Considine) around with impunity at times, babying him like a doddering old man at others, and getting increasingly angry at people who don’t hate Rhaenyra as much as she does. (Which means the Rhaenyra-loathing Criston Cole, still played by Fabien Frankel, is her current BFF.)
There was some classic, Game of Thrones-style scheming and political intrigue—even an assassination or two!—in “The Princess and the Queen,” which would have made it a perfectly wonderful episode if I hadn’t found the entire thing so unbearably tense. The problem is the children. A lot of kids have been born over the last decade in Westeros and well before Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) rhetorically asks, “What are children but a weakness?” House of the Dragon has revealed they can be many things: Pawns. Threats. Victims. Liabilities. Weirdos. Duties. Inheritors of their parents’ grudges. And they can be killers, too.
For simplicity’s sake, let me list off the next generation of Targaryens, because they’ve already been dragged into the war to come by the simple virtue of just existing.
• Queen Alicent and King Viserys have three children: Aegon (Ty Tennant) is the eldest, and looks to be shaping up into a pretty fine swordsman and a teen who likes masturbating out of windows. His younger sister Helaena (Evie Allen) is next, and it appears she’s into very gross bugs and being weird. Finally, there’s Aemond (Leo Ashton), an unlikable, sullen boy who gets made fun of by Rhaenyra’s kids.
• Rhaenyra and ostensibly Laenor Velaryon (now played by John MacMillan) have two sons, both younger than Alicent’s kids. There’s Jacaerys (Leo Hart), Lucerys (Harvey Sadler), and Joffrey, who is born in the opening minutes of the episode.
• Meanwhile, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) has had two daughters with his new wife Laena Velaryon (now played by Nanna Blondell), Laenor’s sister. They’re named Baela (Eva Ossei-Gerning) and Rhaena (Shani Smethhurst), and Laena has another baby on the way.
There’s something powerful and heartbreaking when Emma D’Arcy’s adult Rhaenyra is introduced screaming in pain as she’s giving birth to Joffrey. Even before we know this is her third child, Rhaenyra has fallen into the same, inevitable trap Alicent did—she’s now “popping out heirs” and worrying each new pregnancy will kill her like it eventually killed her mother. She may be the declared heir to the Iron Throne, and soon to be the most powerful woman in Westeros, but she had no more chance to avoid this fate than Alicent did (or Laena, for that matter).
Of course, Alicent is still dead set on making sure Rhaenyra never gets her chance to become Queen. Part of this is because she’s worried that Rhaenyra will have her children killed to eliminate their claims, as her father Otto Hightower told her, but most of her hate for the princess is just… hate. She’s still furious she was lied to, that Rhaenyra ever enjoyed a taste of freedom while she was having miserable sex with the increasingly gross Viserys. Rhaenyra is still enjoying that freedom, to a degree, and it’s driving Alicent mad.
Remember how I mentioned Rhaenyra’s kids are “ostensibly” Rhaenor’s? It’s a funny thing, because none of the three have the white-gold hair of the Targaryens or the white locks of the Velaryons. Instead, they all have black-brown hair, much like Rhaenyra’s close friend and captain of the city watch, Ser Harwin Strong (Ryan Corr). While I assume Laenor tried to do his royal duties, at least on occasion, pretty much everyone in King’s Landing assumes Strong is the real father. Rhaenyra outright denies it, even to Rhaenor, but it’s hard to believe her when we eventually check in with Daemon and Laena in Lys, and their daughters are unquestionably a product of the two Valyrian houses joined together.
The only other person in Westeros who refuses to admit the truth is Viserys, who won’t hear of any accusation of Rhaenyra’s infidelity, even from his wife. But things come to a head when Harwin observes Criston teaching Alicent’s two boys to fight while ignoring Rhaenyra’s kids. Criston, who has become an even bigger asshole over the last decade, has Aegon attack the much smaller Jacaerys, giving him implicit instructions on how to maul the child, including beating him while he’s laying on the ground. Harwin pulls Aegon off and helps Jacaerys to his feet, which allows Criston to comment about how caring Harwin seems of his charge… almost as if the prince were his own son.
Harwin very satisfyingly beats the hell out of Criston for the insult until four knights pull him off, but Criston is nothing but pleased. Harwin Strong is expelled from the City Watch, and his father Lyonel (Gavin Spokes) tries to resign as Hand of the King but is unwilling to expose Rhaenyra’s not-so-secret secret. So Viserys does not accept the resignation and tells his Hand to get Harwin instated at Harrenhal and come back. Rhaenyra leaves too, but to take her family to the Targaryen’s ancestral home of Dragonstone, where everyone won’t be whispering behind their backs.
Alicent complains bitterly that Lyonel didn’t have the courage to tell the king the scandalous truth, which is when Larys Strong—the obvious schemer—takes matters into his own hands, and by “own hands” I mean he finds a bunch of criminals about to be executed, offers them freedom, cuts out their tongues, and has them set Harrenhal on fire to kill Larys’ brother and father. Thus, he paves the way for Alicent to call her father Otto Hightower, former Hand of the King and a man who will tell Viserys harsh truths (as we have seen), back to King’s Landing. Alicent has the decency to be somewhat horrified that Larys murdered his own family to help her, but not nearly horrified enough to not take the opportunity.
What made “The Princess and the Queen” so tense for me was how clearly all of these kids are being dragged into a fight that will blow up their lives and engulf the entirety of Westeros. And it’s primarily Alicent’s hate that’s doing it. She hates Rhaenyra so much she hates Rhaenyra’s children. She tells Aegon that his life and his siblings’ lives will basically be forfeit if Rhaenyra takes the throne, all to sow distrust and hate between the two groups of kids. Criston Cole hates Rhaenyra so much he wants her children physically harmed. It’s awful, and what makes it worse is that if you know anything about historical wars of succession or just watched Game of Thrones, you know some of these children will die. Not as children, hopefully, but not all of them will survive the inevitable civil war. They will hate and fear each other and try to kill the others and some of them will probably succeed.
“What are children but a weakness?” Larys asks the queen. “A folly, a futility. Through them you imagine you cheat the great darkness of its victim, that you’ll persist forever in some form or another, as if they would keep you from the dust. But for them, you surrender what you do not. You may know the right thing to be done but love stays the hand. Love is a downfall.”
So is hate, and it will be the downfall of so many of these children, sooner or later.
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For most of the video game of The Last of Us , players play as Joel. But there’s a chunk of gameplay in which the action switches to Ellie’s...
