‘House of the Dragon’: Fabien Frankel Reveals Deleted Ser Criston Cole Scene
House of the Dragon has only been on for four episodes and they already have deleted scenes. One of them was supposed to go in episode 4, “King of the Narrow Sea.” It’s a big Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) episode and Frankel revealed a deleted scene from that episode of House of the Dragon.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for the House of the Dragon episode “King of the Narrow Sea”.]
Frankel was a guest on the House of the Dragon podcast on Sept. 11. While addressing Criston’s sex scene with Rhaenyre (Milly Alcock), Frankel also revealed a deleted scene. Here’s why the scene entailed, why it was cut out and how it reflected on the subsequent scenes. New episodes of House of the Dragon premiere Sundays on HBO Max.
Technical difficulties made this ‘House of the Dragon’ scene unusable
The problems with Frankel’s House of the Dragon scene had nothing to do with the content of the scene or his performance. Unfortunately, technical difficulties still rear their head in the modern age of digital filmmaking.
“There’s a scene that’s not in the show anymore that we shot,” Frankel said on the House of the Dragon podcast. “Annoyingly, it’s not to do with anything other than there was a camera thing that happened.”
The ‘House of the Dragon’ deleted scene demonstrated Ser Criston Cole’s commitment
Frankel described the deleted scene. It was between him and Paddy Considine as King Viserys, and Criston reiterating his allegiance. While there’s no doubt of Criston Cole’s allegiance on House of the Dragon, it would’ve been nice to hear him say it.
“Criston Cole recites his vows of the kingsguard,” Frankel said. “I just remember how much in that scene, it was Viserys and Criston Cole. I remember doing that scene with Paddy and feeling like that was such a momentous moment in that character’s life.”
The deleted scene bore weight on the sex scene too
The reason discussing the sex scene reminded Frankel of his deleted scene is because of the juxtaposition it provided. Criston sleeps with the king’s daughter, Rhaenyra. That complicates his allegiance at the very least. We’ll see further as Rhaenyra grows up playing her own game of thrones.
Then to juxtapose that with the scene where he’s taking off the white cloak to sleep with Rhaenyra and what that must have meant for him to actually take that risk and commit to that and knowing that there is no going back. As quite a principled man, a soldier to do that is sort of like as big a sacrifice as one could possibly make. So I think that after that there’s obviously a real mix of incredibly complex feelings that he’s probably having that sort of ebb and flow with how the rest of that episode and the further episodes go.
Fabien Frankel, House of the Dragon podcast, 9/11/22
