really don't have any words but a raw scream for alicent - the girl once too afraid to fly on dragon back with her best friend - responding to being face to face with a righteously furious dragon and rider by putting her body fully in front of her son.
an act not only born out of bravery and love but of the physical sacrifice that she knows all too well, even expects of herself, because that has been her entire life: body, womb, being, her entire personhood in service of king and country and crown, belonging not to herself but others to use as they wish. and this idea of her body not being her own but a tool for others protection, pleasure, power - whatever it may be, is paralleled in all her scenes this episode, brutal as they are. i am undone.
Also ngl I kinda love the concept of Debling courting Penelope and Colin getting jealous because of it, not because I ship it (he’s barely a character) or because I’m part of the crowd that wants to see Colin ~suffer (though I’m not opposed to seeing him dramatically yearn), but because the reason Penelope specifically is going after this vegan man is so fascinating to me. Like, she obviously doesn’t love him. But she will marry him to protect LW… she’ll marry him to please Portia, that’s so funny.
Girl’s so desperate to escape her awful family life while at the same time keeping her secret, but she also wants her mother’s approval. And she’s so caught up in that toxic mindset that she completely misses the guy she’s been in love with since childhood making heart eyes at her from across the ballroom.
Pen only has her parents’ terrible marriage as a frame of reference, so she probably thinks it’s a bonus if her future husband is much older than her because that could make her a young widow. He’ll leave the country for the majority of the year to fuck off to Antarctica? Oh to be left alone by your own life partner!!!
Meanwhile Portia is enthusiastically nodding behind Penelope like yes, perhaps he’ll die at sea, and neither of them think there’s anything wrong with this outlook in life.