My favourite scenes are heavily skewed towards the end of the season. Not that the younger actors didn’t do great, just that I found the drama to be much more engaging as the series went on.
As such, my favourite scene in the entire first season is:
‘…And Strong’.
I think the actor playing Aemond is absolutely bossing it, and this scene is the culmination of a few episodes of building tension. The way the scene is shot, the way the actor delivers his lines and then the pause, damn that pause. We all knew what was coming, and to finally hear him say it was both incredibly satisfying and fantastic fun.
I was absolutely floored by Paddy the whole season. A lay-about self-soothing king who even the throne rejects with constant cuts and scrapes. A man who refuses to see the world around him and recoils into his own fantasy world while his very real kingdom crumbles from inattention. A man who brings his teenage daughter’s closest friend into his bed, and more often than he needed to ‘do his duty’. That same man made we weep with half a face from his grief. That throne walk. House of onions over here.