8 questions you might have after Sunday's 'House of the Dragon' episode, answered

In episode nine, Ser Criston Cole killed Lord Beesbury, who had been Master of Coin.

Here are the other members of the Small Council you should know heading into the finale:

• Archmaester Orwyle — the current Maester who was serving King Viserys (and didn't protest when Otto and Alicent took over the Small Council meeting in episode nine).
• Tyland Lannister — Master of Ships, and twin brother to Jason Lannister (who we haven't seen since episode three).
• Jasper Wylde — Master of Laws (he's the one who told Alicent they didn't want her included in their "darkling schemes").
• Otto Hightower — Hand of the King (who once served King Viserys I, but now crowned King Aegon II in the hopes of controlling the Seven Kingdoms through his grandson).

When Lord Beesbury protested the in-real-time coup happening in the Small Council, Criston Cole slammed his head into the table, killing him instantly.

While the other people in the room are clearly shocked, including the Kingsguard Lord Commander Harrold Westerling, no one moves to "arrest" or punish Cole. Just like when he publicly killed Joffrey (Laenor's lover) earlier in the season, Cole is protected here by Otto and Alicent Hightower. Were either the Hand of the King or the Queen to decry Cole's actions as oathbreaking or out-of-order, there would be discipline involved.

But in this case, Cole was silencing a vocal dissenter of the majority opinion in the room: that Aegon should succeed King Viserys on the Iron Throne.

It's also worth noting that what happened in the Small Council that night isn't known to anyone outside the room. Whether there will be fallout from the people in-the-know is yet to be seen, but Alicent seems happy enough to keep Criston as her sworn protector and loyal Kingsguard knight.

Ser Erryk was introduced in episode eight when he notified Queen Alicent of Aegon's assault on a serving girl. He is the kingsguard knight assigned as Aegon's sworn protector. That means he's had an up close view to his doings — including visit the place where kids are forced to fight one another in a cage match. Erryk wears his tunic open and his beard a teensy bit more unkempt than his twin brother.

Erryk's twin brother, Ser Arryk, is also on the kingsguard, but this episode shows that he is an oathkeeper through and through. Arryk doesn't seem to care what Aegon is like personally — he only abides by his oath to protect the king. In keeping with his tight code, Arryk wears his tunic more tightly buttoned and has ever-so-slightly neater facial hair.

For more details like this from last week's episode, you can read our breakdown of "The Green Council" here.

As the latest episode revealed, Larys Strong is exploiting his relationship with Alicent by masturbating in front of her while she displays her feet on a couch for him. Based on how Alicent goes about this ritual with a pained but unsurprised look on her face, we can safely assume this isn't the first time this exchange has happened.

Larys first made himself Alicent's trusted ally when she was still a teenager and young queen. At some point over the years, he has warped their information exchange into sexual coercion, where Alicent has to debase herself in her own bedroom in order to have secret orders carried out by Larys and his foot soldiers.

The scene stands as one more example of the ways Alicent is pushed to compromise her own power and agency in order to stay afloat in the political world dictated by mostly men.

After the Larys/Alicent foot scene, we're led to believe that he sent one of his ex-criminal buddies to torch Mysaria's house in King's Landing. The identity of the man walking away from the burning home is withheld from the audience, and we never see inside the home.

So it's unlikely that Mysaria (known as "The White Wyrm") is actually dead. When there's no body on screen, it's always safest to assume the character has eluded their assassin for now.

But we'll have to wait for future episodes to see if Larys will really be able to dismantle Mysaria's spy network.

This is also a likely "no." Showrunner Ryan Condal told Insider during a pre-season interview that the time jumps built into the first season were designed to get the characters to "where they needed to be" by the finale.

Having the context of Alicent and Rhaenyra's childhood bond, along with the key changes to how King Viserys ruled both publicly and in private, was key to understanding the coming fallout between "The Greens" (Hightower loyalists) and "The Blacks" (Rhaenyra loyalists).

The main action of the Targaryen civil war is upon us with Viserys' death, which means we'll now see the domino-effect of King Aegon II's crowning and the fight Rhaenyra will put up in order to claim her promised throne.

More than 21 years have passed in the show's first nine episodes, and now it's likely that we'll only have minimal jumps ahead in time (just like how "Game of Thrones" would cut to a few weeks or months later between scenes and seasons).

One of the new inventions for the TV show adaptation from "Fire and Blood" are Helaena's "dragon dreams" or prophecies. In episode six, she accurately predicted that Aemond would need to "close an eye" in order to claim his dragon — we saw in episode seven how he acquired Vhagar right before fighting with Luke and the other kids, which led to him losing an eye.

Then in episode seven, Helaena spoke this cryptic message: "Hand turns loom; spool of green, spool of black. Dragons of flesh weaving dragons of thread."

This was likely an allusion to the "long-laid" plans Otto Hightower was putting into place to ensure Aegon succeeded his father instead of Rhaenyra. "Hand" of course references the Hand of the King (Otto), and the blending of green (part of House Hightower's sigil) with black (one of the main Targaryen house colors) refers to the two families at the center of the drama.

Then there's the third prophetic statement. Multiple times now Helaena has said "there is a beast beneath the boards."

In episode nine, this message may have already come true multiple times. First there was Aegon, found hiding beneath a table in the sept. Helaena (who is Aegon's sister and wife) seems to feel frightened of Aegon, so referring to him as a beast would make sense. The beast may have also been more literal, since Rhaenys and her huge dragon burst out of the floor in the dragonpit at the end of the episode.

As we explained in this deep dive here, passages in "Fire and Blood" give context to the strategy around Aegon's coronation at the dragonpit.

While Rhaenys did indeed massacre hundreds of smallfolk with her move, she would have known that killing the freshly crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms without warning or public-facing context wasn't a great call. Her priority was getting out of King's Landing and notifying Rhaenyra of what had happened — not being the first family member to commit kinslaying (including her innocent relative, Helaena).

For our full explanation of this strategy, read more here.

The season one finale of "House of the Dragon" airs Sunday on HBO at 9 p.m. ET. For more, read our breakdown of the best details you might have missed in last week's episode.