This ninth episode is interesting. For the most part, "The Green Council" is a game of cat and mouse. There are dragon pyrotechnics at the end as Meleys pummels through the stonework of the Dragonpit
Rhaenyra does not participate, which is appropriate given that she is unaware of her father's passing. The plot is to remove her from her position as heir, and the internal civil war that is raging within the greater conflict. Instead, Alicent is the star of this episode, who transforms considerably from the sweet little mold the show's authors characterize her as in for the first half of the season. We see how this Alicent, who is cruel but compassionate, changes over the course of the next 24 hours after learning of Viserys's passing.
Even if Alicent did not misunderstand Viserys's cryptic remarks concerning "Aegon's dreams" and the Song of Ice and Fire, Otto and the Small Council still would have deposed Rhaenyra and put in Aegon. The plan to kill Rhaenyra, Daemon, and their children will not pass by Alicent, who wants her eldest son to sit on the Iron Throne.
As the story progresses, it becomes obvious that Alicent and Otto are just trying to find Aegon and anoint him in the light of The Seven. Rhaenyra won't survive if she finds Aegon. Otherwise, Alicent would have used that time to send a thousand of ravens to Dragonstone to warn the princess that she was now a marked woman. Instead, she sends Criston and a furious Aemond into the city to find the undiscovered heir.
