**Spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2, now streaming on Max**

The House of the Dragon Season 2 premiere “A Son for a Son” established that the moralizing Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and her sworn sword, Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) — of the supposedly celibate Kingsguard — were totally doing the nasty in the wake of King Viserys’s (Paddy Considine) death. In fact, the two lovers are so obsessed with each other, they were busy having sex right when little Prince Jaehaerys was being murdered by goons sent by Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith). You might think that the two would quit their tryst in the wake of such a tragedy, but as the HBO show reveals in House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2, Alicent and Cole are still hot for each other!

Not only that, but according to House of the Dragon star Olivia Cooke, the kinky Alicent/Criston sex scene that closes this week’s new episode was originally a whole lot longer.

“I know, I did shoot, like, a really prolonged scene at the end of Episode 2 that unfortunately did not make the cut,” Cooke told Decider during a recent New York City roundtable interview.

“Oh, you orgasm in Episode 2?” Cooke’s co-star, Phia Saban, who plays Heleana on House of the Dragon, asked.

“Umm, in the nitty gritty of it? I know, well it was, it was intense,” Cooke said. “It went on for f*cking ages.”

According to Cooke, she believes that the scene, which was directed by Clare Kilner, was edited down by House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal.

“I guess Ryan was just like, ‘We don’t need to see that,’” Cooke said. “Well, why did you make me do that?“

The scene itself comes on the heels of Ser Criston Cole finding himself suddenly appointed to the position of Hand of the King. In the wake of Jaehaerys’s death, Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) finds himself underwhelmed with his grandfather, Ser Otto Hightower’s (Rhys Ifans), more measured approach to the child’s murder. When Otto criticizes Aegon for mass murdering every ratcatcher in the Red Keep — thereby ruining all the good will Alicent and Helaena won for him with their funeral procession — Aegon fires his “father’s” Hand and appoints Ser Criston Cole to be his “iron fist.”

The combination of Cole’s new gig and his new sexual relationship with the Dowager Queen upends the power balance between them.

“I think Alicent has really weakened herself by, like, submitting to Criston,” Cooke said in response to a question posed by ScreenRant’s Deven McClure. “I think she was almost this deity for him and now the mystique is sort of over, isn’t it? When you have sex with someone and when you’ve involved in a relationship.”

Frankel responded to the same question: “Well, I think as soon as you engage in a sort of physical relationship with someone, the dynamics between you change entirely. And so inevitably it has.”

Cooke teased that as the season goes on, Cole will become “infected” by the other male characters in the story. “His chivalry takes over and he feels like Alicent needs to be protected and made ignorant to the plans that they’re concocting,” Cooke explained. “This is just another way that the patriarchy is working against Alicent. Her eyes become open to to how this really isn’t working for her anymore and the indoctrination that her father imparted on her is starting to crumble away.”

“I don’t want to give too much away just because it will be very interesting to see how audiences react to the next two, three episodes,” Frankel teased. “But certainly it’s affected their relationship, no doubt.”

Frankel also shared that Cole’s relationship with Alicent’s sons Aegon and Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) will change because of the secret affair.

“To sort of be having an affair with these ‘kids that you work with’s mum?” Frankel mused. “I mean, you know, it’s very House of the Dragon, isn’t it? So very Game of Thrones.”