A steamy kiss on House of the Dragon has some fans of the series up in arms. After Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) and her female confidante Mysaria, a.k.a the White Worm (Sonoya Mizuno), locked lips on the sixth episode of the show’s second season, angry fans have mobilized to “review-bomb” the episode, rating it 1 out of 10 stars on IMDb.

In the episode, titled “Smallfolk,” Rhaenyra and Mysaria team up to deliver aid to the starving citizens of King’s Landing, whose plight has been ignored by regent king Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell). After the success of their plan, Rhaenyra and Mysaria open up to one another, swapping stories from their complicated and traumatic pasts. The intimate moment between the two women ends in a lingering embrace, which leads to a passionate kiss.

According to Mizuno, the kiss wasn’t part of the original plan. “It wasn’t scripted as a kiss. I think it was scripted as…there’s just breath between them or something, and then whatever happens is interrupted,” Mizuno told TheWrap. Mizuno went on to say that she had “many conversations” with HotD showrunner Ryan Condal about where the season was heading, and that it was D’Arcy who initially had the idea for their characters to kiss. “Because we were separate in the room … [and] Mysaria has told this story, [D’Arcy] felt the instinct to hold her, to comfort her,” added Mizuno. “From that, it felt so organic to go into the kiss.”

While the unscripted kiss arose organically, anti-LGBTQ fans of House of the Dragon are angry about the tender moment, flooding IMDB to leave single-star reviews of the episode. At the time of publishing, “Smallfolk” has 35.1% one-star reviews on IMDb, which is equivalent to approximately 9,400 reviews. When filtered by country, Saudi Arabia and Iraq emerge as the nations that have left the most one-star reviews, with 4,700 coming from Saudi Arabia and 545 coming from Iraq. In the US and the UK, “Smallfolk” has received mostly 10-star reviews, with 1,200 and 395, respectively. But those reviews are followed closely by one-star ratings, with “Smallfolk” receiving 703 from the US and 233 from the UK—accounting for 17.3% and 16.8% of the total reviews for each country.

A Reddit thread pointed out the review-bombing, suggesting that Rhaenyra and Mysaria’s same-sex kiss led to the onslaught of negative reviews. (While Rhaenyra and Mysaria both identify as female, actor Emma D’Arcy, who plays Rhaenyra, identifies as non-binary). “Has anyone else noticed that episode 6 is getting heavily review bombed on IMDB? I personally thought it was one of the better episodes of the season, so this feels really misplaced to me,” wrote one Reddit user. “From looking at it I feel like the only explanation is people being unhappy with a certain kiss. Honestly, I understand a lot of the criticism when people say it felt out of place, but over 3,400 people rating the episode a 1/10 feels like an overreaction to me.”

Looking at the user reviews, it seems clear that the kiss had something to do with the negative reaction. According to Pink News, one single-star user review was titled “Thou shalt not escape from the agenda,” referring to the kiss as part of an alleged LGBTQ+ conspiracy. Another two-star reviewer wrote the following: “What was with that scene towards the ending? It was not necessary and completely ruined the mood of the show. From this point forward I’d not be surprised if I can’t keep watching this show. It’s ruined. Ruined…”

House of the Dragon is not the first show to be review-bombed for allegedly “woke” content or for diverting from its source material. Marvel’s female-led She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel, as well as Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series, The Rings of Power, all suffered from cases of review-bombing during over the course of their runs, according to Reddit users. But, thankfully, not everyone is a hater. Plenty of fans cheered Rhaenyra and Mysaria for taking the next step in their relationship, with thousands showing support for the kiss on the social media platform X. “It’s so exciting to see female characters like rhaenyra take over traditionally male dominated fields like infidelity,” posted @Targ_Nation. On second thought, maybe it was Rhaenyra’s uncle-husband Daemon (Matt Smith) leaving all those one-star reviews.