Full spoilers follow for House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 2.
After the all-out warfare of last week, you might be expecting a bit of a breather this time, and maybe even worrying that the show will once again slow to a crawl as it did after the Battle of Rook’s Rest last season. But fear not! The aftershocks of the Battle of the Gullet are still reverberating, and the Black Queen is not derailed completely by grief this time. In fact, she’s swinging into action in a way we’ve never seen before.
Of course, there are a few matters to clear up first. Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim) and his brother Addam (Clinton Liberty), aboard the dragon Seasmoke, hunt for and find their missing father Corlys (Steve Toussaint). The admiral is heartbroken but otherwise relatively unscathed by the loss of his flagship and treasure house. “If this is victory, I hope I never see another,” he mourns. But there is the upside of a little family reunion there; Alyn gets to meet and develop mutual respect with his niece Baela (Bethany Antonia), and the whole family have a nice moment of bonding when Corlys offers to legitimize his two sons. Awww. Is it weird that this lot are the closest we seem to have to a positive family of (relative) role models like the Starks? Yes, they’re still down with the whole incest thing, but at least they don’t seem to actively dislike one another, and Alyn and Addam / Baela and Rhaena seem actively fond of one another.
Meanwhile, Tyroshi pirates and Jefferson Hall’s Tyland Lannister, incidentally, make it to shore and, in the former’s case, set about causing havoc to try to get some arms and equipment. Along the way they accidentally free Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Lord Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) from their temporary captivity, and the two scarper off to Rook’s Rest – the site where Aegon’s injury occurred – in search of allies. They’re hoping to find Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), but he’s hurried off to Harrenhal after spotting Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) and his massive dragon Vhagar headed in that direction. Gee, it sure would be nice if Ulf, Hugh and Addam were still lying in wait to ambush Aemond there now. Oh, and Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) is up in the Vale, begging for sanctuary from Lady Jeyne Arryn (Amanda Collin) after contributing to her cousin/step-brother/planned-future brother-in-law’s death. She doesn’t get any comfort there, just bad news, with Rhaenyra out to kill this mysterious dragonrider.
Back in the capital, Alicent (Olivia Cooke) is plotting furiously to deliver on the deal she made with Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy). All does not go to plan. She negotiates a forest of penises to make some sort of deal with the head of the City Watch, aka the Gold Cloaks (their watchhouse appears to double as a bathhouse), but due to Aemond’s late departure and a horrific attempted rape by Lord Jasper Wylde (Paul Kennedy), interrupted just in time by Grand Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan), she’s running behind. She gets to the guards on the wall and tells them to let Rhaenyra’s dragons past the harpoons, but struggles to get out of the city with Helaena (Phia Saban) and her tiny daughter fast enough. This is classic Game of Thrones-style plotting: a city faces an enemy force and a sneaky faction inside moves to let them in. It’s also typical plotting in that all does not go to plan for the conspirators.
That’s because, for once, Rhaenyra acts relatively fast. Yes, she seems to be falling apart at the beginning of the episode when she sees Jace’s (Harry Collett) corpse, but with Daemon (Matt Smith) back at her side and, more importantly, on her side in a way that he was not when she last lost a son, she is still fired up at the prospect of retaking the throne that she believes was stolen from her. But it’s interesting to see that, almost immediately, she finds new mistakes to make. She rails against her Small Council’s caution, to their faces, and questions the loyalty of her Queensguard, first rejecting Ser Lorent’s (Max Wrottesley) offer of his life in return for his failure to stop Jace, and then appearing to reconsider later (“Let Ser Lorent choose how he will die”). Later, after she arrives in King’s Landing alongside Daemon, with the new dragonriders Ulf (Tom Bennett) and Hugh (Kieran Bew) behind her, she hesitates at fatal moments. She visibly recoils from killing that old puppetmaster Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) and then makes a bad job of it.
Daemon, called away from partying with the Riverlords, also makes what could be serious errors. He scoffs at the witch Alys’ (Gayle Rankin) request for a reward for her help (to be fair, she asks for Harrenhal, which has assumed an outsize importance in the mind of everyone in this war). Later, he is patronising and rude to the “Dragonseeds.” Now yes, Ulf is a fool, and greets him as an equal, and that was always going to put his back up, but they are allies with great big stonking dragons behind them, and a wise man might consider the value of welcoming them into the family. Daemon has an object lesson in the value of loyalty this episode, when his ol’ buddies in the Gold Cloaks swing behind him in the bid for Rhaenyra’s throne, so it’s positively infuriating to see him at his arrogant worst around Alys and Ulf – even if he shows an edge of respect to Hugh. This is the downside of focusing on royalty all the time in this show; they have these blind spots.
Rhaenyra too is prone to missteps. She shouldn’t have hesitated to kill Otto, even if it upset her BFF. As it is, she leaves a trail of bloody footsteps to the throne – think of the metaphor, Rhaenyra! Don’t give your enemies that ammunition – and takes her seat with a face that’s snotty and wet with tears. When Alicent and Helaena are brought in front of her at just that moment as prisoners, she looks stricken, but tries to muster some defiance. Pull it together, woman; you’re a queen now.
Still, that’s a lot of progress for just one episode. The Ironrod and former Hand of the King are both dead, and the two Green Queens are now in custody. The Iron Throne is in Rhaenyra’s hands, with Daemon for once standing by her, and several sons still left to inherit. Looks like she has this whole civil war sewn up. It’s amazing there are six episodes left this season, really. What could possibly go wrong?
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