Full spoilers follow for House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 5.
Is Rhaenyra paranoid, or is someone really out to get her? Well, definitely the latter – but she might also be paranoid, and that’s the problem. There is plotting on all sides: some relatively benign, and some potentially lethal, and it’s hard to tell where the real dangers are coming from. Things continue tense, in other words, and that is keeping this show as gripping as Game Of Thrones ever was.
We open on a frustrated Lord Oscar Tully (Archie Barnes), whose attempts to get his Rivermen army to Tumbleton have been stymied by Christen Cole (Fabian Frankel) and his guerilla warriors burning bridges along the route. Cole attacks the Rivermen camp that night, but that’s as good as it gets for him. The Northmen soon get ahead of him and lay caltrops on the road to Stony Sept, the next river crossing, forcing Cole, Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox) and company off their horses and into woods and bogs, through rain and leeches.
Gwayne gives up at the end, but Cole is still determined to make a mark for himself. “I will not let them diminish me now…I am the realm’s greatest warrior, and I will die as such, clear-eyed, unbent, glorious in battle, and not in their service, finally, but in my own. And they will sing songs of it, and Queen Alicent herself will hear them.” Somehow this particular display of arrogance makes him more likeable and not less; after spending all of last season moping, this guy is fascinating by comparison.
Alys (Gayle Rankin) is still claiming that she knows nothing about Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) to the various bounty hunters that turn up at Harrenhal, but upstairs she’s busy nursing him back to health and also giving the awful little monster some of the affection he craves. There’s an interesting thread here where Aemond is tormented by visions of his brother Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) dying and convinced his family doesn’t love him, while Aegon harps on about the wrongs done to him by his brother and is convinced the family doesn’t love him. Alys comforts Aemond while Larys (Matthew Needham) calls Aegon out on his bullshit – arguably the right response in both cases – but it’s not clear if it will be enough to force either to change his ways.
At least Aegon and Larys are reunited with Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall), while Aegon kills his tormentor Janos (Oliver Coopersmith) in order to cover up his identity (and for vengeance). It’s a kind of return to form after his recent helplessness, even if “form” in this case means “bloody viciousness”. Aemond, too, is out of his sick bed and swinging a sword about, so prepare for these two to cause trouble again soon.
This is also a really interesting episode for their sister, and Aegon’s wife, Helaena (Phia Saban). She refuses to drink the abortifacient her mother procures from Grand Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan) because she won’t give up her baby despite all of Alicent’s political realism. She speaks confidently of Aemond’s mysterious whereabouts, and fights hard to escape the Red Keep – but only if she can bring her little daughter Jaehaera and the babe in utero. Luckily for her the devil works hard, but Alicent works harder to keep her daughter alive, sometimes in spite of Helaena’s own wishes. By the end of the episode Alicent has downed the potion herself, given up the symbol of her faith to facilitate their escape, convinced Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) to keep her secrets, and is trapped in a secret passage inside the castle trying to flee.
Things are tougher for Queen Rhaenyra, still hounded on all sides. Lady Frey (Sarah Woodward) has come to King’s Landing to join her council and to harangue her for promising Harrenhal elsewhere. Addam (Clinton Liberty) and Baela (Bethany Antonia) are out searching for Vhagar and, at least on Addam’s part, flirting madly in an attempt to cheer her up (she’s still feeling guilt over Jace’s death at the Gullet).
In the council, there’s chaos. Mysaria speaks for the people; Daemon for the Gold Cloaks police force; Rhaenyra focuses only on Aemond. Everyone is at cross-purposes. Rhaenyra tries to rein Daemon in, but he points out that there’s no rush to find Vhagar and that there are other priorities. After a theological debate in the High Sept, their dispute becomes clearer: she thinks the gods made her queen so can’t understand why they now seem to abandon her; he is baffled by this fatalistic faith. However, he has his own faith: a speech to the Gold Cloaks about turning the Seven Kingdoms into “Nine Kingdoms, Twelve, the new Valyria” feels like a glimpse into Daemon’s belief system.
Still, Rhaenyra is ungrounded and losing perspective; she can’t bring herself to spend time with her younger son, Joffrey, and is convinced that there’s a dark power out to get her. Her tunnel vision is becoming a problem; she lacks the flexibility of mind to see problems beyond her own status, her own family. That is thrown into sharp focus by the episode’s finale, where Daemon – who has kept the Gold Cloaks on side with stirring speeches and promises of double pay one day in future – returns to their headquarters to find a massacre, the bodies posed in a grotesque tableau.
Behind it all, Lord Ormund Hightower (James Norton) is less of a focus this episode, but has one scene to make his presence felt. He’s getting messages from the assassins of the Gold Cloaks, and still terrorising / mentoring his nephew Daeron (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), this time with tales of the military leadership of Meria Martell, the “Yellow Toad” who defied Aegon I and his Conquest of Westeros. He’s so distracted by his history lesson that he loses their game of cyvasse (aka not chess), terrifying Daeron.
But Ormund is merciful, too pleased with his shadow war and the coins he’s had minted with Daeron’s face on them, the ones he’s using to pay his assassins, to lose his temper this time. Everything is still on track for him, if only he could find Vhagar. The giant dragon feels like the wild card that everyone is waiting for, the one element holding them all in place. Let’s hope we see more of him than a shadow and a footprint next time.
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