What did you think of House of the Dragon Episode 3, “Second of His Name”?

Every week, we talk back and forth about the latest episode of House of the Dragon. The small council is in session!

DAN: This episode was juicy. That’s the first word that comes to mind. There was a lot to savor, from the pregnant pauses between Alicent and Rhaenyra to the gorgeous parallel scenes of Viserys and Rhaenyra encountering harts in the forest to several scenes where we got a look into the embattled heart of King Viserys Targaryen, who is torn every which way but up.

Viserys stole the episode for me. My heart went out to him as he got progressively more drunk at a party where most everyone was trying to use him for something or other, only to wind up outside babbling to his wife about a prophetic dream he once had. Viserys wants to keep it together, he wants everyone in his life to be happy, most especially his daughter, but it’s not possible and he can’t accept it. It’s a very human problem, and I think Paddy Considine is giving one hell of a performance. If only one person on this season could get an Emmy, I’d want it to be him.

Happily, there’s no reason he can’t share the wealth. The final stretch of the episode, where Daemon and Corlys Velaryon fight the Crabfeeder, was very compelling. I loved the bit where Daemon receives a message from his brother and beats the crap out of a nearby solider, not because I endorse shooting the messenger — I don’t, just for the record — but because I loved the directing and acting. Despite there being no dialogue, I knew exactly why Daemon was losing his s*it; he started this war in the first place to win the approval of his daddy-brother, and now his daddy-brother is bailing him out. Stings, donut?

The final battle sequence is…well, it’s probably ridiculous; armies and dragons seemed to pop out of nowhere. But it was downright hypnotic to watch.

ARIBA: I think Dan put it perfectly when he said this episode was juicy. I don’t think a better adjective exists to explain it. The time jumps give us a lot to digest. I am really enjoying Rhaenyra’s storyline, and observing her reaction to the mounting pressures being put on her. She navigates them adroitly, proving she belongs in the game of thrones. Everything is a calculated chess move, and standing in the shadows of all of it is the one and only Daemon Targaryen.

I cannot wait to see where his story goes from here. I know he’s the villain and I know we should hate him, but this is Matt Smith we’re talking about. He’s such a talented actor that you can’t help but root for him, he executed the end fight scene effortlessly. I could not look away from him when he finds out Viserys is sending help, nor when he emerges from that cave with the upper half of the Crabfeeder’s torso.

It was truly a mesmerizing end to a very dramatic episode, and dare I say we can only up from here? I hope.

SABRINA: Enter the Debbie Downer. Sorry, y’all, but “Second of His Name” barely did it for me. I think slower episodes are a great opportunity for character development. However, there’s slow and then there’s glacial.

Paddy Considine is doing an excellent job as Viserys, but I can only take so many scenes with an ineffectual king and maintain my sympathy. To be quite honest, Viserys lost me in the premiere after he chose duty over his wife and sanctioned that inhumane C-section in the hopes of having a male heir.

His sadness over that choice, its repercussions, and his inability to truly make decisions for himself hold very little import to me. I understand that his character is a study on how the patriarchy can trap even the most powerful person in the Seven Kingdoms, but his “woe is me” routine isn’t cutting it for me.

As I’ll state to anyone who will listen, I’m here for Rhaenyra, and she did not disappoint this episode. She’s a boiling pot ready to blow, and I love how much she’s juxtaposed and contrasted against her father and her (former) best friend, Alicent.

Talk about a lesson in social politics. Viserys mostly wants to go along to get along, Alicent is playing the cards she was dealt with compassion, which is rare for this court, and Rhaenyra is ready to chew her own arm off to rid herself of the shackles keeping her from greatness. Her strut back into camp covered in boar blood, perfection. PERFECTION.

As for Daemon. The king of tantrums is holding my attention. He and Rhaenyra are a lot alike. She just so happens to know how to play the game and is being held back by her gender, while Daemon would rather topple the board and play by his own rules. That was seemingly the point of the lackluster Crabfeeder bit which was teased greatly and fell flat.

Is anyone else curious about the Crabfeeder’s skin condition and whether it was important to the plot? Skin issues seems to be a running theme in this show, considering Viserys’ is rotting.

DANIEL: Great catch on the Crabfeeder’s skin condition, Sabrina! I totally missed it on my first watch, but it’s been confirmed that he has greyscale, and that he’s also wearing an early progenitor of the Sons of the Harpy mask. That all feel a little more like fan service to me than actual bits of relevant development, but I didn’t mind. The Crabfeeder in general was kind of a nothing side quest character who existed just to stir the pot for a few episodes before he got the ol’ sword-through-the-chest. Everything about that sequence depended on us getting invested in the big emotions at play from characters like Daemon, Corlys Velaryon and his brother Vaemond Velaryon, rather than being interested in the actual logistics of a years-long protracted war in the Stepstones. For my part, I think that was a good choice. We’ll have plenty of time to deal with a more fleshed out war in future seasons, when it actually matters.

Daemon’s mad rush to kill the Crabfeeder was impossible to look away from, I love that he didn’t get a single line of dialogue for this whole section. The fact that this show has such good writing, as we saw during the Kingswood scenes, but still knows when to pull back and focus on the visual storytelling is great. Laenor riding Seasmoke was also a lot of fun.

Speaking of the Kingswood, I loved everything there. I’ve heard quite a few people say it dragged, but it felt like a perfect slow burn to me. We’re carefully peeling back the layers of the characters; Rhaenyra wants to escape the confines of societal expectations without sacrificing her position, Otto wants to maneuver his grandson onto the throne in part because of pressure from his own older brother Hobert, Alicent wants to help all the disparate people in her life get along, and Viserys just wants to be left the hell alone for five minutes. I lapped it all up. (And can someone please give Paddy Considine an Emmy? He killed it this episode.)

This was also the episode where I started liking Criston Cole a lot more. His heartfelt confession to Rhaenyra that he owed her everything was such a natural bit of development for them. More, please.

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