Every episode of House of the Dragon season 1, ranked worst to best

9. “We Light The Way” (Episode 5)

“We Light The Way” centers around Rhaenyra Targaryen’s betrothal to Ser Laenor Velaryon, and there were a lot of things it did right to make this development work even better than it does in George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood. We got to see the conversations that Rhaenyra and Laenor had in private, Laenor’s relationship with his longtime lover Ser Joffrey Lonmouth, and even the cause of Ser Criston Cole’s grudge against the queen-to-be. It turns out he just wanted her to abandon all her responsibilities and run away with him, and couldn’t handle rejection. Poor guy (not).

Then there was the murder of Rhea Royce, another moment where the show dispensed with the historical fog of Fire & Blood and showed us that it was in fact Daemon Targaryen who murdered his own wife in cold blood. It was a shocking way to open the episode.

But as good as many aspects of the episode were, things start coming apart once we get to the actual wedding. The sequence itself is gorgeous, with a fantastic score by Ramin Djawadi and tightly focused character moments; a lot is conveyed through subtle looks and quick lines. But several important beats got fumbled in weird ways. Alicent Hightower’s green dress moment is a showstopper…but it also set up the “greens” as a faction while totally sidestepping any setup for the “blacks.” I’m not one to harp on about how things were different in the book, but this is one moment that confused me because without an equivalent setup for Rhaenyra’s faction, it left things feeling lopsided. I don’t even think we ever heard her faction called “the blacks” at all in this season; in the novel, both Rhaenyra and Alicent show up to a feast wearing dresses that will later inspire the names of their factions. Instead, we get a Mean Girls moment where Alicent crashes the wedding. It works, but it’s not enough.

But the worst part of the wedding by far is the murder of Ser Joffrey Lonmouth by Kingsguard knight Ser Criston Cole. Yes, it set up how Criston was The Worst™, a violent idiot who can’t handle rejection or perceived slights to his honor. But “We Light The Way” uses the 10-year time jump that happens right after to get out of having to explain how Criston gets away with murdering someone in the middle of a wedding feast and punching the new prince consort in the face, which are pretty big deviations from the source material. We never get a single word of explanation about how Alicent got him absolved of his crimes.

“We Light The Way” lands near the bottom of the list, and it’s almost entirely Criston Cole’s fault. Go figure.