After two long years, we're finally back in Westeros for the third season of House of the Dragon, HBO's epic Game of Thrones spinoff prequel that tells the tale of a brutal civil war between rival branches of the Targaryen dynasty. After a second season that spent more time on preparations for war than many real clashes, the gloves are coming off. The season premiere dramatizes one of the most important battles of the entire conflict, and it's clear that HBO and showrunner Ryan Condal committed to doing right by it.
But the premiere isn't all about the Battle of the Gullet, even if it does dominate nearly half of the episode's 66-minute runtime. We also catch up with various players on the board in this game of thrones, getting a feel for where the various members of the Black and Green factions are at this crucial juncture.
When we look back on House of the Dragon, there's no question that this episode is going to be in the conversation for one of the best the show ever executed. That's not to say it doesn't have some flaws, especially in terms of how it stands in conversation with its source material, but the overall package undeniably delivers.
FULL SPOILERS for House of the Dragon season 3 episode 1 beyond this point.
Rhaena Targaryen & Sheepstealer
House of the Dragon season 3 opens in the Vale, where the ferocious wild dragon Sheepstealer is making good on his name by roasting up a bit of mutton for lunch. Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) approaches Sheepstealer with a sheep of her own, in hopes of befriending him, which Sheepstealer gratefully gobbles up before inviting Rhaena onto his back and then swooping off into the mists with her as she screams, struggling to hang on to his spiky hide.
Later in the episode we circle back around with these two as they go through a small back-and-forth getting to know one another at Sheepstealer's nest, where the dragon in turn brings Rhaena a sheep and roasts it up for her. Eventually they depart toward Dragonstone — though of course, they never quite make it there, since by then the Battle of the Gullet is underway.
Rhaena and Sheepstealer are one of the more interesting and full storylines of this episode. Obviously, as a book reader I have a lot of complicated feelings about the fact that the show cut Nettles, a commoner who tames Sheepstealer through guile and persistence, in favor of giving this storyline to highborn Rhaena (which also deprives Rhaena of her remaining book storyline in the Vale). And while Sheepstealer's trust of Rhaena does feel a bit rushed, what we ultimately get on screen is very enjoyable thanks in no small part to the astounding VFX of Sheepstealer and a great performance from Campbell. It's the most quality time we've spent with a single dragon and their rider in quite a while, and the show did a great job with it.
The Prince Regent's wrath
Over in King's Landing, Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) discovers that his brother Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) has fled the castle, and nearly executes poor Grand Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan) even though the man had nothing to do with the king's escape. It's always nice to see Aemond let loose, and in his early scenes of the episode, he certainly does quite effectively.
That's also true of his scene in the throne room with his mother, Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke). Alicent is fresh off her clandestine meeting with Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) at the end of season 2, where she agreed to hand over her son Aegon and surrender the Iron Throne to the Blacks. But Aegon's disappearance throws a big monkey wrench into that plan, since it depended on Aemond having already left the city to join forces with Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) in the Riverlands. The verbal sparring between Cooke and Mitchell is excellently delivered, as both Alicent and Aemond realize they've been caught flat-footed by various schemes, even as others move around them without their knowledge.
Another horror for Alicent Hightower
As a result, Alicent has to convince Aemond to leave the castle without letting him on her plan to betray the Greens. And while I did enjoy the previous scenes for both of these characters, this last moment between Alicent and her son is the first part of the episode I truly hated. Yes, I'm talking about the kiss, where Alicent tries to convince Aemond to head to Harrenhal by playing to his ego, and Aemond gives in to his Oedipal urges by giving his mother a kiss on the lips in return.
Cooke and Mitchell handle the scene well — especially the look of terror on Alicent's face as this unexpected turn happens — but this scene really does a disservice to these characters and this moment. The show already established that Aemond has mommy issues last season, when Aegon caught him trying to cuddle with the older brothel madam in Flea Bottom. It's not a stretch for those feelings to be rooted in Aemond's relationship with Alicent, but ultimately this was always about setting up a romance I'm expecting to see for Aemond later this season, with a much older woman who is not his mom.
This scene feels like the writers wanted to remind us of Aemond's issues, and shoe-horned it in. I hardly expect it to be addressed again, since Aemond and Alicent never see each other again in the Dance of the Dragons after this point (though obviously, the show could change that). Worse, it's hard to discern where this lands for Alicen't arc. It comes off more as just one other humiliation the show wanted to heap onto her, rather than something which feels earned or likely to steer her character development in any meaningful way. It's going to take a lot for House of the Dragon to convince me this interaction wasn't a misstep.
Daemon Targaryen hunts for lions in the Riverlands
Continuing our tour of Westeros, let's check in next with the Riverlands, where Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) walks a bloody battlefield in the wake of the Battle of the Red Fork, killing any House Lannister soldiers unlucky enough to still be among the living. After spending nearly all of season 2 cooped up at Harrenhal having trippy visions, it feels wonderful to see Daemon back in action at war. Smith seems to delight in this as well, delivering a perfect performance as the rogue prince. Daemon is older now than he was during his campaign in the Stepstones during season 1, and the way he goes about the battlefield meteing out executions is laced with an almost business-like sense of world weariness. As one of the most accomplished commanders and fighters in the Seven Kingdoms during this time period, here's never any real chance Daemon is in danger here, and he knows it.
After a brief debate with young Lord Oscar Tully (Archie Barnes) that pays a nice homage to the cultural differences between Targaryens and rivermen, we get a surprise. Oscar believes that Lord Jason Lannister (Jefferson Hall) has fled and plans to regroup his forces at the Gods Eye lake beside Harrenhal. Daemon is happy to give chase, but before they can muster their forces, an army clad in furs appears from the nearby trees. It's the Winter Wolves, a company of battle-hardened greybeards sent by House Stark to fight for Rhaenyra. Their leader, Lord Roderick Dustin a.k.a. Roddy the Ruin (Tommy Flanagan), tosses the head of Jason Lannister at Daemon's feet, proclaiming his epic introductory line from Fire & Blood: "We come to die for the dragon queen!"
I love that the show kept this line, just as much as Daemon loves to hear it. The Winter Wolves join their strength to his, as he tells them they have more lions to hunt. That seems to confirm that even with Jason Lannister dead, the Battle by the Lakeshore is still coming with whatever other stragglers of the Lannister army remain.
As for the Battle of the Red Fork, I'm not too upset the show decided to skip it in this manner. Daemon walking the remnants of the battle was still an effective way to portray how bloody that skirmish was, and of the three major battles in the Riverlands during this stretch of Fire & Blood, the Red Fork is the least important. This was a smart use of budget to focus elsewhere rather than making this a proper battle, and it added a lot of gritty atmosphere to the episode by homing on on the horror of the war across the realm, rather than making it a spectacle. Extra points for the booming, ominous score from longtime Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi, as well.
Aegon and Larys on the road
Another set of characters we need to check in with are Aegon II and Larys Strong (Matthew Needham). They don't make it far from the Red Keep before their chicken cart is stopped by soldiers loyal to Rhaenyra. They're happy to let everyone pass through their lands — if they swear allegiance to the Black Queen, something Aegon simply cannot debase himself enough to do.
Glynn-Carney was a standout performer as Aegon last season, and it's clear already that that will be the case again in season 3. He adds a lot of small physical mannerisms that convey just how much discomfort Aegon is in, while he vascilates through a range of emotions including self-pity and fury at his state, steely determination when he refuses to bend the knee, and shocked terror when Larys Strong betrays him.
It's not clear quite yet what game Larys Strong is playing, but it's obvious that if he hadn't told the guards the truth about Aegon, they would have been killed for the king's insolence. As it is, the peasants in their company are all slaughtered to keep the secret that Aegon has been captured, and plans are laid to bring him to Duskendale, and then Dragonstone to face Rhaenyra's judgment.
Criston Cole discards honor in the Riverlands
While Daemon Targaryen is winning victories in the Riverlands, elsewherein the forested region, Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) is struggling with a streak of utter nihilisim. Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox) comes to Cole to inform him that one of their soldiers assaulted a local village girl. But rather than do anything about it, Criston shockingly just shrugs it off, refusing to discipline the man because he expects every man in their company to become a "beast" by the time the war is through.
Season 2 ended with Criston giving a speech to Gwayne that crystallized his entire plotline, reflecting on how little anything one man does means in the face of dragon warfare. I liked this turn for Criston, but I don't know that I'm a fan of how it's carried through into the premiere. Does Cristin deciding he'll embrace death really mean he suddenly has no honor or care whatsoever for the commonfolk around them, especially women, who he's sworn to protect by virtue of his knightly vows?
That's what this scene seems to convey. We'll have to wait to see more of Criston and Gwayne in future episodes to find out just how much farther Cole has to go before rock bottom.
Enter Ormund Hightower
Another character we get a single scene with in this episode is newcomer Ormund Hightower, played by House of Guinness' James Norton. Ormund is the lord of House Hightower, as well as Alicent and Gwayne's first cousin. Alicent sends him a letter in the midst of all her scheming to keep King's Landing open for Rhaenyra, telling Ormund not to march on the capital. It's not clear yet what Ormund makes of this, but he's got the sort of smug expression that just screams "I've got schemes."
We also get a glimpse of another very important character at Ormund's camp in the Reach, but it happens so fast that it's obvious the show wants you to miss it for now. I won't spoil it here in this review, but suffice to say that I would keep an eye on Ormund's squire in the coming weeks.
The dragonseeds try (and fail) to bide their time
The last group of characters we have to check in with before we head to Dragonstone and the Gullet are the dragonseeds: Hugh (Kieran Bew), Ulf (Tom Bennett), and Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty). These three new dragonriders have been dispatched by Rhaenyra to Harrenhal, where they're hiding in wait to ambush Aemond Targaryen and Vhagar. We get a few good scenes of them together, like Ulf reconciling the fact he won't get a castle, but ultimately this storyline is just spinning wheels. They wait for two days for Vhagar, before the witch Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) shows up and spooks them into leaving, telling them they're missing the battle that's unfolding near Dragonstone.
Of all the plotlines in this episode, the dragonseed scenes are the ones that feel the most like treading water. It doesn't make much sense to me that Rhaenyra would send her three least experienced dragonriders, two of whom have literally had their dragons for a couple of days, to ambush Vhagar, the single most dangerous dragon in the realm. I suppose she views the dragonseeds as expendable, but the fact that this passes without even a comment from Ulf just feels nonsensical.
Everything about this turn for dragonseeds smells to me of the show not quite knowing what to do with them here — which is kind of baffling, considering they're actively involved in the Battle of the Gullet in the book. They don't take part in it in the show, and instead just hang out in the woods griping for the entirety of the episode. Toss in Alys Rivers' casual introduction where she proclaims herself a witch, and this was really the one plotline of this episode that stuck out like a sore thumb to me.
Jacaerys Velaryon makes his move
That brings us at last to the main event: the Battle of the Gullet. Around the 27:00 mark of the episode, Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) and Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim) spot the Triarchy fleet coming toward them out of the sunrise, and send a raven to Rhaenyra. This news reaches her after she's already placed herself at odds with her son Jacaerys (Harry Collett) and advisors by declaring that she trusts Alicent Hightower's deal and plans to capture King's Landing in two days' time. When word comes that the Sea Snake's blockade is now suddenly under attack, Jace makes the very reasonable assumption that it was all a trap, and the Greens have just made their move.
This puts him right at the edge of an outburst when Rhaenyra carelessly declares that she herself will fly to the Gullet and fight. Jace correctly calls this out as a horrible idea, since it puts Rhaenyra in extreme risk; if she dies at the Gullet, the entire war comes screeching to a halt. So instead, he pulls his most interesting gambit of the entire series: he orders the Kingsguard knight Ser Lorent Marbrand (Max Wrottesley) to lock Rhaenyra inside her room while she's preparing to leave, in order to protect her from herself. "Your life for hers," Jace tells Ser Lorent, knowing full well Rhaenyra will have the knight executed for obeying this order from the prince.
That, combined with a subsequent scene where Jace feverishly asks Baela (Bethany Antonia) to come with him to the Gullet and win the fight for their cause, make up Harry Collett's two best scenes of the entire series — which, alas, we can say conclusively because he doesn't have many more before meeting his untimely end in the closing minutes of this very episode.
On the other side of the coin, we have one other scene this episode with Rhaenyra...and unfortunately that one fell completely flat for me. Infuriated and feeling helpless, Rhaenyra stabs her riding leathers to shreds in front of Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) and her handmaid, and then whimpers "I may appear to have the weak and feeble body of a woman, but I possess the heart and spirit of a king."
This line and its reading felt so out of place that I actually laughed the first time I saw the scene — which is no knock on D'Arcy, who acts the hell out of it, but rather the decision to include the line at all and its direction. This is a direct quote from Elizabeth I, and it just feels awkward to appear in such a direct fashion in Westeros, literally word for word. Beyond that, what is it saying about Rhaenyra? Elizabeth's famous speech is filled with fire, but if this scene is trying to make Rhaenyra look anything other than pitiful, I fail to understand how.
The Battle of the Gullet
Prior to the start of the battle, we get a very strong scene between Corlys and Alyn, where the Sea Snake levels with his bastard son in a way that is refreshing for this series, where so many people talk around what they really mean. It's a touching moment that lays the groundwork for a big swing for Alyn later in the episode, where he sees Corlys go overboard and then goes berserk to avenge his father.
But we have a ways to go before that. The Battle of the Gullet covers most of the second half of this episode, and it is a truly epic affair. On one side, we have Corlys and Alyn, fighting for Rhaenyra. On the other, a pirate fleet led by Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn), who have no intention of simply fighting this fight for the sake of the Greens, much to Tyland Lannister's (Jefferson Hall) dismay. Lohar has come for the Sea Snake, to get revenge for the 20 years the veteran sea captain spent waging war in the Stepstones against her people. This gives the battle a much more personal feel for Corlys and Lohar specifically, which works really well and leads to the most intersting set pieces of the sequence.
Thorn deserves a special shoutout as well. I was a little mixed on Sharako Lohar at the end of season 2, mainly because it was awkward to spend so much time on a brand new character for set up during a season finale. But here that set up is paid off in spades, and Thorn makes the absolute most of her screentime. Every line delivery is incisive and filled with character. In an episode filled with great performances, she was my favorite actor to watch.
The battle itself is spectacular, especially once Jace and Baela arrive on their dragons Vermax and Moondancer. Knowing that this entire sequence was filmed on studio backlots does detract a little bit though if I'm being honest, and despite its complexity I do think the Gullet didn't quite reach the same heights as last season's Battle at Rook's Rest, where gargantuan dragons did battle while armies on the ground became collateral damage. Rook's Rest combined extensive CGI with footage of people in a real setting, filmed on location in Surrey Forest in the UK. The result makes it more believable than the Gullet, which has so much CGI that it loses a little bit of its realism.
Ultimately though, that is a nitpick. It's obvious House of the Dragon put everything it had into this battle sequence, and in most of the ways it counts, it paid off. Do I wish we got to see Vermithor, Silverwing, and Seasmoke in the mix as well, like in the book? You're damn right I do. But the show's new storyline where Rhaena and Sheepstealer arrive, only for the wild dragon to go rogue and start burning Velaryon ships and attacking Rhaena's own sister on her much smaller dragon, is compelling.
For as thrilling as it was to see Sheepstealer, Moondancer, and Vermax in the skies, however, the best parts of the Battle of the Gullet by far were the grudge match between Corlys and Lohar. The chase scene through the narrow canyon had me on the edge of my seat, and gave Corlys a chance to shine. When he took the helm, it felt completely earned; he is the most accomplished sailor of his age, and here at last we get to see what that looks like in action. Lohar is no slouch either, following in the Sea Snake's wake and then desperately cutting loose dead weight — including Tyland Lannister in his heavy armor — in order to get her ship high enough in the water to make it out of the pass. It establishes Lohar and the Sea Snake as equals in a way dialogue alone simply couldn't.
After both ships escape the pass, Corlys tries to prepare for a standard broadside boarding battle, but Lohar bucks his expectations and rams his ship head-on, locking their two vessels together. The ensuing skirmish across the decks of the Queen Who Ever Was and the Bitchfist is by far the bloodiest part of the entire affair, and the action is intense. It's well choreographed and well directed, and a fine capstone to the battle portion of the Gullet.
When all's said and done, Corlys Velaryon is thrown overboard in the chaos as the ships come apart; we don't see whether he survived, but I'd count on him being just fine. Alyn of Hull sees this happen and takes out his rage on Lohar, killing the pirate captain in a brutal fight in the flooding hold of the ship. The story of these three characters is a highlight of the episode.
Of course, the big shocker of the episode isn't anything to do with Corlys and Lohar, but rather Jace. After darting low to avoid Sheepstealer once he realizes Rhaena is the dragon's rider, Jace's dragon Vermax is struck by a scorpion bolt with weight that drags the poor beast down into the water. Jace manages to kick free, only to be shot with arrows until he dies.
If there was one part of this battle House of the Dragon absolutely had to get right, it was Jace's death. Thankfully, the show stuck the landing in that regard. I may not have loved all the changes from Fire & Blood, and have big questions about how the absence of the Gay Abandon and the dragonseeds will effect the overall trajectory of the story, but I was completely satisfied with the way the show portrayed Jace's death. From the tragic fall of Vermax, to the way the sinister music cut out the second Jace was hit with the first arrow, to the final shot of him floating in the water, everything about this moment landed. It's the exact sort of shocker exit we've come to expect from a Game of Thrones show, and House of the Dragon made the most out of its first of the season. It's a hell of a way to announce the series is back.
Verdict
The season 3 premiere of House of the Dragon is the most ambitious episode of the series to date, and while it doesn't completely nail every single character's appearance and plot beat, overall it's thrilling television that will no doubt stand the test of time as one of the show's best episodes. It's clear that the series invested heavily in pulling off this sequence, and that shines through in everything from its extensive digital effects, to its practical sets flooded with water, and the top tier performances from multiple members of its sprawling cast. While I have qualms with certain changes from Fire & Blood and the way some characters were handled, such as Alicent and the dragonseeds, there's no denying that the season 3 premiere delivered a memorable TV experience that people will be talking about long after the credits roll.
Episode grade: A-
Add us as a preferred source on Google