While there's no denying that the first two seasons of House of the Dragon were great in their own right, they also felt like a setup for bigger things to come. Years later, audiences worldwide are finally witnessing the payoff to years' worth of storytelling, and it was well worth the wait. The first episode of season 3 kicked things off with a bang thanks to the explosive Battle of the Gullet. Episode 2 doubled down on the action with the long-awaited Fall of King's Landing. Now, the show has moved things forward in a very unexpected way.
House of the Dragon season 3 episode 3 is one of the most nail-biting episodes of the series as a whole, and it managed to accomplish this without featuring a specific antagonist for the Blacks to face. Instead, the newly crowned Queen is now facing no shortage of problems related to her new position.
The episode spent most of its runtime making it very clear that sitting on the Iron Throne wasn't the end goal audiences thought it might be. But in doing so, it sidelined some key characters whose absence was definitely felt.
Criston Cole, Aemond Targaryen, Aegon Targaryen, and more were absent from House of the Dragon season 3 episode 3
In House of the Dragon season 3 episode 2, audiences were treated to a very shocking sequence. Just as Daemon (Matt Smith) and Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) were taking over King's Landing, Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) did something similar with Harrenhal, except the outcome was wildly different.
Aemond was unceremoniously stabbed by one of the sons of Ser Simon Strong (Simon Russell Beale) and fell to the ground just in front of Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin). Audiences were very confused about Aemond's fate, with some even believing that he died. But while many hoped episode 3 would give us some much-needed answers, that was far from the case.
Both Aemond and Alys were completely missing from the latest entry in House of the Dragon, as Harrenhal as a whole was nowhere to be seen—though we know there's more to come for these two characters. After all, Alys was presented with the perfect opportunity to take Aemond as an ally, rise against the queen, and eventually take Harrenhal all for herself. However, this potential storyline would need to wait for episode 4 at the earliest.
Similarly, Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) and Aegon Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) were noticeably absent from House of the Dragon season 3 episode 3. Fans have fallen in love with their road-trip adventure and even suggested that their whole arc feels like a sitcom. Unfortunately, the two didn't grace us with their unintended moments of levity in the latest episode, which is understandable considering how dire things are back at King's Landing.
To make matters more complicated, Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) didn't participate in episode 3 either. The knight we all love to hate has been mostly absent from the entirety of season 3 of House of the Dragon, appearing in just a few shots throughout episodes 1 and 2. Audiences haven't seen his mischievous schemes come to life on the small screen, so hopefully that will change soon.
House of the Dragon is starting to repeat some of the problems found in Game of Thrones. Most notably, the prequel show is starting to grow to the point where there are too many characters scattered across too many places, each with their own subplot. As such, there isn't enough time for a single episode to give us an update on what has happened to all of these fan-favorites since we last saw them.
On the other hand, House of the Dragon season 3 episode 3 had to focus completely on Rhaenyra's arc to let audiences know why she could become a bit more cruel going forward. Furthermore, the show spent two seasons making it seem like the fight for the Iron Throne was the end goal, so it comes as no surprise that an entire episode was needed to prove that wasn't the case.
Fortunately, we'll see more of Aegon, Aemond, Alys, Larys, and Criston moving forward, and we can't wait to see how their stories play out.
New episodes of House of the Dragon air every Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.
Add us as a preferred source on Google