With the release of its fourth episode, we've reached the halfway point of House of the Dragon season 3. The latest season of HBO's Game of Thrones prequel series has gotten off to an extremely strong start, setting a new high bar for the show's epic scale and garnering overwhelmingly positive reviews. It's safe to say that House of the Dragon is having a well-deserved moment, and all signs point to an equally fantastic finish ahead for its third season.
At the same time, House of the Dragon season 3 has been complicated to digest for many diehard fans George R.R. Martin's novel Fire & Blood, of which the last several hundred pages or so form the basis for this adaptation. The series has often played fast and loose with Martin's source material, which itself plays fast and loose with the story, owing to the fact that it's a "fake history book" rather than a traditional narrative. That has sometimes allowed House of the Dragon to insert nuance and elevate the material, such as in its fleshed out depiction of King Viserys in season 1 or the drama that unfolded on dragonback during the Battle at Rook's Rest in season 2. At other times, it hasn't worked quite so well — yes, I'm looking at you, secret meetings between Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower.
All this is to say, there's plenty to enjoy, as well as some well-warranted frustrations for readers of the novel. Obviously, I am one of those, and I do have my reservations. They began quieting in last week's episode, "Rhaenyra Triumphant," which had many divergences but was overall executed as such a good hour of television that it was easy to go along with them.
In many ways, the season's fourth episode is the exact opposite. We're back to the sprawl as House of the Dragon introduces new locations and spends time with characters we haven't seen much of yet, all of which is welcome. But as an adaptation, this might be the single least faithful episode of the entire series to Martin's work. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there is not a single part of this episode that is drawn directly from the book, only the occasional nod to it here and there. And unlike last week, those changes are wildly inconsistent. In one case, it results in some of the most compelling scenes of the season so far; in others, it's such a baffling downgrade from Martin's story that it's hard to see how anyone thought it was a good idea.
I'm getting all this off my chest here at the start because to analyze this episode as an adaptation as we often do at Winter Is Coming is almost unfair to the craft at work in it. On the adaptation front, it largely fails; but as an episode of television, it does still have many merits and some flaws, and I want to dig into those without getting too hung up on how it stands in conversation with Martin's book. So let's just be clear: I really disliked a lot about this episode for how it diverged from the novel, often for the worse, and it's easily my least favorite installment from the first half of the season. But did I also have a lot of fun watching it? Hell yes.
Now that that's out of the way, let's get into the details for the episode itself, and discuss how it stands on its own as an episode of House of the Dragon, keeping the page-to-screen griping restricted to instances where it's really necessary. There will be FULL SPOILERS ahead.
Mysterys and hard choices at Harrenhal
Before we dive into Tumbleton, where the meatiest material of the episode unfolds, let's check in first at Harrnehal, since what happens there has a direct effect on the Tumbleton plotline.
We only get a few scenes at Harrenhal, but they lay the groundwork for a few more intriguing moments to come. Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) arrives at the ruined castle with Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox) and their company of soldiers. Yet while the garrison has clearly been immolated by dragon fire and the keep holds no resistance, they don't find Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) as expected. Instead they run into Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin), who informs them that Aemond left after taking the castle.
Obviously, Alys is lying, since we last saw Aemond collapsing at her feet with a knife wound in his back. I would be willing to bet quite a lot that she has Aemond secreted away somewhere in the castle, and that his monstrous dragon Vhagar is camping out on the Isle of Faces, since we in the season premiere that Alys is on comfortable enough terms with the Green Men there to visit their haven at her will.
But regardless of whether Criston or Gwayne believes Alys, they have no choice but to plan their next moves without Aemond. Gwayne wants to head to Tumbleton to link up with his cousin Ormund Hightower, who he's convinced has some kind of canny scheme to gain an advantage over Rhaenyra. Criston isn't opposed to heading for Tumbleton, but he shoots down Gwayne's suggestion that they march fast to outpace the larger Black army of Riverlanders and Winter Wolves. Instead, Criston wants to wage guerilla warfare on them, slowing the Blacks down as they make their way south to bolster Rhaenyra's hold over the Crownlands.
Criston's plan is basically a death sentence for everyone under his command, but rather than horrify him, that same nihilistic streak he's been nurturing makes him almost excited. Here's a chance for him to have a more honorable death than he'd get being crushed by dragons, where he can fight man-to-man and make a difference to help his side. It fits with the direction the character has been going in, and Frankel and Fox do a great job with the scene.
We find out later that Gwayne has sent word of these events to Ormund, and let's just say the Lord of House Hightower doesn't take it very well.
Turmoil in Tumbleton
The heart of episode 4 is Tumbleton, a brand new location for the series in the Reach, where Ormund HIghtower (James Norton) and his army have taken up residence. This bustling merchant city raised its banners for Rhaenyra, which has backfired now that the most powerful field commander for the Greens has brought 15,000 of his soldiers behind their walls. Rhaenyra cannot flush them out with dragonfire without also immolating thousands of her own faithful subjects; Ormund knows this and was banking on it as a way to buy himself time for Aemond Targaryen to join him on his dragon Vhagar, solidifying their position.
For as confident as Ormund is, with his campy nude scene lording his power over the local lord and lady and well-spoken reflections, this plan pretty much goes immediately sideways. Remember, the whole reason Ormund thinks Aemond is coming to join him is because Alicent forged a letter to him saying as much in the season premiere. As we see elsehwere in the episode, Aemond arrived at Harrenhal and vanished, and so far as we know, never had any plans at all to join Ormund. It's a major hiccup in his plan, since now he has no real defense against Rhaenyra's dragons save his army's own, much smaller and less seasoned dragon, Tessarion.
Ormund displays a wild streak when he get a letter from Gwayne with this news, smashing his sword into a table and screaming curses. There's an interesting moment where his yong ard, the real Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) warns away another serving boy as the fit starts taking hold for Ormund, which tells us he's grown up with this sort of behavior. This is a large departure from the way Ormund and Daeron's relationship is depicted in the book, and I'm not a fan at all. While Ainsworth is a solid Daeron and Norton really has fun with the material, this is probably the change I enjoyed the least. We're a long way from Daeron the Daring, as the young dragonrider is dubbed at an earlier battle in the book the show has seemingly decided to gloss over without any of the recognition.
As for the larger story of Tumbleton it...makes some choices. The setting itself is vivid, with unique house construction and a live-in feel that suits it well. It's extremely refreshing to get another major city outside of KIng's Landing in the show. House of the Dragon clearly decided to invest heavily in Tumbleton as the next major front for the war, and it's got me very excited to see how things will play out there, even if I didn't love the material in this episode itself.
Ormund's soldiers move into the houses of the city's denizens, and pretty much immediately start causing trouble. That hits Hugh's wife Kat (Ellora Torchia) immediately, as a soldier tries to sexually assault her, which causes her brother (Abhin Galeya) to intervene. This marks the third time in four episodes House of the Dragon has fallen back on some sort of non-consenual assault as a plot device, and it's a worrying pattern for the show. These sorts of attacks do happen in Tumbleton in the book, but during a period when the city is being sacked, so it's very different and makes much more sense in that context than it does here.
The fallout was also not something I particularly enjoyed. Ormund orders the soldier gelded for his attack — which is surprising in a good way. He asserts to Daeron that order must be maintained, and Daeron seems inspired to see his lord acting in such an honorable way.
The catch comes later, when Ormund orders Daeron to murder Kat's brother as part of the revelation over his big plan: Ormund wants to make Daeron the king, as part of a bid to seemingly uproot the Targaryens from the Iron Throne. Daeron is a Targaryen, but he's lived under Ormund's yoke, and this scene absolutely has the feeling that the young prince will be pressured to sever himself from that bloodline and what it stands for. Tessarion is in chains in the sept. Daeron is forced to murder an innocent man, since laying hands on one of the prospective king's soldier is laying hands on an extension of the crown.
It feels more like a scene that is trying to be evil for evil's sake than something that makes much sense, and again, it drives the relationship between Ormund and Daeron into murkier waters. These two characters are undoubtedly standouts in this episode, but it bothers me that House of the Dragon has taken an essentially funciontal relationship in the source material and decided to make it as twisted as it could. That's doubly odd considering Gwayne's words to Alicent in season 2 about how well Daeron was being raised, and her reflections on how sending him away from King's Landing gave him the best shot at life. It turns out he's just being raised by another monster.
Everything about the production in the Tumbleton storyline is excellent, from the acting to the staging and cinematogrophy, the costuming and more. But the story itself has some holes, and that made it hard for me to enjoy, especially on my first watch.
Daeron Targaryen finds a surprise in the Vale
Just like how Harrenhal effects Tumbleton, Daemon Targaryen's (Matt Smith) trip to the Vale has an impact on this episode's King's Landing events, so let's start there before we turn to the capital. Daemon has been sent to collect gold from Jeyne Arryn (Amanda Collin), since she didn't send any soldiers to join the Black army and the crown is all but bankrupt. The verbal sparring here is a lot of fun; Collin is a fantastic actress (with an equally fantastic costume), and Smith is as delightfully vindictive as ever. Plus, it's nice to see the throne room of the Eyrie again.
While Lady Jeyne is resistant to sending soldiers since Rhaenyra only sent her a baby dragon to honor their deal, she's more than happy to pay up. In fact, she even takes a certain joy in it, because Daemon has an extremely unsavory reputation in the Vale for murdering his first wife, Rhea Royce, and she likes to see him squirm.
Ultimately, Daemon achieves his goal and leaves with the gold, only for his dragon Caraxes to take off in a different direction against his orders. Caraxes has sniffed out another dragon: Sheepstealer, who's hiding with Daemon's daughter Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) in a nearby cave. The dragon effects are absolutely incredible here, and it's so good to finally get a scene of Daemon being a father to one of his daughters. Rhaena argues that she can't return and face Rhaenyra, who believes Sheepstealer's rider caused Jace's death at the Gullet. This is probably Campbell's single best scene of the series so far, and it's starting to really sell me on her arc as the show's version of Nettles, the dragonseed in the book who rides Sheepstealer. This storyline will be inherently different, but it's fascinating in its own way.
Rhaena asks Daemon to lie to Rhaenyra and say Sheepstealer's rider died, which will obviously end well for everyone. Daemon knows this is a betrayal, says as much, and still does it by murdering an innocent shepherd, charring his skull, and then presenting it to Rhaenyra as proof Sheepstealer's rider has been dealt with. But to talk about that, we have to talk about King's Landing. Let's head there next.
The Queen of Bastards keeps on struggling
King's Landing takes up a decent portion of this episode as well, which I didn't expect after last week's spent the entirety of its runtime there. This is welcome, however, since it keeps that storyline humming along as we head toward the back half of the season.
Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) continues struggling to rule, and making at least a few missteps for every good choice under her belt. Her big concerns this episode are figuring out what Ormund is up to in Tumbleton (which doesn't get very far), and building out her Small Council, which is disconcertinly thin. Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) bows out to go fight marauding pirates after Rhaenyra rejected the idea of legitimizing his bastard sons in episode 3, appointing the elder of the two, Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim) to his seat on the Small Council in his absence.
I really liked this development, both for how Corlys sticks it to Rhaenyra in what ways he can, as well as for how it put Salim and D'Arcy together as scene partners. Their scene discussing the inspiration and frustration of a larger-than-life father figure over Viserys' ruined model of Old Valyria is a highlight of the episode. And of course, I enjoyed that House of the Dragon had Alyn suggest bringing cats to the Red Keep to help with the rat problem, a small detail from earlier in the book when Otto is still serving as Aegon II's Hand.
Another new face on the Small Council this episode is Torrhen Manderly (Dan Fogler), who intrigued Rhaenyra enough that she has Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) do a background check on him. It's a pretty shady move on Rhaenyra's part to appoint a Master of Coin specifically to have a scapegoat for people to hate when they realize the crown is broke, but it tracks with how Rhaenyra is spiraling at the moment.
The last new member of the Small Council is Grand Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan), who Rhaenyra allows to keep his seat after he proves his usefulness to her. He has the brain child to send the Winter Wolves and Riverlander army to Tumbleton, rather than burn it to the ground with dragons, which gives Rhaenyra a way to fight back against Ormund. But it'll take a few weeks for them to get there, especially with Criston Cole hounding them on the journey. This is a strong development, and I like how it's building more anticipation for Tumbleton.
Rhaenyra's missteps start becoming more pronounced when it comes to dealing with the dragonseeds. As she reels from the revelation that Daemon has killed Sheepstealer's rider (something that Mysaria immediately knew was a lie), Rhaenyra is presented with an absurd frustration: Ulf (Tom Bennett) comes to her to request a bunch of favors for his drinking buddies. Rather than grant it, Rhaenyra takes the harsh course of forbidding Ulf to leave the Red Keep and frequent taverns, which he's understandably apalled by. This is a totally reasonable response from her, since it made him vulnerable to assassins who could easily deprive Rhaenyra of one of her dragonriders, but you just know Ulf is not going to think of it that way. She's basically ensuring he'll think less well of her, and that will boil over sooner rather than later.
Ulf tells Rhaenyra some bitter news on the way out: grafitti is popping up around the city calling her the Queen of Bastards. And rather than let it roll off her shoulders or take care of it in a quieter fashion through Mysaria, Rhaenyra has the gold cloaks terrorize the smallfolk in search of the culprits. Suffice to say, I imagine she burned through a lot of the good will she earned with her food handout in the previous episode.
One good thing she does, however, is dispatch Hugh (Kieran Bew) to Tumbleton. His wife is there, and he is determined to keep vigil on the city as he waits for a way to help her. The scene of Vermithor flying over Tumbleton and settling down to wait outside is another fantastic dragon moment; more scenes with the Bronze Fury please, House of the Dragon!
Maelor, is that you?
There are a few other important developments that happen in King's Landing. First, Rhaenyra meets with Alicent (Olivia Cooke) to try and learn more about Ormund. While Alicent isn't especially forthcoming, she does decide to tell her captor that Ormund has a strong sensitivity to smells. It feels extremely random and almost like Alicent is divulging Ormund's weakness like he's a boss in a video game, which is kind of goofy. I suppose Rhaenyra can stack a bunch of dung or caracasses around Tumbleton and make it so hard for Ormund to focus that he can't defend the city? However it factors in, the set up was silly.
The biggest revelation, however, is that Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) is pregnant. House of the Dragon doesn't make a particularly loud deal about the moment where Alicent realizes it, but it stands to have large consequences for the rest of the season. After thinking House of the Dragon was cutting Helaena and Aegon's third child Maelor, it seems like the show has now decided to include him in some capacity. I'm sure the show's very public spat with George R.R. Martin over Maelor's absence had nothing to do with it.
Sunfyre lives...presumably
The last section of this episode is by far my favorite: Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Larys Strong's (Matthew Needham) journey to Rook's Rest. Unlike the rest of the characters, where House of the Dragon has had to decide how closely to hew to the source material, Aegon and Larys are completely off book at this point anyway. The duo vanishes from the narrative for a substantial amount of time, and the show made the very wise decision to show us their travels instead. It's extremely compelling, exploring places we'd never otherwise see in the show and giving Tom Glynn-Carney the chance to give yet another stellar performance as Aegon.
Aegon wanted to head for Rook's Rest for one reason: to see his dragon Sunfyre with his own eyes. House of the Dragon has been consistently telling viewers that Aegon's dragon is dead, even though he has an utterly crucial role to play in the story ahead. I'm not exagerrating when I say that killing Sunfyre early would be one of the single largest deviations the show could make from Martin's book, to the point where literally no one who has read that book actually believes Sunfyre is dead. And here at last, we get a hint that's the case, when Aegon breathlessly declares that his dragon is still alive even though he's been lying dormant for months.
Aegon II Targaryen is an extremely flawed character, but his relationship with dragon is one of the sweetest out of any of the Targaryens. He genuinely loves Sunfyre, and came all this way just to be with him again. It's powerful, and even though Sunfyre doesn't wake up, it bodes really well for what's ahead.
That's the only nice thing that happens for Aegon this episode though, as he and Larys are nearly stabbed over some money at Sunfyre's corpse, which is being monetized by some local roughs. Then they head to Rook's Rest, where they're forced to do hard labor, with Aegon picking up buckets of poop and urine from the latrines. Aegon resists, and then finds himself nearly stabbed again, until he's forced to kiss the grimy boot of the rogue soldier in charge of the castle's refugee camp.
Is this plotline of a king in exile being forced to humble himself a little predictable? Sure. But man does Glynn-Carney sell it. The whole sequence is improved by its setting. Seeing the ruins of Rook's Rest, where Meleys' body is still rotting draped over the curtain wall and children loot corpses from the battlefield, is striking. It drives home the cost of the war in a way that many of House of the Dragon's other scenes don't quite manage to reach, and the episode is much better for it.
Hopefully, we see much more of Aegon, Larys, and Sunfyre in the weeks ahead. This episode may have had some rough spots, but the Rook's Rest storyline is strong enough to redeem it as a whole and keep me on the hook for the next one. Sunday can't get here soon enough!
Verdict
"Tumbleton" is a fascinating episode of House of the Dragon which introduces new characters, new locations, and new problems as the civil war heads into its next stage. The cast and crew for the series are doing amazing work, even as some of the show's writing decisions make it harder for longtime fans of George R.R. Martin's story to reconcile with this new telling. But it leaves enough threads running for plenty of payoff to come in the weeks ahead, and as a bridge episode to get us back into the wider war story of the realm, it does a solid job expanding the scope after Rhaenyra's first bad days as queen in episode 3.
Episode grade: B-
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