House of the Dragon feels more like Game of Thrones in Episode 203, for better and worse

People tuned in en masse to watch the first season of House of the Dragon because it was a prequel to Game of Thrones, the biggest HBO series ever and a pop culture phenomenon that helped revive our collective interest in high fantasy. House of the Dragon shared a lot in common with its predecessor — high production values, a stellar cast, a byzantine plot — but it also had its fair share of differences, including a unique structure where years would pass between each episode. We watched our cast of characters grow from children to adults, and only in the final stretch did we meet them as we'll know them for the rest of the story.

In the second season, war has broken out between Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and her half-brother King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), and each episode follows directly on from the last. Suddenly, House of the Dragon feels much more straightforward, much more like something Game of Thrones fans will recognize. This newest episode in particular feels familiar, what with characters traveling all over the map working through their own individual dramas. There are at least four plotlines running concurrently: Rhaenyra conducting her war from Dragonstone, her husband Daemon taking the castle of Harrenhal, Aegon running amok in King's Landing, and Criston Cole marching on the Crownlands. It's like old times!

But it's a new show. Now that House of the Dragon looks more like Game of Thrones, the differences between the two are becoming more clear. That's both to its benefit and detriment. Let's take a closer look:

House of the Dragon review: Episode 203

The first two episodes of season 2 have mostly played out like chamber dramas. In the premiere, Aegon and his crew were holed up in the Red Keep only to be visited by an assassin sent by someone in Rhaenyra's camp. In the second episode, Rhaenyra and her crew were holed up on Dragonstone only to be visited by an assassin sent by someone in Aegon's camp. Now, people are on the move, which lends the season an energy it needed. When Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) marches out of the gates of King's Landing with an army at his back, it feels like war has finally come to Westeros.

Criston is marching to subdue those houses in the Crownlands that have declared for Rhaenyra before heading to Harrenhal, the biggest castle in the Riverlands and a key strategic stronghold both sides want to claim for themselves. Daemon, still smarting from his emotionally blistering fight with Rhaenyra last week, gets there first, easily taking the castle after flying there on his dragon Caraxes.

The scenes with Daemon at Harrenhal are...interesting. I liked his back and forth with castellan Ser Simon Strong (Simon Russell Beale), who welcomes Daemon to the castle when the Rogue Prince was expecting resistance. Ser Simon has no love for the current heir to Harrenhal, Lord Layrs Strong (Matthew Needham), who last season burned his own father and brother alive within these walls. Ser Simon has figured this out and it not happy about it. He's accommodating towards Daemon, who is prickly and uneasy, insisting that he be called "your Grace" rather than "Prince." Daemon is ostensibly here to establish a military toehold in Rhaenyra's name, but is he actually considering a run at the Iron Throne for himself? His mind is all a jumble.

We see his inner turmoil expressed in a sort of dream sequence, something Game of Thrones never did. Daemon leaves his damp room to find a young Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock making a surprise cameo) sewing the head of Young Jaehaerys Targaryen back onto his body. As Daemon absorbs that, he suddenly finds himself standing in the Harrenhal courtyard, where newcomer Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) tells him that he will "die in this place."

Given the admirable restraint showed by Game of Thrones when it came to flashbacks and dream sequences, I furrow my brow at this whole endeavor. And as far as dream sequences go, this one is pretty obvious. As fun as it is to see Milly Alcock, it's not hard to decode the symbolism of her admonishing Daemon while trying to repair the damage caused by his latest atrocity. Clearly, the guy is feeling guilty, and I imagine Rhaenyra's words about his selfishness from last week are ringing in his head. Likewise, the bit with Alys Rivers is sorta rote; her dire warning to Daemon reminded me of what Melisandre told Varys towards the end of of Game of Thrones, only in that case Melisandre was a fully fleshed out character while Alys is currently a standard issue spooky witch woman.

I think the episode gets away with this because the Harrenahl set is gobsmackingly gorgeous and the direction by Geeta Patel is moody and unsettling. But I have my eye on this storyline. Don't let things get out of hand, show.

Points for personality

Let's get back to how the episode creates energy from movement and expansion. Consider the scene where Criston — now on the road with his army — admonishes another new character, Alicent Hightower's pampered brother Gwayne (Freddie Fox), after Gwayne wanders away from the column in search of a plush inn to stay the night. Criston, Gwayne and Gwayne's posse are spotted by Baela Targaryen (Bethany Antonia), who is out scouting on her dragon Moondancer. Baela dive bombs the group, who just escape into the forest in the nick of time. It's a fun sequence.

Because the cast of Game of Thrones was so huge, and because so many of the characters were spread out geographically, it often felt like an event whenever two of them met up. This scene has some of that energy, but it isn't as potent because the characters on this show, with a few exceptions, don't pop in quite the same way as the ones on Game of Thrones did. I'm enjoying Criston Cole more and more — nothing gets you on a character's side like putting him next to a preening jackass like Gwayne — and Baela is a fierce dragon rider, but both characters feel a little generic.

I feel the same about Baela's sister Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), who does not have a dragon of her own. Rhaenyra is sending her three young sons off to the Vale (and the younger two on to Pentos) where they can hopefully wait out the war in safety (her eldest son Jahaerys is staying with her). She assigns Rhaena to accompany and watch over them. Rhaena objects to being sent away from the action.

There's conflict here, and it works, and the actors sell it, but it feels a little muted. All the characters involved are good and nice and mean well, which is honestly a little dull. I wish I had more of a sense of their distinctions. In George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, Baela is described as an adventurous tomboy while Rhaena is milder and more demure, perhaps the kind of person who would be happy to get out of harm's way. I don't really get a sense of those personalities in the show, even if the actors are doing a good job, and even it the writing is giving them stuff to chew on. I want more.

There are some signs of improvement. The spymaster Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) is more entertaining now than she ever was in the first season. In this episode, she bargains her way into a place on Rhaenyra's court, later using her intimate knowledge of the comings and goings of the King's Landing royals to help Rhaenyra set up a meeting with Alicent Hightower. I liked her response when Rhaenyra first asked about Alicent. She was like, 'Why? You want her killed? I can do that.' You can stay, Mysaria.

The king goes on the town

Before we get to that Alicent-Rhaenyra meetup, I want to talk about King Aegon, one character who is definitely not lacking in the personality department. That, combined with Tom Glynn-Carney's excellent performance, is why he's consistently been my favorite character this season.

There are always lots of great currents and undercurrents with Aegon. In this episode, he wants to prove himself a warrior and accompany Criston on his march. He's all ready to go, but Lord Larys tricks him into staying in the city by planting a false rumor in his head. If he leaves, Larys hints, it will only prove what the smallfolk are saying about him: that his mother Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) duped him into going so they could rule King's Landing in his absence.

So Larys manipulates Aegon into staying behind by making him worried about looking vulnerable to manipulation. And Aegon is young and dumb and hurt enough for this to work. In the end, he decides to stay in King's Landing and go drinking with the coterie of yes men he's newly appointed to the Kingsguard. I like how Aegon waffles between wanting to pal around with his friends and getting irritated that they're not taking their new jobs seriously. He's pulled in a million different directions, this guy.

Aegon's visit to a King's Landing tavern is fun, although it highlights another difference between Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon: the latter feels more formal and controlled. We spend some time eavesdropping on yet another new character, Ulf White (Tom Bennett), a peasant who explains to his drinking buddies how he's actually related to the Targaryens. In an interview, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal explained how much he enjoyed spending time with rough-and-tumble characters like Bronn and the Hound on Game of Thrones. Ulf White represents a perfect opportunity to bring that kind of roughspun energy into House of the Dragon, but he basically sounds like all the other self-serious royal characters, talking about which Targaryen begat which Targaryen begat him. Again, I'm looking for distinctions, for different energy levels, for interesting clashes. I want more.

Happily, Aegon never disappoints in this department. After he and his men drink up, they head to a brothel where they stumble upon Aegon's brother Aemond, curled naked in the fetal position in the arms of the same sex worker he was with last episode. In fact, this is the same sex worker Aemond lost his virginity to years ago, a fact that the sloppy drunk Aegon finds endlessly entertaining. Aemond, who tries always to project strength, stands up tall and fully naked, proclaims that the whore means nothing to him, and stalks away. Now that is the kind of interesting energy clash I'm after.

Rhaenyra Targaryen: Undercover Nun

Now we get to the point of the episode that will probably inspire the most discussion: trying one last time to stop the brewing war before it begins, Rhaenyra disguises herself as a septa and meets Alicent Hightower in the Great Sept in King's Landing.

First, we should address whether this turn is remotely plausible. Photos don't exist in this world, so no one's going to know Rhaenyra on sight. Rhaenyra's silver-blonde hair is covered up, and the show has established that Alicent sometimes goes to the sept to pray alone. In fact, these two prayed together in this exact same spot in the second-ever episode of the show, back when they were teenagers. Mysaria would know where and when to find Alicent, and after Daemon's excursion to King's Landing in the premiere we know it's possible to sneak into the city. Meeting Alicent was risky, but between Rhaenys' advice and Alicent's raven expressing remorse over Luke's death, Rhaenyra had decent reason to believe that she'd be receptive to a discussion. The episode goes up to the edge of absurdity, but I think it played fair.

As for the discussion itself, it's pretty good, although it doesn't solve anything; Alicent is probably right that it's too late to stop the war. One of the episode's best scenes is its first, where we see the Blackwoods and the Brackens — rival houses in the Riverlands — taunt each other before cutting suddenly and severely to the results of a bloody battle where bodies clog the river and flatten the grass. However badly Rhaenyra fears what's to come, there isn't any stopping this.

But even if there was, you get the idea that Alicent wouldn't want to try, as much as she likes to think of herself as a moderating voice on the Green Council. Did Alicent really believe that her late husband King Viserys changed his mind about Rhaenyra being his heir in his final moments of life, or did she just tell herself that to avoid facing the truth: that she wanted her own son Aegon on the throne over Rhaenyra? That possibility gets raised here, as does the fact that Alicent misinterpreted Viserys' final words: he wasn't talking about their son Aegon, but rather Aegon the Conqueror. "There was no mistake," insists Alicent.

It's a decent scene, even if it dances close to absurdity. These women want to connect but can't, a theme that crops up again and again in this episode, this season, and this show. It's enough to make you long for some emotional catharsis, but that would be against the ethos of the series. The gravity of war is pulling all the characters down and down and down, and I do feel the tug in scenes like this.

That said, I think House of the Dragon has gone about as far as it can go with the "We must do all we can to prevent bloodshed" angle. Sooner or later, as a viewer, I'm going to need some release. I'm going to need to see blood, and then we can be aghast at the devastation. We've been looking over the edge of the abyss for too long. Happily, it looks like we're taking the plunge next week.

House of the Bullet Points

• Now that we have characters running all over Westeros, I think the show should start using the flyover map intro sequence from Game of Thrones. Honestly, that's probably what they should have done from the beginning. They tried a couple of alternate opening credits ideas, and they were cute, but nothing beats that map. It's simple, it's helpful, it's visually interesting, it's perfect. Suck it up and revive it.
• We get multiple dragon-riding POV shots in this episode. They look great and I want more of them.
• I'm not sure what to make of the scene where Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) feels guilty because she's still sad about her recently murdered son. Why should she feel sad, she reasons, when the smallfolk who reached out to her during the funeral procession last week have doubtless suffered worse calamities? Helaena is one of several characters on this show who can be hard to read.
• Alicent Hightower is irritated that Criston Cole is steamrolling her during Green Council meetings but still grants him her favor when he asks. I didn't see much warmth from her, though. I'd say there's trouble in paradise, but these two were already in hell.

Episode Grade: B-

House of the Dragon episode reviews:

• Episode 201, "A Son for a Son"
• Episode 202, "Rhaenyra the Cruel"
• Episode 203

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.