Despite a disappointing finale to the second season of House of the Dragon, I was looking forward to the series’ third season. Given that the new season would not be held back by a writers and actors strike, I was hoping the series would finally be able to find its narrative footing again. And for the first half or so of the season, I believed it. The narrative was finally moving forward and attacks were finally starting to be made. However, once the series reached the half way point again, it made the same fatal mistake as the previous season. Fooled me once, shame on you, fooled me twice, shame on me.
For the first half of the season, the narrative was finally moving forward after the previous season stagnated the plot for nearly half of its runtime. We finally got the climactic and epic Battle of the Gullet. Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy, Mothering Sunday) finally takes control of King’s Landing and sits on the Iron Throne as Queen of the Realm. We experience Rhaenyra’s stressful and anxiety-inducing first day as queen. We see the Greens make their moves as they react to Rhaenyra’s ascent to the throne. It was all exciting and gripping as we watched these characters navigate this bloody civil war. However, the moment the series inches past the halfway point of the season, all of that narrative momentum flies straight into a castle wall. Just like Season Two.
Instead of progressing the narrative forward, the series becomes primarily concerned with table-setting for the next big set piece in its latter half. I understand that moving all of the narrative pieces into place to set up a huge set piece is essential to storytelling. But when your season is only eight episodes, you can only have two episodes maximum dedicated to table-setting, and they can’t be back-to-back. Almost half of Season 3 of House of the Dragon is entirely dedicated to setting up the Battle of Tumbleton One.
Unlike last season, we at least get to see the Battle of Tumbleton this season. Though the battle itself is pure spectacle, it felt like apology sex after half of the season sat around and did nothing. Nearly half of the season’s episodes were dedicated to table-setting for the Battle of Tumbleton. It feels like the narrative is wasting time, pushing an event that should have been the penultimate episode into the finale.
This is made even worse when nearly half of the season’s narratives are either twiddling their thumbs doing nothing or simply repeating what the previous season already did. Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell, Wuthering Heights) is given the same arc as Daemon (Matt Smith, Doctor Who) had in the previous season, where he is haunted by the ghosts of Harrenhal’s past. The Blacks’ army is still working its way toward King’s Landing, just like it did last season. Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno, Ex Machina) still does nothing as an adviser other than being a side chick. Alicent (Olivia Cooke, Ready Player One) has been reduced to a pawn, which is shocking considering she is the one who started this conflict.
However, the worst narrative arc this season was Rhaenyra Targaryen. I understand that her arc was supposed to be about her descending into madness as she becomes more power hungry. However, just like Daenerys, they save that arc for the final episode. The moment Rhaenyra takes power, all she does is complain and yell at her advisers, asking them, “What must I do?” and then proceeds to do nothing. I get it, she was dealt a terrible hand when she took power as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, but that does not excuse her complete lack of agency, control, wisdom, and power as a ruler.
The worst part about her arc is that it all feels unintentional, as the series finds itself in conflict between what it is showing us and what it is telling us. The series tells us that she is an ineffective ruler because she has found herself broke, the world is misogynistic, and those circumstances are what cause her to spiral into a power hungry monster. But the series shows us that she is an ineffective ruler because she lacks a spine. Throughout the entire season, she refuses to take any sort of power or control. The only time she actually takes control is when someone writes offensive propaganda on the city walls. So when she finally spirals into madness, supposedly driven mad by power, it feels underdeveloped and completely unearned. Maybe this arc could have worked if the series hadn’t been so blatantly pro-Black from the start.
Despite all of these narrative setbacks, the season does have a few bright spots. Aegon (Tom Clynn-Carney, Dunkirk) and Lord Larys (Matthew Needham, The Ritual) traveling through Westeros while attempting to pass themselves off as ordinary commoners was easily one of the most entertaining parts of the season. It also gave Aegon some much-needed character work, especially considering how much the character had been reduced over the seasons. Watching him go from King of Westeros to essentially a crippled nobody was one of the more interesting character developments of the season. Ser Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox, The Sandman) and Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel, Task) also get a surprisingly entertaining storyline as they travel through the mud of Westeros, essentially becoming guerilla soldiers. Their journey provides some great character work and is one of the few storylines that actually feels like it is going somewhere as they question their part in this bloody war.
Then there is Lord Ormund Hightower (James Norton, King & Conqueror), who somehow manages to steal the show as a single-season antagonist. He is a diva of a knight. Whether it was him vomiting at the smell of shit, or him losing his mind over trying to find his drunken dragon rider, I was here for every second that he was on screen. At the end of the day, this season belongs to the Greens. Their characters are given the most interesting material, the most entertaining storylines, and the most meaningful character development. Meanwhile, the Blacks are barely held together by the charismatic Daemon, who is arguably the only character on their side who consistently gets anything interesting to do and is the only one who knows how to handle this civil war.
Overall, I am left with a lot of conflicted feelings about this season. On one hand, the season came flying out of the gate with some incredibly strong, straight-up banger episodes. Then all of that narrative momentum comes to a screeching halt the moment the series reaches the halfway point, and it barely moves again until the final episode. That final episode is then forced to pick up all of the narrative slack from the episodes that came before it.
I think the biggest problem with House of the Dragon is that the writers simply don’t know how to write “people talking in rooms,” which is essential to the Game of Thrones universe. And that is a shame because the acting across the board was fantastic, the battles were spectacular, and around half of the characters were genuinely intriguing. But that is also what makes the show so frustrating. You can see the potential this series has, and you can see just how much of that potential it continues to waste.
My Rating: B-
All episodes of House of the Dragon are now streaming on HBO Max
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