Episode two of House of the Dragon season three served as a season finale, despite it being the second episode of the third season. Rhaenyra has finally ascended the throne. She is finally Queen. After all of the losses and battles, she has sat upon the Iron Throne and become the ruler of Westeros, as her father had named her to be when she was a teenager. However, ruling isn’t easy. And Rhaenyra is seeing that maybe Viserys didn’t prepare her well enough for the little ins and outs of being Queen.
Battle is one thing. Dragonfire is one thing. Managing the bank, settling disputes amongst the smallfolk, and figuring out how to get tallow to make candles are completely different than raising arms against your enemies. If we could describe episode three in one word? Stressed. Rhaenyra was stressed; I was stressed. Everyone was stressed. Emma D’Arcy played Rhaenyra wonderfully in this episode. Every second of this stressful episode was played perfectly and was completely tangible. It was good that the show stayed true to the book in making it that Tyland stowed away the crown’s gold, which is going to continue to cause issues for Rhaenyra during her reign. Another issue? The Faith of the Seven – definitely foreshadowing in this episode.
Spoilers
The episode itself moved very fast. There was a lot to cover, so there wasn’t a single moment wasted. We open the episode with Daemon retrieving Daeron Targaryen from Ormund Hightower, who bent the knee easily to keep the peace. Daemon argues that Daeron is a claimant to the throne and must be killed, but [spoiler] Rhaenyra offers for Daeron to take the Black instead. The great twist of this episode? This isn’t Daeron. We all kind of suspected that Ormund wasn’t giving up the real Daeron when we saw episode three’s trailer, and by the end of the episode, now everyone knows. Ormund is really becoming a great player in this game, and he seems to be projected as the main adversary in season three.
Another huge moment in this episode was the confrontation between Corlys and Rhaenyra. Corlys has always been a staunch supporter of Rhaenyra, despite perhaps thinking that Rhaenyra and Daemon were responsible for Laenor’s death. Corlys was even willing to let Lucerys be his heir, despite it being painfully obvious that Lucerys was not a Velaryon. Now that Corlys has acknowledged Addam and Alyn as his sons, he asks Rhaenyra to legitimize him so he may name Alyn as heir to Driftmark. While Rhaenyra knights the dragonseeds, she fashions Addam as “Addam of Hull” and not “Addam Velaryon”. This causes Corlys to angrily call Rhaenyra’s sons “bastards”, which makes Rhaenyra’s reaction interesting. Essentially, she just walked away. Corlys’ brother Vaemon lost his head when he called the boys the same thing. As a book reader, I do wonder if this is the start of the end of Corlys’ loyalty to Rhaenyra. Can’t say we blame Corlys, but damn!
Season three is so good so far and the trailer for episode four promises more trouble. What an improvement to season 2 already!
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