After this week, we’ve only got two episodes left in this season of House of the Dragon, and it’s increasingly looking like we’ll end with another famous event in the Dance of the Dragons—one even more monumental than the Battle of the Gullet.
But that’s just speculation, of course, and this week, we’ve got plenty of blood, mud, vomit, manipulation, and intrigue to wade through before we get there.
We open in the forest, where the soldiers still following Ser Criston Cole creep toward a camp filled with the bodies of Rivermen. While Team Green is puzzling through what could have happened to them, one of the corpses springs to life.
It’s a trap! A lively brawl ensues, with Cole personally killing several men with his sword and, more graphically, his flail. “We light the way!” he yells. It’s the motto of House Hightower, and he’s finally feeling victorious.
Not so fast. It turns out the camp is surrounded on all sides by Tully’s army and the Winter Wolves. Cole is more than ready to go down fighting—we see him carefully wrap Alicent’s handkerchief around the hilt of his sword—but before he can make a move, he’s hit by a trio of well-aimed arrows and dies. It almost mirrors Jace’s death in the Gullet, except in that case, Jace thought he was going to make it out alive. Cole’s been waiting to die since this march began.
As we cut away from Cole’s demise, we see guards discovering Alicent and Helaena in the tunnel where they became trapped last week.
In Rhaenyra’s Small Council meeting, Daemon is understandably still enraged by the grisly discovery he made at the end of “Unbowed and Unbent.” He’s furious about the men lost but also because “Lord Ormund mocks us in our own city.”
Naturally, there’s disagreement about a response. Daemon thinks they should just burn Tumbleton to the ground, including Ormund and “King Daeron.” Mysaria points out that’s what Ormund wants Team Black to do. Leveling Tumbleton would mean killing scores of Rhaenyra loyalists, making the queen look unbelievably cruel. Lady Frey and Ser Manderly also make their disdain for dragons known, annoying Daemon so much he heaves a small object at Manderly’s head. (He misses.)
Alyn steps in to offer a calmer suggestion: use force, but discriminately. That will involve waiting for Rhaenyra’s army to reach Tumbleton, which has been slow going thus far thanks to Cole (RIP) and company.
Daemon holds fast to his suggestion, reminding Rhaenyra that the prophecy has given her a sacred calling. “Whatever you do in its service is justified,” he insists, using Aegon the Conquerer’s track record of burning thousands of enemies at a time as a previous example.
Be that as it may, Rhaenyra’s not going to incinerate her followers. However, she is growing tired of waiting around. “I will send knives,” she declares, but that doesn’t include Daemon. It’s payback time for not wanting to leave King’s Landing when she asked him to join the dragon patrols earlier; now, she reminds him of his duty to figure out who’s been slaughtering members of the City Watch.
Alyn suggests the Velaryon soldiers who are still in King’s Landing could assist Daemon, but he sneers, “I think not,” as he flounces out. Rhaenyra thinks the soldiers would be useful in securing the city and tells Alyn to ask his father to send more men for the cause.
But then, Grand Maester Orwyle asks, who will Rhaenyra send to Tumbleton? She gets an idea when a delegation from House Baratheon enters and dithers around with excuses as to why Lord Borros Baratheon hasn’t bent the knee yet. They don’t have the support she seeks, but they do have something she can use: “Give me your belt,” she says, something that will come back around before the episode is over.
Outside Tumbleton, Ser Hugh and Vermithor arrive to swap places with Ser Ulf and Silverwing on guard duty. Ulf is bored as hell and nostalgic for the way things were “before all this.” He’s also still smarting over Rhaenyra’s declaration that he can’t go to his beloved tavern anymore. What’s the point of having a dragon, he says, if nobody can see him with it?
Hugh’s less fond of complaining, but he has a thoughtful look on his face when Ulf asks him if he feels like his life’s improved.
In the Red Keep, Rhaenyra bursts in on Alicent to have a little chat about her escape attempt. Alicent fills her in on Helaena’s condition, but Rhaenyra brushes it off for the most part and instead focuses on punishment. Alicent and Helaena will now be even more confined than before. No more strolls in the Godswood for our fragile nature girl, especially since her pregnancy will soon be obvious. When Rhaenyra leaves, Mysaria asks her what she learned, and Rhaenyra tells her Helaena’s secret.
Rhaenyra asks Mysaria if she knew, and Mysaria pretends she had no idea. In the next scene we see her pointing out a maid who needs disposing of, a “thief and a liar” who actually just… might know that Mysaria had knowledge of the pregnancy. Covering her tracks, weaving a web of deception—yep, can’t wait to see where this leads.
In the Gold Cloaks’ barracks, the bodies have been carted away, but the “Feast for Bastards” graffiti remains. Daemon addresses the existing skeleton crew, but these men are thinking survival, not vengeance. Not even Daemon’s threats and insults can convince these guys—who haven’t been paid in forever, have families to support, and would rather not be disemboweled in an alley by King Daeron’s supporters—that it’s worth keeping up the fight, and several of them turn in their cloaks and leave.
Outside of the city, Alyn catches up to Corlys, who’s made short work of the Triarchy stragglers, from the look of the tree hung with multiple bodies casually looming in the background. The Sea Snake is in no hurry to return to King’s Landing or help Rhaenyra out in any way. But when Alyn asks him directly for more Velaryon men, Corlys grumpily assents.
Alyn wonders why Corlys is still angry at Rhaenyra.
“You take her side when she yet refuses to grant your legitimacy?” is Corlys’ justification.
“And how many years did it take you to do the same?” is Alyn’s perfect response.
Corlys passes on a bit of info before Alyn departs: Tyland Lannister survived the Battle of the Gullet and headed to Rook’s Rest.
This we already knew, of course, and we cut to a quick scene of Tyland, Larys, and Aegon burying the man Aegon killed last week. Well, rather, Tyland is doing all the digging, and Larys is criticizing his work until Tyland snaps that he’s welcome to take a turn at it.
The main tension here, though, is where Aegon will head next. Tyland is still hoping to lure him to Casterly Rock, but Larys is determined to get him to Braavos. When Tyland can’t bring himself to give a straight answer when Aegon asks if he thinks he’s a terrible man—as Larys described him last week, to his face—Aegon says he’s sailing for Essos.
In the Vale, Rhana is in her lonely cave when she spots a second dragon flying in the mist.
At Harrenhal, Alys is still giddy that Aemond stepped in to defend her honor. He sees it as repaying the favor, since she nursed him back to health and all. His main concern at the moment is Vhagar, and he’s ready to ditch Harrenhal ASAP and go find her.
We can tell that Alys does not want Aemond to leave. She advises him to hide out and pretend to be dead until he’s all healed up. Then she points out that every bounty hunter in Westeros is looking for him. Then she’s like, “Maybe Vhagar flew away to protect you,” because there’s no going into hiding with a dragon hanging around. She also reminds him that Rhaenyra has six dragons now. “You’ll fall alone, and to what end?” she asks.
At the mention of “falling,” we cut to the Vale, where the Moon Door has just been opened to send some poor offender on a very long death plunge. MOON DOOR! Lady Jeyne Arryn watches them go and sighs, “Never ceases to be fascinating.”
Spared from the Moon Door this time is Rhaena, who’s greeted instead with a slap when she’s brought before Lady Arryn. It seems that the second dragon she spotted was Moondancer, ridden by Baela, and she hopped on Sheepstealer for a glimpse of her sister.
But flying dangerously close to populated areas isn’t how “being in exile” works, especially when Lady Arryn is putting her own self at risk by knowingly allowing Rhaena to hang around. Also, let’s not forget Daemon lopped off a random guy’s head to perpetuate the “Sheepstealer’s rider is dead” ruse that Rhaenyra bought into.
Daemon might have had a shred of sympathy over Rhaena’s tragic desire to keep her dragon, at the expense of losing everything else, but Lady Arryn does not. “The next time you try me will be the last,” she warns her.
By the dragonpit in King’s Landing, Alyn and Baela bond over how hard it is to connect with their respective fathers. Then it turns intimate—just a week after it seemed Addam was flirting with Baela—when Baela asks Alyn if he’s ever able to do what he wants, instead of serving others. Then they kiss. It’s a nice moment. (And so what if his dad is also her grandfather? In terms of close family entanglements, Westeros has seen far worse.)
In Tumbleton, Ormund is wondering why Gwayne is suddenly before him and no longer slogging along with Cole’s army. “Because fighting on is madness,” Gwayne says, and he’s not wrong; he’d probably be dead now if he’d stayed.
However, Ormund gets Daeron, “Your Grace,” to agree that he’s not mad for fighting on, even if Gwayne doesn’t understand how their side has any way forward. “When the usurper’s host comes here, we will fight on our terms, on our ground,” Ormund declares. He’s also very pleased with his anti-Rhaenyra campaign in King’s Landing, which he knows has further destabilized the existing chaos. He’s convinced all the great houses will rally to King Daeron’s cause eventually.
When they have a moment alone, uncle and nephew share their disgust over Ormund. “You left me alone with him,” Daeron says. “You know what he is.” He hates how Ormund is using him to realize his own impossible dreams of sitting on the Iron Throne. But it’s self-preservation at this point.
“If you were king, you could cast him down,” Gwayne says hopefully. But they both know Daeron will never rule. And Gwayne admits there’s nothing he can do, either for Daeron or to save House Hightower from doom.
“When you were in King’s Landing, did you see my mother?” Daeron asks hopefully. He doesn’t get an answer, but we cut to Alicent begging a deeply depressed Helaena to eat. Instead, Helaena calls her out for lying about Jaehaera being part of their escape plan; of course Alicent fully intended to leave the child behind.
After Helaena stalks away, Alicent notices what her daughter’s been crafting with her needlework: it’s clearly Aemond curled up under the looming towers of Harrenhal.
We jump to a shot of those towers just in case there is any confusion. Preparing to flee, Aemond is spotted by the stable boy, and Alys makes short work of the unfortunate witness. Aemond still hasn’t figured out what Alys’ confusing game is, so she finally decides to come clean. She’s been watching over a box filled with five dragon eggs, and he immediately knows: “Dreamfyre.”
For the benefit of the audience, Alys explains, “Your ancestor, Rhaena Targaryen, came to Harrenhal after the death of her daughter.” (There’s really no way around the “Targaryens re-use names” thing, but the distinction between characters is very clear here.)
“And she grieved and grew old here. Her dragon laid a clutch of eggs before Rhaena herself died, and they have sat here cold and abandoned these hundred years.”
Dreamfyre is now Helaena’s dragon, but as we know, Helaena’s not much of a dragonrider—and certainly not one for engaging in combat.
Aemond picks up an egg as Alys makes her pitch. “I have long envisaged the return of the Targaryens to this ancient seat,” she says.
“I am tired of this desolate existence,” she continues, and says she thinks Aemond is also tired of living a lonely life. “Can you not imagine what it would be to have it otherwise? There’s an ancient strength here. Let the gods turn their backs on us. We will make our own fortune.”
She also points out that as a Targaryen prince, Aemond’s future sons will also be Targaryen princes. They kiss awkwardly.
A baby crying is the first sound we hear as we shift to the throne room, where an increasingly irritated Rhaenya hears the pleas of the smallfolk. Mysaria watches from afar as the queen tries to blame all the shortages on Ser Manderly, the Master of Coin she appointed for this purpose.
But there are other problems. Without the City Watch, the vulnerable are at risk. Rhaenyra has no good answer when she learns a girl was kidnapped from the motherhouse, the Faith of the Seven version of a convent. As she fumbles for words, blaming Ormund, the people say they understand. But they’re also afraid. “Wherever the fault lies, we have none to look to now but you,” they plead.
At this moment, Rhaenyra nicks herself on the Iron Throne, just like her father did—and she looks up at his statue before launching herself off the seat and leaving the room.
On the streets of Flea Bottom, Daemon has donned a Gold Clock cape and armor and is semi-disguised, his hair tucked under a helmet that partially covers his face. One of the assassins we’ve seen before trails after him, but Daemon grabs him first and demands information.
As you might guess, the man is not forthcoming. “We are everywhere,” he taunts, and says his motivation isn’t promises of power or gold but the desire to see “Daeron the Daring” take his rightful throne.
“We are the people of the Seven Kingdoms. We have no sign or sigil. And when you strike us, you only drive more to our cause.” The man adds that they will never support Rhaenyra, no matter what. To this, Daemon jams his knife in the man’s ear, and the conversation ends.
As Daemon is striding away from this encounter, he bumps into a passer-by who starts to yell at him to watch where he’s going… and then they recognize each other. It’s Ulf, disobeying very specific orders not to leave the Red Keep except for his dragonriding duties. Hey, he’s just out here in search of simple pleasures. Guarding Tumbleton is boring.
Daemon doesn’t want to hear it. He calls Ulf an “insolent maggot,” then knocks him down and threatens him while the people of Flea Bottom look on in horror.
Outside Tumbleton, Hugh jumps a guy passing by on a cart and takes his place.
Inside the city, Ormund, Daeron, and Gwayne are eating a meal when an envoy from House Baratheon shows up to treat with the new king. The men are disheveled and stinky—Ormund carefully backs out of smelling range—and Gwayne soon realizes they’re imposters. (Yep, that’s why Rhaenyra wanted the Baratheon uniforms.) It’s a bold move, but it fails, as all the intruders are quickly slashed and stabbed into oblivion. The dinner is already ruined, even before Ormund barfs all over the table.
Then, we see Hugh’s reason for sneaking into the city: to find Kat, of course. But their tearful reunion is hardly a joyous one. As we’ve seen, her life has been rough since her husband took off to become a dragonrider—with horrors she alludes to that we were spared from seeing. “I needed you here. On the ground,” she says.
When he tries to force her to leave with him, she refuses. “Who are you?” she yells.
Back in Casa Hightower, Gwayne and Ormund talk while Daeron practices swordfighting in the yard outside. “You did well,” Ormund allows, and he apologizes for the harsh treatment earlier.
“He’d make a good king,” Gwayne says of Daeron, and as unfortunate as all the context is, he’s right. But what he really wants to know is what Ormund’s plan is.
In the Red Keep, Alicent asks an irritated Rhaenyra to please reconsider the new restrictions she’s placed on Helaena, who’s increasingly unwell. In return, she offers information: the fact that Aemond is at Harrenhal. To her credit, Rhaenyra immediately accepts that this has come from Helaena, who has prophetic visions in the tradition of Targaryen “dreamers.” Just like Daenys, who foresaw the Doom, or Aegon the Conqueror, who foresaw the Song of Ice and Fire.
But she’s not letting Alicent off that easy. She’ll agree to let Alicent and Helaena go free, but first, Alicent needs to accompany the assassin to Harrenhal to make sure Aemond is taken off the board forever. Alicent does the “oh no” wide eyes, but she has no choice but to agree.
Rhaenyra promises to look after Helaena while Alicent is gone, but that’s not super-reassuring. “I don’t want to be alone,” Helaena tells her mother, who tries to reassure her. Then she asks her the big question: why did Alicent want her to marry her brother, Aegon, rather than some other lord? It was Otto’s idea, Alicent explains, but “I did not begrudge it. Better here with me, I thought, than a man you did not know in a place far away.”
She begs Helaena to eat, and Alicent smiles as she takes one small slurp of soup. Alicent promises she’ll return as soon as she can, and then they’ll be free. Sure they will.
In Joffrey’s room, Rhaenyra makes another after-hours visit to the sleeping son she’s clearly avoiding. In the hallway, Orwyle delivers a message from Tumbleton. It’s one of the stolen Baratheon uniforms, which now has “Kick this dog and it will bite your hand” scrawled on it in blood.
Or should that be… your Hand? In the next scene, we see Corlys at his camp, having finally decided that it’s time to return to King’s Landing and support Rhaenyra’s rule, with his Velaryon host in tow.
But as the episode ends, Corlys is approached by unfriendly visitors. We see Jon Roxton, Ormund’s right-hand man, standing in the dark as a group of Hightower soldiers pounce.
House of the Dragon has two episodes left in season three. Another new one arrives Sunday on HBO.
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