House Of The Dragon recap: Shall we dance?

This week’s episode of House Of The Dragon makes one thing abundantly clear: Women get the job done. Or they would get the job down, if they weren’t surrounded by men hellbent on revenge. “Hotter blood has prevailed,” notes Rhaenys sagely, when Rhaenyra suggests that Otto Hightower would never have sent an assassin into her bedroom. “They desire to punish…soon they will not remember what it is that began the war in the first place.”

It’s lucky that Rhaenyra has Rhaenys there for guidance and support, quite frankly, especially as the Y chromosomes on her council want her to secrete herself away somewhere and let them rule in her stead (treason!). And, as we’ve come to expect from Rhaenys, she has nothing but excellent ideas up her sleeve, most notably that Rhaenyra needs to let go of her grudge against Alicent Hightower and reach out to her if she wants to avoid a bloody civil war.

At first, it seems as if Rhaenyra isn’t going to listen: She’s far too busy asking Rhaena to whisk the younger children (and a clutch of unhatched dragon eggs) away to Pentos in a bid to secure Team Black’s future should things not go in their favor. Finally, though, she meets with her new Master of Whispers (hey there, Mysaria) and asks the White Worm to help smuggle her into King’s Landing so that she can speak with her best friend/stepmother/archnemesis in person.

Over at the Red Keep, meanwhile, Alicent also finds herself surrounded by deeply unhelpful men, forcing her to point out that the King’s Council “lacks discipline and patience.” It also lacks any sense of fealty: Ser Criston Cole is hellbent on doing his own thing, Ser Larys Strong effortlessly manipulates Aegon into believing that his mother and brother are [checks notes] out to get him, and don’t even get me started on the rest. Throw in the arrival of her brother, Ser Gwayne, and you have more prickled egos than you can shake a dragon’s tail at. Which is almost quite literally what happens when Baela spots him out riding with Ser Criston and decides to steer her own fire-breathing pal downwards so she can scare the breeches off them.

The result of all this? A very welcome onscreen reunion for Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, as the former’s character dons a gray wimple (you’d think they would have upped security in the citadel after the Blood-and-Cheese incident) so that she can safely approach Alicent during her quiet time at the sept. Honestly, the chemistry between these two continues to sizzle like wildfyre, and it becomes all too clear that they miss one another’s friendship as they exchange spiked barbs over candlelight. When Rhaenyra begs to know what her father said in his dying moments, though, things become almost embarrassingly awkward as Alicent realizes that a civil war is being played out almost entirely because she misinterpreted her husband’s last words.

So, will they be calling off the Dance of Dragons, then? Tragically no, as Alicent quietly admits she has no real power in King’s Landing and it’s “too late” to stop the wheels that have already been set in motion. Thank goodness for Rhaenyra, then, that her estranged uncle-husband has taken Harrenhal with impossibly ridiculous ease (only Daemon could storm a castle solo, right?) and is working on building up a 4,000-strong army. Although, based on the fact he’s having everyone there refer to him as “Your Grace,” it remains unclear whether or not Daemon truly has his niece-wife’s best interests at heart despite what his trippy Young Rhaenyra-addled dreams might have you believe.

All in all, it’s an excellent installment of House Of The Dragon, and it builds incredibly well on the slow-burning tensions that have been exposed in the first two installments of this season. The opening scenes nicely demonstrate how a long-running spat can blow up into a bloody battle (the Brackens and Blackwoods were so easily goaded into annihilating one another, weren’t they?), while the show upholds its eponymous mythical beasts as a terrifyingly timely metaphor for nuclear war: “If dragons begin fighting dragons, we invite our own destruction,” warns Rhaenyra. “Fear of it in itself is a weapon.”

The series also goes some way towards addressing the nudity imbalance of the OG Game Of Thrones, with an unexpected full frontal moment from Aemond. And, after my plaintive pleas of last week, it’s also upped its humor game, too, whether that’s Daemon bluntly explaining that the Iron Throne is a “big chair made of swords,” his suspicions over “poisoned peas,” or Simon Strong offering up a delicious meal in the same breath he pledges his loyalty to Rhaenyra’s cause. (“Supper is venison with black cabbage and peas—no redcurrant. Sorry about that.”)

Throw in the two-handers between Helaena and Alicent, Alicent and Rhaenyra, and Rhaenyra and Rhaenys, and you have an episode that proves wholeheartedly it understands how Game Of Thrones’ initial success lay in its whispered conversations and heated debates. The dialogue is, quite frankly, on point—chef’s-kiss-style on point.

Better still? Now that all the pieces of this chessboard have been set up properly, we can finally get down to business. I’m expecting a lot of action in the show’s fourth episode. Bring it on.

Stray observations

• How did Criston and Gwayne outride that dragon? It was the Westerosian equivalent of Han Solo somehow swerving Greedo’s shot. Also, wood is famously flammable, so why in seven hells didn’t Baela just blast some dragon fire after them?
• Everyone seems to love nipping between Dragonstone and King’s Landing via boat even though the two locations are supposed to be a couple of hundred miles apart from one another. Perhaps there’s a time portal or two in the mix, eh?
• Helaena’s utter detachment from what happened to her is…well, it’s incredibly worrying. “Sadness is a condition of motherhood,” Alicent tells her daughter, only to be informed that she herself is forgiven for her sins. Poor sweet Helaena doesn’t deserve what’s inevitably coming to her, quite frankly.
• A moment for Harwin Strong, whose murder via arson is clearly still a sore point for his uncle, especially as it’s almost impossible to light a fire at Harrenhal at the best of times. It’s a sore point for this viewer, too, as I’m still mad we didn’t get more episodes devoted to Rhaenyra and Harwin. (The fleeting glances they shared made it clear they were much in love.)
• Daemon gave me pure Geralt of Rivia vibes as he crept through the dark and sodden ruins of Harrenhal. And then it all got a bit Monty Python when he crashed Simon Strong’s evening and won the battle for the stronghold without even trying.
• Millie Alcock’s Rhaenyra! In the flesh! Tending to the ruined corpse of little Jahaerys and reprimanding her uncle for leaving her to clean up his mess! Ah, Daemon’s mind truly is a troubled one, isn’t it? Also, does the fact he’s imagining his niece-wife as the child he once groomed bother anyone else, or…?
• Jason Lannister sounds almost frighteningly like his distant relative, Tyrion, doesn’t he? Perhaps the actors used the same vocal coach when working on their medieval fantasy accents.
• It’s surely getting harder and harder for Team Green viewers to fight their bad fight; Rhaenyra has proven herself to be both merciful and measured, no small thing considering the alternative option for the Iron Throne. (Aegon, you’re just not The One for this author. Sorry not sorry.)
• Ulf the White may not look or sound much like Daemon or his late brother, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a Targaryen (or a dragonseed, if you prefer). I suspect this bastard will be back on our screens before too long. And, based on Rhaenys and Corlys’s conversation about their own successors, he may not be the only unexpected relative to secure a place in this story.
• Please don’t let that be the last scene between Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke. Please.