*This review contains spoilers for Season 3 of House of the Dragon*
House of the Dragon had something to prove when it returned for its third season. Two years removed from its last outing, the series was coming off a season that, despite being meticulously crafted on a script and character level, had frustrated a portion of “A Song of Ice and Fire” fans for its relative lack of spectacle. The show has also spent much of its existence fighting its own adaptation discourse, most notably from author George R.R. Martin, who has publicly expressed frustration with the way “Fire & Blood” has been translated to screen.
Then HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms came along and reminded the world just how exciting Westeros can still be. Its overwhelmingly positive reception (including Emmy nominations) made the long-awaited third season of House of the Dragon feel almost like a test. Where A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms found that magic in the smallest corners of Westeros, House of the Dragon returns to the sprawling, violent, politically complicated world that made this universe famous in the first place. Season 3 proves that scale can still work when there is something meaningful underneath it.
It is no surprise that the season opens with the Battle of the Gullet, one of the fandom’s most anticipated events in Targaryen history. After a season that frequently prioritized interpersonal conflict and quieter character study over large-scale warfare, the series wastes little time reminding audiences what its dragons are capable of. It is huge, terrifying at times, drenched in salty sea water and so Game of Thrones coded at its core. It’s even complete with the kind of devastating character death that has become synonymous with this universe; what ultimately makes this season work is that it never allows spectacle to become the only reason to watch.
In fact, some of the best television comes when the dragons stay in the cages. Episode Three, centered around Rhaenyra Targaryen’s (Emma D’Arcy) first days on the throne, is perhaps the clearest example. It is one of the strangest and most experimental episodes this universe has ever produced, filled with unnerving close-ups and tracking shots that make halls of the Red Keep feel as familiar as one’s own home. And beneath all of the interesting technical tricks, there is an intimate portrayal of Rhaenyra’s worst anxieties. She is finally sitting where she has spent her entire life believing she belongs, yet nothing will go her way.
“I must justify my father’s faith in me.” That idea hangs over D’Arcy’s performance throughout the entire season. House of the Dragon has always been a story about Rhaenyra: Rhaenyra and her father, Rhaenyra and Alicent (Olivia Cooke), Rhaenyra and Daemon (Matt Smith), Rhaenyra and the prophecy she inherited. This season finally allows D’Arcy to take that idea and completely run with it. There are moments here that feel like career-best work, particularly as Rhaenyra grieves her firstborn son.
The show is also asking something very difficult of its audience this season: to watch someone we have spent years rooting for become increasingly cruel. Rhaenyra’s transformation is not presented as a simple descent into complete villainy. She is responding to loss, political pressure, betrayal, and the impossible expectations placed upon her since birth. But the line between justice and vengeance begins to blur, and even her attempts to champion the smallfolk are complicated by the harsh reality of having to rule them. Rhaenyra wants to position herself as a queen of the people, but the mechanisms of power are difficult to escape.
That tension is central to what House of the Dragon has always done best. This is a story about what happens when a society built around the belief that men are inherently more suited to rule refuses to accept a woman as its equal. Sexism is not simply an individual flaw in Westeros. It is embedded into the institutions and traditions of the world, so much so that it eventually manifests as mass violence. It is hard not to recognize something familiar in that.
One of the season’s most painful moments comes early on, when Jacaerys Velaryon (Harry Collett) attempts to confine his own mother in the name of protecting her. Rhaenyra is forced to confront that even the men she raised, the ones shaped by her values and love, are not immune to the misogyny embedded in the society around them. She cannot simply become queen and expect the world that surrounds her to change with her. The structures are deeper than any individual.
And then she loses Jace. The realization that even the people closest to her cannot escape the structures she has spent her life fighting against becomes separable from the loss of her son. For Rhaenyra, the consequences of that world are no longer theoretical.
Matt Smith remains nearly impossible to look away from as Daemon Targaryen. There is an addictiveness to watching him exist in this world, particularly as his relationship with Rhaenyra becomes increasingly complicated. It’s a lot of fun to watch his jealous clashes with Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) over Rhaenyra’s trust, but what makes his arc this season compelling is the growing tenderness he shows toward his family and Rhaenyra’s cause. The much-maligned journey he took in Season 2 has clearly changed him, particularly in the tenderness he shows toward Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), and it is genuinely satisfying to watch a character once defined by impulsiveness begin to understand what it means to protect the people he loves.
The show is just as compelling when it turns its attention to the people standing across the battlefield. Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney), once so easy to hate, is given a surprising degree of empathy this season. His humiliation, physical deterioration, and growing awareness of his own failures make him a far more complicated figure than the villain audiences may have initially understood him to be.
Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) is given even more to explore this season, particularly in the penultimate and finale episodes. Saban has completely transformed what could have easily become a stock “strange girl” character into something sincere and tragically beautiful. Her depiction of Helaena as a “dragon dreamer” (Targaryens who experience prophetic dreams) is brought to life through otherworldly vision sequences that stand out as some of the best-looking cinematography of the entire series.
James Norton brings tremendous life to Ormund Hightower, a character who could have easily felt secondary on the page. Norton makes him immediately compelling, and watching the Greens navigate their own increasingly complicated internal politics is one of this season’s great pleasures. I want to hate these people. Sometimes I absolutely do, but I also cannot look away from them. The costumes, the performances, the tense conversations inside the beautifully constructed spaces of King’s Landing – it all remains incredibly watchable.
There are certainly places where the season struggles or slows down. The extended stretches at Harrenhal, particularly surrounding Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) and Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin), can make the larger story feel like it has come to a complete stop. There is eventually a payoff to this material, but getting there can feel laborious. The show is at its best when its many pieces are colliding, not when they are waiting patiently in separate rooms for the plot to catch up.
But when those pieces finally collide, House of the Dragon remains capable of producing television on an extraordinary scale. The major dragon sequence involving Rhaenyra, Daemon, Rhaena and their dragons in Episode Seven is perhaps my favorite of the entire series. There is an insanely frantic energy to it, with so many competing character dynamics unfolding simultaneously that you genuinely barely know where to look.
The same is true of the finale’s depiction of the siege of Tumbleton. The sequence is undeniably reminiscent of other Game of Thrones battles, but that does not make it any less effective. What makes the sequence work, though, is how little it romanticizes that destruction. The show understands that the dragons may be the most spectacular weapons in this world, but the people beneath them are the ones who suffer most from their use.
After all the discourse surrounding Westeros television, House of the Dragon Season 3 feels like a vindication of what this universe can still be. It does not need to be Game of Thrones. It does not need to perfectly recreate “Fire & Blood.” It simply needs to understand why these stories have endured.
The dragons may be the spectacle, but the people underneath them are what make the story worth telling. The creators know where this is going, and so do we. Season 3 is building toward something even larger, and, if the source material is any indication, considerably sadder. The reported fourth and final season now carries an enormous responsibility. But for the first time in a while, that responsibility feels exciting rather than daunting.
Review Courtesy of Jake Fittipaldi
Feature Image Credit to HBO