You\u2019d think that with House Of The Dragon trimming its later seasons to a svelte eight episodes, there\u2019d be little time to tarry with the Dance of the Dragons underway. Yet after its blistering first two installments\u2014episodes clearly meant to conclude last season\u2014season three has settled into the character- and lore-saturated rhythms that so often slow this fiery dance to a shuffle. Is HOTD ever going to get to the fireworks factory? No doubt, and with pressure-cooker episodes as thorny as this, I\u2019m fine with the longer fuse\u2014though viewers who don\u2019t savor every lore dump and weirdo Green Man sighting may find their patience beginning to wane at this late hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Restlessness has plagued HOTD almost from the start. The series rushes from one chatty, plot-bearing scene to the next, repositioning its cyvasse pieces for the next big dramatic move. Yet the journey to these series-defining moments can sometimes feel oddly interminable. To its credit, this season has been more adept at infusing even its most transitional episodes with spirited humor, violence, and eccentricity. But with so much of George R.R. Martin\u2019s histories yet to dramatize before Ryan Condal\u2019s self-imposed season four finish line<\/a>, it\u2019s hard not to feel the series is trapped in another mid-season cycle of hurry up and wait. This scramble to nowhere fast is acutely felt this week, with its most affecting sequence occurring before the episode even has a chance to begin: the death of Ser Criston Cole, a moment that so poetically distills this season\u2019s fascination with inevitability and doom that it nearly overcomes this week\u2019s subsequent inertia.<\/p>\n Nearly, but not quite. The realm squirms as Queen Rhaenyra\u2019s reign settles into its new normal.<\/a> Civil war has destroyed trade routes, burned crops, and left the people starving and penniless; Rhae is running out of both tallow and time. Lord Ormund Hightower\u2019s murderous treasons have revealed how fragile her rule truly is, with Prince Daemon\u2019s City Watch exposing their yellow streaks and surrendering their matching cloaks. Maybe Ormund shouldn\u2019t have gone to the trouble; Rhae\u2019s doing a fine job of fumbling the Iron Throne on her own, foisting blame for her myopic failures onto others. More strikingly, she seems to have grown numb to the suffering around her, telling her subjects she\u2019ll light a candle for a kidnapped young septa presumed dead. It\u2019s a character shift that contrasts so harshly with the Rhaenyra Targaryen HOTD has spent seasons establishing<\/a> that the Iron Throne seems to stir beneath her, drawing blood in protest. If the gods are good, that should rouse her from this apathy.<\/p>\n Everyone is up against the wall this week. Outside Tumbleton, Sers Ulf and Hugh chafe under their assignment patrolling the perimeter while their assumed rewards remain maddeningly out of reach. \u201cI can\u2019t say my life has been improved,\u201d Ulf says. \u201cCan you?\u201d Indeed, Hugh can\u2019t, and soon he\u2019s in disguise, infiltrating the market town to retrieve his wife, Kat. It isn\u2019t the first time he\u2019s pummeled his way through the smallfolk for his family, though it might be the last: Kat\u2019s loud rejection of Hugh and his dragonrider glory heightens this week\u2019s atmosphere of mounting desperation, leaving the Hammer stranded in enemy territory, having risked his life and the queen\u2019s strategic advantage just to grasp how he\u2019s squandered everything that matters to him. As messy as Hugh\u2019s situation is, it pales to the luncheon in Ormund\u2019s chambers further into the city, where assassins in Baratheon garb arrive to slay him and Daeron. Gwayne spots the deception first\u2014the Baratheon envoy was supposedly more \u201ccomely\u201d than was presented\u2014and inserts himself between the men, with Bold Jon Roxton following suit. Blood is spilled, and Ormund, objecting to the sudden presence of human innards, promptly decorates the room with his elegant lunch.\u00a0<\/p>\n Though the noose tightens around the Seven Kingdoms, not all the threads are pulling taut. In the Vale, Rhaena spots Moondancer on the horizon, and in her yearning for family, she breaks her agreement with Lady Jeyne by making her presence known. \u201c[I have a dragon], but I have lost everything else.\u201d It\u2019s a poignant sentiment with curious timing: just two episodes ago<\/a>, Rhaena seemed content with her exile. This mercurial shift underscores House Of The Dragon\u2019s Rhaena problem: by merging and then pruning the arcs of Rhaena and the girl Nettles from Fire & Blood, HOTD has produced the weakest plot thread in the series. Her longing for home is resonant and sad, and it dovetails neatly with this week\u2019s broader theme of abandonment. But her chaotic life choices come off as plot necessities, which lead her into narrative cul-de-sacs like the one she now finds herself. \u201cThe next time you try me will be your last,\u201d Lady Jeyne warns her. Fair enough. But are dragonriders afraid of flying from the Moon Door? A question for the philosophers, perhaps.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in the Red Keep, Alyn of Hull continues to wrestle with his own yearning: to be seen by his father. He pleads Rhaenyra\u2019s case to Corlys amid the Sea Snake\u2019s successful campaign against the remnants of the Triarchy. While Corlys retreats to his familiar refuge of duty, he does not leave his son entirely empty-handed: reports from captured pirates suggest that Tyland Lannister still lives and has fled to Rook\u2019s Rest. It\u2019s a meaningful gesture, evidence that Corlys is finally emerging from his calcified shell of resentment\u2014but this gradual pivot from spite to duty comes too late, and Lord Ormund makes good on his sneak attack. There\u2019s a lesson to be gleaned from that, Lord Velaryon, should you live to learn it.<\/p>\n