House of the Dragon, Episode 3

 Just like last time, this post will spoil this episode. A companion post will spoil subsequent episodes.

I was promised partial nudity in the advisory label at the beginning. Didn't see any. False advertising, I say. (Apparently the artwork in the scene where Alicent and Viserys have a heart-to-heart depicts an orgy. I was distracted by the King's missing fingers.)

The plot has jumped forward again to Prince Aegon's second name day. Who's Prince Aegon? Well if you read the books you'd know he's the firstborn son of King Viserys and Queen Alicent, who have gotten married and popped out a kid between episodes. What's a name day? Well if you read the books you'd know it's GRRM's pretentious way of saying "birthday" and, along with "mislike," "nuncle," "little and less," and "much and more," forms the basis for several drinking games of ice and fire.

Barging right into our political intrigue story comes the King's random prophetic dreams. This wasn't in Game of Thrones, it's different, why are they doing this? Mayhaps (that's "maybe" to you normal people with lives to live) because they know that Throne of Games's stupid final season sucked and so they're doing things differently, he said, completely failing to keep a straight face. They've recycled the damn title music, fer Chrissakes. 

What's with all those sigils in the title sequence? Well if you read the books...

Okay so the main bits of this episode are:

• A rift has grown between the King and Rhaenyra because she thinks she's being replaced as heir by her half-brother Aegon, and Viserys hasn't bothered to tell her otherwise.
• Speaking of rifts, Alicent is trying to be conciliatory towards Rhaenyra, but it's like talking to a brick wall. I think these two are never, ever, ever getting back together.
• Viserys is going on a hunt he pretty clearly doesn't want to be on because it's his son's name day. The Team Hightower courtiers (can I start calling them "the Greens" yet, or is that too much of a book spoiler?) are going on and on about how the white stag they're hunting is A Sign And Portent. But they don't get the white stag and have to settle for a brown one instead.
• Rhaenyra storms off in a huff and Ser Criston Cole chases after her. They save each other from a boar and pass up on their chance to kill the stag. Medieval armour being what it is, she probably had to help him get it off when they made camp... (Okay, that was a joke. Book-spoiler stepping in here to say that her relationship with Ser Criston is important enough that if there was any funny business, we would have seen it... probably...)
• I say "probably" because in the Stepstones, Daemon kills the Crabfeeder offscreen. To elaborate: Daemon gets really pissed off that his big brother is coming to help so he goes to the Crabfeeder's base of operations, pretends to surrender and offer up his sword, and then goes all John Wick on the pirates. He's overwhelmed anyway because they're trying to pretend that plot armor isn't a thing, but then Corlys Velaryon and his army shows up to help out. Daemon gets a second wind and chases the Crabfeeder into a cave and comes out with his corpse.

Starting with the last (and definitely least): in the 1,190 days between the last episode of Game of Thronef and the first episode of Houfe of the Dragon, apparently zero returning HotD directors bothered to take a remedial course in action scenes. It's a horrible mess, and this a problem that has plagued Thrones for quite some time. But now it's not even limited to hazy shakycam triple-espresso-edited scenes of two indeterminate armies running into each other, the confusion has bungled its way into the script. I can understand not being given enough time to identify the features of the dragon rider (I assume it's Laenor, which is great for them to have recast him and given his new actor exactly one scene prior to this, you fools), but all you had to do was insert one clumsy line of dialogue in the war council scene about how he rides a dragon, and that scene would be less confusing. If you'd read the books, you'd know that Laenor is a dragonrider, but the show never bothered to make that explicit.

Speaking of clumsy lines of dialogue, let's circle back to the beginning. What's wrong with putting up a title card that says "three years later" instead of trying to write in "Oh, gosh, it's Prince Aegon's second name day!" into whatever the first scene happens to be? Look, you've got a million silver-haired poofs with "ae" improbably shoehorned into their names, cut your audience some slack.

Rhaenyra and Alicent: it's ovah, baby! Even so, when Rhaenyra suggests that the heavily-preggers Alicent not travel in her "condition," yes it's a low blow, but it probably would be better for Alicent's health to stay home. So we can pretend that even through the veil of cattiness, Rhaenyra is still looking out for her friend. For now.

The hunt: We meet Lord(?) Jason Lannister and his brother Ser Tyland. Played by the same actor and the special effects are working (here, at least; the CGI Velaryon army looks like trash). Viserys is so not interested in the proceedings. We don't meet Ser Harwin Strong, which is baffling, but I suppose there might be a reason for that. See the book post.

Rhaenyra and Ser Criston: so, she went all beast mode on the boar, huh? Wonder if that turned him on or turned him off. That said, I didn't really see any sign of their relationship developing over the last three years - this could have been their first normal conversation, for all I know. 

And that brings me to the point. This is an episode that I'm not sure needed to exist. There's a bit about Rhaenyra feeling out of place and uncertain as to whether she's still the heir (because apparently she never talked to her father in the last 3 years). Dipping slightly into the book, not a lot of this has any basis in the text, so the showrunners are just making chunks of it up. Combine that with the Thrones-esque (by which I mean badly directed) finale, and this is the first episode to make me nervous about the future quality of the show.

Okay, let's talk about something that worked. In among all the court politicking about who Rhaenyra should marry, Lord Lyonel Strong (currently the Master of Laws) advises the King that Rhaenyra should marry... not his own son Harwin "Breakbones" Strong (who was, for some reason not introduced in this episode even though his other son Larys "Clubfoot" Strong was) Laenor Velaryon. Finally, the King is getting advice from a courtier who's not trying to put his own House's interests before the Realm's.

I do have one redeeming thing to say about the Stepstones bit, but alas that is a massive spoiler for probably the next episode, so you can find that in the book post if you're so inclined. Let's just say that that scene is going to have a massive payoff in Episode 4... and another massive payoff much later in the show. Daemon continues to be my favorite character. I said in an earlier post (I think it was a book-spoiler one) that when you come back and rewatch it, all of Daemon's actions are in keeping with his character even if they seem out of place at the moment. I was momentarily surprised when he beat on the messenger, but then thought "yeah, actually he'd do that."

The weird bizarre focus on the Crabfeeder was entirely unjustified. He exists to get knocked off by Daemon, and that's what's happened. Good riddance.

By the way, here is the entirety of my book-spoiler prediction for this episode:

"Second of His Name" (September 4th, 2022) (guessing 114 AC) - Alicent's first son is born.

Well, wrong. It was 115 and her son was born in 113. So way to get everything wrong. 

The "HotD Spoiler-Free" tag will limit discussion to the aired episodes. The "Fire and Blood" tag on the companion posts will happily spoil everything in the book.