Full spoilers follow for House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 6.
Farewell, Criston Cole, we hardly knew ye. Well, we enjoyed hating you in Season 1, mostly forgot you existed in Season 2 and have been reminded that you have some game this year, thanks to your adoption of both guerilla warfare and an air of gloomy resignation. Also, to give credit where it's due, thanks to a killer opening battle scene this time – and that was just the start of another really strong episode.
That opener, a battle called the Butcher's Ball, deserves real love: Criston (Fabien Frankel) and company walk into an ambush but outfight their opponents only to discover a second, larger trap springing around them. Cole proves that there’s more than one way to mace somebody and then, with the tiniest hint of nobility now, wraps Alicent’s (Olivia Cooke) token around his sword and offers to fight for his men's lives, but gets Boromir-ed instead – by Lady Alysanne Blackwood (Annie Shapero). That's a small change from the book, but a smart way of streamlining a few characters. It's also one less thing for Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) to worry about – though Cole achieved his aim of slowing her Rivermen’s arrival at Tumbleton by weeks.
The rest of the episode can be divided roughly in three. There are the intertwining stories of Rhaenyra and Alicent, the many concerns of various Dragonriders, and the endless scheming of James Norton’s Ormund and company.
First, Rhaenyra and Alicent. The queen is furious at her ex-bestie for trying to escape, so Alicent decides that honesty is the best policy and confesses that Helaena (Phia Saban) is pregnant, pointing out the threat this must pose. Rhaenyra recognises the dynastic danger but still acts offended that Alicent didn't trust her. That’s rich given that, by the end of the episode, she's asked her former stepmother to go kill her son, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell). Maybe she should get off her high horse. Helaena is also furious at her mother for lying about bringing her toddler daughter on their escape, and is refusing to eat, so Alicent has serious issues to negotiate there as well.
Things are tough for Rhaenyra too: her council is still ungovernable, her husband Daemon (Matt Smith) a maverick, and the smallfolk are complaining directly to her in audiences that she consistently mishandles. She has started to act, which is a step up from her passive father, but her political instincts are undeveloped and unreliable – and she makes one mistake here that could prove costly.
Meanwhile lots of dragonriders are suffering. Baela (Bethany Antonia) is still pushing herself to exhaustion, looking for Vhagar and redemption after the Gullet, though she finds time to snog Alyn (Abubakar Salim). That’s smart time management, since he’s really stepped up as a leader and counsellor, and is also a babe. Her sister Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) is still on the verge of madness in the Vale with her wild dragon Sheepstealer, surviving on scraps and running afoul of Lady Jeyne Arryn (Amanda Collin) for flying out in search of Baela. Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) is busy burying his murder victim from last week – or at least watching Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) do it for him, and still musing about the negative 360-performance review he received from his underling Larys (Matthew Needham). And Aemond is debating his next move in Harrenhal, unsure how far to trust Alys (Gayle Rankin) until he decides to tryst her instead. She counsels waiting, saying he’s hidden as long as Vhagar stays away – but she doesn’t know that Helaena’s visions have revealed his hiding place to Rhaenyra.
Ulf (Tom Bennett) is increasingly miserable about his long days on watch at Tumbleton and being confined to the Red Keep when in King’s Landing; Daemon finds him wandering the city and sharply orders him back into confinement. And Hugh (Kieran Bew) mugs a farmer for his clothes and cart in order to visit his wife (Ellora Torchia) in Tumbleton, who offers an ice cold welcome where he expected open arms. As she sees it, he abandoned her to search for his own glory; he says he thought only to assure their safety. They’re both a little bit right, and it’s heartbreaking. Finally, Daemon is stalking King’s Landing trying to track down the Gold Cloaks’ killers after his entire police force resigned. He succeeds in ambushing the ringleader we saw last time, but it does no good: they’re a hydra, and there’s always someone else to rise up. Ormund’s seeds of chaos are bearing great fruit in the capital.
And that brings us to the man himself, the Blofeld-ian author of all Rhaenyra’s pain – or at least the bits she hasn’t brought on herself – Lord Ormund Hightower. He’s lecturing Daeron (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) as usual with pearls of wisdom like, “The common man as a rule is of no interest or concern” and “Rhaenyra will not burn her own subjects. She is a woman. Squeamish.” (Is this the same guy who lectured Daeron on the formidable and distinctly un-squeamish Meria Martell last week?) He’s also withering and homophobic to Gwayne (Freddie Fox), one of the more straightforwardly likeable people in the show – though he apologises after Gwayne saves his life from a delegation of assassins that Rhaenyra dressed as Baratheon envoys. That was a dangerous move on her part: House Baratheon had been trying to sit the war out, and she may have forced them to pick Ormund’s side now that their House sigil has been so rudely abused.
Finally this week, Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), who had just gotten over his snit at Rhaenyra and decided to return to King’s Landing to help her, was ambushed and (presumably) taken prisoner by Ormund’s right-hand man, “Bold” Jon Roxton (Joplin Sibtain). We’re getting deep into uncharted territory right now, even for book readers. No spoilers, but in George R.R. Martin’s source novel Fire & Blood, Gwayne did not outlive the late Ser Luthor, while Corlys was never captured by the Greens. Ormund has proved a wildly effective strategist in a way that Rhaenyra simply is not, and it’s becoming clear that the civil war was far from over when she took back the Iron Throne. Its blades still cut her arms when she takes her seat, but that might soon be the least of her problems. As Ormund shares his plans with Gwayne at the end of the episode, it’s obvious that we’ve only seen a fraction of what he’s up to.
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