Spoiler alert: this recap is for individuals watching Home of the Dragon. Don't learn on until you've gotten watched episode three.
‘The crabs will quickly dine on all of us!’
Someplace within the center seasons of Recreation of Thrones, a sample was established. The vast majority of any given episode – the primary two-thirds, maybe three-quarters – could be all chat; plot-heavy political manoeuvrings and character work. Then someplace in the direction of the tip, hell would all of a sudden break unfastened: sudden stabbings, royal poisonings, the lopping of limbs. By the ultimate collection this sample was damaged – violence may erupt at any time, and did. However for some time, the system labored.
Home of the Dragon’s third episode takes this format and units it in stone. You possibly can nearly set your watch by it: for the primary 45 minutes, the viewer could be forgiven for locating this all somewhat gradual. There’s pressure, certain, however not an entire lot of momentum. Then all of a sudden, within the last act – kaboom.
‘Hail Aegon, the conqueror babe!’
Once more, the episode begins with a quick second of pirate mayhem. Urged on by Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), the king’s estranged brother Prince Daemon (Matt Smith) has flown right down to the Stepstones on a mission to wipe out the pirate scourge afflicting these islands. You’d suppose one full-grown dragon and a military of Velaryon warriors could be sufficient to deal with just a few measly pirates – however their chief, Prince Drahar, AKA the Crabfeeder (Daniel Scott-Smith), has highly effective backers, and the struggle isn’t going effectively for our courageous Westerosi lads. It doesn’t assist that Daemon’s dragon, Caraxes, doesn’t appear to distinguish between one aspect and the opposite.
However we’ve barely discovered our sea-legs when it’s again to the Pink Hold, the place there’s been one other time-jump. Three years have handed since King Viserys (Paddy Considine) married his teenage bride Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey), and in that point she’s given him one bouncing child boy and is already pregnant for a second time. Not that it appears to have cheered Viserys up a lot: he’s nonetheless brooding over the lack of his first spouse and the betrayal of his brother Daemon, and customarily discovering the tasks of kingship a heavy weight to bear.
He's additionally, relatively sweetly, proving reluctant to disempower his daughter Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) by changing her as his inheritor along with her new child brother Aegon (named, after all, for the primary Targaryen conqueror) – regardless that that’s precisely what the complete institutional patriarchy of the Seven Kingdoms is begging him to do. The place they take a look at Rhaenyra and see a weak feminine unfit to take a seat on the throne, Viserys sees a worthy successor; daring, headstrong and with a dragon of her personal. The lords have pledged her their allegiance – they didn’t have a lot selection after Daemon went rogue. However now there’s one other contender, and that allegiance is wavering.
‘I swear to you now, in your mom’s reminiscence, you'll not be supplanted’
Each Considine and Alcock do nice work on this episode. For these of us who nervous that Paddy – one in every of our most riveting actors, as anybody who has seen Useless Man’s Sneakers can attest – was going to be constrained by the costume, the pomp, the sheer browbeaten reluctance of his character, this episode provides us hope. He’s pensive, however there’s a brooding anger boiling beneath it, a simmering frustration that should certainly break unfastened.
Alcock, in the meantime, does a superb job of embodying a lady who’s dying to interrupt out of the entice she was born into: she desires to roam free by the Kingswood, flirting with hunky swordsmen and stabbing pigs to loss of life. As an alternative she’s compelled to make small speak with tedious suitors akin to Lord Jason Lannister (Jefferson Corridor), a rich bore who received’t shut up concerning the dimension of his citadel. Satisfied that her father is on the point of disinherit her, she’s painfully accustomed to her obligation as a princess however nonetheless determined to interrupt out and be her personal particular person.
This prolonged first a part of the episode matches the claustrophobia and dourness of the primary two instalments: nobody in addition to child Aegon appears able to cracking a smile, and regardless of a looking expedition to the leafy Kingswood nearly all of these conversations happen inside the confines of the royal camp, as Viserys loiters inside tents and drinks himself to distraction. Then lastly, his temper begins to interrupt: after a heart-to-heart with Alicent he tries a spot of precise ruling, dispatching a fleet of ships to the help of his brother and Lord Corlys, and sending a platoon of messengers forward to ship the excellent news.
‘Present me the knight who will march into that hell pit and I'll present you a madman’
Whereas the phrase “don’t shoot the messenger” is probably not widespread parlance in Westeros, certainly “don’t batter the messenger to bloody loss of life with your personal helmet” must go with out saying? However, that’s precisely the remedy meted out by a livid Daemon, who expresses his rage at his brother’s patronising provide of assist in no unsure phrases. However first, we’re handled to a very attractive pull-back shot, shifting from burning ships off the island of Bloodstone to a hilltop the place Lord Corlys and his band of brethren are discussing what to do concerning the Crabfeeder, who's holed up within the caves beneath and refuses to be winkled out.
Because it seems, the answer is easy: ship Matt Smith. Backed right into a nook by his brother’s provide, Daemon decides to make use of himself as bait, rowing throughout the straits and providing himself as much as the Crabfeeder seemingly unarmed. Cue the primary correct, full-bore motion sequence of the collection, as Daemon whips out a hidden blade and cuts by the Crabster’s minions like a Valyrian metal blade by butter whereas the dragon Seasmoke, ridden by Laenor Velaryon, takes out their archers along with his fiery breath and Lord Corlys leads his troops to care for the stragglers. It solely stays for Daemon to pursue Prince Drahar into the caves and drag him out to face justice – effectively, a few of him, anyway. Farewell Crabby, we hardly knew ye.
Extra notes
How will the Triarchy – that union of free cities which were bankrolling the Crabfeeder – react to the loss of life of their boy? Will the choice to dispatch his ships simply in the intervening time of Daemon’s triumph imply that Viserys will get embroiled within the struggle in spite of everything?
For all of the messy violence, the spotlight of the episode might need been the look on Considine’s face – and his horrified laughter – when Otto Hightower prompt marrying Rhaenyra to her personal two-year-old brother. Positive, the Targaryens have a historical past of marital incest to protect the bloodline, however Viserys’s expression prompt he’s not about to entertain that queasy prospect any time quickly.
It received’t have escaped anybody’s consideration that that different main fantasy collection, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Energy, made its streaming debut final week. My extremely esteemed and solely barely hobbity colleague Andy Welch will probably be recapping that one, so be sure you maintain abreast of all the newest from Center-earth proper right here.
Nudity depend
As soon as once more, not a sausage – or something resembling one.
Violence depend
Oh, sure. From stakes-through-hands to squashed-by-dragon, from flaming demise on the snout of a swooping Caraxes to howling loss of life on the blade of a rampaging Prince Daemon, the episode was high and tailed by carnage. And let’s not neglect that poor wild boar, stabbed repeatedly within the forest by Rhaenyra. Is she headed for Daenerys-like insanity, or do they simply need us to suppose she is?
Random Brit of the week
That houseproud dullard Jason Lannister will, it seems, be reincarnated in Westeros about 200 years therefore: TV and movie veteran Jefferson Corridor performed a notable position within the very first collection of Recreation of Thrones as Ser Hugh of the Vale, the squire suspected of feeding poison to his grasp, Hand of the King John Arryn. (It needs to be famous that GoT has kind on this division – bear in mind when The Actor Kevin Eldon popped up as two fully completely different characters?)
Ser Hugh solely lasted two episodes earlier than being suspiciously and horrifically knocked off by The Mountain throughout a joust, however it could possibly be convincingly argued that he was really liable for the complete, seven-season mess that adopted. Will Lord Jason have the identical devastating affect?
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