by Miller C. Lashbrook
House of the Dragon delivers, in my humble opinion, its best episode yet with writing and direction at the level of the best of Game of Thrones. This episode has it all: dragons, family drama, medieval symbolism, and ACTION. If the first two episodes did not have your attention, watch this episode and I am sure you will be hooked.
SPOILERS AHEAD
This episode has had the best action sequence yet with Daemon versus the Crab Feeder. I am sure that some will critize this action scene for not showing more of what the Crab Feeder is capable of, but with the focus on Daemon it made the scene tense.
I think the biggest issue I have seen some have online with this episode is the time jump at the start. In this episode we jump around three years in the future to the second birthday of the new prince, Aegon. Some online have said that it feels like we are missing too much time, but if this show is in fact one that is focusing on the lineage, rather than characters, it makes sense that we will have to skip years sometimes.
My favorite part of the episode is the hunt in the Kingswood, this and the Tourney in the first episode both reminded me of the kind of king that Robert Baratheon was in season one of Game of Thrones. The importance of the White Stag as a symbol in legends and folklore cannot be understated. I loved that Viserys was reading into the symbolism just as much as I was. The White Stag is seen as a symbol of good and royalty, so if they found it on Aegon’s name day, it might mean that he was meant to be king, but the stag that was found was just a brown one.
I am so glad to have this franchise back and firing on all cylinders again.
5/5 Dragon Eggs 🥚
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