House of the Dragon 3x01 "Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood" review

 
    This review comes a little late due to the fact I wasn't actually sure I was going to review House of the Dragon season three. Season two was deeply disappointing due to the changes at HBO that resulted in the season being cut extra short when I felt a major flaw of the series was that it was already too truncated to fit in all of the events of George R.R. Martin's history.

    There was also the dust-up between Martin and Ryan Condal where the former said he didn't appreciate all of the changes that the latter was making to the series. For me, a guy who just wants a faithful adaptation of Martin's work, it is a big kick in the gullet.

    Nevertheless, I feel like with so much prestige television that there was a decided absence of high fantasy shows with the loss of Game of Thrones itself. So House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms are really the only places you can turn for the kind of political and magic based content I love. Certainly, Rings of Power proved to be an enormous disappointment and the cancellation of Wheel of Time was a crime against humanity.

    So, what did I think of the first episode of Season Three? I really liked it. I think that it may be the best episode of House of the Dragon period. That is less of a compliment than it might sound because it absolutely should have been one of the two final episodes of season two. That would have paid off on a lot of the plot hooks that had been established in the season as well as provided a satisfying climax that, nevertheless, would have left open the door for all of the possibilities of season three.

    The premise for the episode is the Battle of the Gullet, one of the seminal events of the Dance of the Dragons. The Triarchy comes to 'rescue' the forces of Aegon as Corlys Velaryon leads his armada to King's Landing in hopes of decapitating the enemy forces in a single strike. Unfortunately, the chief advantage of Rhaenyra is almost immediately negated by Jace turning against his mother due to his fear that this is a trap to eliminate her. He exercises his status as the oldest male of the house to lock her up and thus take her dragon out of the battle.

    I was not happy with the replacement of Nettles by Rhaena in the larger narrative. I thought she was a great character that didn't necessarily have to Targaryen blood to be a dragon rider. Rhaena is a decent character in her own right, though, as she finds her claiming of Sheepstealer is not the immediate victory she thought it would be. Sheepstealer is a wild dragon and with none of the training provided by previous generations or the Dragon Keepers, it means they are more of a liability than a success.

    The twists and turns of this episode were immense as was the number of deaths that shook up the narrative. It felt like quality Game of Thrones again and I give extremely high marks to the series for it. Death, betrayal, and consequence are one of the major reasons that the series was so successful. I'll miss some of the characters who died but the climaxes for their stories are satisfying in their own ways.

    In conclusion, this was an action-packed and extremely well done episode. The dragons are shown to be the wild, uncontrollable monsters that Viserys said when he gave his "illusion of control" speech. The politics are things that are finally making sense and don't have the characters acting wildly out of sorts. Jace's refusal to believe Alicent would betray her family is a reasonable reaction that worked perfectly in the story as a justification for his betrayal. The Kingsguard siding with him over his mother was also the first reminder in a while of Westeros' misogyny. Overall, a solid episode.

9/10