Following my muted reaction to episode 2, if House of the Dragon thought it could win me back with a glitzy cold open, then… it was absolutely right. The pre-credits sequence of this episode is a perfect table-setter. It’s also an equally perfect bookend with the episode’s final moments in which the “Daeron” in King’s Landing is revealed to be a fraud and Rhaenyra discovers that Lord Ormund’s forces have taken Tumbleton, a small market town in the Reach with no strategic value other than forcing the new queen to decide whether she should lay fiery siege to her subjects. The episode slyly dropping that Hugh’s wife absconded to Tumbleton in search of safety and food amid Aegon’s reign adds a layer of emotional resonance to the incoming decision. It also adds some dramatic tension for those familiar with the source material.

This is a consistently tense, thematically on point episode of House of the Dragon but it’s also a particularly funny one. I already made mention of Daemon’s hectoring Rhaenyra that she needs to kill a child, delivered with the same energy as if he were reminding her about a dentist’s appointment. But it really can’t be overstated just how vibrant and entertaining Daemon has become now that he’s away from his spooky misadventures in Harrenhal. Similarly funny is Rhaenyra immediately emerging from her overwhelmed fugue state to assert “Oh absolutely not” when Ulf proposes that he style himself as “Ulf Targaryen.” He settles for Ulf the White.

Even the sensitive issue of Corlys wanting Rhaenyra to legitimize his bastards takes on some comedic energy due to the show’s shrewd creative decision to cast Black actors for the Velaryon family. While House of the Dragon never needed complicated lore or storytelling justifications to change the race of some of its characters (at least not from me), the fact that Velaryons have a markedly different skin tone from Targaryens has paid real dramatic and comedic dividends in a world that relies on family inheritance for political legitimacy. When Corlys makes the stunning reveal to Rhaenyra that the two son-aged men who look very much like his sons are, in fact, his sons, she replies with a measured “I did not guess though I believe I see it now.” Well done, Rhae. He suspected nothing.

Moments like these affirm that House of the Dragon is at its best when it’s getting the little things right. But translating the bigger, more operatic moments remains a bit of a struggle. For, as satisfying as Corlys’ initial chat with Rhaenyra is, his swift and final repudiation of her when she doesn’t come through with what he wants is less effective.

“Your son Joffrey is a bastard. Your son, Lucerys, who I accepted as my heir, was a bastard. Your son Jacaerys lived and died a bastard,” Those are big, BIG words to say to any monarch. Notably the last Velaryon who said anything approaching that got his head cleaved in half. Yes, Rhaenyra is not quick to anger or as proficient with a sword as Daemon, but even factoring in her tenuous grasp on power at the moment a non-response doesn’t quite read as right.

Similarly ineffective is the episode’s biggest “setpiece” – the rat dinner fed to the nobles of King’s Landing. While both clever and visually striking, serving grilled rats to former Green supporters and raiding their storehouses rather than, you know, killing them goes beyond mere strategic miscalculation and straight into poor characterization.