Simon’s Incoherent Blog

House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 5 – Unbowed and Unbent

“There is good in Rhaenyra. But the crown is a weight that crushes.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

If you’re one of those fans who wishes the plot of House of the Dragon would just get on with it, this episode was probably immensely frustrating. Focusing as it does principally on character rather, it was an hour of people sitting down and soul searching, usually in two handed scenes, during which the overall plot advanced by maybe a couple of inches. But these are good characters, and I’d guess showrunner Ryan Condal is banking on viewers being invested enough in them by now to be gripped by an episode that focuses almost entirely on enlarging them.

House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 4 – Tumbleton

“He dares me to rain fire down on a seat that raised my banner. And the realm would name me ‘Maegor Returned’. They’d rise up against me, and the same gods who delivered me to the throne would rightly cast me down.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After a fairly eventful first three episodes, this week sees House of the Dragon settle back into the more… sedate pace for which it’s become known. That figures, what with this originally having been planned as the second episode of the season, where traditionally the political wrangling holds sway. And so it does here. If you’d been hoping that Ormund Hightower’s surprise seizing of the town of Tumbleton would lead to another Great Big Battle, you’d have been disappointed (so far).

House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 3 – Rhaenyra Triumphant

“The air is thick with ghosts.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

As expected after the shuffling of episodes between seasons, this week’s House of the Dragon came across very like a season opener, complete with a rather unusual (for this show) pre-credits scene. Rhaenyra has successfully taken King’s Landing. She sits on the Iron Throne. She has everything she ever wanted. And this week showed that, like so many conquerors before her, she’s finding actually running a kingdom even harder work than conquering it.

House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 2 – Queen’s Landing

“The boys who clung to me, who hid their little faces in my skirts – dead, so that I might sit on a throne of swords.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

It’s been a busy week, so I’m just now getting on to catching up with House of the Dragon – the very day the next episode goes out!

Continuing straight on from last week’s epic battle, this ep opens with a striking shot of its conclusion from below the waves; dragonfire flying everywhere, debris and bodies floating in the sea. But the battle’s nearly over – who has survived, and who has been horribly killed?

House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 1 – Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood

“We will all become beasts before our end.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

It’s been early two years since last we caught up with the ever-quarrelling Targaryen factions of House of the Dragon; and in the interim, its attempt to recreate the vibe of the original Game of Thrones has been challenged by the less complex (and more fun) Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Can the more dour original spinoff still compete?

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Season 1, Episode 6 – The Morrow

“Every day, at evenfall, Ser Arlan would say, ‘I wonder what the morrow will bring…”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

As expected, it was a reflective final ep of the first season of A Knight of the Seven (or is it Nine?) Kingdoms. Well, the day after the end of a big festival (which this medieval tournament was pretty much shown to be) is always a time for coming down from all the excitement and taking stock. The more so for this one, which has, after all, seen the death of the heir to the Iron Throne defending a lowly hedge knight.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Season 1, Episode 5 – In the Name of the Mother

“Get up! Get up, ser!”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Get up. Those two words echoed again and again through this week’s thrilling instalment of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, taking on a range of meanings from the despairing, to the inspiring. As I predicted last week, this was an incredibly violent episode. But, although I have now taken the opportunity to read all the books, even I wasn’t prepared for just how violent it would look onscreen.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Season 1, Episode 4 – Seven

“Oak and iron, guard me well,
Or else I’m dead, and doomed to Hell.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After last week’s soap opera-like game-changing revelation, it was, perforce, a more serious tone in this week’s Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Dunk is languishing in a gloomy dungeon (though judging by the pouring rain outside, the Targaryens may have done him a favour there), while Egg’s Big Secret is out, and he’s had to go back to the less than welcoming arms of his family. Is this the end for our heroic buddies?

Hamnet (2025)

“To be, or not to be…”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

It’s my annual season for checking out the Oscar nominated movies before the ceremony. I never get through all of them, but I often encounter interesting films I wouldn’t otherwise have seen – this year, I was particularly impressed with Sirât, the Spanish movie in which a bunch of hippies in a pair of ancient Mercedes camper vans unwisely take on the punishing Moroccan desert in search of a rave. And of course I’d already seen Del Toro’s Frankenstein, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, and Ryan Coogler’s phenomenal Sinners – great movies all.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Season 1, Episode 3 – The Squire

“Ser Duncan only has us. And if he loses, he won’t even have that.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

It wouldn’t be Westeros without some political intrigue, backstabbing and skulduggery; and after two relatively sedate instalments, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms this week saw all these reliable staples trotted out. On a smaller scale than usual, admittedly – this is a lighthearted comic romp, so we’re not looking at the fates of kingdoms being decided by the deaths of thousands here. Just some infighting and dishonesty at a medieval tournament that Dunk still naively believes will be fought according to the rules of chivalry.