One character was raring to end his time on House of the Dragon last week. He looked around at all the carnage, saw that he was the only one left really fighting for anything, and decided that he would spend his every breath waging war on fate itself.
“I have been a servant all my life,” Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) told his sidekick, Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox). “I have defined myself by oaths, through unyielding devotion, and the highborn have made much of me while it pleased them to do so. But I will not let them dimmish me now… I am the realm’s greatest warrior, and I will die as such.”
I can’t blame him, even though these on-the-ground moments below a war of dragons in the sky were antithetically some of the best moments of season 3 so far. The deposed King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Larys Strong’s (Matthew Needham) quippy dynamic out on the road provided the humor that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms used to its advantage this past spring. It’s also the closest this series has gotten yet to Game of Thrones’s journey following Arya and the Hound around non-castle Westeros. Same goes for Cole. When the “real plot” of House of the Dragon came to a screeching halt after episode 3, the few scenes in which Cole was able to reckon with his diminishing place in the war’s grand narrative were another potential gold mine for emotional storytelling.
That all ends in episode 6. Within the first eight or so minutes, Ser Criston Cole dies by arrow fire after attempting to fight a losing battle. The scene plays out exactly as it’s described in George R. R. Martin’s novel, Fire & Blood. Cole arrives at a field of dead soldiers only to find that he’s been tricked. The men were simply playing dead, and they jump his army after luring them in. Then, after attempting to surrender and bargain for his men’s lives, they’re all slaughtered by Oscar Tully (Archie Barnes) and Roderick Dustin’s (Tommy Flanagan) party in what’s dubbed “The Butcher’s Ball.”
The rest of the episode feels a bit like how Cole felt near the end, watching the story play out before him and realizing that he can’t do anything more to change its course. It’s as he says at the end of episode 5, knowing that he’s about to die the second episode 6 begins: “It will be glorious… And not in their service, finally. But in my own.”
For what it’s worth, Cole does kill roughly two dozen men before his end. His fights include some of the best flail-slinging I’ve ever seen. I mean, how often do you even get to see someone fighting with a flail?
Tully’s great line here—”I made a promise to the dead, Cole. I told them I would build a sept for them out of traitors’ bones, and I don’t have near enough bones yet.”—is also taken directly from the source material. But the Butcher’s Ball’s placement so early in the episode leaves a little to be desired. The arrows are flung by an actress whom I cannot remember having a single spoken line before this moment. (And she still doesn’t.) Worse, the episode doesn’t return to any of these characters or the impact of Cole’s death again. For a character so certain that they would “sing songs” of his campaign, House of the Dragon doesn’t even bother to have anyone react to his departure. Maybe this should’ve taken place at the end of episode 5—immediately following his declaration to die fighting.
What is happening here?
”We Cannot Light Our Sconces!”
The majority of episode 6 continues to follow the same plot threads that have dragged season 3 along. Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Daemon (Matt Smith) continue to lose their grip on King’s Landing after attempting to run a bankrupt kingdom. Rhaenyra has defunded the police, basically, because she can no longer afford to pay them, even though Daemon complains that the streets are full of criminals and assassins.
Sadly, the real-world conservative talking point is true in House of the Dragon, thanks to Ormund Hightower’s (James Norton) supporters wreaking havoc on the city’s watchmen. Still, it’s also undeniably strange that season 3 has immediately taken us here following the highs of Rhaenyra taking King’s Landing. Now, the Iron Throne pricks her fingers as she hears out laughable complaints from her citizens: “Tallow is scarce! We cannot light our sconces!”
Season 3 is also spending an awful amount of time with Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Helaena (Phia Saban), even though they’ve been prisoners of war with nothing to do for the past four episodes. Rhaenyra learns two important pieces of information this episode, however: Helaena is pregnant and she had a vision of Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) at Harrenhal. Rhaenyra devises a scheme to send Alicent as a double agent, and Alicent responds with the same face she’s made all season so far: wide-eyed horror.
Aemond, still out of commission at Harrenhal, begins his affair with Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin). Before they embrace, she reveals that she’s in possession of five dragon eggs. (Are they for real?!)
Baela (Bethany Antonia) and Alyn (Abubakar Salim) reportedly fly around Westeros occasionally to search for him, but they can’t be looking too well if they haven’t even thought to check Harrenhal yet. Baela hasn’t even discovered that her sister Rhaena rides Sheapstealer yet. And, clearly, it seems kissing is more in their interest. Just don’t bring up that Alyn is basically her uncle.
King Aegon II is also still up and about in the woods. Larys plans to sail east and hide out in Essos, but newcomer Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) suggests camping out at his house in Casterly Rock. Aegon II tests his honesty. “Do you think I’m a terrible man?” the former king asks. Tyland says, “There is, in any one of us, I venture, much to admire and much to be deplored.” It’s a cowardly nonanswer. So, “we sail for Essos, then,” Aegon II decides.
It’s about time Ormund planned his next move.
Who Wants to Be King, Anyway?
At Tumbleton, Gwayne rejoins his uncle and rejects helping his nephew, Daeron (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth)—whom Ormund has brandished as the true king of Westeros. “I hate what I am when I’m with him: a puppet, a fool, a child,” Daeron says. “I will never be king.” Later, they survive an assassination attempt from Rhaenyra after Gwayne realizes that a Baratheon convoy is not who they say they are. The men were not “comely” and they had slightly different shades of hair than the Baratheons, Gwayne reveals. I don’t know if that was enough to start stabbing them, but he was right anyway.
Meanwhile, Hugh (Kieran Bew) fails to win his wife back after abandoning her to claim a dragon. His buddy Ulf (Tom Bennett) is also having a rough time. Rhaenyra banned him from his one true love: drinking himself drunk in the town’s taverns. “Not one ale with the lads!” he complains. Later, when he disobeys her order again, Daemon slaps him to the ground outside of the tavern. I’ll just say this: It’s not a great way to treat dragonriders on your side of the dragon war.
Elsewhere, we catch up with Corlys (Steve Toussaint). He’s still pouting about Rhaenyra’s choice to not name his bastard sons true Velaryons. “You take her side, when she yet refuses to grant you legitimacy?” Corlys asks his son, Alyn. He responds with a killer line: “And how many years did it take you to do the same?” Ouch! But well deserved. Get your act together, Corlys.
This week’s cliffhanger? Corlys is captured by Ormund’s right-hand muscle: Bold Jon Roxton (Joplin Sibtain). This is a big departure from the source material, so I can’t say I’m not intrigued. Alicent’s mission to Harrenhal is also new territory, as is Gwayne’s presence in Tumbleton. But with only two more episodes to go in season 3, I’m not sure what time is left for House of the Dragon to make of it.
Really, I just wish Cole’s death meant more to the other characters this episode. Or, if it didn’t, that we touched on how they felt at all. Love him or hate him, Cole’s story had been an integral part of this show since the beginning. Now? It’s tougher to tell who, or what, House of the Dragon believes deserves the spotlight.
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