House of the Dragon has been having a rough, lousy streak. The writing is stuck in circles, with characters verbally reiterating what is beleaguering and limiting them in almost every episode. A certain hammer-the-head quality often stalks the show. Women in Westeros, irrespective of rank, can be flung to the sidelines and are entirely at the mercy and whims of men. Male condescension and belittlement haunts both sides of the war. It’s the one thing that Rhaenyra ( Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent ( Olivia Cooke) have in common. While the former is repeatedly told by her small council that she doesn’t have the military wisdom and the training that men do in planning war tactics, the latter hits a more unfortunate corner, pushed gradually out of all vestiges of power by her own son, Aemond ( Ewan Mitchell).

In this episode written by David Hancock, Alicent takes a break from King’s Landing, where, as she says, she has served the realm all her life but now stands shorn, “cast out, hated”. It feels as if she can no longer keep up with the burden of witnessing everything falling apart; her own originary scheme lies all stomped over. There’s no one she can turn to. Even her father has abandoned her, leaving her to deal with the mess of something they had designed which has snowballed way out of hand. “ Nothing is clean here”, she asserts wistfully, as she sets off for Kingswood. She gets a breather and some sense of being unlatched from the stranglehold of power and authority which she so desperately sought to pursue for her sons but which ultimately drove a wedge between them. She tells her single accompanying guard she doesn’t know when she’ll be back in King’s Landing. The section serves well to illustrate her desire for release but the show does seem foggy in how it should deal with Alicent’s overwhelming purposelessness and powerlessness.

The other character in the show who has been hankering for the crown is, of course, Daemon ( Matt Smith), trapped in a lazy, painfully underlined and unforgivingly stretched-out series of hallucinations and guilt-stricken dreams at the Harrenhal castle. All his life, he has been grudging his brother’s ascension to the throne. He came to Harrenhal seemingly to swivel men and might of the Riverlands to Rhaenyra’s fealty. However, he’s swayed by his own thirst for power and insists to be called King and not King-consort. It takes the teenager, Oscar Tully ( Archie Barnes) , the freshly minted Lord of Riverrun, to really leave Daemon’s ego in shambles. Oscar reminds him how Daemon had undermined and dismissed him. Now Daemon needs Oscar so as to rally all of the Riverlands behind their oath to Viserys and ensure his wish of seeing Rhaenyra ascend the throne. 

Archie Barnes truly shines as a lord who’s well-aware most might not take him seriously for his young age but proves he knows how to stay in command, by making Daemon pay for his crimes. Once again, Daemon reckons with his ever-mounting guilt as he beheads the man who simply carried out his order. Nevertheless, this strand ends on a grating over-emphasised note, summoning Viserys ( Paddy Considine) yet again to literalise the price of the crown which Daemon has been so eager to seize. It’s painful to see the show being so insecure in relaying its ideas across, prodding us to the point of sheer exhaustion.

This episode is mostly a brilliant showcase for Team Black. Rhaenyra is startled and glad to discover Addam of Hull ( Clinton Liberty) has no agenda of his own after Seasmoke claims him. All he wants is to serve her. She is emboldened by Mysaria ( Sonoya Mizuno) who urges her to look beyond the tag of nobility and honour for scouring potential dragon-seeds. She does chafe at the suggestion of considering the lowborn but Mysaria astutely reasons with her, pointing to the sheer absence of honour among her own royal half-brothers. Trusting Mysaria’s counsel and alert that she simply cannot afford to be swept in such considerations, she dispatches word for raising an “ army of bastards”. This makes her son, Jace ( Harry Collett), anxious and apprehensive of his own claim as her heir at liable risk of being doubted and challenged if anyone can claim a dragon. The fact he has his own dragon has sheltered him from the ignominy of the bastard slurs that so persistently tailed him throughout his life. Collett superbly nails the tide of fear, vulnerability and hurt in the scene.

As men and women pour into Dragonstone, the dragon-keepers desert Rhaenyra’s side for the trial of the dragon-claiming, enraged at the “sacred” dragons being turned into mere “playthings for the games of men.” Directed by Loni Peristere, the episode’s final half-hour, wading into the trenches of dragon-claiming, is absolutely glorious, with a jaw-dropping level of tension, dread, uncertainty sustained with pitch-perfect precision till an instantly iconic, imperious closing shot. As Vermithor rains fire and rampages and the casualties lurch about whilst being prevented from escape, it’s fabulous to just relish the show cut out the frills and dive into this heady, terrifying and bold gamble. Emma D’Arcy does subtle, spectacular work here as Rhaenyra is determined to see through to the end of what she engineered despite opposition. This incredibly devised chunk of the episode, executed with nail-biting daring, delivers in spades whereas several preceding episode had chosen a more reined-in approach and brilliantly whets our appetite for the season finale.