House of the Dragon, season 2 episode 3 review: while men scrap, women practice diplomacy

Olivia Cooke as Alicent - HBO

• This review contains spoilers

Episode three of the new series of House of the Dragon (Sky Atlantic) began with a medieval playground scrap. Two unnamed boys from different houses were arguing over who was the rightful monarch, Aegon or Rhaenyra, just like kids today might squabble over whether Messi or Ronaldo is the best. The difference here was that within seconds the squabble had escalated into a pitched battle between their respective Houses (Bracken vs Blackwood) that had many thousands butchered. But the message was clear – boys like to fight; they’re not too bothered about why.

Spuming testosterone and its consequences was the story of the whole episode (and yes, it was a little one-dimensional). Aegon (Tom Glynn Carney) was desperate to strap on his armour and take the fight to Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) himself; it took all of Lord Larys’s (Matthew Needham) magnificent weaselling to gently suggest that this was a terrible idea.

Over at Dragonstone, Rhaenyra’s Privy Council were of the collective opinion that a massive pre-emptive strike led by the full dragon cavalry was the only way forward. In both factions most of the sensible voices were female. Between them Rhaenyra, Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Rhaenys (Eve Best) all attempted to suggest that maybe, just maybe, it might be better to try and talk to the other side first in the hope of avoiding generations of pointless tit-for-tat carnage.

Naturally, this was greeted with total derision by all the men with their oversized, plainly compensating-for-something broadswords. So it was left to Rhaenyra to head to King’s Landing herself and engineer a secret one-to-one with her childhood friend.

In an episode that was still essentially padding before the inevitable trans-global slash-fest, this was the best scene (run close, though, by the arrival of the great Shakespearean Simon Russell Beale in a bizarre two-hander with Matt Smith about poison peas). Rhaenyra and Alicent worked out between them that actually, the entire premise of this season has been founded on a misunderstanding – when Viserys on his deathbed had talked about Aegon as the heir to the throne, he’d meant another Aegon entirely. (Oops!)

It was evidence of what seems to be a founding precept of House of the Dragon – if you could just get a woman on the throne, life expectancy in Westeros would rise dramatically. But that ain’t gonna happen, or not if the men can help it.

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