House of the Dragon returns to HBO and HBO Max tonight for the third season’s penultimate episode, and the show is already pointed at its finish line. Season 3 has eight episodes, which makes House Of The Dragon Episode 8 the finale this weekend, the point where the season’s shifting alliances finally have to pay off.
That is why viewers are looking now. Rhaenyra and Team Black have been on the rise, while Lord Ormund and the forces of Team Green and the Hightowers have been pushed onto the defensive, but the balance changed sharply in the last episode. Rhaenyra lost her hold over those loyal to her, Team Green gained massive advantages, and a dragon fight involving Rhaenyra, Addam, Daemon and Rhaena ended with Rhaena taken captive and Sheepstealer driven off badly wounded.
There was more than one reversal in that episode. Aegon’s final stand against Rhaenyra loyalists did not go as expected, Sunfyre came back to life after being thought dead, and Aegon had already told Larys earlier this season that Sunfyre was never dead in the first place. Ormund also seduced Ulf the White to the Hightower cause, making Team Black’s grip on King’s Landing and its most important allies look even less secure.
The season has not lacked for spectacle. Ser Criston Cole died in the episode discussed here, and the run carries a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score, the strongest of the fantasy series’ seasons so far. But the rating has not translated into an equal rise in audience size, which gives the finale a different kind of pressure: the battles are still landing with critics, but the number of people still following the Dance of Dragons has not held up as well.
What comes next is simple enough to state and still hard to ignore. This weekend is the end of the eight-episode season, and Episode 8 will have to resolve the fallout from Rhaena’s capture, Sunfyre’s return and the new advantage Team Green picked up before the story can move into House of the Dragon Season 3.
