Lmao that fucking ruled. Literally my face when Daemon walks out of the cave dragging out Craghas Crabfeeder's upper body.

A lil goofy when he evaded most of the archery barrage? Yep.

But that's one badass motherfucker and it was further cemented in this episode.

All that prefaced by Laenor and Seasmoke flying in to save the day.

*Chefskiss*

I can't wait until we get a Daemon Blackfyre show Jesus fuck

 

I'm just disappointed the Master of Crabs died off-screen. Would've liked to see that.

 

I'm confused. Which was the dragon at the end, and who was riding them?

Not really. It's realistically very hard to impossible to hit a single moving target at that distance. It's not like it was a mass of troops the archers could fire in the general direction of.

 

The dragon was Seasmoke, ridden by Corlys’ son Laenor.

 

For me, the battle at the end of episode 3 didn't quite land, emotionally speaking. I think the problem was in the music/sound editing. It all came across as oddly muted rather than soaring and victorious. In contrast, Rhaenyra returning to the camp the morning after killing the boar was accompanied by some spine-chilling music.

Overall, the interactions between Rhaenyra and Viserys continue to be the stand-out item. A lot of depth and complexity to that relationship, and the characters have the rare opportunity to speak exactly the feelings the viewer is feeling about it. E.g. Rhaenyra going straight for the kill by telling Viserys that if he had acted out of duty, he would have married Laena - and Viserys, rather than trying to refute it and raging like you might expect the "bad king" trope to follow, has the maturity to acknowledge that she is right while still advancing his own point.

It's lovely watching two characters argue in a way that actually satisfies, because they make the good points you wish they would make, rather than going for silly "miscommunication error" type drama where they make poor arguments that miss the point.

Also happy with the Rhaenyra-Alicent conversation, and the Alicent-Viserys conversation. Everyone coming across as genuine people who actually do care for the other characters - just not as much as they care about themselves. They are each imagining a world where they get everything they want, and all their friends and family are happy for them and support them and don't possess contrary wishes. The problem is not that the characters have evil or malicious intent, it's that other people having true agency is inconvenient.

 

Saw an interesting theory on Reddit earlier.

All the build-up with the crab guy, only for him to die off-screen.

Daemon walks out covered in his blood and innards.

That crab guy had greyscale.

???

Maybe Daemon gets greyscale.

A cadmean victory

 

I dont think he had gray scale. Dude looked pretty burned to me. Probably the flying flamethrowers.

 

It looked a lot like the greyscale from GOT:



Perhaps smaller, more regular lesions.

 

On another note, one of the few things I really dislike about this show is that they didn't write new music for the opening credits, and instead just recycled the title theme from GOT. I'm not sure if this smacks of laziness or if it's a sign they're trying to milk the last dregs of goodwill people had for GOT in general.

Either way, I was looking forward to a new title sequence and instead got the same music and a mostly uninspired visual sequence.

 

One thing I have to say:

Every main actor so far is absolutely killing it, much like most of the main actors in GoT did. But it's even better so far.

Paddy Considine in particular is fucking amazing as a feckless, people pleasing king that tries so hard to appease everyone that he satisfies no one. He does look a too old but that's literally my only gripe, and he draws me in so much with his acting that I can easily overlook it.

 

The hilarious thing, however, is that his biggest political errors come when he stops trying to please everyone and instead chooses what he wants.

 

Went against his gut feeling to go with his other gut feeling only to be proven that his original gut feeling was on the money

 

I'm in the camp that it's not greyscale. Just old, infected burns.

 

Bruh that's 100% greyscale wtf

 

If it is greyscale I assume they're gonna go all in on Targaryen disease resistance, to draw it out as long as possible.

 

Ep 4 felt pretty poor coming off of Ep 3. Quarter of the runtime was spent on tediously bland sex scenes, and the dialogue really dropped off.

Acting remains excellent though.

 

See, I thought it was a strong episode. It sowed the seeds for how duplicitous Rhaenyra will become, and what a toxic, awesome shitpile Daemon is. It's also a good step forward with Rhaenyra's relationship with Ser Criston

Oh, and Allicent greatly embodying the meaning of "lie back and think of England."

Also, a big lmao at that Bracken cunt.

 

I laughed at the kid stabbing the shit out of that guy.

 

I wonder if the HotD makers are going to have the bravery to have the narrative criticise Rhaenyra for fucking someone who was reluctant, whom she has power over, whose entire position in society was the product of her good graces and whose fall could be brought about just as easily, and who therefore doesn't really have the ability to say no.

Or if they will be too enamoured with their female empowerment message - girl finally asserts her sexuality and gets herself some hot Kingsguard action - to call out the fact that her scene has a pretty extreme power imbalance and was in many ways the mirror of the Viserys/Alicent scene.

The mirroring makes me think it was deliberate. But the director talking about how feminist the sex scene was for avoiding the male gaze makes me think the irony of Rhaenyra pulling a Harvey Weinstein went completely over the director's head and the parallel was entirely accidental.

 

Episode 5 was great. Big step up from last week. Dialogue slips here and there but the actors hold it together with sheer charisma.

And wow, they actually tangentially addressed this with Ser Criston in episode 5, who is definitely portrayed as the sympathetic character. I'm lowkey shocked.