Some things are better on a summer Sunday night when HBO has a big fantasy show on. It’s different from anything else on TV because it makes you want to clear the evening, pour yourself a drink, and settle down before 9 PM. That feeling has come back with Season 3 of House of the Dragon. It looks like the show finally knows what it wants to be.
On June 22, the season began with the Battle of the Gullet. Fans had been looking forward to this scene since Season 2 ended with what felt like an unfinished sentence. Some people think that Season 2 ended too soon, that its last episodes were held back and quietly added to the start of this new run. The effect is hard to argue with, but it’s still not clear whether that was a creative or a production choice. The premiere hit hard and hard. IMDb gave Episode 1 a 9.2 rating. Episode 2, “Queen’s Landing,” raised that to 9.4 and, with over 13,000 user ratings, became the highest-rated episode of the whole series.
That reaction doesn’t just come from seeing something nice. That’s because people are watching the show and, for the first time, they think the story is going somewhere.
The credits at the beginning of the show have turned into a quiet conversation between the show and its viewers. The beginning of House of the Dragon is updated almost every episode, just like the beginning of Game of Thrones. However, this time the method is different. The show uses a tapestry instead of a large map. It is something woven and planned, similar to the Bayeux Tapestry in both look and purpose. After the terrible ending of Episode 1 (Jacaerys Velaryon being dragged from the sky and killed over the Gullet), his death seemed like it was part of the story by Episode 3. Actually, it’s not that big of a deal. But on an emotional level, it’s not a small thing. The show is writing things down. That is what it wants you to know.
Ramin Djawadi, the composer, has also made a clear change to the theme. Now there are drums in the beginning of the sequence, giving the familiar melody more weight than it had before. The people in charge of the show said it set the darker tone for this season. What you said makes sense. It works as well. The war in Westeros is no longer a faraway threat, and the music makes you aware of that before the episode even starts.
The way people talk about this show now feels very different from how people talked about it two years ago. A group of fans were upset with Season 2. Some people thought the show was moving too slowly and wasn’t letting go when it should have. Those viewers seem to be the ones who are saying the show has changed its direction the most right now. We don’t know if that view will last through the rest of the season, but the early momentum is real.
It’s also important to note that HBO works in a bigger picture. The network has had a great year—The Pitt drew huge crowds, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms took the Westeros universe in a softer, more character-driven direction, and a Game of Thrones movie based on Aegon’s Conquest is reportedly being made. It is clear that a long-term plan is being made here. Season 3 of House of the Dragon is in the middle of that and has the most weight.
A fourth and final season of the show has been picked up. Showrunner Ryan Condal has said it’s for sure the end. That kind of closure tends to bring a series together—it makes decisions clearer and forces the end. The real question is whether House of the Dragon can keep up the momentum it has built in these first episodes for the whole season. For now, Sunday nights feel like they belong again.
