House of the Dragon Season 3 Review: Matt and I Disagree on the Pacing, But We Both Call Episode 8 the Best Finale Yet

We just finished recording our breakdown for House of the Dragon season 3, episode 8, and before any outside opinions could creep in, Matt and I sat down to hash out what we actually thought of the season. The short version: we do not fully agree with each other, but we both think episode 8 is the best finale, and the best battle, that House of the Dragon has ever produced.

This matters because season 2 ended on a note that left a lot of fans cold, with no real final battle and a finale that felt like a letdown after a strong start. Season 3 was always going to be measured against that, and how it landed on the Battle of Tumbleton shapes how excited people should be for season 4.

Matt's Verdict: A "Glacial" Pace and a "Daenerys 2.0" Problem for Rhaenyra

Matt was not a fan overall. He found the pacing glacial at times, saying the show learned its lesson from season 2 having no final battle, but then spent the whole season teasing Tumbleton, and the battle itself was great, but the pace getting there was a problem. He described Rhaenyra's descent as "a Daenerys 2.0" arc, which he had said to me right after watching the episode. As I pointed out to him, it is quite an achievement to have a show that is both glacial in pace and rushed at the same time.

My Take: The Season Fixed Season 2's Ending Problem

I disagreed with parts of Matt's take. I liked how the first two episodes dealt with the hangover from season 2, and I think if the Battle of the Gullet and the taking of King's Landing had actually closed out season 2 as the finale, that season would have been a lot stronger. There were dialogue moments that did not land for me too, like Rhaenyra knocking on a door and just saying "open the door," and some of the swearing around Viserys felt a bit off given the tone of the scene. Even so, I really enjoyed this season overall. Covering these seasons is a slog, we do 50 minute breakdown videos every single week, and the worry is always that you end up covering a show you are not enjoying. I did not have that problem with season 3.

New Book Changes I Loved: Aegon, Maelor's Fate, and the Dragonseeds

I thought the new material around Aegon that is not in the book was genuinely strong, and the changes around Rook's Rest worked well too. When George R.R. Martin announced on his blog that Maelor would not be born in the show, I thought that would be a problem, but I think the way they handled it, using the pregnancy as a source of dread rather than skipping it, worked better than I expected. The dragonseed characters, especially Hugh and Ulf, are totally different from the book but felt more sympathetic here. In the book Ulf is a character you want to see get kicked around, but the show made him work. Tom Bennett, who plays him, and Matt Smith have become my favorite actors on this show. The acting across the board has been excellent even when the writing has not always kept up.

Emma D'Arcy's Rhaenyra Arc Built Beautifully to the Finale

Emma D'Arcy's performance in the finale was, in my view, unreal. Season 2 did not give the character much to work with, but season 3 showed a much wider range of emotion, and the Daenerys style unraveling evolved gradually across the season, layered in through small moments like the line "Jace, wake up. Jayce, what are you doing?" while Rhaenyra is grieving her son. When she discovers the lie about Rhaena, it all builds toward Daemon's arc too. I also liked the change to Rhaena's storyline, even though going into the season I wanted Nettles instead.

Why We Call Episode 8 the Best Battle and Best Finale the Show Has Done

I thought episode 8 was handled brilliantly, and that the Tumbleton battle is the best battle sequence the show has ever done. It kept varying what was happening, charging, then climbing the wall, then dragons arriving, then children being killed, then street fighting, with real surprises layered throughout, including Ormund scrambling to find out where Ulf is right before Ulf turns on his own forces and kills him. Matt agreed, saying that while he had not been hot on the season, the payoff in this episode was really satisfying after weeks of the same plot beats repeating. He compared the bloodshed to how he imagined reading about the Dance of the Dragons in Fire and Blood, one of the bloodiest battles in that history, and figured that is why the show skipped the Battle by the Lakeshore and the Battle of Honeywine, saving the budget for this one scene. He also singled out Tommy Flanagan's performance as superb.

The Problem With Underused New Characters Like Oscar and the Blackwoods

Matt's issue is that we did not get enough time with the newly introduced characters. We barely saw Oscar, there was no Benji Blackwood, and Alysanne Blackwood has barely even had her name said on screen. Matt wondered whether a viewer coming in fresh would be confused about who she even is. He compared it to what he called the "Boba Fett effect," where a character looks cool and gets some cool kills, in this case taking out Criston Cole, without much actual development behind it.

Ryan Condal's Show Has Moved Beyond George R.R. Martin's Text

We both noticed that this season shows the writers listened to a lot of the season 1 feedback, even reworking beats like Aegon crashing out at Harrenhal, which echoes Daemon's arc from season 1 without feeling as repetitive. At this point I think it is fair to say this is very much Ryan Condal's show rather than a straightforward adaptation of George R.R. Martin's work, for better or worse, and he is clearly going off in his own direction with things like the Alys Rivers reveal, which was only a small theory in the fan community that got fully fleshed out here. Some people will call that fan fiction, but I appreciated how they built it from tiny bits of the text.

One Confusing Cut: Mysaria's Sudden Firing

Not everything landed cleanly. I flagged a scene where Mysaria is suddenly fired, and I genuinely wondered if I had missed an episode, because last we saw her she was in Rhaenyra's bed, and then suddenly she is dismissed with no scene in between explaining it. I do think some material was underdeveloped or rushed in the edit, even if I think the Mad Queen arc overall was handled better than Daenerys's was on Game of Thrones.

The "Secret Plan" Trope That Never Pays Off

We also discussed how these shows will tease a character having a secret plan, and fans like us end up theorizing elaborate outcomes, only for the reveal to be simple. Ormund's plan basically amounted to attacking the Blacks, not the bigger schemes we had guessed at, like Daemon being set up to die or Rhaenyra killing a child king to trigger a rebellion. Matt compared this to the Stranger Things finale, where a whole board of fan theories amounted to nothing in the end.

Why the Two Year Wait Between Seasons Hurts the Show

We agreed we would have liked a mid-season battle in addition to the finale, but these productions take so long now that it is not realistic. We noted Game of Thrones used to release every single year, while we are currently covering The X-Files, which put out over 100 episodes in five years plus a film, a contrast we find pretty striking against how long these seasons now take to produce.

What We Expect from Season 4: The Dragonpit, Dragonseeds, and the God's Eye

Looking ahead, we think everything is in place for a strong season 4, though we suspect some book material, like the Shepherd, may be cut or heavily compressed. We expect the dragon fire pit storyline, the Aegon and Rhaenyra dynamic, the dragonseeds, and events at the God's Eye to all be major threads. I would like to see a 10 episode season next time to let things breathe rather than spend seven episodes building toward one battle. We also flagged that several character fates have already diverged from the book, including someone who dies at King's Landing in the source material but is still alive in the show, and Tyland becoming master of coin, so a season 4 predictions video from us likely will not age as well as our season 2 predictions did.

Matt says he is cautiously optimistic heading into season 4 and that this conversation won him over on the season somewhat. For my part, I am genuinely excited again and back on board with the show, which is different from how I felt at the end of season 2, when covering season 3 felt like it might just be going through the motions.

Do you think the Battle of Tumbleton is the best fight the show has done, and are you satisfied with how Rhaenyra's storyline paid off this season?