House of the Dragon Episode 3 Recap: Every Storyline, Character and Easter Egg

Welcome back, House of the Dragon fans. Last week in Targaryen Wants a Wife, King Viserys decided he should marry his daughter’s best friend. In this week’s instalment of Westeros’ favourite reality show, it was all about who Rhaenyra should marry. Oh, and there were some dragons too. Read on for our recap of House of the Dragon Episode 3 ‘Second of His Name’.

This article contains full spoilers for House of the Dragon. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch Episodes 1-3 over on Binge now.

House of the Dragon Episode 3: Plot Recap

We open on the dealings of the Crab Feeder who is, yes, still feeding people to the crabs and doing a pretty good job of it.

Even Daemon riding in on Caraxes, squashing one of his own men underfoot, and reducing everyone to cinders isn’t enough to vanquish Prince Drahar (who aptly retreats to a cave like a crab). This sequence is a reminder, however, that dragon fire is really damn cool.

In the blink of an eye, we learn that three years have passed and the kingdom is celebrating the second birthday of Alicent and Viserys’ son, Aegon II. A grand hunt is taking place in celebration and many are expecting Viserys to name Aegon his new heir, as his firstborn son.

The celebrations are interrupted by a message from the Stepstones, asking for aid. Viserys comes to the conclusion that they’ve been fighting for three years, they can wait a bit longer. Plus he has bigger things to worry about, like the whereabouts of his wayward daughter, Rhaenyra.

Naturally, Rhaenyra is doing what any moody teenager does when they feel overlooked, and is playing music on repeat (provided by a poor bard named Samwell). It’s all very emo.

Her heavily pregnant ex-best friend, now stepmother, Alicent arrives to retrieve her and it’s clear just how much their friendship has soured.

On their road trip, King Viserys reminds Rhaenyra that she has royal duties, like getting married and bearing children. Ugh. Seeing as it’s Aegon’s name day, Rhaenyra reminds her father “no one’s here for me”.

As they prepare for the hunt the lords and ladies discuss what must be done in the Stepstones. I did not hear anything about that because this lady has a PUG sitting on her lap. Pugs are real in Westeros. I repeat: Pugs. Are. Canon.

Rhaenyra really comes to regret showing up for the hunt after she’s hit on by Jason Lannister who buys her a drink and then skips straight to the proposal. Rhaenyra could not get out of there faster.

The princess confronts her father about trying to marry her off to some random. The king claims he has been swimming in proposals for her hand and was just trying to guide her to a good match, but hey man, she doesn’t want to get married.

She storms off into the woods, followed by Ser Criston Cole and, after a little heart-to-heart with the handsome knight maybe Rhaenyra is rethinking that marriage thing.

Let’s not forget we are here to hunt, but apparently, the royal idea of hunting is sitting around until someone finds something for them to kill.

So in the meantime, Jason Lannister tries to win Rhaenyra’s father over by offering him a golden spear, reiterating again that he’d like to marry his daughter. Viserys is getting drunker and to his credit, knocks back Jason’s assumptions that he’ll be naming Aegon as his heir over Rhaenyra.

Because Otto Hightower simply cannot stop scheming he decides to play matchmaker once again and provides Viserys with a new suggestion for Rhaenyra’s future husband: Prince Aegon.

“The boy just turned two, Otto!” said Viserys and all of us.

Everyone’s reaction to Otto Hightower suggesting to marry a 2 year old #GameOfThrones #HouseoftheDragon pic.twitter.com/hfYIQGIpxG

— c (@themoonpriv) September 5, 2022

Viserys is really drunk by the time Lyonel shows up to give his opinion on the matter. The advisor suggests Rhaenyra make up for the sleight her father gave to House Velaryon years ago by marrying the Sea Snake’s son, Laenor.

In the King’s Wood, Rhaenyra and Criston are trapped in a horror movie as a raging boar explodes out of the woods and attempts to maul them. Rhaenyra decimates it with her knife and trigger warning: there’s a lot of blood.

In his drunken state, Viserys reveals to Alicent a potentially prophetic dream he had long ago that saw a son of his wearing Aegon the Conquerer’s crown. This explains why Viserys was so hell-bent on fathering a boy but he feels guilty that it lead to the death of his first wife. Thus he named Rhaenyra as his heir to try and make amends. Now, he’s not so sure if he was right.

The royals have been sitting around long enough that the scouts have found a stag for them to hunt. And by hunt I mean 10 warriors hold the beast stationary long enough for Viserys to walk up and spear it through the heart. House of the Dragon really did not hold back with the violence against animals in this episode.

This occurs in stark contrast to Rhaenyra, who is covered in blood from the boar she just defeated, and walks back into camp like a true queen.

Otto (still scheming) wants Aegon to be named heir and tries to force Alicent to put these ideas in the king’s head. She is resistant out of loyalty to Rhaenyra. Later, Alicent suggests to Viserys that Rhaenyra will only marry if she thinks it’s her choice.

So that’s what Viserys does. Rhaenyra reveals her woes to her father, fearing that he is trying to marry her off so he can replace her with Aegon. Viserys commits to Rhaenyra that she is his heir and he has no intentions of changing that. She needs to marry and start a family to secure her line of succession, but as to who she does that with, the king leaves it up to her.

Bookending things with the conflict at the Stepstones, we find the Velaryons in a tough spot with their forces waning. Even the dragons can’t fight their enemies when they’re hiding in the caves.

Daemon arrives to receive a letter from the king that promises to send aid. With his pride wounded, Daemon beats up the messenger and sets out to fight the Crab Feeder solo.

This would be a stupid plan for anyone else, but somehow Daemon pulls it off.

Under the guise of a white peace flag, Daemon lures the Crab Feeder and his forces from the cave. He then manages to single-handedly cut through dozens of men, dodge hundreds of arrows (Rickon Stark is rolling in his future grave) and clear a path for Laenor Velaryon atop Seasmoke the dragon to obliterate them all.

When Daemon emerges from one of the caves covered in blood and holding half of the Crab Feeder, the three-year turmoil is finally ended.

House of the Dragon Episode 3: Easter (dragon) eggs

Episode 3 of House of the Dragon really lived up to the Targaryen motto of Fire and Blood. Here are some things you might’ve missed:

• The white stag that visits Rhaenyra has a lot of symbolism behind it. The White Hart is a symbol of royalty and is the King of the King’s Wood where the characters are hunting. Seeing as it showed itself to Rhaenyra rather than Viserys (who would’ve killed it for his son Aegon), we get affirmation that Rhaenyra really is the rightful heir.
• Did everyone catch our boy Ryan Corr in his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance as Harwin Strong? He’s the son of Lyonel Strong, aka the heir to Harrenhal, so expect to see more of him in the coming episodes.
• If you thought you were seeing double Lannisters, you are correct. Jason Lannister and Tyland Lannister are both played by Jefferson Hall. The former is the creep who wants Rhaenyra and the latter serves on the King’s Small Council.
• Props must go to Matt Smith for absolutely carrying this episode without uttering a single line.

If you’re wondering what on Earth is going on, you can find last week’s recap of House of the Dragon here. Now, please enjoy this week’s meme:

Turns out it runs in the family#HouseoftheDragon pic.twitter.com/42dFrvHoir

— Avalanche Paradigm Shift RT(R) (@pursuantpriest) September 5, 2022

House of the Dragon airs weekly on Mondays at 11 am AEST on Binge.