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Warning! Spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon season 3, episode 1.
House of the Dragon just debuted its third season on HBO with one of its most thrilling episodes to date. The season 3 premiere, “Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood,” jumped straight into the action with the fabled Battle of the Gullet, and it was every bit the dazzling blockbuster spectacle I hoped it would be. It has the grit and brutality of the Battle of the Bastards, but with the twist of being set at sea, and with the added stakes of sinking ships and dragons getting dragged underwater to be drowned.
As usual, the actors are doing the heavy lifting for a very shallow script. With that discomforting goodbye kiss between Alicent and Aemond, Olivia Cooke and Ewan Mitchell said more about the depth of these characters’ deeply dysfunctional relationship with their body language than their painfully on-the-nose dialogue ever has. But a solid set-piece like the Battle of the Gullet is bad-writing-proof. It doesn’t matter how thin the character development is when one battleship is ramming into another battleship and military dragons are being yanked to their deaths.
The fact that season 3 opens with a big battle — which is extremely rare for Game of Thrones shows (they usually build up to the battle sequences for at least a few weeks) — makes it clear that this was meant to be the season 2 finale. The first season of House of the Dragon had 10 episodes, harking back to the salad days of Game of Thrones, but the second season was cut down to eight.
Presumably, if House of the Dragon had gotten the expected 10-episode order for its second season, then the Battle of the Gullet would’ve been the climactic action of the season 2 finale. But season 2 only got eight episodes, so the battle got pushed to the season 3 premiere.
House Of The Dragon Is Finally Living Up To Its Biggest Promise
When House of the Dragon first premiered in 2022 (yes, it was that long ago, and yes, they’re only just now starting their third season in 2026), I was enraptured by this twisted Targaryen saga. Some of the time jumps felt a bit jarring, but they kept the story moving forward; the series kept up that forward momentum, and covered a lot of narrative ground in a short space of time. It was a thrilling debut outing for the risky Game of Thrones spinoff, and it culminated in a jaw-dropping season finale that promised all-out war in season 2.
Then, season 2 arrived, and that war was still just on the horizon. Throughout that second season, I grew increasingly frustrated with House of the Dragon. I felt like Milhouse when he took part in the Itchy & Scratchy focus group, just waiting for the show to finally get to the fireworks factory. But when House of the Dragon season 2 ended, we still hadn’t gotten to that war we were promised.
There were a couple of cool moments in the season 2 finale, and some exciting setups for season 3, but it ultimately ended up being a disappointment, because it never got to the climactic warfare it was building to. The season 3 premiere has that climactic action, and it would’ve been a lot more satisfying as a season finale than a season premiere.
House of the Dragon’s season 3 premiere is what the season 2 finale should’ve been. The Battle of the Gullet is the kind of big, crazy set-piece that Game of Thrones shows usually reserve until the season finale — or, at least, the back end of the season — and it just feels unnatural to put the climactic action at the very beginning of this chapter of the story. But damn if it wasn’t awesome.
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https://screenrant.com/house-of-the-dragon-season-3-battle-of-the-gullet-missing-episode/
Ben Sherlock
Almontather Rassoul
