RECAP: ‘House Of The Dragon’ Season 3 Episode 4 — “Tumbleton”

House of the Dragon Season 3 showcased that triumph isn’t happiness or peace in the last episode. Now in “Tumbleton,” House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4 pushes Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen’s (Emma D’Arcy) hand forward. The last episode we saw centered only on her perspective and her spiral down the drain as the queen of a kingdom that her half-brother King Aegon Targaryen (Ty Tennant) ruined. 

There is no food, no gold, and the one chip she had, Alicent Hightower’s young son Daeron Targaryen, was a lie. Now, the remaining Hightower bannermen and Ormond Hightower have taken Tumbleton, and the home of the dragons with it.

House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4 opens with Ormond in a bath, living in Tumbleton, his shoulders forcing the residents to give them quarter. Ormund Hightower (James Norton) has promised to ensure his men are on their best behavior, but the threats they have already made make it clear he can’t control them. At least not until after they have already sinned. 

Tumbleton is the center of the Hightower rebellion. 

Back in King’s Landing, Rhaenyra and the shambles of her small council are working to fix, well, everything. Her plan? To walk into Tumbleton and remove Hightower soldiers one by one as they sweep through the houses. To get more information, she talks to Alicent and, in the process, learns why Daeron was sent to Ormund. 

In Alicent’s words, Daeron becoming her cousin’s ward was the only true act of motherhood she did. She bore 3 Targaryen children, but Daeron was to be a Hightower and, hopefully, escape the violence that her other sons reaped. Rhaenyra’s response is interesting to say the least. While she promises to spare Daeron, Alicent doesn’t trust her. 

Her small council grows in size, with Grand Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan) and Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim) stepping into his father’s role as Hand of the Queen, joining Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) at the table. Both are there to serve, but Rhaenyra questions it all, maybe not verbally, but internally as the episode develops and she continues ot handle the evolving chaos around her.

Last episode, Rhaenyra reneged on her promise to grant Corlys’ sons the Velaryon name, and, as such, drove away the one man who had been by her side since the beginning. Corlys (Steve Toussaint) has lost everything, and now he’s lost trust in his queen. And even with all of that drama, she must still name a new Master of Coin. 

But King’s Landing and Tumbleton aren’t the only narrative bits at play. As Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel)arrives at Harrenhal, he finds not Prince Aemond Targaryen (Leo Ashton), but the witch Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin). King’s Landing was taken, Aemond is gone, and still Cole refuses to roll over. His idea? Keeping the Rivermen from joining the men in King’s Landing.

While Ser Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox) pushes him to understand the situation, Ser Cole is dead set on the fight. He and Ser Gwayne will lead their army against one twice their size, and, in Cole’s words, he does it for honor. When in reality, we all know that he does it for anger and spite that still burns for a woman who rejected him. 

Ser Criston Cole follows his anger, even if it may mean defeat in House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4.

Back in Tumbleton, the audience gets a look inside one of the houses and the men staying in it, the same Hightower soldiers that we saw at the beginning of the House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4. The threat of sexual assault is something that the series can’t detach itself from. And when the threat turns into reality, it’s clear who these men are. When they try to fight back, the home’s owners are beaten. There is no honor among men in House of the Dragon, and that continues.

That said, Ormund Hightower sees himself as powerful, a scholar, and someone who keeps a vice grip on his men. When the soldiers who tried to rape the house’s residents are brought forward, Ormund responds swiftly, making him fit the crime, showing order to Tumbleton in order to balance the expectations of Tumbleton’s residents. 

This element of House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4 rings more powerfully when Ser Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) asks Rhaenyra to join Ser Ulf (Tom Bennett) in Tumbleton, where his wife is. His personal stake is important to him, but it also means that there is more to lose. The more we see Tumbleton, the more it looks like a powder keg waiting to blow. 

Outside Tumbleton, Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) is completing his quest to obtain gold from Lady Jayne Arryn (Amanda Collin) in the Vale. But in the process, Daemon’s dragon, Caraxes, takes him to a cave. But it’s not just any cave; it’s the one where Rhaena and Sheepstealer have taken refuge. But what starts as a reunion between father and daughter sours into something terrifying when he realizes she and her dragon are the reason Jace is dead. 

Rhaena doesn’t ask her father for anything, the same as she has done her entire life. All she asks is for him to grieve her and act as if she were lost at sea. Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) is dead, and Rhaena the Unfortunate is all that’s left. But for all of his cruelty, Daemon is still a father, and one who loves his daughter. While he tries to convince her to return with him, Rhaena’s exile is all she wants. Racked with her own guilt, she can’t stand in front of Rhaenyra, or her sister, for that matter. 

The Vale’s foggy atmosphere lends the scene a sense of sorrow, and as Daemon looks down on a man who saw his daughter flee, the murderous intent in his eyes is clear. But it’s for his daughter after all, and it’s hard not to respect that, in this moment. 

Daemon Targaryen is given the chance to be a father in “Tumbleton.”

The production design in the Vale remains one of House of the Dragon Season 3’s best. The architecture of Lady Jayne Arryn’s throne room is grand and intimidating, and the wide open spaces of the wilderness we see are also stupendous. The beauty of everything around them is what makes the dragon animation feel less impressive as Daemon ties the gold to his saddle. 

The smaller elements of House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4 also stand out. After Ulf the White brags to his friend at the tavern, he returns to Rhaenyra to ask her to give them things. While it serves a comedic purpose in the script, Rhaenyra’s response quickly takes that chuckle away when she bars Ulf from going to the tavern. 

Ulf is to remain in the Red Keep and avoid having a knife put in his belly by any tavern smallfolk he might disagree with, even if they are his friends. If he dies, the crown weakens, and Ulf realizes that as a knight, he isn’t his own person anymore. 

In a moment that seems to be retribution for being banned from the tavern, Ulf tells Rhaenyra about the graffiti he’s seen around the city. “Queen of Bastards” is sprawled on the walls, and Ulf has no trouble telling her this. Leading her to activate the City Watch to root out the dissent. Kindness only goes so far. 

Outside King’s Landing, Aegon and Larys have mostly survived their travels. It’s here that Aegon and the audience learn that he has been declared dead. Making good on her promise to Alicent, Rhaenyra has told the world that Aegon is dead, and now anonymity is Aegon’s friend. Only, Aegon’s entitlement knows no bounds, even when he is attempting to survive. 

While Larys asks Aegon to accept this lot in life, Aegon is unable to do so. When he lashes out in violence and anger, putting his hand on the man-eater and yelling at him at the same time. Aegon yells and acts like a king, only to be threatened with a knife in the stomach, forced to kiss the feet of the commoner, lest he lose his life. It’s his lowest moment, but he is alive. 

House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4 is an episode that pulls the audience back to explore just about every remaining character in the chaotic milieu. No one is completely in control, and there are more questions than answers. And yet, it all works. That said, the pacing of the series at this point begins to slow; there is too much happening to follow, leaving me begging for the more condensed structure we have seen in previous episodes. 

House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4 means more set-up of the kingdom’s mess and Rhaenyra’s troubles. 

When we head back to King’s Landing, Daemon brings the head of the man from the Vale, presenting it to Rhaenyra as the one who rode Sheepstealer. The audience and Myssaria know that this is a lie, and Rhaenyra’s vengeance is now empty.

The man who killed her son is apparently in front of her, but she will never know how he got Sheepstealer, or who he was related to. While we know that this is an act to protect Rhaena, the Queen doesn’t, and in that reality, grief begins to spiral around her again. 

Rhaenyra still offers some kindness by allowing Otto Hightower’s body to be brought back to Oldtown to rest with his ancestors. It’s a small kindness, and one that shows that Rhaenyra isn’t entirely empty of empathy. But with the calls to burn Tumbleton to the ground featured in the last episode, the little empathy we see in House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4 doesn’t last long. And that’s accelerated as Rhaenyra sends her City Watch, the gold cloaks, to weed out the men who would write “Queen of Bastards” on the wall. 

When we return to Tumbleton, Ormund reveals his deep hatred of the Targaryens. He sees them as less-than, because of their connection to the beasts. To him, dragons are abominations, and having raised Daeron under the will of the gods to become a king, Ormund’s true self is revealed. The man who protected his sister and wife earlier in the episode is brought before Daeron, and Ormund tells him to execute the man. 

Daeron calls for mercy, and Ormund responds that striking a Hightower must be punished. And this is after he reveals the plot to make Daeron the King of Westeros over his brothers, and over Rhaenyra, who is on the throne. And with some hesitation, Daeron abides. He killed an innocent man, and while the tears well in his eyes and his dragon shrinks behind him, there is nothing to be done.

Despite Alicent’s belief that raising Daeron to be a Hightower would save him from the world of vile violence, we now see that all men who seek power do so without regard for morality. Daeron wasn’t saved from the Targaryens; he was just chosen for a different kind of violence. His violence comes from his sword, not his dragon. 

As a whole, House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4 isn’t bad, but it is much smaller than the other episodes we’ve seen in this series. In an attempt to settle the audience back into the larger workings of the narrative, the many elements of the series struggle to blend into something cohesive or moving. Coming off the back of an intimate episode that works as a character study, a portrait of a queen falling apart, “Tumbleton” is more set-up, with very little emotional power. A step back, but still a good episode, House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4 relies on some of the worst elements of last season. 

House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 4 is streaming now on HBO with new episodes every Sunday. 

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