The episode is the twentieth installment of the series overall, and it represents the final appearance of starring cast members Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower, Simon Russell Beale as Ser Simon Strong, and Harry Collett as Jacaerys Velaryon — all three characters meeting their end across the hour, with Ifans and Beale departing the series and Collett's death having technically occurred at the close of episode one. That is an extraordinary amount of loss to process in a single episode, and "Queen's Landing" attempts to use each departure for maximum dramatic effect. The results are uneven at best.
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| Image Credit: HBO Max |
The episode opens with a final beat of Battle of the Gullet fallout, as the dragonseeds arrive to add to the carnage on their mounts, Vermithor, Silverwing, and Seasmoke — going at least some way toward addressing the disappointment of not seeing those three involved in the actual battle during the season premiere. The new opening title sequence adds two fresh images to its tapestry of House Targaryen's downfall: Corlys Velaryon fighting Sharako Lohar on the deck of a ship at the Gullet, and Jacaerys Velaryon floating in water and blood, punctured with arrows. It is a visually brutal way to frame what is to come — an episode built almost entirely on the question of what victory costs when everyone you love keeps dying for it.
The episode's emotional center belongs entirely to Emma D'Arcy as Rhaenyra Targaryen. Rhaenyra's initial denial upon learning of Jacaerys' death was heartbreaking — she was probably angry that he had ignored her wishes, but his death robbed her of any chance to understand why he made that decision. D'Arcy navigates this impossible emotional terrain with the kind of physical and psychological precision that distinguishes truly great television acting. The grief is not performed so much as inhabited. Rhaenyra's collapse over her son's body, and the way it wars with her fury at him for defying her orders, is the episode's finest fifteen minutes and the clearest argument for why this cast continues to elevate even the show's weaker material.
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From Dragonstone, the episode fans out across the map. In the Vale, Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) faces the cold fury of Lady Jeyne Arryn (Amanda Collin) after returning with Sheepstealer — the dragon she bonded and rode into the battle, inadvertently contributing to Jacaerys' death. Jeyne is understandably furious that Rhaena has come back seeking asylum: she was supposed to be aboard a merchant cog with the young charges Aegon and Viserys, headed for Pentos, and instead ran away, bonded a wild dragon, and took it into a battle where it attacked the Blacks' own ships and caused the death of the crown prince. The confrontation between these two women is one of the episode's bright spots — concise, tense, and anchored by two performers capable of conveying layers of subtext in minimal screen time.
In the Riverlands, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) and his army of Winter Wolves celebrate a land victory now being called the Fishfeed. The celebration is cheerful and humanizing, particularly for newer characters like Roddy the Ruin (Tommy Flanagan, who is formally elevated to main cast status beginning with this episode) and Black Aly (Annie Shapero). The joy is short-lived when news of Jacaerys' death arrives via Ser Simon Strong (Russell Beale). Smith plays Daemon's quiet devastation well — a man who masks grief with action, and who immediately channels his loss into military resolve, dispatching his forces toward King's Landing before riding Caraxes back to Rhaenyra's side.
The reunion of Daemon and Rhaenyra at Dragonstone is where the episode begins to generate the momentum that carries its back half. Daemon tells Rhaenyra his visions of Daenerys and the Song of Ice and Fire, a prophecy that frames the brutal decisions she is being asked to make as part of a generational burden stretching far beyond the current war. It is the kind of scene that threads the show's internal mythology together in a way that feels earned rather than hollow, and it gives Rhaenyra the steel she needs to do what follows.
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| Image Credit: HBO Max |
If the season premiere showcased the devastating cost of war, "Queen's Landing" demonstrates that victory can be just as morally devastating. By the time Rhaenyra finally takes her place on the Iron Throne, it is clear that every triumph in the Dance of the Dragons comes at a terrible price. The Fall of King's Landing itself — Syrax and Caraxes sweeping over the city alongside Vermithor and Silverwing, the gold cloaks standing down, Daemon cutting a brutal path through the Red Keep — is staged with genuine sweep and intensity. The sequence works because it balances spectacle with specificity: newly introduced gold cloak commander Ser Luthor Largent, played by Tom Cullen with natural charisma, anchors the political mechanics of the surrender in human terms rather than abstract strategy.
Ewan Mitchell's Aemond Targaryen meanwhile gets one of the most effectively chilling sequences of the entire season so far, as Vhagar descends on Harrenhal and Aemond carves through the garrison with cold-blooded methodical purpose. Aemond conquers Harrenhal in a sequence that crackles with menace, and his eventual wounding and collapse at the episode's end plants the seeds of what promises to be a pivotal relationship with the castle's mysterious long-tenured resident, Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin). Rankin, given more to work with here than she had in season two, suggests depths in Alys that the show has not yet fully excavated — a promise the remainder of the season will need to keep.
The episode's most shocking moment arrives after King's Landing has fallen. Hidden inside the Red Keep, Otto Hightower is brought before Rhaenyra after years of serving as one of her greatest political enemies. Standing before the Iron Throne she has fought so hard to reclaim, Rhaenyra realizes that showing mercy could immediately undermine her authority and invite challenges to her rule. Encouraged by Daemon, she makes the painful decision to sentence Otto to death — an execution that is neither triumphant nor satisfying, but marks the moment Rhaenyra fully embraces the burden of being queen. Rhys Ifans, departing the series with this scene, brings a final quiet dignity to Otto that almost — almost — makes the audience feel something for the man.
Yet the episode's most troubling creative decision also surrounds Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke). Alicent's intelligence and determination to prepare King's Landing for Rhaenyra's arrival without a destructive siege is some of the most effective material Cooke has been given this season. Alicent enlists her daughter Helaena to order the guards on the wall to stand down when Rhaenyra arrives — and while this represents a departure from what certain characters do in the source material, it is genuinely compelling to see her being so proactive. But the episode then subjects Alicent to a scene in which the master of laws corners and attempts to assault her — an event that exists primarily to put the perpetrator in a dungeon cell where Daemon will later discover Otto Hightower nearby. The assault is treated as a plot mechanism rather than a character experience, there and gone almost before it registers, with no meaningful aftermath for Alicent herself.
"Queen's Landing" currently sits at a 9.4 out of 10 on IMDb from 13,000 ratings, matching the series all-time high set by the season premiere and tying the season two episode "The Red Dragon and the Gold" as the joint-highest rated episode in the show's history. That number reflects the genuine and significant emotional impact the episode's best moments deliver — the grief, the spectacle, the history-making arrival of Rhaenyra on the Iron Throne. What it cannot fully capture is the sense that "Queen's Landing" keeps reaching for greatness and then, at the last moment, settling for less. The episode moves the Dance of the Dragons into a dramatically new phase. Whether the writing can match the ambition of what it has set in motion remains the defining question of season three.
