The Season 3 premiere of House of the Dragon is now streaming on HBO, and the episode featured the beginning of the brutal naval clash known as the Battle of the Gullet, which was originally going to close out Season 2 before the 2023 writers' strike forced significant changes.
The battle continues the conflict between the Blacks and the Greens, and while Rhaenyra Targaryen's (Emma D’Arcy) forces ultimately triumph thanks to the Sea Snake Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), the victory comes at great cost.
When Baela (Bethany Antonia) loses control over her dragon after her sister Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) appears riding the wildly unpredictable Sheapstealer, Jace Velaryon attempts to help, but when he flies into range of a Triarchy ship, his dragon Vermax is struck with a harpoon. The beast is dragged underwater to drown, and when Jace swims to the surface, he is immediately hit with a volley of arrows.
While speaking to THR, actor Harry Collett said he knew about his character's demise since the first season.
“Luckily, I found out what happened to Jace round about season one,” says Collett. “So it wasn’t a shock, and I’m glad! I don’t think it should be that way. I think it’s quite mean, which Ryan would never do: don’t tell the actor, then get them to the script read-through, and that’s when they find out: ‘What? I’m dead?’ Luckily, it’s nothing like that. You find out the fate of the characters when you get cast. Some things may change, but nothing that drastic.”
"I was really struggling with trying to float above the water as a lifeless body and not breathing in any water," the actor said in a separate interview with EW. "The waves kept hitting my nose and I was choking on so much water…. I did, in the end, hold my breath. Arrow went in, I closed my eyes, floated above the water, and then held my breath until they said cut. Obviously, I'm moving to keep myself afloat and that's tiring. I was taking little breaths every single time. So it was a big challenge."
Jace and Vermax weren't the only deaths, as vicious Triarchy leader Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorne) meets her end with a blade in the throat from Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim).
The third season debuted a new opening credits sequence, which you can check out below.
"The prequel series finds the Targaryen dynasty at the absolute apex of its power, with more than 15 dragons under their yoke. Most empires—real and imagined—crumble from such heights. In the case of the Targaryens, their slow fall begins almost 193 years before the events of Game of Thrones, when King Viserys Targaryen breaks with a century of tradition by naming his daughter Rhaenyra heir to the Iron Throne. But when Viserys later fathers a son, the court is shocked when Rhaenyra retains her status as his heir, and seeds of division sow friction across the realm."
House of the Dragon season 3 sees Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans reprise their respective roles. Additional returning cast includes Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall, and Matthew Needham.
Season 3 directors include Loni Peristere (episodes 1,6), Clare Kilner (episodes 2,3,4), Nina Lopez-Corrado (episodes 5,7), and Andrij Parekh (episode 8).