House Of The Dragon Recovers From Season 2 Dip With Season 3 Finale

Two Years Later, HOTD's Season 3 Finale Has Knocked The Last One Out Of The Water

House of the Dragon's second season is largely seen as the low point in the series - and not just by fans. Famously, this is when George R. R. Martin publicly distanced himself from the show, taking issue with some of the changes made in the adaptation. He even suggested in his now-deleted blog post that Season 3 would be even worse, so showrunner Ryan Condal had much to prove.

Despite all of this, it looks like he's pulled this off. Season 3 has the overall highest rating yet on IMDb, beating both of the previous seasons. It even managed to stick the landing this time, with the season finale, The Treasons at Tumbleton, far surpassing its Season 2 counterpart, The Queen Who Ever Was.

According To Fans And Critics, House Of The Dragon Is Back On Track

The Treasons at Tumbleton has a 9.1/10 on IMDb, making it the seventh highest rated episode of the series. The first two episodes of the season were also ranked highly, with Queen's Landing and Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood securing fourth and fifth place respectively.

For comparison, the Season 2 finale, The Queen Who Ever Was, is the second worst-rated episode of the series, with a score of just 6.5. The only episode below it is Smallfolk, another Season 2 episode, although one that was review-bombed for depicting a same-sex kiss between Rhaenyra and Mysaria, rather than anything else to do with the episode.

Review-bombing aside, a common complaint about Season 2 is that there wasn't enough going on. Season 1 appeared to suggest that the war was going to happen immediately, but Season 2 then gave us several episodes of Rhaenyra and Alicent trying to put a stop to it before it came to further bloodshed. The finale also centred around a tense conversation between the pair, rather than any dragon-fighting action; it had its fans, but largely, people were left disappointed.

Season 3 cannot be accused of that at all. The first two episodes were non-stop action, showing the Battle of the Gullet, and then Rhaenyra taking King's Landing. We didn't take much time to slow down after that, including the finale, which focused on the Battle of Tumbleton.

Interestingly, Season 3 managed to pull this off while doubling down on some of its more controversial adaptational changes. For instance, we truly saw the character of Rhaena merged with book character Nettles, in a story arc that many enjoyed. We got more of Helaena being a dreamer, too, and much of her story revolved around her unborn son, Maelor - who should have been alive in Season 1, if we were following the book.

Now, we wait for the fourth and final season. There's been no word on whether Season 3 was enough to bring Martin back on board, but it's certainly won over the audience.