The reviews are in for House of the Dragon Season 3, and the prequel series is finally matching the heights of Game of Thrones.
The new season currently has a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the same as the series-high scores for peak Seasons 2 and 4 of GoT. To date, RT critics have been rather mixed on House of the Dragon, with Season 1 earning 90% in 2022, and Season 2 dipping to 84% in 2024.
The Emmys have been equally ho-hum on the prequel, honoring it with just two trophies for costumes (2023) and makeup (2025). Parent series Game of Thrones, comparatively, is the most awarded show in Emmy history, with 59 wins over its eight seasons.
The third season of HotD, which debuts June 21 on HBO, opens by adapting the epic naval conflict known as “The Battle of the Gullet” from George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood. Showrunner Ryan Condal has compared the battle to The Lord of the Rings, telling Entertainment Weekly that it’s “arguably the craziest episode of television ever made.”
Elsewhere in the season premiere, Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) and Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) are contemplating what it means to work with Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), and whether they can really trust that she wants to end the deadly Targaryen civil war.
Here is what the critics have to say:
THE GOOD
Kaiya Shunyata of RogerEbert.com calls Season 3 “captivating,” writing, “As the stakes grow, the show has managed to salvage its beating heart, allowing its characters to become fully realized, complicated versions of the husks who took up the screen in Season 2.”
House of the Dragon is “finally reaching Game of Thrones heights,” raves Nick Schager of The Daily Beast. “The follow-up to its much-improved second season is an assured and often-thrilling mixture of colossal battles and court intrigue, marked by a narrative that’s bound up in knots and some of the finest CGI-enhanced action on television.”
Louise Griffin of Radio Times affirms that, in the third season, “powerhouse performances meet sheer scale,” continuing, “The two episodes available to press are bookended with memorable series-defining moments.”
Angel Shaw of Screen Rant even hopes that House of the Dragon can “prove us wrong about Game of Thrones endings,” particularly if “this momentum continues.”
Fans of epic battles won’t be disappointed, predicts Tessa Smith of Mama’s Geeky: “This season wastes absolutely no time getting into the dark and gritty. The Battle of the Gullet is a massive, devastating spectacle, and it just gets wilder from there.”
Melody McCune of MovieWeb encourages viewers to “strap in, folks,” explaining, “It’s all sword-clashing, fire-breathing action from here on out, with a smattering of political machinations for good measure.”
THE MIXED
Proving you can’t please everyone, Ben Travers of IndieWire claims, “Viewers looking to disconnect and appreciate the sheer spectacle in the premiere may find it difficult to enjoy a battle that almost no one onscreen wants a part of, and those that do offer zero rooting interest. … Season 3 is a joyless exercise that’s nonetheless an improvement on the wayward Season 2.”
Finally, Lauren Sarner of New York Post says, “There’s a lot of action. Much of it lacks depth, because the characters remain underdeveloped and the story is spread too thin across too many of them.” However, she concedes, “This season flows better than the previous two, and it’s more entertaining.”
