Jul 27, 2026 11:55am IST
‘House of The Dragon’ Season 3 Episode 6 Review: The Butcher’s Ball Delivers A Major Character Death Amidst Political Dance
Scores of “House of the Dragon” fans must be celebrating today. Episode 6 of Season 3, “Faceless Men,” delivers a highly anticipated main character death in the first few minutes. And even if the book lines aren’t spoken and canon is altered, it’s still a pretty satisfactory moment. With its political machinations, war strategies and different chess pieces crossing each other across the board, the episode indeed feels like a dance of the dragons in which the faceless men decide the fate of all. It's one of the season’s most “Game of Thrones” episodes yet.
The Butcher’s Ball and the fall of Criston Cole
Fabien Frankel has done a fantastic job, taking Ser Criston Cole from a handsome, valiant knight to a hypocrite who supported a war due to petty jealousy. The episode’s opening sequence is a banger, with some spectacular swordwork by Frankel, and Archie Barnes’ Oscar Tully aura farming while bantering with Cole, like he was personally trained in it by Daemon Targaryen. Cole’s death itself arrives most tragically: He remained a Rhaenyra hater and a knight until the end, bargaining for his men’s lives, loyal to Alicent and wanting to die with a sword in his hand. Instead, he was felled by arrows to his face, shot by a woman. Book fans will recognise Cole’s assassin as Alysanne Blackwood, aka Black Aly. Both her and Oscar Tully’s arcs in this episode are major changes to canon but pay off well.
A broken King Aegon II at Rook’s Rest
The one story arc that seems the most inexplicable and a total wildcard is King Aegon II at Rook’s Rest with Lord Larys Strong, and now, also with Ser Tyland Lannister who survived the Battle of the Gullet. In the books, a badly injured Sunfyre survives, and so does Aegon’s quest for vengeance endures. But in the series, Sunfyre is apparently dead, and even if Aegon seeks revenge, how is he to execute it? But though this arc tests our patience the most, the show is doing something interesting with Aegon’s character development with all that introspection. The payoff better be worth it.
Related Stories
Is that Rhaenyra the Cruel ruling over King’s Landing?
Even as the Greens get butchered in the Riverlands, the Blacks aren’t faring all too well at King’s Landing either. Queen Rhaenyra sits the Iron Throne but presides over the Seven Kingdoms with empty coffers and a Small Council torn over how to handle the growing unrest. A restless and revenge-thirsty Daemon Targaryen cannot hold off his Gold Cloaks from resigning from their duties. At this point, with Ormund Hightower’s men killing off the City Watch one by one and the Queen paying them no money, all Daemon has to offer them are empty words. What's worse is that, just like most rich and powerful people, he and Rhaenyra seem clueless about how much their words and actions are turning people against them, including a certain Dragonseed whose allegiance is not completely guaranteed.
But this is where an acting masterclass is happening, thanks to Emma D’Arcy as Rhaenyra Targaryen. Her physical performance, sitting on the Iron Throne, giving the most ridiculously elitist responses to the smallfolk who seek their queen’s help with their problems, is brilliant. The moment of realisation when she cuts her finger on the Iron Throne and is reminded of Viserys is some great writing. And so is the cruel, manipulative game she can't help but play with Alicent, once told of Helaena’s pregnancy and her dreams about Aemond being at Harrenhal.
The Lady of the Water and the Dragon Prince at Harrenhal
Harrenhal has been the underdog arc since two seasons now. It feels like the location exists beyond space and time, and a major player being stuck there might, at first, feel like stagnant writing until it pays off in great character development. Prince Aemond Targaryen shows more haste than his uncle in wanting to leave the wretched place, but Alys Rivers’ shocker of a revelation—dragon eggs—offers him exactly what he has wanted all his life. Without Vhagar to boost his ego, Aemond regresses into the vulnerable boy he has always been, and Alys knows how to use that to get what she wants.
Popular on Variety
The calm before the storm at Tumbleton
A lot is happening at Tumbleton, from Hugh Hammer possibly beginning his skeptic era after his wife broke his heart, to a clever assassination plot against Prince Daeron, orchestrated by Rhaenyra and foiled by Ser Gwayne Hightower. In fact, Ser Gwayne is the MVP of this episode, not only for being gentle and kind with Daeron but also for clocking that the House Baratheon host were assassins in disguise, simply because he knew all the pretty knights of the realm by their physical description.
Everything continues to edge towards a boiling point, with Tumbleton and King's Landing at the center of it. If we were to point out but one misstep in this episode, it would have to be the reach of Lord Ormund Hightower’s exaggeratedly long arm. He seems to be a bit too good at making moves across the board, whether it is King’s Landing or that surprise attack on Lord Corlys Velaryon’s camp. It’s easy to get carried away writing a delicious villain, especially one played so gloriously by James Norton. However, Lord Ormund needs to seem less invincible and more human, as he did in that balcony moment with Gwayne, when he admitted that he was unnecessarily harsh with his war-weary cousin.
The teaser for Episode 7, the penultimate one, promises the heat turning up further until the First Battle of Tumbleton in Episode 8. All eyes on JioHotstar, where all episodes of "House of the Dragon" Season 3 are currently streaming, with new episodes every Monday.
Comments are moderated. They may be edited for clarity and reprinting in whole or in part in Variety publications.