News Nova Loki Creator Michael Waldron Is Now Developing a Nova Movie for Marvel It’d be cooler if it were a Cassandra Nova movie By Molly Templeton | Published on July 14, 2026 Screenshot: Marvel Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Marvel Studios Marvel continues to put many—or at least some—eggs in its Michael Waldron basket. The creator of Loki (pictured above), writer of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and co-writer of Avengers: Doomsday is now developing the studio’s Nova project, which has morphed from a series into a feature film. According to Deadline, Waldron’s involvement became known last week, “when Waldron’s WGA card was leaked with the project being listed as a credit leading to the reveal that Waldron had been brought on to tackle a new pitch.” The character of Nova was created in 1976 and is basically a superpowered space cop. As Marvel explains, “Chosen at random by the dying Xandarian Rhomann Dey to receive his Nova Corps powers, teenager Richard Rider found himself thrust into the role of superhero, a role he grasped with relish.” In comics, he’s had some run-ins with the Skrulls, who keep turning up in recent Marvel projects; was a member of the Secret Avengers; and appeared in a Guardians of the Galaxy storyline, among other adventures. Marvel has been trying to make Nova happen since at least 2022, when Moon Knight writer Sabir Pirzada was attached to the project. Two years later, it was announced that Nova would be a series with Criminal Minds’ Ed Bernero as showrunner. But in 2025, Nova was one of the TV projects that Marvel put on pause (along with Strange Academy and Terror, Inc.). It remains to be seen if and when Waldron’s version will arrive in theaters.[end-mark] The post <i>Loki</i> Creator Michael Waldron Is Now Developing a <i>Nova</i> Movie for Marvel appeared first on Reactor.

Books The Wheel of Time Reading The Wheel of Time: Backward Leads Only to the Past in Towers of Midnight (Part 2) By Sylas K Barrett | Published on July 14, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Galad leads seven thousand Children of the Light through a deep and large swamp, taking a path deliberately chosen because it seems the least likely place for Asunawa to be looking for them. The men are struggling in the heat and the mud and the insects, and Dain Bornhald suggests that they turn back. Galad tells him that backwards only leads to the past, and that they must go forward, as the Last Battle is almost upon them.  Remembering the lessons about leadership that Morgase taught him, he calls a halt to the march and gives a speech to his men to encourage them, reminding them that they are the Light, and that light shines brightest when it is dark. “Where is the victory of this swamp? I refuse to feel its bite, for I am proud. Proud to live in these days, proud to be part of what is to come. All the lives that came before us in this Age looked forward to our day, the day when men will be tested. Let others bemoan their fate. Let others cry and wail. We will not, for we will face this test with heads held high. And we will let it prove us strong!” They continue their march, strengthened by Galad’s speech. After fording a river full of  bodies from some bandit attack or raid and marching for a while longer, a scout named Bartlett returns to report that the swamp ends in about a mile, and that the way north is clear. But when Galad and the first of his men emerge from the trees into the field beyond, a great force appears—Asunawa and the Questioners, plus other forces Galad guesses must be Amadicians, loaned to Asunawa by the Seanchan. He realizes that his scouts betrayed him, suggesting the route through the swamp in order to exhaust Galad’s men and give Asunawa time to get his forces assembled. Their numbers are much greater as well, and Galad knows that he has no chance of victory here. Accompanied by Byar and Bornhald, Galad rides out to parley with Asunawa, who is accompanied by a guard of Questioners as well as several Lord Captains. Asunawa accuses Galad and his men of being Darkfriends, although when Galad calls him out he changes his accusation, naming only Galad as such, his followers led astray by him. Asunawa demands Galad surrender, and accuses him of using the powers of the Dark to defeat Valda unfairly. But Galad has an answer for each accusation, turning to the Lord Captains and invoking various rules and tenets of the Children of the Light to point out the ridiculousness, and unlawfulness, of Asunawa’s claims. Still, Asunawa persists, refusing to accept Galad’s arguments or to make any truce with a Darkfriend. Galad offers to surrender, on the condition that none of his men are imprisoned or put to the question.  “You cannot hinder the Hand of the Light in such a way! This would give them free rein to seek the Shadow!”“And is it only fear of Questioning that keeps us in the Light, Asunawa?” Galad asked. “Are not the Children valiant and true?” Asunawa is still dissatisfied, and Bornhald tries to talk Galad out of his decision, but Galad stands firm, and eventually Asunawa orders Galad be taken prisoner… and that none of his men are to be put to the question. Galad sends Bornhald and Byar back to give orders to his men and then is roughly dragged from his saddle and thrown to the ground. As his armor is removed and his clothing cut free, he declares that he is not a Darkfriend and will never speak that lie. He is then beaten and kicked into unconsciousness. The creature who was once known as Padan Fain walks along a hill, reveling in his hatred, the only emotion he has left. He likes to carry the dagger unsheathed so that it cuts his hands and leaves drops of blood on the ground as he walks. He has accepted his madness, and feels liberated. He has killed a Worm, which has attracted some attention from nearby Shadowspawn. He runs into a group of Trollocs led by a Myrddraal. The Trollocs attack, but the more intelligent Myrddraal turns to flee. The mist struck.It rolled over the Trollocs, moving quickly, like the tentacles of a leviathan in the Aryth Ocean. Lengths of it snapped forward through Trolloc chests. One long rope whipped above their heads, then shot forward in a blur, taking the Fade in the neck. The Trollocs fall to the ground in screaming spasms, their skin breaking out in blisters and cysts. They rise again, corrupted zombies under his control. The madman continues on, followed by his Trollocs, on his way to kill Rand al’Thor. He thinks he’ll kill the Dark One next. In Kandor, Malenarin Rai, commander of Heeth Tower, is working and pondering his duties for the day and his son Keemlin’s upcoming nameday. To have a duty was to have pride—just as to bear a burden was to gain strength. Watching the Blight was his duty and his strength, and it was particularly important these days, with the strange storm to the north, and with the Queen and much of the Kandori army having marched to seek the Dragon Reborn. Jargen, a sergeant of the watch, reports to Malenarin that they have received a flash—the watchtowers communicate using light reflected by mirrors—from Rena Tower. There has been no following message to report that the flash was a mistake, and no response to messages from Heeth Tower. After waiting some time for a reply either by mirror or messenger, Malenarin decides to send a message on to the next tower reporting what has happened and warning of a possible attack. In addition to message by mirror, the information will also be carried by boys on horseback. Three of them, just in case. Keemlin is one of those who will be sent, as his name is next on the roster. It isn’t long before Malenarin, watching the dark storm that has been perpetually on the horizon, decides that the darkness is advancing. He orders the Tower to be readied for a siege. He is surprised when Keemlin appears, reporting that he asked that another boy be sent in his place. He explains that the other, Tian, is five or ten pounds lighter than Keemlin, which will make a big difference on a hard ride. Under his father’s disapproving stare, he adds that Tian’s mother has already lost four sons to the Blight, and that Tian is her last. Keemlin’s nameday is still a few days away, but Malenarin tells his son that the sword is presented the day a boy becomes a man—therefore, this presentation is late, not early, as Malenarin sees a man standing before him. The ceremony is short, with Keemlin swearing to fight in defense of his honor, his family, and his homeland for as long as he has breath, and to never stop fighting, or watching. The men cheer as Keemlin is declared a man. Moments later the Tower is attacked by Draghkar that come pouring out of the cloudy sky. On the ground, a massive force of Trollocs begins to batter at the walls. Malenarin knows that the Trollocs will keep coming until the Tower is overwhelmed and every man killed. He also knows that every moment they resist buys time for the messages to reach the next tower, and for the defenders to prepare. Malenarin was a man of the Borderlands, same as his father, same as his son beside him. They knew their task. You held until you were relieved. That’s all there was to it. Ugh, just when I thought Mordeth/Fain couldn’t get any grosser. I’m curious what part he has left to play in this story, though. By the rule of threes there should be one more big thing. The first was of course the fact that he nearly killed Rand. The second was Shadar Logoth and the power of Mashadar made possible the cleansing of saidin. What will the third be, and will it have something to do with fighting Rand himself, or fighting the Dark, or some combination of both? The beginnings of Fain, back in the early books that homage Lord of the Rings so lovingly, were very Gollum like, which also makes me feel like Mordeth/Fain should be there at a climactic moment of the Last Battle, even if it’s not the climactic moment. That he has, as Gandalf says of Gollum, “some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end[…].” I don’t really enjoy reading about him much, though I am interested in his new delusion that he can kill the Dark One. I don’t believe it is possible to do that—the Dark One seems to be integral to the function of Creation and the lives of humanity—but that doesn’t mean Mordeth/Fain couldn’t do the Dark One some serious damage. And it’s interesting, really, because Mordeth, the original guy who came to Aridhol, began as someone who genuinely wanted to fight the Shadow. He and the people who followed his ways became corrupted—I believe there was something about using the methods of the Shadow to fight the Shadow—but Mashadar was never of the Shadow. It is a different kind of Evil, one that will destroy anyone it touches, but prefers to hunt Shadowspawn above all. And I can’t help thinking, given how important Mashadar already has been to Rand’s success, that in some ways, from a certain point of view, what Mordeth and King Balwen did was… good? Not moral, of course, but perhaps necessary, in a cosmic sense, to the successful progression of the Age and the ultimate victory of Rand al’Thor at the Last Battle. In some twisted, messed up way, Mordeth the man has done exactly what he set out to do. Also, what the heck is a Worm? Are we going for a Dune homage now? Jordan pulled a lot of inspiration from Dune, especially with the Aes Sedai, so I can certainly see him inventing a sandworm-eque creature to include in his world building. I can also see Sanderson inventing such a creature following the same reasoning. Speaking of new creatures, I had to go look up what a Draghkar was; I felt like the name was familiar but I can not remember for the life of me if/where we’ve encountered them before. I always try not to do research online for fear of spoilers, but curiosity got the better of me and I did read the whole fandom.com article on Draghkar, and did a little skimming through the articles about Trollocs and Myrddraal. I found it interesting that while Trollocs were created by splicing human and animal genetics (with Myrddraal resulting when the balance of presentation tipped a little closer to human than animal) but the first Draghkar were (according to the fandom.com article, which did not site a source for this particular piece of information) created by corrupting humans. Still, they seem very similar to Myrddraal, even to the point of having hypnotic powers. Myrddraal get the toughness and the weird faces, Draghkar are skinny and more fragile, but they get giant bat wings. Both basically just feel like animalistic vampires to me. I don’t have a whole lot to say about Malenarin Rai’s section. It’s well-written and atmospheric, but plot-wise it doesn’t do much besides let the reader know that the Shadow is on the move. And it reminds us of how Borderlanders think, which is useful in understanding Lan’s whole deal, and the mindset of those who follow him. It’s easy to be annoyed by Lan’s deathwish tendencies, especially since they rubbed off on Rand, but the context of the culture he was born into and the one he was raised around matters a lot when it comes to how he thinks and how he carries himself. Borderlanders consider the reason for their existence, the meaning of their lives, is to give them to the fight against the Shadow. When Malenarin gave Keemlin his sword and named him a man, I thought about the Malkier tradition of granting the hadori/ki’sain. Just as Keemlin repeats an oath to stand against the Shadow until his death, the hadori and ki’sain come with a similar oath, a similar commitment to fight until one’s death. Or in the case of women, to dedicate her sons to that fight. My complaints about gendered bullshit aside, I do think there is something dark about making that pledge on behalf of someone who hasn’t even been born yet. It speaks to the strength of the culture and to the fact that the Borderland countries only survive because their culture is so strict about duty and standing against the Shadow/Blight. But it also speaks to the depressing inevitability of being born into a world at war. This is what the Dark One is really about, I think. His personal goal (as far as anyone knows, anyway) is to destroy creation, or maybe remake it in his own image. But his role in the lives of humanity is to bring war and strife and suffering, to create a world in which even before they are born, babies are dedicated to fighting a war that has been going on for generations and generations. Rand isn’t the only one who inherited an identity and a duty that brings him pain, suffering, and death. Everyone in this world did—the Borderlands most of all. I’ve left Galad and his section for last because it is the most interesting and the most complicated. I have to admit, I’m obsessed with Galad’s characterization, and have been since we met him back in The Eye of the World. I have a soft spot for lawful characters, people whose rigid sense of right and wrong makes them heroes (in the story-telling sense) who always stand by their principles—and then, inevitably, are challenged by a world that is not nearly as black and white as they believe.  I’ve used the DnD categorization to talk about this kind of character before, when exploring the characterization of Galad. Where Elayne says he “always does the right thing, with no regard for who it hurts,” I say lawful Good. But the thing about being lawful Good is that you can only continue to be both as long as the laws you follow are good. This is possible in a game setting, but not in real life, because laws are made by people, and all people are flawed. No matter what law you choose, what leader you follow, you are inevitably going to come up against a law, an order, a choice, that does not match your morals. And then you must decide. Will you choose law for law’s sake? Or will you choose good, even if it breaks the rules? We saw Galad tackle this problem when he helps Nynaeve and Elayne escape Samara, choosing to honor his duty to Elayne as more important than any other obligations he might have. His actions led to riots, which I suppose fits the narrative of doing the right thing “no matter who it hurts,” but it proves that he is capable of thinking for himself, of following his own moral compass above the rules and laws of any organization he may owe allegiance to. As far as being a member of the Children of the Light goes, Galad is reconciling the difference between lawful and good by attaching himself to the spirit of the Whitecloaks’ rules, focusing on the noble goals and lofty ideals of serving the Light and protecting the world from the Shadow. He doesn’t allow personal ambition or animosity to taint his execution of those ideals, and he is determined to hold the men around him to the proper standard. Galad is also fortunate to have the skills and brains to back up his position. The whole point of a Trial Beneath the Light is that the Children believe that the Light will only allow those righteous under the Light to prevail; the Light would never allow a liar or a criminal to be victorious. If you don’t believe that, however, then the Trial Beneath the Light doesn’t prove innocence or guilt, only who is the better swordsman. Or who was having a better day. Or who just got lucky. Valda may or may not have truly believed that he was a good man in the eyes of the Light, but he clearly believed that he was going to best Galad through greater martial powers, not because the Light would guide him to victory. I don’t think Galad, whose position was moral and whose accusations were true, really believed that he was guaranteed to win because the Light deemed it so. He did, however, understand the law of the Children, and his moral duty demanded that he make every attempt to avenge his mother. He used his understanding of the law and faith of the Children of the Light to his best advantage, and because he is also an incredible swordsman, he was able to succeed. So great is the hold that lawfulness and faith have on the Children that even Asunawa (who knew of Valda’s guilt) couldn’t stop Galad from getting to issue his challenge. Valda accepted it because he was cocky, but I think also because he knew that he needed to appear upstanding in the law in the eyes of his men. Galad also uses his understanding of the laws and faith of the Children during the parley with Asunawa. He knows that Asunawa is not a good person, and that the man is more interested in his own gains than following either law or morality, so he appeals his arguments to the Lord Captains who are with Asunawa. If these men are good and true, they must at least consider what Galad is saying as he invokes the faith by which the Children of the Light are supposed to conduct themselves. Galad would make an amazing lawyer, if that conversation is anything to go by. He argues that he and his men cannot surrender, because Children of the Light take an oath never to do so, presenting his defiance of Asunawa as an adherence to his oath. He also reminds everyone present that he bested Valda in a Trial Beneath the Light. It is quite possible for good men to fall at the hands of Darkfriends, but a Trial Beneath the Light is very different than falling in battle or at the hands of an ordinary attacker. Asunawa is, of course, uninterested in any of Galad’s points, but just as Galad used his right as one of the Children to issue the challenge in the first place, despite Asunawa’s protests and denials, he is able to use his legalistic arguments to gain enough advantage with the other Lord Captains to force Asunawa to acquiesce to a compromise. It’s skillfully done. And selflessly, too. The man always does what is right, regardless of who it hurts. And that includes himself. In the swamp he tells Trom that he had no choice but to lead the Children after killing their Lord Captain Commander. To do otherwise would have been wrong, and so Galad put aside his own desires and did what was right. Now we see him do the same again: He does what is right, even though the person who got hurt this time was Galad himself. I’m desperately curious to see what happens with Galad’s story in relation to the existence and identity of the Children of the Light going forward. He’s planted some seeds in the minds of the Lord Captains who are still loyal to Asunawa, and Asunawa does not really conduct himself the way a member of the order should. He gets away with it because he’s a high-ranking Questioner, but now everyone is going to be comparing his behavior to Galad’s, and I think Asunawa is going to come up wanting. I also fully believe that no amount of torture can make Galad say he’s a Darkfriend, or recant anything he said about Valda. Given all that, I can see a world in which enough Children of the Light turn against Asunawa to either break the group in half—the Questioners as one organization and the rest of the Children as another—or even to have Asunawa officially deposed in some way. As all of you well know, I’m pretty much against the Children of the Light, and would be happy to see the whole group disbanded permanently, but Galad is right that they are needed for the Last Battle, and he is the perfect person to lead them. Finally, Rand will have a leader who is willing to ally with him, and the Aes Sedai, and the Seanchan, and anyone else, despite any personal animosity, for the good of the world and victory at Tarmon Gai’don. Galad may not know how he feels about the Dragon Reborn, may wonder if he is an Aes Sedai puppet, but he won’t let those suspicions and concerns stop him from keeping his eyes on the prize: stopping the destruction of everything. That will be a relief for Rand, personally as well as professionally. After all, he is going to marry Galad’s sister, and the other brother might still be thinking about murdering Rand if they are ever in the same room together. Next week we will be covering chapter one, in which Rand reveals some interesting new abilities, and chapter two, in which Perrin keeps working on becoming the leader he needs to be. Until then, I’m going to be thinking about doing the right thing, and how, exactly, one decides what that is. See you next week![end-mark] The post Reading The Wheel of Time: Backward Leads Only to the Past in <i>Towers of Midnight</i> (Part 2) appeared first on Reactor.

News Crystal Lake Crystal Lake Teaser Trailer Feels Closer to Widow’s Bay Than Friday the 13th The Peacock series will re-imagine the story of Pamela Voorhees By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 13, 2026 Credit: A24 Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: A24 The first teaser trailer for the Friday the 13th prequel series Crystal Lake has finally arrived, and the mysterious series so far feels tonally closer to Apple TV’s breakout horror comedy show than the original Friday the 13th films. Complementary, of course. The preview itself doesn’t offer much in the way of details, but we know that Crystal Lake is a kind of re-imagined prequel to the original Friday the 13th film that follows Jason’s mother (Pamela Voorhees) as she tries to recover following the death of her son. And while not all of the details will be exactly lore accurate (for instance, the show is set in the ’70s rather than the timeline-friendly 1950s), anyone with a vague familiarity of the franchise knows that things don’t go well for Pamela and the campers who cross her path. Here’s the official description for those interested: A prequel to the Friday the 13th franchise, the series follows single mother Pam Voorhees who has been unable to shake her grief after her young, sickly son Jason tragically drowned in the town lake almost a year before. When two strangers arrive at Pam’s door digging into her past, a disturbing chain of events are set into motion, leaving the townspeople of Crystal Lake wondering: just who is Pam Voorhees? The most surprising thing about the trailer may be its tone. The preview begins with talk of a cursed town, and the sight of happy campers and the sound of children singing is somewhat at odds with the original films (only one of which showed actual kids at the camp). There really is a bit of Widow’s Bay in the throwback feel of small-town legends this preview exudes. Linda Cardellini (who plays Pamela Voorhees in the series) even hints that the show is going to be more of a tonal grab bag than the original films were. “The tone is odd,” Cardellini says of the series regarding its supposed “mix-tape” nature. “It is many things at once, but it works as this fun ride. There’s some scene set in an outdoor carnival, and I feel like it’s almost that feel.” You apparently won’t have to wait too much longer to see how the first major Friday the 13th project in many years comes together. Crystal Lake is set to start streaming on Peacock on October 15.[end-mark] The post <i>Crystal Lake</i> Teaser Trailer Feels Closer to <i>Widow’s Bay</i> Than <i>Friday the 13th</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV The Vampire Lestat The Vampire Lestat Goes for the Throat in “Montreal” Someone needs to tell Lestat to quit doomscrolling By Molly Templeton | Published on July 13, 2026 Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC There’s Chekhov’s gun, sure, but how about Chekhov’s musing about how long Lestat could live after being beheaded? Earlier this season, Lestat listed the ways he could be killed, including beheading. Furious after the fake revelatory interview, Daniel Molloy said Lestat would have been a head mounted above a coven toilet if not for him, but Dr. Fareed wasn’t so sure about that. A vampire as old and powerful as Lestat, he thought, could survive some time without his head attached to his body. Maybe eight to ten hours? Ish?  In “Toronto,” this seemed like a tease reference to Louis’ imminent beheading of a member of the Fang Gang. But no: here we are at the heartstring-tugging penultimate episode of this season, and neither of our leads have kept their heads. One certainly wonders if Fareed’s thoughts about Lestat apply to Louis as well. Given that he appeared in the future scene at the very start of the season, it seems clear that this isn’t the end. But how do we get to there from here? “Montreal” is written by Ryan Kattner (aka Salamander) and Kevin Hanna (who also co-wrote last season’s “I Could Not Prevent It”), and it is unlike anything else this season. For one thing, there are no flashbacks. What happened in the past weighs heavily on the present, but now it’s time to stay here, in the moment, and deal with it. After a couple of moments of voiceover at the beginning. we are largely present with Lestat as he goes through a fateful evening. It’s Halloween again, two years to the day since he barged in on Satan’s Night Out and changed the trajectory of all of their lives. This time Lestat has a houseguest, a costume, and a lot of things to do. No more handing out candy; the sign on the door will have to do in his stead. (The internet tells me it basically says “Take one each,” which no kid, faced with a bowl of unmonitored sugar, has ever done.) He also has a 3.1 from Pitchfork and a single, “Cabbages,” that only hit number 68 on the Billboard charts. The world is fairly unimpressed by The Vampire Lestat’s new vampire-centric sound. (The title sequence song did not change to reflect this apparent change. One might notice the ice-cream scoop in said titles, though. And the room with the circle of salt.) Voiceover Lestat, who reminds us that he is speaking to us from some time after all of this, lists the “nesting dolls” of his identity: The stutterer, the ape, the actor, the keeper, the tourist, the recluse, the rock star. In-person Lestat slowly meanders about his cozy yet elegant house, fondling a scarf on the piano bench and a pile of passports with ridiculous names. Fifty thousand vampires are descending on Montreal for the concert Gabriella and some unseen others have put together, and he is doing it all for her.  It’s almost funny that he thinks he can do this and yet ignore the Great Conversion of it all. Maybe he thinks it won’t happen. Maybe he just isn’t thinking. He’s sort of loose and happy, considering the end of the rock star portion of his existence. And also his houseguest.  Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Louis—sleeping over at Lestat’s, chastely, in his own fancy coffin—thinks it is all a bad idea. Dinner is a bad idea. The concert is a bad idea. The bad idea is a bad idea. It is not clear, for a while, what “the bad idea” itself is, but Lestat has been shopping, and has a voicemail from “Mary Rick,” who calls from airport customs to make sure all is ready for later. Louis, it transpires, does not like witches. And Mary Rick is Merrick Mayfair, who Louis says is “the worst kind of witch”—by this I assume he means a Mayfair, but one way or another there is clearly some history here. Lestat says that Merrick and “the uncle,” Cortland, are different, and for one thing, he used to be in a book group with them. I am wishing now that I had watched Mayfair Witches, but at least that gives me something to do when this season is over and I’m waiting breathlessly for news about whether this show will continue.  It being Halloween, Lestat is dressed as the grim reaper, and Louis has his sunglasses on, almost as if he is costumed as himself, like the little kids who showed up on Lestat’s doorstep two years ago. The two of them walk through Halloween eve—briefly accosted by a ghost who gives them a flyer and intones “Obey the five laws!”—surrounded by people in costume and a general, genial sort of chaos that feeds into the vibe of two bickering longtime partners, at ease with each other even in the casual ways they lie to one another. “We could talk about the proximity of your restaurant to my home,” Lestat says as they walk up to another one of Louis’ investments. Louis protests: “It’s a catastrophic coincidence.” Mmm hmm. Everyone in the restaurant recognizes Lestat and stands to applaud him as he strolls through, looking lightly smug. I’m a little bit hung up on his willingness to play along with the Great Conversion, even with Louis reminding him that all those vampires are going to straight-up murder all those little humans running around playing dress-up like monsters. Lestat is blasé as hell. It snagged me, that casualness.  Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Dinner, it turns out, is a chance for Daniel Molloy to get some closure for his documentary. Dan is very orange. He quizzes Louis and Lestat about the hurricane in New Orleans that we saw at the end of season two, and about what they said to each other, and this is very funny because every single person watching this show probably has asked the same question. Loustat collectively demur. They don’t remember. They couldn’t hear each other anyway. It was a hurricane, Dan. They are fucking with him, like they always fuck with him, and he is not having it. But they’re too caught up in themselves to notice.  Daniel brings up the whole fog of vampiric love thing, with Louis saying he simply tried not to read Daniel’s thoughts, in Dubai, out of respect. If Armand was telling the truth, though, and he was running home to share his notes about Daniel with Louis, then Louis has never respected Daniel’s privacy. Lestat talks about dreaming of forests, with an odd line about transcribing birdsong at night. Daniel asks if he’s still “fanging” Sofia.  He’s trying so hard to needle Lestat, to bring the old combativeness back, to get a rise out of him. Perhaps there’s an element of performance to this. “Ready to eat your own?” Daniel asks as they sip the blood of a distant descendent of the Lioncourt line. The weird tension of this dinner reminded me of the last time we saw Daniel in a fancy restaurant, when he met up with Louis only to relinquish his seat to Raglan James and real Rashid. That was only a few episodes ago, and yet that was a very different Daniel. In the car, Louis mentions that Daniel seemed off, and Lestat brushes it off with a little diva-behavior about the chip on Dan’s shoulder, and how he and Louis are better than Daniel, “and it’s exhausting to pretend otherwise.” More relevantly, Daniel was trying to read their minds, and Louis says he got in his. What did he find there? Every scene with Louis and Lestat alone, this week, is gorgeous. The absurd, alluring, hilarious intensity with which Reid plays Lestat performing for the screaming vampire fans? The little proud-partner look on Jacob Anderson’s’ face as Louis watches and bops along, and appreciates, and finally thanks Lestat for his fancy guest-bed coffin? It’s catnip. These two playing off each other attain something that the show—much as I love all of it!—doesn’t have when they’re apart. They both play their roles with lived-in richness at all times and with all scene partners, but put them in close proximity, like the back of this car, and it’s like you can feel the decades Louis and Lestat spent together. And all the horrors they’ve done to one another.  The excellent script has them bicker in revealing ways, talking over each other, interrupting, hiding and admitting to things in turn. Lestat has questions; they both do so many attentive, emotive, interesting things with their faces. Guilt, Louis says, is one of the reasons maybe he saw Lestat’s spirit in Paris. Lestat denies that the same thing has ever happened to him, then says, “The songs might have shook loose a bone or two,” and Louis erupts in frustration about all the things Lestat never said about himself. The nesting doll of identity, still nesting, still hiding the little parts inside. But when Lestat tries to blame his behavior with Antoinette on the blood of Akasha, Louis isn’t having it: “It ain’t the blood. It’s what you do with the blood.” It’s about time someone told him that. Lestat makes a cartoonish shocked face, laughs, starts teasing Louis about Vampire Equinox, but the question lingers: Why is he like this? “Because, Louis,” Lestat says, “I’m a monster.” This line could have been delivered so many ways; Reid says it with a complex mix of resignation, irreverence, inevitability, something that isn’t regret or bitterness, but comes close. The look out the window, afterwards, the way the scene ends here, it all combines to give the definite sense that a monster might be what he is, but it’s not what he wants to be. Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC At rehearsal, he throws Louis to Gabriella without even an introduction, and those two circle each other, feinting, jabbing, testing the waters. Gabriella watches Louis more than he watches her—a nice performance of indifference—and eventually suggests that perhaps he shouldn’t come to tomorrow’s vampire hijinks, where vampires from everywhere, including Detroit, will be present. They have different ideas about what Lestat would want: “I think he’d be hurt if I didn’t show,” Louis says, but she counters,  “I think he’d be more hurt if you were hurt. You should stand by me. I will protect you.” Suuuuuure you will, Gabriella.  Lestat and the now-all-vampire band, including Sam on keyboards, play around with “Dancing With Myself” before offering up “Brutal Love” for the “brutal truth” of Louis’ opinion about it. I don’t love this song—it feels unfinished, and we didn’t need another slow jam right after “Stained Glass Eyes”—but I loved watching Gabriella realize that Lestat is singing directly to Louis, and watching Jacob Anderson simply sit there, letting a thousand complicated emotions play across his face. (The set decoration in this venues scene is perfection, all that empty space around the band, the lights, the pyrotechnics! It’s enough to make me want to go to that show, even if it would be the last one I ever went to.) Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC The little Gabriella and Lestat scene at the end of rehearsal is an odd one; she tells him to pack for Cadiz, which is apparently where they’re going after whatever the hell happens with his concert. They kiss, and Lestat is clearly not into it, and the proximity to Louis, waiting in the car, makes the false notes of this all the falser. Before Lestat can escape, Gabriella tells him Armand is in town, and Lestat says he knows. He can sense the gremlin. This will also be very relevant later. But in the car, Louis waits with a bomb: Daniel has released a sex tape of Gabriella and Lestat. Lestat tries to play it off as a deepfake, but Louis plays the beginning, which involves both Daniel and Armand in the sunlight, Armand explaining who “Sofia” was when he met her hundreds of years before. “Are you hitting the same vagina you spent the first nine months of your mortal life in?” Louis asks, and Lestat protests. I must give Lestat a bit of credit here for having a better grasp of reproductive anatomy than a lot of human men. But he’s deflecting, and deflecting, and then the panic gets so great that he vomits blood on Louis’ expensive shoes and the two of them have an epic sidewalk meltdown/conversation that is ugly and painful and possibly the most honest these two immortal dingbats have ever been with one another.  The writing in every one of these episodes is fantastic; the writing in this one is intensely dense and rich and emotionally devastating, as Lestat twists his panic into fury at Louis’ judgment and sobs about how he was in the midst of his own “fracturing” while trying to help Louis deal with his terrible guilt. They have horrified one another with their choices, but the show isn’t interested in ranking their mistakes, in trying to make one wounded, traumatized vampire more sympathetic or terrible than another. Every horror marks them. Lestat absolutely unraveling when Louis finds out about his deepest shame, his longest trauma, is a heartbreaking scene played nakedly. And it’s not even the emotional climax of this wild episode.  Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC I love that these two pull it together in a dive bar, drinking blood-spiked beer. This scene has the same sort of exhausted feeling that comes after a visceral ugly cry. The fury spent, they can try to understand each other, to “reset,” as Louis says. But Lestat can’t deny it when Louis asks if “it” ever happened before Gabriella was a vampire, and he can’t help but hit back, and you can see the patterns these two have fallen into, the old ruts. You can also see them try to pull themselves back out of those ruts. This whole episode is them trying to find their way back to one another, to try to find common ground in a space full of chainsaws and sinkholes. It’s all over-the-top and melodramatic; it’s all raw and real. It’s exactly why I love this show: the emotional honesty wrapped around vampire misbehavior, the moments of vulnerability (Louis talking about the cousin who sexually assaulted him) right up against the moments of frantic defensiveness and blame.  This, somehow, is when they talk about Daniel in the sunlight. Lestat’s wish to know if the video is everywhere is part and parcel of his fear of loneliness, his need to be good and loved: Will it make him a pariah? Will he be shunned? Louis reminds him that the internet’s memory is short and fickle. And Louis owns up to his own failures: “I am my own zip code of mess right now and I’m not proud of how I just was. I’m sorry.” Now that, my vampire dudes, is progress. Time to bring up some whole other trauma. Merrick Mayfair has arrived in Lestat’s beautiful apartment in order to do a seance and call up Claudia’s spirit. Sarah Afful is excellently intimidating as Merrick, swanning about in Lestat’s place (temporarily “Papa Legba’s make-do room of diablerie”), poking at Louis with her knowledge of the du Lac boys. She calls Claudia a burned girl called up by her killers, and while Louis gets defensive, Lestat understands. It’s a great moment of him reading people, watching cues, seeing what is and isn’t said—what is being inferred. Of course a trauma-made vampire who fears being alone would want to be able to see what people aren’t saying.  Claudia doesn’t mince words, though. She manifests in Merrick’s body and slams her head on the table so hard she breaks teeth; she stalks through her summoning circle vibrating with fury. Delainey Hayles nails this scene, just exponentially increasing the fury Claudia had in life into an undead rage that she aims, pointedly, at Louis: “You weren’t even my favorite. I liked him better. He knew who he was.” Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC But she starts her rant looking at Lestat while saying Louis’ name. It’s odd. That oddness carries through. Hayles is a force of nature, and the rawness she brings here makes every one of Claudia’s barbs just that much sharper. Louis says the worst possible thing—that she ought to be thanking him for taking out Bruce—and she flattens him with scorn. That was always about Louis. It was all about Louis: that he wanted to say goodbye; that he wanted to avenge her. And now he wants credit for that. Anderson is so good, so sympathetic and convincing, that when he destroyed Bruce, I rooted for him; Hayles is so good, so much fury and fire, that when she tears Louis a new one, I root for her.  You can do that, in a show like this: slide your loyalty around, share it with everyone, hate a character one week and love them the next. Louis was wrong, but I understood why he did what he did. He felt a need to do something about his guilt. And it does nothing for Claudia, who has nothing, nothing to lose, nothing to treasure, not even Madeleine. Her wretched screaming for the one good thing in her life brought me near tears, and it makes me feel like a little bit of a monster for what I want to say next: I just think that when you summon the ghostly spirit of a dead vampire you ought to take what they say with a grain of salt, you know?  There’s the way that she looks at the wrong man; there’s also the way that she talks about Lestat, which sounds more like Louis’ version of Lestat than the Lestat we’re seeing now. Nothing that spirit Claudia says is exactly wrong, and her rage fits Claudia’s rage (there’s that bit Daniel says in the “previously on,” about how Louis chose Lestat over her over and over again, and “cursed her into the darkness,” phew). I know these two very bad dads are dealing with a lot, and perhaps not in a frame of mind to question what they heard—and what they probably think they deserve. But I have questions. That scene, though. What a doozy. And what a beautiful way to distill one of this show’s most powerfully carried constant themes: That loving someone is not the same as doing right by them. Parents harm children, children dismiss parents; lovers lie to one another, hide things, misstep; one person’s version of events felt entirely different to another. You can love someone and hurt them so badly. And because we’re in vampire territory—immortal territory; superpowers territory; abilities beyond those of us normal folks, including abilities to hurt—the harm is epic, the scale grandiose.  Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC And somehow, it is still Halloween. Louis and Lestat go for a walk to process, which is one of the most relatable, human-scale things ever to happen on this show. There are ghouls and gremlins at large in the park (the park Lestat mentioned while on the phone to Louis, all those episodes ago). Louis, again, is not proud of what he said. He’s all defensiveness and lashing out, and he knows it now: “Got some work to do on myself.” Their brief, pointed, poignant exchange about how that was not something one did in their eras—either of their eras—is succinct and wise about how people are in some ways a product of where and when they come from. You cannot expect a man born in the 1700s to have the best grasp on self-improvement, you know? Let alone a man with Lestat’s upbringing. He and Louis have faced their demon—who was also their daughter—and have been shaken into acceptance: “I guess we just carry that.” Rattled, laid bare, they find honesty, and Lestat asks the question that gives his later narration its name: “Where I am a mystery to myself is why I wanted it now, the night before I go onstage the hour before the witch arrives. Why do I actively, manically pursue failure?” Louis, having already told Lestat off for his worst actions, having faced his own, has a new level of understanding: “Maybe it’s just the vampire’s burden. What do you replace death with? What’s to live for if there’s no end? Maybe it’s just how you keep your nights straight.” They are philosophical, they are revealing—the songs are about Louis; the restaurant’s location is no accident—they are pinkies-touching-on-the-knees close (sorry, Lem?) and they are fantasizing about desert trailers and night-blooming flowers and birds when Louis notices “thrift-store Dracula,” which is a very funny way to describe Alex on multiple levels. Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC And then it all comes crashing down. Their heads, I mean. That final shot, of their shoes, unmoving, while blood seeps off the bench—I had my hands over my face and was silently shrieking. Armand and Daniel take their own masks off and turn away, and that’s all she wrote, except that it so clearly isn’t. The trailer for next week is all timers and shots of bodies whose faces we can’t see, and bowling bags (I laughed) and ominousness. And what is surely Lestat’s billowing cloak.  This scene is genuinely shocking, not least because of the cold expressions on the murderers’ faces. But we know some things. We know Louis is present at the auction in the future. We know Lestat records those spoken-word albums. And we know—thank you again, Doctor Fareed—that vampires can survive beheading. The scene is shot to suggest that Daniel and Armand just walk away afterward, but I don’t think they do. In “Toronto,” Fareed tells Daniel, specifically, that Lestat would survive this very thing. If Daniel really wanted to kill him, he’d have chosen something else. And Lestat says, earlier in the episode, that he can sense Armand in the city. So would he not sense the gremlin creeping up behind him? I don’t think it’s beyond Lestat to plan his own (temporary, carefully timed) death. He has been acting a bit like a man tying up loose ends. He can’t get away from Gabriella. He has done what she wanted; he says he’s gifted the Great Conversion their anthem. And he’s just so chill about it all. What if he’s in on this? What if it’s so that he can’t perform? (Surely even a vampire wouldn’t be great at singing less than 24 hours after having his head removed and reattached?) On the other hand: Would he have wanted this for Louis? Or is he collateral damage?  I’m still working on this theory. It is hard to theorize much about Daniel and Armand when we’ve seen so much of them, and no matter how you slice it, I don’t think Armand killing Larry was part of Lestat’s game plan. (On the other hand, there is that “Please, turn Larry down” at the end of the title sequence this time around.) No one seems to have many feelings about Larry’s absence other than Alex, and Alex was already in Armand’s pocket.  There are other options: The murder is real and Gabriella saves them; the other unexpected attendee at the concert at the end of the novel shows up; Daniel and Armand aren’t actually walking away from the corpses, but going to fetch those shiny bowling bags and a truck so they can take them somewhere for re-attachment, or refrigeration, or some nefarious plan I haven’t even begun to imagine.  It’s so much. It’s so dense. The finale ought to be three hours long. And we are only halfway through The Failures.  LITTLE SIPS Image Sophie Giraud/AMC The seance to summon Claudia also happens in the books—but much, much later, in the book called Merrick. Just imagining Louis watching Degrassi. FRAUDIA. Lestat in New Orleans, Lestat in Montreal, Lestat going where there are echoes of France. “Justice for Antoinette.” The Halloween costumes worn by mortals on the street now include Lestat’s blood-script fancy top. The way Lestat gives Louis credit for pointing out Gabriella’s portrait in New Orleans in the middle of the “fracas” is a hilarious version of one viewer of this show complimenting another for noticing one of the many rich details hiding out in the perfect sets. Alex is Gabriella’s fledgling, but what about Salamander and TC? I would guess Sam to Salamander, and Lestat to TC, based on Magnus mentioning a drummer at the table. But interesting that this is only clarified for Alex, who joins the mommy issues party. I keep thinking about unreliable narrators and unreliable characterizations, and wondering what, exactly, is going on with Gabriella that we aren’t seeing because Lestat can’t see it.[end-mark] The post <i>The Vampire Lestat</i> Goes for the Throat in “Montreal” appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV House of the Dragon A New Villain Shimmies Into the Dance: House of the Dragon, Season 3 Episode 4 Notes on Hightower ethno-supremacy, surprise pregnancies, and a focus on the smallfolk in Tumbleton… By Tyler Dean | Published on July 13, 2026 Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO After spending the majority of our time with Rhaenyra and the Blacks in the first three episodes, we get an in-depth look at the state of Team Green, with a special focus on a new key location in the ongoing Dance of the Dragons. We’ll get into the ins and outs of the episode below. Be warned there are spoilers, as always, for the episode below. The Title The episode is entitled “Tumbleton.” This is for obvious reasons, as Tumbleton is the newest focal point of the Dance, as we’ll discuss below. The town warrants its starring role in the title not just because it’s important to the episode but because it is relatively unimportant as a location through most of Westeros’ history. It would be nonsensical to name an episode “King’s Landing” or “Dragonstone,” as those are places where the narrative nearly always has some crucial plot afoot. But Tumbleton has not played any part in the game of thrones until this moment. And George R.R. Martin is rarely starry-eyed or idealistic when it comes to telling us about the fate of tiny backwaters that suddenly come to the attention of the great and powerful… Unraveling the Opening Credits Tonight’s opening tapestry features a new panel that appears to have two figures, one whispering in the other’s ear. The figure being whispered to might be Torrhen Manderly and the one on the left seems to be Corlys Velaryon, maybe… but I am not entirely sure. Honestly, after staring at it for hours, I’m stumped. Does it represent the machinations of Rhaenyra’s small council? Perhaps we’ll find out more in the weeks to come. Another detail: this time the rent in the tapestry neatly decapitates the rat lurking beneath the throne.  Embodying Ormund Credit: Theo Whiteman/HBO Scholar, historian, art collector, balladeer, and intellectual: these are the ways Alicent characterizes her cousin Ormund to Rhaenyra. She also mentions his deep aversion to strong odors and the fact that her brother Gwayne thought him cruel. All of this is new to the show as Archmaester Gyldayn doesn’t say much about Ormund Hightower save his role as the current head of House Hightower (as the son of Hobert, Otto’s elder brother) and commander of the Hightower army during the Dance of the Dragons.  The show, clearly needing a compelling villain for this season, has woven Ormund from whole cloth. James Norton is great at making him imperious, posh, and cultured while masking a barely concealed rage. Given how much Alicent has blamed her own mothering instincts for the corruptibility of her older sons, this episode reminds us that Oldtown was not a perfect place to raise a child and that Daeron’s fundamental decency is more nature than nurture.  The reveal of Ormund’s desire to crown Daeron is also new for the show. It makes sense as an extension of his own anti-Targaryen bigotry, which does somewhat track with the ways that the Hightowers have been portrayed in Martin’s books.  Stewards of Culture Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO The Hightowers are among the oldest families in Westeros (more on that later), having been, for thousands of years, the rulers of Oldtown, which is likely the first city on the continent. As a result, some of the most significant cultural markers of Westeros are housed there. It is famously home to the Citadel—the cloistered university that trains the order of maesters and boasts one of the largest libraries in the world. It is also home to the Starry Sept which, during the House of the Dragon era is the largest and most important Sept in the faith. That would not be changed until the building of the Great Sept of Baelor, which served as the center of the faith from about 30 or so years after the events of House of the Dragon until Cersei blows it up in season 6 of Game of Thrones. In fact, Aegon I had his coronation at the Starry Sept, seeing as King’s Landing did not yet exist. It is also home to the Hightower itself, the tallest building in Westeros, which gives the family their name. Given the significance of these three buildings, alongside Oldtown’s status as the most important center of trade on the continent (prior to the construction of King’s Landing), and you get an idea of the Hightowers’ view of history—they are a family that believes themselves to have been synonymous with the Seven Kingdoms and displaced by the Targaryens, even if they had not ruled as Kings themselves for several thousand years. All of this is embodied in their house motto: “We Light the Way.” Yes, it refers to the lighthouse brazier atop the Hightower, but it also positions them as the light of civilization. The Oldest People in Westeros? Credit: Theo Whiteman/HBO While the Hightowers are generally thought to be descendants of the First Men (the same Bronze Age ethnic group as the Starks, Royces, Blackwoods, and most Northern houses) and wholeheartedly adopted the religion of the Andals (the ethnic group from Western Essos that brought the Seven Gods to Westeros), there may be more to the story. There is evidence in Martin’s work (through the writings of Maester Yandel, who is a similarly unreliable narrator like Gyldayn) that the Hightowers are part of a group of men that came to Westeros even before the First Men (along with the equally mysterious House Dayne in Western Dorne). The fan theories about this pre-First Men group are numerous, though many subscribe to the idea that they are part of “the Great Empire of the Dawn”: a group from Asshai that had dragons before Valyria and may be responsible for the construction of the foundations of Hightower, the Five Forts in Essos, and even the Wall itself (maybe). None of that is canon, per se, but the in-world belief that it might be true points to a sort of self-righteous, ethno-nationalist pride that the Hightowers are the “true” people of Westeros—even more so than the Starks or the Green Men or anyone, save the Children of the Forest and the Giants. House of the Dragon probably won’t get into any of this (besides, a lot of it is very, very speculative) but there is a possibility that they aren’t just traditional stewards of Westerosi culture but the descendants of an ancient people, among the very first to occupy the continent. So Ormund seems to be an effete prig, an ethno-supremacist, and a bitter foe of the Targaryens for the crime of having snatched away not simply temporal power, but cultural clout from his family. None of this is in the original text of Fire & Blood, but it works rather well as distillations of all the flaws in the general Hightower character. Tumbleton Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO Tonight’s episode opens with some establishing shots of Tumbleton, on the banks of the Mander. It is an important location in season 3, even though it is a relatively unimportant location in Westeros generally, and the show has clearly built out the sets to make it feel real, so let’s talk about it! The town sits at the headwaters of the Mander, the major river that flows down from the northeast through the Reach and Highgarden before emptying into the Sunset Sea. It is described by Gyldayn as a prosperous market town sixty leagues (120 miles) from King’s Landing. It is the seat of House Footly. We actually meet Lord Glendon and Lady Sharis Footly in this episode, played by Adam Brown (Ori from The Hobbit trilogy) and Alexandra Moen (who you might know from Dickensian or as Lucy Saxton on Doctor Who). It is also the childhood home of Kat (Ellora Torchia), Hugh Hammer’s wife and we see her this episode with her brother (Abhin Galeya), sister-in-law (Jessica Temple), and niece and nephews. Kat and her family are original characters to the show but ever since Kat mentioned Tumbleton last season, book readers have always assumed (correctly) that she was there to give audiences a street-level view of the town.  From the moment HBO first revealed Winterfell’s stout, round towers, there has been something of a tradition in these shows of leaning into architectural designs that looks far different from the Medieval English inspiration of Westeros. Tumbleton seems to be mostly made of brown stone and features distinctive roofs that have what look to be tiered ziggurat or pagoda-like flourishes. The only Westerosi location that has anything similar is Dragonstone, implying that House of the Dragon’s version of Tumbleton may have originally been a Targaryen settlement (even though the Footlys and the people of Tumbleton are definitely subjects of the Tyrells). I suspect that the flourishes are there to make sure that, with its narrow stone streets, Tumbleton is instantly recognizable this season and audiences don’t mistake it for a poorer district in King’s Landing. Most of the plot that Gyldayn mentions in Tumbleton concerns events we have not yet seen—though clearly, we are being set up for them, with Hugh and Ulf keeping watch on the former’s wife’s home and the moral predicament in which Ormund Hightower has placed Rhaenyra (suffer a hostile army near your capitol because you won’t slaughter your own innocent citizens). But what we are getting so far is an object lesson in the toll war takes on the smallfolk. Gyldayn rarely concerns himself with commoners save when they directly affect a flashpoint in history, so it’s welcome to have the show take the time to include them in the proceedings.  For us Americans, we also get handy refresher on why the Third Amendment is so important. It’s not one of the ones that gets regularly discussed these days but it’s clear why it was so important that citizens not be press-ganged into housing soldiers for, among other things, all the lurid reasons the show depicts. There is also a near-dovetailing between the ways in which Kat’s family and the Footlys face the same unpleasant circumstances with wildly different stakes and dangers. Upstairs/Downstairs Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO Gyldayn famously does not concern himself with the smallfolk during his narration of the Dance of the Dragons beyond his mentions of the rising or falling tide of public opinion. If Ormund Hightower is the embodiment of that sort of class erasure and feudal prejudice, then we get an interesting counter-example in Criston Cole. The internet loves to hate Criston Cole and I’m not here to offer an encomium for his behavior over the course of the series. But it is fascinating that the show sticks to its guns about the ways in which Cole is the product of Westeros’ messed-up class politics.  Despondent since the Battle of Rook’s Rest last season, Cole continues to anticipate and welcome death, having lost his chance to advance under Rhaenyra and then Alicent. It makes sense—as a knight from a lineage that began with his father, who’d lived at the pleasure of lords like the Dondarrions, Cole has no prospects for advancement outside the value he can demonstrate to others. He’s not so very different A Knight of the Seven Kingdom’s Arlan of Pennytree or Dunk (who also had trouble with their own Lord Dondarrion) in that regard. Unlike Arlan and Dunk, however, Cole, at least at one point, wholly bought into the seductive mythos of noble knights and the chivalric code. While he has never lived up to those ideals, back in season one, he felt they were the only system through which he could achieve stability. In that way, he is just a touch like Sansa Stark, albeit with all the toxic male privilege that allows his disappointment to turn deadly and grim.  It’s been an interesting and uncomfortable choice to have Cole, bitter and now resigned to a dark fate, provide some of our main insights into Westeros’ smallfolk. And now that he’s joined by Ulf, Hugh, Addam, and Alyn as fellow former serfs raised high by the whims of the nobility, we’ll see if the show gives us alternative responses or perspectives (though, it is always worth noting that as noble bastards, those four have always had more claim to legitimacy than Cole ever had). We also get all of this in an episode where Ulf is denied the right to carouse with Cley and Mujja, Aegon finds himself at the mercy of the Rook’s Rest garrison and its captain playing at lordship, and Rhaenyra authorizes a raid by the City Watch to ferret out malcontents. All in all, it’s not a great look for Westerosi nobility. DragonWatch Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO We get our first look at Sunfyre since the middle of last season. King Aegon’s dragon’s corpse sits in the same clearing near Rook’s Rest. Aegon insists that Sunfyre is still alive but that seems to be Princely grief. Sunfyre is described as the most beautiful of all the Targaryen dragons, a fact reflected in his delicate, canine snout. I really appreciate the show giving both Sunfyre and Silverwing little iridescent patches of scales that account for them being described as “golden” and “silver” in Gyldayn’s history without going too far in a high fantasy direction. Also, there are little motes in the sunlight that are hard to parse as either flies swarming the corpse or ash coming off of a magical fiery beast. While, on repeated viewing, I’m pretty sure it’s ash, the visual language of fires burnt out looking like flies is perversely delightful. We also get a grotesque shot of Meleys’ corpse, still slumped over the side of Rook’s Rest’s curtain wall. Remember that Criston Cole had Meleys beheaded postmortem, the better to celebrate his otherwise Pyrrhic victory.  Caraxes and Sheepstealer get some screen time tonight. Everyone’s favorite noodle boi and the internet’s newly beloved stray dog really show off the range of dragon body types.  We get our best look at Vermithor so far this season. Love those bull horns. But it is Tessarion, the Blue Queen, that gets the spotlight tonight. We’ve seen Daeron’s dragon from a distance in earlier episodes but she gets some close-ups tonight. She’s been given a much stockier, more compact design—short legs, thick neck, smaller wings, and a stubbier snout. I love the four finned ridges on her neck and her relatively long teeth. It’s neat to have a dragon small enough to fit inside the Tumbleton Sept. Also, great to see her being protective of Daeron, snarling when Ormund lays an unfriendly hand on his shoulder.  Odds & Ends Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO Some nice early set-up here (and new characterization written for the show, but compatible with the original plot) where Sharis Footly is a proud Black while her husband takes a more unctuous and cautious approach when it comes to declaring himself for either side. Norton has such a great, droll delivery of “…or is she a bitch with a dragon?” In interviews he has stated that he couldn’t believe that was the take they used.  Ser Jon Roxton brings excuses from Borros Baratheon at Storm’s End, refusing to commit troops to the war effort. We last saw Borros in the season 1 finale when he promised one of his daughters to Aemond and Lucerys arrived just too late to secure an alliance. We also haven’t seen any of Borros’ daughters (including Aemond’s intended) since season one. But given his mommy issues (both recent and historical) it seems unlikely that the show is going to double down on Aemond’s Baratheon courtship.  Rhaenyra claims that if she attacked Tumbleton and murdered her own supporters to get at Ormund, the gentry would name her “Maegor Returned.” It’s another reference to Gyldayn’s reported sobriquet for her, “Maegor with Teats”—a title the show changed to “Rhaenyra the Cruel” (Maegor is most often called “the Cruel”). Maegor remains the Targaryen that all others live in fear of becoming. He was the first of the Westerosi-era dynasty to definitively fall on the madness side of the coin flip and, until Aerys II becomes the Mad King in the Game of Thrones era, the clearest evidence that the Targaryens are unfit to rule.  In reinstating Grand Maester Orwyle, Rhaenyra calls the clocking-in orbs “relics of a dead regime.” Slowly but surely, the show is giving us the erosion of the old Targaryen rituals that are absent by the time Game of Thrones starts. This is further accomplished when Alyn of Hull suggests Rhaenyra put cats in the Red Keep to take care of the rat problem. By the time of King Robert, the Keep is full of feral cats (some of whom, according to fan theories, may be dead Targaryens permanently warged into their familiars).  Torrhen Manderly being named Master of Coin by Rhaenyra is a new development for the series. In Fire & Blood she merely brings Lord Celtigar (Nicholas Jones) over from Dragonstone. Having left all of her advisors behind on the show, they use Manderly in this capacity because he has an upcoming role in certain events that will play out a bit later on, and this show is nothing if not judicious in making the most of a reduced cast. Having Alicent imprisoned in the Keep this season is something of a relief as it gives her and Rhaenyra a chance to regularly interact. Whenever the two of them are able to share a scene, it’s the best this show gets, and I’m so glad they are able to keep doing it.  Alicent picking at her skin returns this episode. It’s a great detail and gives the audience a visceral understanding of when this famously difficult-to-read character is truly breaking down or simply playing politics. Cole comparing himself to a scorpion is another gentle reminder that he is thoroughly Dornish and, in serving in Lord Dondarrion’s household, he was always an outsider kept at the pleasure of those who despised him.  Viserys’ model returns this episode! It’s interesting where both House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms choose to simply elide rather than invent important information. Rhaenyra calls the model’s namesake “the seat of Old Valyria.” Martin is a bit cagey about the name of the city. It is most likely just called Valyria and the Freehold that expanded from it was named after the original city state. But that might also be a modern convention seeing as the entire peninsula is also sometimes referred to as Valyria. I assume that Rhaenyra phrases it like this to leave the possibility open that the capitol had another name open for Martin to write about. It’s also possible that “the seat” refers to the equivalent of Valyria’s high town or central forum. Either way we are a long way from Benioff and Weiss randomly making the Valyrian capitol into a greyscale colony (in the books that colony is the ruins of the city of Chroyane and the city of Valyria is almost entirely inaccessible because it’s cursed or magically irradiated or something worse).  Last season I wondered why they had Aemond and Vhagar randomly burn the town of Sharp Point to the ground (not an event in the book). We get an answer to it here—Aegon can pose as a survivor of the town, accounting for his burned face. Again, not to keep making the unflattering comparison, but this feels like a much more thoughtful and deliberate version of showrunning. Benioff and Weiss may not have had Martin’s last two books to work with, but they had an idea of the ending and the number of plot points they teased and then simply dropped was pretty ridiculous by the end.  Garrick of Whitegrove (Douglas Russell) tells his fellow soldier that their time in Tumbleton will be “better than Honeyholt.” That’s the seat of House Beesbury. So they did take the castle back during the rebellion sometime last season!  The Queen of Bastards graffiti has a crude facsimile of the House Strong sigil (three lines—painted red, blue, and green—representing the three forks of the river Trident. Remember that Jace, Luke, and Joffrey’s father was Ser Harwin Strong, Larys’ brother and Ser Simon’s second cousin. Even as acting Queen, Rhaenyra can’t escape the (true) rumors of her children’s parentage.  Giving Lady Jeyne Arryn an Afghan Hound is such a delightfully weird and fitting choice.  Obviously, there are both practical concerns and a legacy of previous designs to deal with when showing us iconic places in Westeros, but the Game of Thrones design of the Eyrie never felt quite right to me. The interior shots are gorgeous as always and are very much in keeping with the descriptions of anemic, cold halls built too far above the timberline. But from the outside, the Eyrie never seems to be perched on the top of the tallest mountain in Westeros. I appreciate that, in general, these shows usually attempt a more grounded design than what Martin describes, but the sense of the Eyrie being remote, unassailable, and absolutely towering over everything else in the Vale of Arryn just never quite hits home.  While we’re at it, the Welsh countryside that the show uses as a stand-in for the Vale of Arryn is gorgeous but it feels more like misty highlands rather than the series of alpine mountain valleys that Martin describes in his books.  Rhaena continues her Nettles-as-lonely-fire-witch journey in this episode. Important to note is that those beats with Nettles are the character’s epilogue, set many years after the events of the show. Furthermore, Rhaena has a couple of important plot points to play out from Fire & Blood that now seem a lot less likely since taking her in this direction. I am genuinely unsure where they will have Rhaena end up as a result. It does make sense however, that they are keeping Daemon’s plot relatively similar. He is still keeping secrets from Rhaenyra but it’s in order to protect his estranged daughter rather than him hiding an affair (a change I like). The only truly unacceptable option would be for the show to never show us Rhaena or Sheepstealer again and have this be solely a Daemon plot going forward. Hopefully that won’t happen.  Daemon saying “I’m the clever one ’round here” is such a perfect Daemon line. He may be fascinating to watch but man he’d be insufferable to work with. Helaena being pregnant is also new to the show. That said, it suddenly puts all the plot points about Aegon’s other son (whom we previously had assumed was cut entirely) back on the table. I think I have an idea of where they will take Helaena this season and I may need some time to process it. If I’m right, we’re in for some wild stuff.  Still no sign of Tyland Lannister. I suppose that it could be that the show is done with both Lannister brothers and doesn’t intend to use Jefferson Hall again, but that still seems unlikely. It is somewhat more likely that Ser Lorent Marbrand was killed off-screen in the fulfillment of his penance for betraying Rhaenyra. That seems especially possible given that Ser Lorent seems to have been replaced by Ser Adrian Redfort (Barry Sloane) as the Kingsguard knight assigned to personally watch over Rhaenyra.  In Conclusion While this is certainly more of a place-setting episode than the previous three, it does a great job of setting out the stakes of the second half of the season: Ormund as our big bad, Tumbleton as the next flashpoint of the war, Cole and Gwayne on a collision course with Oscar Tully and Roddy the Ruin, Rhaenyra presiding over a city on the brink of riot and a Small Council backstabbing one another. I am a sucker for a great villain and Ormund’s fury lurking under the veneer or civility is a great hook. But what do you think? Are you excited as we move into the back half of season 3? What are you anticipating most as we move forward? Let me know in the comments![end-mark] The post A New Villain Shimmies Into the Dance: <i>House of the Dragon</i>, Season 3 Episode 4 appeared first on Reactor.