Alicent’s old friend faces her own form of filial disrespect, with even graver consequences. When Rhaenyra’s stepdaughter Baela (Bethany Antonia) arrives at Dragonstone with news that the foreign alliance called the Triarchy has attacked the Sea Snake’s fleet on the Greens’ behalf, Rhaenyra races to suit up and meet them on dragonback.
Her headstrong son Jacaerys (Harry Collett), however, has other plans. Whether out of youthful naïveté, cultural sexism, suspicion of Alicent’s motives, the need to prove himself, the simple desire to protect his mom or some combination of all those things, Jace locks Rhaenyra in her chambers and races to the battle himself on his dragon, Vermax. Baela and her own beast, Moondancer, join his assault.
What they find waiting for them is, simply put, the most spectacular battle I’ve ever seen on television. Even by the elevated standards of the World of Ice and Fire franchise, the Battle of the Gullet is a standout.
Under the command of the pirate queen and admiral Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn), the Triarchy’s fleet collides with the Sea Snake’s in a conflict of staggering scope and ferocity. Flaming projectiles soar through the air. Soldiers and sailors duel on decks slick with blood. Dragons swoop in and rain death from above — not just Jace’s Vermax and Baela’s Moondancer but also Sheepstealer, a wild dragon half-tamed by Baela’s sister, Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell). Spooked by the combat, Sheepstealer goes berserk, torching everyone and everything it sees and taking a serious run at the other dragons.
Luckily for Team Black, Lohar has come to settle a score, not win a war. Tossing the Green ambassador Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) over the side of her ship to drown, she engages Corlys Velaryon in a white knuckle chase through a shallow inlet, then rams his flagship with her own. (Her vessel is evocatively named the Bitchfist.) The Sea Snake falls overboard during his duel with the savage Sharako. She is then stabbed to death by Corlys’s illegitimate son Alyn (Abubakar Salim) in an upsettingly intimate hand-to-hand fight, submerged in seawater up to their necks.
Rhaenyra’s son isn’t so lucky. Baela saves Jacaerys and Vermax from Sharako’s first anchor-laden grapnel. But a second grapnel does the job, drowning the dragon with horrific slowness. Watching Jace realize, in real time, that his beloved steed is done for and that he must cut himself loose to survive is surprisingly moving — that’s how real these C.G.I. creatures feel.
