For all his faults, Daemon has a tremendous amount of faith in himself. The would-be ruler and partner to Queen Rhaenyra (D’Arcy) wants to run the world and thinks he should, and it’s this confidence — to the exclusion of the advice of all others — that gets him into immediate trouble at Harrenhal. The long-cursed location has already made appearances in the prequel series, first as the site of the murders of Lyonel and Harwin Strong, then as a key strategic location for both the Greens and the Blacks in season 2. Most recently, Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) told Daemon the castle was haunted, a warning he clearly didn’t pay any mind.

I’m glad he didn’t: Daemon having a Really Bad Time at Harrenhal makes for better TV than most of “House of the Dragon” season 2. His strong faith in himself (a God complex, in other words) is quickly undermined when he begins to have disturbing dreams and hallucinations, including one in which he cuts off young Rhaenyra’s head and another that sees him have sex with his own blood-spattered mother. Daemon is clearly destabilized by these visions, which don’t seem to be restricted to when he’s unconscious, and frankly, it’s great to see bad things happen to bad people for once on this show. Episode after episode has brought us dead kids and grieving moms, but for once, we’re shown a character who truly sucks getting some entertainingly strange comeuppance in the form of ghostly psychological torment.