**Major spoilers for House Of The Dragon season three episode one below**
House Of The Dragon fans have been left horrified after the third season’s debut featured a mother-son kiss on screen.
The Game of Thrones prequel show, based on aspects of George R. R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, returned last night (June 21), airing on Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK.
In the season three premiere, Aegon’s (Tom Glynn-Carney) family grappled with his sudden disappearance, with the chaos triggering a shocking move from Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), who, during a tense conversation with his mother, Alicent (Olivia Cooke), kisses her on the lips.
Although its predecessor also depicted incest onscreen to shocking effect, fans have been somehow even more shocked by the mother-son moment. “That was easily the most uncomfortable kiss I’ve ever seen on TV,” wrote one X user after the episode aired, while many settled for sharing gifs of people retching.
While some saw the moment as a nod to the morally dubious family Aemond comes from: “He’s a Targaryen, what do you expect”, others felt the moment was unnecessary, and “did nothing for the storyline or for his character”.
You can check out more social media reactions below.
Alicent disgusted face after Aemond kissed her 😭🙏 Yo she is scared asf pic.twitter.com/gkIAgIiRsS
— H’s 💭 HOTD S3 SPOILER (@itshelenwhat) June 22, 2026
AEMOND JUST KISSED HIS MOM ALICENT?!
I had to rewind three times because there’s no way my eyes just witnessed that. House of the Dragon keeps finding new ways to leave me absolutely speechless.#HouseoftheDragon #HOTD pic.twitter.com/iNzMS3suj6— sanmeyo (@oyemnassxo) June 22, 2026
How could everyone hold back from throwing up? pic.twitter.com/yaLg10GmdH
— merri yard🍿 (@merriyard) June 22, 2026
This did nothing for the storyline or for his character. Completely unnecessary and uncomfortable as hell. Just added for shock value. To quote the great Glidus "Eew, Gross, Yuck!".
— Amara (@DrAmaraRoxa) June 22, 2026
Bro I had to pause and stare at the wall for a solid minute 😭 Targaryens really said 'family bonding' and took it to the next level. Alicent's face after tho… pure terror. This show is unhinged.
— Victory (@victory_enzo) June 22, 2026
That was easily the most uncomfortable kiss I’ve ever seen on TV. There're other ways to show Aemond is damaged.
— Just Anime (@TheRealJustCN) June 22, 2026
He’s a Targaryen what do you expect lmao it is in his bloodline
— 𝑆𝐴𝑀𝐴𝑁𝑇𝐻𝐴 𝐺 ♡︎▕⃝⃤ (@Sweetheart0531_) June 22, 2026
i hated this scene as i expected i would, found it unnecessary as i knew i would but damn! did i love everything about alicent’s here? how she understood what she needed to perform in order to achieve HER OWN goals—aemond be dammed. she plotted, she lied, she manipulated. FUCK ME https://t.co/LJYQEpuNgf
— liz (hotd spoilers) (@alicentcoded) June 22, 2026
Ahead of its debut, showrunner Ryan Condal revealed to EW that the season would open with the epic sea confrontation dubbed The Battle Of The Gullet. Describing it as “arguably the craziest episode of television ever made”, he said the sequence was essential to include in the show.
“To try to tell this story without doing the Gullet would be trying to film Lord Of The Rings without doing the Battle of Helm’s Deep,” he said. “If we were gonna do it, we had to do it right. And that meant dragons and ships and multiple theatres of conflict.”
Indeed, that battle see’s a major character death in Harry Collett’s Jacaerys Velaryon. NME sat down with him to discuss filming the major moment, which required him to be strapped to a motorised saddle and repeatedly dunked into tank of “really cold” water.
“When I got out of the water, the medic ran over and was like, ‘You need to come with me right now,’” Collett recalled. “My hands had turned blue and she thought I had hypothermia…”
However, it turned out to be coloured dye running from Jacaerys’ riding gloves. “I’d worn them for the whole show, but obviously they weren’t made for water… For a second, I looked at my hands and thought, ‘Oh no, this is bad. Maybe I’m really dying.’ They say that your skin changing colour is one of the last stages [of death]… Genuinely, I think it put a lot of panic into people. That was one of my funniest moments of filming, actually.”