‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 1 Recap – A Charming Introduction

Let’s be totally clear here — despite being set in the same brutal universe, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms really is nothing like Game of Thrones. And that’s a good thing! When this show squirts diarrhea everywhere, it’s a joke. When Thrones sprayed diarrhea everywhere, it was the series finale. Episode 1 doesn’t have the scale and majesty of an early, peak-period HBO prestige drama, but it has character and charm to spare, and sometimes that’s pretty much all you need.

At 40 minutes, “The Hedge Knight” is the longest episode of the series, and this is also a good thing. Cribbed from a trilogy of novellas by George R. R. Martin, the story here is light enough to feel laidback even as it moves at a fair canter. By the end of the premiere, we already have a solid idea of who everyone is, who we’re rooting for, and what the stakes are. The economy of storytelling and a more relaxed, comedic vibe are nice ways of returning to Westeros after the bracing seriousness of Thrones and House of the Dragon.

Still, we do begin on a fairly dour note. Ser Duncan the Tall is introduced burying Ser Arlan of Pennytree, the knight he was a squire to. He’s left with his sword, three horses — Thunder, Chestnut, and Sweetfoot — and no idea of how to actually be a knight. So, he does the first knightly thing he can think of, which is travel to Ashford Meadow and enlist in a tourney. Before he leaves, though, he makes sure to stop for a violent crap behind a tree. Needs must.

On the way to Ashford, Dunk stops at an inn, where a strikingly bald stableboy tends to his horses and a drunk lord says he dreamed of him before staggering upstairs. You’d do well to remember both of these details. You can’t really forget the little boy, mind, as he immediately asks Dunk to take him on as his squire. Dunk isn’t keen on the idea, since he isn’t an especially capable knight. Technically, he’s not really a knight at all.

One of the funnier aspects of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 1 is that it isn’t totally clear how much of his backstory Dunk is simply making up. Ser Arlan wasn’t a knight of any great renown or skill. He was drunk most of the time, or so flashbacks seem to imply, but he was also a good man who treated Dunk well, so he’s determined to honor his name in the tourney. But that means being vouched for by a lord, and there’s only a slim chance that any will remember someone like Arlan.

Nobody is amenable to Dunk. He quickly runs into Ser Steffon Fossoway and his cousin, Raymun, but Steffon treats him with complete disrespect. He later tracks down Ser Manfred, the lord likeliest to remember Arlan after some service to his father, but he’s totally uninterested. The obvious lack of respect for a man he truly cared for irks Dunk, and it makes him compelling to the audience. How does a good man get by in a world like this? That’s the backbone of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and it totally works.

Dunk does stumble upon one ally, at least. Lyonel Baratheon, the Laughing Storm, takes a shine to Dunk immediately, charmed by his honesty and dopey demeanour. He even gives him some meaningful advice — to be tall, which is different, you understand, from simply being tall. It’s a nice friend to make, but it doesn’t secure Dunk entrance to the tourney, and time is running out in that regard.

I tell a lie, actually — Dunk has two allies. The other is the young boy from the inn, whose name turns out to be Egg, who has followed him all the way to Ashford to insist on becoming his squire. And he seems pretty useful. When Dunk stumbles on him, he has already set up a camp, started a fire, and caught and cooked some fish. Dunk finally relents and agrees to let him squire for him for the duration of the tourney.

It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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