The first episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is here, and the latest Game of Thrones spinoff on HBO wastes no time establishing that it’s a very different sort of TV series from both GoT and prequel House of the Dragon. Unlike the other two shows, it’s not an hour-long drama; it’s a half-hour comedy, though there’s plenty of the ‘ol Westeros misery to go around, don’t you worry.
Taking place about 100-ish years before the kick-off of Game of Thrones, the show is instead decidedly small scale, focusing on a hedge knight named Ser Duncan The Tall (Peter Claffey), his tiny, bald squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), and the tournament they’re aiming to enter.
With that preamble out of the way, let’s break down a recap of what happens on the series premiere of AKofSK, which has way more letters than GoT or HotD.
Spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1, Episode 1 “The Hedge Knight” past this point.
The action kicks off in the rain with three horses – those would be Thunder, Sweetfoot and Chestnut – whinnying while Dunk buries his recently deceased master, Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb). And in these early scenes, this seems like the miserable Westeros we know. But as Dunk talks, things at least production-wise are different… Dunk explains how, except for one time, Ser Arlan never hit him unless he deserved it… And we get a 30 Rock-style cutaway to those times. It’s dark humor for sure (Liz Lemon could never), but it’s shocking and funny at the same time.
It’s really the next scene where things snap into focus. Dunk talks to the horses, and weighs his options. Could he sell the horses? No, he’d end up poor in a year. Or he could head to a city and join the City Watch, but that doesn’t seem quite right either. Picking up Ser Arlan’s old sword, Dunk realizes “it fits my grip as well as it ever did his,” and there’s a tourney at Ashford Meadow. This is when the iconic Game of Thrones theme music swells up, Dunk gets a steely look on his face – and it smash cuts to him loudly and happily defecating behind a tree, complete with us watching the diarrhea come out of his butt.
Yeah, this is skewering everything you thought you knew about Westeros, in case that wasn’t clear.
Just one note here, as it isn’t clear: it’s seems likely that Dunk is not a knight; he’s a squire. Ser Arlan died, and while we haven’t seen the circumstances here that led to his death, or where he left Dunk, it’s clear over the course of the episode that Dunk is holding back a secret — and it’s likely that secret is that he’s not a knight at all, let alone one of the Seven Kingdoms.
Tavern On The Green
Okay, back to the action… Dunk heads to a tavern, and calls to a stableboy to take care of his horses. That “stableboy,” we’ll later discover is Egg, and he’s not a stableboy – Dunk is misrepresenting himself as a knight, and assuming Egg isn’t what he is, which is the first thing that ties the two together.
In the tavern, Dunk orders everything in the house – duck, lamb, and more – and encounters a drunken lord who points a knife at him and says “I dreamed of you. Stay the f**k away from me. You hear?” What this means specifically, HBO has asked reviewers to not say, though I’ll note for the moment we will loop back to this later in the season. You may be able to notice though that the drunk pays with a gold coin emblazoned with the Targaryen three-headed dragon, so take from that what you will.
After his hearty meal – writer George R.R. Martin certainly would have clarified that the hot juices of the meat ran down Dunk’s chin, but we don’t see that here – Dunk heads outside only to find Egg dressed in his armor, on one of his horses. Egg is insolent, and cuts Dunk down to size by mentioning he doesn’t look like a knight, and has a belt made out of rope. But then they find a second connection: they’re both orphans. Or rather, Dunk was until Ser Arlan took him in, and Egg explains his mother is dead, but says nothing of his father.
Egg has a proposal: he wants to be Dunk’s squire, but Dunk isn’t interested. “Look lad, I promise ya, you’re better off not squiring for the likes of me.” Dunk tosses Egg a coin, and heads off for Ashford. And that’s the last we see of Egg! Just kidding.
The Tournament At Ashford
Arriving at Ashford, Dunk finds a busy and packed tournament full of shops, knights, and soldiers, and immediately heads to talk to the master of the games… Hilariously (and not for the last time) bonking his head on the door-frame on the way in.
“What you want, man?” asks Plummer (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), the steward of the games, who looks like Walder Frey (David Bradley) and Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) had a baby. Dunk explains that he was knighted by Ser Arlan before he passed, which is likely not true – and is emphasized by Dunk lying to Plummer that Arlan always wanted him to be a knight, then cut to a flashback of young Dunk asking if Ser Arlan always wanted him to be a knight and Ser Arlan responding by spitting off his horse onto the ground in answer.
Dunk gives his whole story to Plummer, who similarly, and somehow even more disgustingly hocks a loogie into his loogie cup.
“Any knight can make a knight, it’s true,” answers Plummer, but there’s a problem: the only witnesses to this dubbing were a “robin and thorn tree.”
Plummer puts the fear of The Seven in Dunk then by explaining that if he’s pretending to be a knight they’ll tie him up nude by his hands and feet, lower him down onto a spike and “f**k you dry.” Seems in line with what we know about Westeros… But Plummer is joking. “Ha ha,” laughs Dunk uncomfortably about the idea of the “Ashford Chair.” But there’s still several impediments to Dunk’s entering the tourney, not least of which he has no armor. And more importantly, Dunk needs to get the endorsement of someone who knows Ser Arlan. That man? Possibly Ser Manfred of House Dondarrion (Daniel Monks), who Dunk thinks will help him out.
There’s one other catch to the tourney that’s important to mention here, as explained by Plummer: if Dunk loses the tourney, he loses his horses, armor, equipment… Everything (and also maybe his life). He can ransom them back (except his life), but he needs coin to do that – which Dunk does not have.
So: Dunk needs an endorsement; he needs armor; and he needs coin, in that order.
Also he bonks his head on the way out, and that is funny every single time.
Meet The Cast
Heading to see Ser Manfred, Dunk is stymied by two ladies of the night who make fun of him for being sad, which bums out Dunk (somehow) even more.
Then it’s over to meet the Fossoways. The house characterized by an apple has two key members we meet here: Ser Steffon Fossoway (Edward Ashley), who is an experienced and mean knight; and Raymun Fossoway (Shaun Thomas), a much nicer squire. Steffon challenges Dunk, but Dunk leaves… There’s a question that’s raised here: how good of a fighter is Dunk? He seems pretty confident in his skills, but we haven’t seen him in battle, and he certainly seems to be exaggerating or outright lying about a lot of other things.
After a not particularly successful bath featuring a guest appearance by Dunk’s butt, he heads back to Ser Manfred’s tent… And Manfred is still out. Not out? The two women, who are taking care of a third, nude lady in the tent. Manfred’s whores are preparing the third, redheaded lady as if she’s dead for some unknown reason (possibly for Manfred’s pleasure) other than to thematically play on the idea that Dunk may be heading to his own demise.
“Be good to your body, Knight,” says one of the women. “Last one you’re like to have.”
So Dunk heads off to see an incredibly elaborate puppet show put on by Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford) complete with a dragon puppet that breathes fire. Dunk is immediately smitten with Tanselle, though he leaves, unable to speak to her.
There’s one more major cast member to meet during this intro sequence, and it comes courtesy of Raymun, who thinks Dunk is a halfman (half man, half giant)r: Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings).
The Laughing Storm
Heading into the Baratheon tent, Dunk finds a packed and boisterous crowd. In the front, at the center table is Lyonel, aka The Laughing Storm. He’s wearing an enormous antler crown, and is drunkenly pontificating for the crowd. Of note for those curious, like a lot of this episode this scene does not occur in the novella “The Hedge Knight” by George R.R. Martin… Lyonel only really shows up at the end of the story for a brief appearance.
Surprisingly, this is one of the most delightful sequences in the pilot. First, Lyonel gives his speech about the joust… Which ends in, uh, nothing. He throws out “men could not have devised such a joy,” in regards to the idea of the joust, and asks “who was it?” but he doesn’t even have an answer himself. Instead, he riles the crowd with an offer of a hundred gold for “whoever sticks me best.”
Dunk proceeds to stuff his face with meat and tarts, while everyone parties and dances… But much to his confusion, Lyonel only has eyes for Dunk, and calls him over to the main table.
“You ever been punched in the face before?” Lyonel asks, explaining that large men get punched more and Dunk should stop slouching.
Here is another scene that plays against our expectations for Westeros… Lyonel is a lout, but he’s also a lord, while Dunk is a lowly hedge knight. This scene has the underlying tension that Lyonel could do horrible things to Dunk, and once Lyonel asks Dunk – who is holding a half-eaten tart the entire conversation – what he’s brought him as a gift (the answer is “nothing”), that tension rises from a simmer to a boil.
“You wish to curry my favor,” Lyonel hisses, “but you come with an empty hand?”
Luckily, Dunk makes him laugh by explaining he’s in Lyonel’s tent because he wants supper, his name is the “ridiculous” Ser Dunk, and then Lyonel and Dunk dance, almost stamping each other’s feet. This dance scene, too, is a master class of staging, as Dunk white boy dances, they spar with their footsies, and ultimately reach even ground on the dance floor, smiling and prancing around the tent.
Afterwards, the high-born lord Lyonel and the low-born orphan Dunk are sitting and chatting deeply, with Dunk now wearing the antler crown. And for the first time in the episode, Dunk opens up to someone about his lack of chances of the tournament given his relative lack of training.
“Oh you have no chance,” says Lyonel to the disappointed Dunk, before placing his hand collegially on the latter’s shoulder. “But it’s a great honor to test oneself against a worthy foe.”
Dunk isn’t convinced, and asks what he should do. “I don’t know,” Lyonel says. “I’m really quite drunk.”
Drop Dead Manfred
Seeing Manfred leaving the Baratheon tent with the two whores, Dunk confronts him and asks about Ser Arlan… But Manfred doesn’t care. Dunk doesn’t understand: Ser Arlan took a wound in his father’s service. Manfred explains that his father took “800 swords into those mountains… We’ve forgotten men who reaped much more than a wound.”
This serves a plot purpose of course, to stymie Dunk’s seeming one chance to get in the tournament; but it also drives home the theme of the episode… For Dunk, this small act of service on the part of Ser Arlan means everything. For Ser Manfred? It means nothing. It’s a total flip from the focus of Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, that always took the dragon’s eye view of Westeros, from the lords on down, all fighting for The Iron Throne. For Dunk, he’s a large man with smaller worries – but they mean the world to him, and are just as important as who rules the Seven Kingdoms is to Daenerys or Rhaenyra.
Egg Returns
Disappointed, Dunk returns to his camp only to find Egg there, cooking a fish. Egg rode in the back of a lamb cart, and Dunk wants to send him back in one. But they would need to ride all the way to King’s Landing.
“You’re from Flea Bottom?” Dunk asks, noting the poor part of town at the bottom of the hill, which, though it’s not stated, is where Dunk comes from originally.
“No,” Egg says, and doesn’t elaborate.
Once again, Dunk and Egg are both holding back secrets.
But Egg immediately proves his worth: he’s washed Dunk’s things, cleaned his weapons, and groomed his horses. The one thing Egg hasn’t done? Raised his pavilion, which Dunk doesn’t have. He does have a tree though, and “it’s all the pavilion a true knight needs.” He also notes he’d rather sleep under a tree than some “smokey tent,” and it’s hard not to read this as Dunk A) making excuses, and B) being pissed off at Lyonel and Ser Manfred, who do have smokey tents.
From there, Dunk and Egg properly introduce themselves, and Dunk agrees to let Egg serve him for the tourney. “I don’t have much, but if you earn your keep, you’ll have clothes on your back and food in your belly,” Dunk says. “The clothes might be rough spun, and the food salt beef and salt fish. But you won’t go hungry.”
Egg’s expression says everything: this, to him, sounds like a dream. As to why it’s a dream? Stay tuned.
That night (knight?) Egg and Dunk sleep under the stars, and see a falling star pass by. While Egg waxes poetic about the lords missing out sleeping under “silk instead of sky,” and that “a falling star brings luck to those who see it,” Dunk offers up “a clout in the ear” if he doesn’t shut up and let them sleep. But Dunk isn’t as rough as he seems. “So, the luck is ours alone,” asks Dunk tentatively. Egg smiles, and goes to sleep.
The music swells, as Egg curls up, and Dunk stares at the sky, eventually allowing himself to be lulled peacefully to sleep.
Can we just for a second talk about what a lovely, heart-warming end this is to an episode? After seasons of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon leaving our characters episode after episode is the most dire of circumstances possible, here we end with something even rarer: hope. Wonder. The beginnings of a friendship. Shout out to director Owen Harris and writer Ira Parker for taking the bones Martin built in his short story, and fleshing it out into something so beautiful… While most of this episode is spent on Dunk, it’s impossible not to fall in love with Dunk and Egg as a pair: an enormous man, and a tiny bald boy, together against the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. That’s something worth rooting for.
A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max, at 10pm ET. The season will premiere with one episodes on January 18, followed by one new episode weekly until the season finale.
Here’s what we expect from the full list of episodes in A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms with premiere dates.
- Sunday, January 18, 2026: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Season 1, Episode 1
- Sunday, January 25, 2026: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Season 1, Episode 2
- Sunday, February 1, 2026: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Season 1, Episode 3
- Sunday, February 8, 2026: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Season 1, Episode 4
- Sunday, February 15, 2026: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Season 1, Episode 5
- Sunday, February 22, 2026: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Season 1, Episode 6 *Season Finale*
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