Last week’s episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on HBO left our faithful Ser Duncan The Tall (Peter Claffey) in a dire spot. Spoilers past this point, but after kicking Aerion Targaryen (Finn Bennett) in the face and getting (wrongly) accused of kidnapping Aegon Targaryen, aka Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) by Daeron Targaryen (Henry Ashton), he was sentenced to a Trial of Seven. What is a Trial of Seven? That’s what we get to see in action on this week’s fifth episode, “In The Name of the Mother.”
Or rather, we see it eventually, as there’s some flashback business to deal with, first. We’ll get to all that in our recap, but the important stuff to know going into this week’s stand-out episode is that Dunk grew up in Flea Bottom, the slums of King’s Landing, he was brought into the service of Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), and the death of Ser Arlan is what sent Dunk onto the path we find him on now.
That path is directly into danger, as he has teamed up with six other knights to fight seven knights, with the winner determining who wins the trial. On Dunk’s side? Lyonel “The Laughing Storm” Baratheon (Daniel Ings), the one-eyed Robyn Rhysling (William Houston), Humfrey Hardyng (Ross Anderson), who has a broken leg and can’t get off his horse, Ser Humfrey Beesbury (Danny Collins), the newly knighted Raymun Fossoway (Shaun Thomas), and shocker of shockers, Baelor Targaryen (Bertie Carvel), the Hand of the King and second in line to the throne.
On Aerion’s side? Beyond the Dragon Prince, you’ve got Daeron (who has promised to immediately throw the match because he feels bad for framing Dunk), their father Maekar Targaryen (Sam Spruell), the traitor Steffon Fossoway (Edward Ashley), who gave up on Dunk for the promise of a lordship, and three members of the Kingsguard.
So yeah, you’ve got a team of broken underdogs facing the best of the best (and Daeron). Whose cuisine shall reign supreme? Let’s get to the recap for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 5, “In The Name Of The Mother,” to find out.
Baelor Together Now
As the only guy of the bunch who has any idea what he’s doing, Baelor gives a blunt pep speech about how to actually fight to Dunk’s team. “These men mean to see you dead,” he explains while Raymun pukes his guts out, which causes Dunk to also puke. Unfortunately, we don’t get a Stand By Me scene of everyone puking here, but what can you do?
Baelor continues to lay out strategy: he’ll take on the Kingsguard, because “their oath forbids them to harm a prince of the blood.” Is that honorable? “The gods will let us know,” Baelor says, and that’s the purpose of this trial… To leave things up to the gods. Important to note for later: seems likely the gods disapproved.
“Be vigilant,” Baelor finishes. “Don’t die.”
Egg is nervous, but does his duty as Dunk’s squire and hands Dunk his lance. “You best be here when I get back. Rob me, and I’ll hunt you down with dogs,” Dunk says to Egg, to which the small squire answers, “woof!”
It’s a sweet moment, and given Dunk just frew up, it’s clear his gruff tone, as usual, is a sign of affection towards Egg… He’s trying to make the prince feel better, even when he knows he’s likely riding to his death. And Egg knows it, as his smile falls as soon as Dunk turns his back… And so does Dunk’s.
The Trial Begins
While a short prayer proceeds the fight via the Ashford Septon (LJ Bennon), we see everyone get ready, and the two teams assemble on opposite sides of the tourney field. Dunk is basically hyperventilating in his helmet, and can barely see through the visor… When the fight begins.
“Up! Up! Go!” Egg shouts… Not to Dunk, but to his horse, who if you’ll recall Egg trained to joust a few episodes back. And this is followed by a killer shot that finds the camera zooming towards Dunk’s helmet – and then cutting to inside it, in Dunk-O-Vision.
I’ll admit, it’s purposefully hard to follow the chaotic action of the Trial, but I’ll do my best here.
Immediately, Dunk gets impaled by a lance from Aerion, who pulls out a flail as the crowd gasps in horror. Dunk pulls the lance out, sees someone else knocked down – barely, through his visor – throws down his shield, and is promptly knocked out by Aerion’s flail.
The Young Dunk Chronicles
…And now we’re back in time with a younger version of Dunk played by actor Bamber Todd, as he looks for anything he can scrape and sell in the wastes of a battlefield. If you’re curious what battle this is? Well, we don’t know, exactly. There’s likely some timeline fudging going on here, as in George R.R. Martin’s novellas, Dunk is about five or six when Ser Arlan takes him on, and he’s clearly much older here. It’s therefore possible this could have been the last battle of the Blackfyre Rebellion, which happens about 13 years before the events of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and kills Ser Arlan’s squire – hence, perhaps, why he’s so drunk when we meet him in a moment, and he, you know, needs a new squire.
…Or not. There’s not a lot of known history between 196 AC (the end of the Rebellion) and 209 AC (when AKotSK begins). So could be anything, really! Westeros sucks!
Whatever it is, the important part is there are a lot of dead bodies right outside King’s Landing, and one of them, which Dunk is trying to rob, is barely alive, crushed by his definitely dead horse. The man (credited as “Dying Rider” and played by Riain O Conchobair) is calling for “ma,” and Dunk does him a sort of kindness, holding his hand over the man’s mouth, trying to kill him.
Young Dunk is stopped, though, by Rafe (Chloe Lea), who explains that if they can get him off the hill, they could potentially get someone to pay a ransom for him. It seems likely the man is a Lannister, given the golden lion on a red flag right by him. Or he was fighting the Lannisters. Either way, Dunk and Rafe try to pull the man out from under the horse, but he dies first. Rafe thinks they have to say “words” since the highborns don’t want to go to hell “with the rest of us.”
When Dunk doesn’t know any words, Rafe changes tactics, and suggests checking his mouth. “I know a witch who pays copper for teeth,” she says.
Down, Down, Down The Road
After stealing the man’s teeth, the depressed Dunk and the elated Rafe walk down what looks like the Kingsroad – her wearing a helmet on her head, him professing he’s never seen a dying man before. Dunk, upset, explains he was calling for his mother – though it’s possible the “ma” meant something else, or could be a cry for The Mother, per the name of the episode, one of the gods of The Seven.
“What’s she gonna do?” Rafe asks. “Lift the f**king horse off his legs?”
That’s when they see a knight approaching with a wrapped, dead body slung over a horse. He’s got a sigil that’s a lamb in a goblet, which again, to be honest, I can’t identify. But once he passes, the two youths scramble back on the road. Rafe wants to leave Flea Bottom, Dunk does not.
“The war is over,” Dunk says. “The Black Dragon is dead.”
The Black Dragon, to keep on with the “history,” is Daemon Targaryen – not the one played by Matt Smith on House of the Dragon, but the one who was on the wrong side of history of the Blackfyre Rebellion, further cementing that we’re right at the end of that particular Westeros civil war.
The earnest Dunk thinks that means the good times are here to stay, and it’s free bread for all, but Rafe knows better. “Nothing’s over,” she says, and tells a story about Cedric and Pudding, two people who got in a beef, seemed to settle it, and then almost led to Flea Bottom burning down a year later. “No one forgets s**t. You hurt someone, they hurt you back.”
Flea Bottom Girls
Hey, in case you forgot? Flea Bottom sucks. It is the a**hole of the world of Westeros, full of rubble, disease, and the worst people you’ve ever met in your life. And also Dunk, of course, but at least versus how Flea Bottom was usually depicted in Game of Thrones – aka the armpit of hell – here we get to see what it’s actually like to live there… Which mind you, is also pretty terrible.
Immediately on returning, Rafe and Dunk are approached by a drunk member of the city watch – Alester (Edward Davis) – with one hand who wants to know what’s in their bag. In terms of the one hand thing, hands get taken for thieving, poaching, or punching Targaryens, so it could have been any of those things. While Rafe and Dunk say there are just rats in the bags, they’re interrupted by a drunk (possibly Ser Arlan) barreling through… And Rafe steals his ale skin, which Dunk thinks was a bad idea.
Regardless, they try to sell the stuff they stole from the battlefield, and get a few pieces of coin for it – but the blacksmith won’t buy some of the goods. “Daemon’s rebellion is over,” he says. “Take your Blackfyre leather elsewhere.”
Under Bottom
In a tiny cellar under Flea Bottom, Dunk and Rafe count their coins… It’s enough to get them out of Flea Bottom, and to wherever they want to go – specifically the Free Cities. They think. Rafe doesn’t want Dunk to lose his nerve, and reminds him that they’ll be “sailing off into all kinds of adventures.”
But Dunk is worried that the Free Cities will be just as bad as Flea Bottom, or worse. “What if it’s all s**t?” Dunk asks. “Every place? What if this is the best there is?”
Rafe thinks that would be sad, but Dunk has another motivation: what if his mother comes back for him? He knows intellectually that she’s dead, but emotionally holds out hope that she’s still out there somewhere, trying to make her way back for him. Rafe thinks he’s stupid, and if he wants a family he should go and get one – not wait for the one that didn’t want him.
But Dunk [Hootie and the Blowfish voice] only wants to be with Rafe, because he loves her. And the way Dunk explains it, simply, it seems to be aromantic love. He just loves her, as his best friend. But for Rafe it clearly means it differently. “I love you too, don’t I? And I’m going.”
Dunk is still wide-eyed and terrified of leaving, but Rafe is ready. Guess which one of them makes it out alive?
Time To Go
Rafe takes the coins, wakes Dunk, and they head off out of the stable they’ve slept under – Dunk, a few paces behind. Unfortunately for them, the price has doubled to leave for the Free Cities, as they’re “not the only ones who want to get the f**k out of here,” a non-helpful man explains.
Rafe digs into Dunk, accusing him of being happy because he now has plenty of time to wait for his dead mother. But things go from bad to worse when Alester finds them. They’re cornered by two more of his men, pigs oinking in the background.
Alester wants his aleskin back, but finds something better: Rafe’s coinpurse. “Little gutter rats don’t have silver,” Alester says, taking the coins for himself. Dunk seems settled with escaping with their lives, but Rafe is livid. Alester strokes her hair, she pushes against him… And steals his dagger. Alester runs up, grabs the dagger… And slits Rafe’s throat, killing her.
Dunk loses it, just like he did with Aerion a few episodes back, and jumps on Alester, biting him on the neck. One of Alester’s man jabs Dunk in the leg with a lance, and that’s just when the absolutely sauced Ser Arlan stumbles out, yelling, “In the name of the father! Leave that boy be!”
Also Ser Arlan pukes. Lotta puke this episode!
Drunk or not, Ser Arlan is able to easily take down Alester and his men, chopping one’s head off and feeding it to the pigs, while tussling with Alester. Dunk watches Rafe die, blood bubbling from her mouth; and then Arlan stabs Alester through the throat himself, killing him.
The job done, Ser Arlan drunkenly stumbles off, not even cleaning his sword.
“I’m sorry,” Dunk says to the dead Rafe, crying.
A Squire Of The Seven Kingdoms
Dunk, distraught, lays in their chamber under Flea Bottom, nearly catatonic, until he sees Ser Arlan stumbling by his “window.” Dunk follows, his leg still bloody and wounded from before. He watches Ser Arlan from afar, only approaching his fire at night to test his sword when Ser Arlan is asleep. Dunk sees the three horses, and pets them, and almost puts on Ser Arlan’s helmet, just like Egg did in the premiere, though stops short.
What follows is a montage of Ser Arlan traveling the countryside as Dunk follows, stumbling, always thirty or so paces behind. Ser Arlan is drunk, and a madman, but he’s also, as we’ve seen before, a good knight. He practices his sword, he offers help when needed. And sure he’s mostly wasted, and definitely knows Dunk is following him – but he’s giving the youth time to announce himself.
There’s more puking, by the way, as Dunk drinks some bad water. So much puking!
Finally, one morning when Ser Arlan awakes to find he’s slept on his dagger and stabbed himself, he sees Dunk over the hill, collapse. Ser Arlan approaches, and hands his water to Dunk. “Get up,” Ser Arlan says…
Battle Angel
…And we’re back on the battlefield with the older Dunk, who is lying, bloodied on the ground as Aerion continues to pummel him with his flail.
Again, this is all chaos, and the crowd – except Egg – is eating it up. But thankfully things coalesce in the fight between Aerion and Dunk, aka the main event, while everyone else battles around them.
The field is muddy, and while Aerion might be good with a lance or flail, hand to hand gives the much larger Dunk an advantage. Sort of. He manages to wrestle Aerion to the ground and hold him down… But not enough to stop the prince from stabbing Dunk in the side with a dagger. Aerion wiggles it around, and stabs him again, working his way on top of Dunk. Aerion tries to stab Dunk a third time, but Dunk sticks his hand in front of the dagger, and gets stabbed in the hand rather than the face.
That’s when a horse rides by, knocking Aerion off Dunk, only for that rider to get hit and nearly knocked off himself by Ser Steffon. Dunk pulls the dagger out of his hand, which is real gross, then gets knocked down again. Aerion stabs Dunk from behind, Dunk falls, but is able to grab a sword and fight Aerion face to face.
And as Dunk punches Aerion in the face, knocking him down, Red (Rowan Robinson), the prostitute in Ser Manfred Dondarrion’s service we’ve seen a few times, cheers “come on!” Manfred (Daniel Monks) gives her a harsh look and she sits down, but it’s clear the crowd’s sympathies may be turning.
As the fight continues, Dunk and Aerion trade blow after blow, and it’s clear that though Dunk is taking an insane amount of damage, he’s not going to quit. A sword to the leg, even one shoved into the eyehole of his visor, despite the trained Targaryen’s best efforts, he can’t keep the Hedge Knight down. Dunk tosses off his helmet, and stumbles around, slashing insanely hard blows at Aerion… And then he slices him right in the d**k.
Aerion screams, holding his mangled crotch. Maekar sees what happened, and yells for his son, hitting a man with his mace, then knocking Lyonel off his horse by stabbing the horse to death, a classic Targaryen move. “My boy! My boy!” Maekar shouts, but he’s held back from helping Aerion.
Dunk stumbles, and then falls right on his butt. Aerion, despite having just lost his manhood (maybe), stands, and demands Dunk yield, while Egg screams for Dunk to get up. But Dunk is in a fugue state, black blood spewing from his lips, drumming in his ears. Dunk falls to his side in the mud, his eyes open. The crowd, and therefore the viewing audience at home, think that Dunk is dead. Heck, Dunk might have actually died. The crowd is silent.
“Get up,” Egg says. “Get up, ser.”
Aerion gets to his feet, panting, holding his crotch. “He’s dead,” Aerion shouts. “It’s over.”
Egg continues to beg Dunk to stand, screaming, crying, and they’re about to blow the horn to end the battle when who comes to Dunk? Not his mother (or The Mother), but his surrogate father.
“Get up,” says his vision of Ser Arlan, and Dunk sucks in a breath.
Not Guilty
“Wait!” screams Egg, seeing Dunk open his eyes. Aerion, exhausted, turns around to see Dunk, beyond all reason, stand. The crowd begins cheering Dunk’s name, as he slowly, haltingly, comes to his feet, sword in hand. And you can see Aerion being like “Oh, god f**king dammit.”
Look, Dunk isn’t doing great. He can’t walk. He can’t hear. He can’t swing a sword. But he is – I’ll remind you – still larger than Aerion. He manages to get on top of the Targaryen, wrestles the shield from his hands, and repeatedly bashes him in the face, eventually resorting to punching Aerion over and over. This is the Beast Mode Dunk we saw back when Aerion attacked Tanselle Too-Tall (Tanzyn Crawford), as well as this very episode when Alester slit Rafe’s throat.
“I yield,” gasps Aerion, but it’s not enough. Dunk sees the fighting continuing, and drags Aerion by the foot, then makes him stand up. “Tell him!” screams Dunk over and over, until Aerion withdraws his accusation to the cheers of the crowd. Lord Ashford (Paul Hunter) makes the call, the horn is blown, and the trial is over. Dunk has been found not guilty, thank The Seven.
Heavy Is The Head
Dunk, on the verge of collapse, is dragged to the side of the tournament field by Steely Pate (Youssef Kerkour) and Raymun, while Egg tentatively enters, scared to see what’s become of his master.
We discover that Beesbury and Hardyng both died in the first charge, and Dunk feels like he’s dying – but Steely Pate has a solution, which is to pour boiling oil on his wounds.
“Wine, not oil,” says Baelor, entering. “Oil will kill him.”
Baelor promises to send Maester Yormwell to have a look at Dunk, after he’s done looking at Maeker. Dunk stumbles to his feet, then to his knees, pledging himself to Baelor. “Your grace,” Dunk says. “I am your man. Please. Your man.”
And Baelor agrees. He needs good men, for the realm… But then Baelor stumbles back, and asks Raymun to remove his helm. The visor is cracked. And his fingers feel like wood. Pate and Raymun go to remove the helm, with Baelor explaining that he got cracked in the back of the head by Maeker’s mace. They remove the helm, and Steely Pate and Raymun look horrified.
“Gods be good,” Steely Pate says.
Baelor feels the blood at the back of his head, then turns around revealing… The back of his head is gone. There’s a hold where his skull should be, and if we looked close we would likely see it ripped a good chunk of his brain out, as well. Dunk and Egg gasp, and Baelor falls over into Dunk’s arms.
“Get up, ser,” Dunk begs Baelor. And where it worked with Dunk, it doesn’t with Baelor. He’s dead.
“I’m sorry,” Dunk sobs, still pleading the dead prince to “get up.”
Dunk screams in anguish, and though he may have been found not guilty, he’s going to feel real guilty going forward. After all, he led to the death of the one good knight, and the heir to the realm. RIP, Baelor Targaryen, and say hi to Dunk’s mother for me.
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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