The following contains spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 4. Note: The episode is available to stream on HBO Max now. It will have its HBO premiere at 10 p.m. ET on Sunday, February 8.
Events begin snowballing rapidly in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ fourth episode, which sees the truth come out about Egg’s background and Dunk face some potentially deadly consequences for doing the right thing. From Dunk and Egg’s reunion to their preparation for the hedge knight’s trial by combat, “Seven” is full of richly charged emotional moments that ask what it means to be a true knight or to fight against injustice. How much good can one person do against a system that is rigged against those without power? It’s not clear, but Dunk — brave, dumb, gloriously sincere Dunk — is sure going to try.
He certainly has his work cut out for him. Not content with having Dunk arrested for attacking a member of the royal family, Aerion Targaryen is also working overtime to pin Egg’s disappearance on him, insisting that he kidnapped the kid from the inn where they met. Young Aegon was technically meant to be squire to his brother Daeron (Henry Ashton), the messy drunk from the series’s first episode, who chose a bender over participating in the Ashford tourney. (Hey, his nickname isn’t Daeron the Drunken for nothing!) Left to his own devices, Aegon decides to fake it until he makes it as Dunk’s squire.
To his credit, Egg does genuinely regret the harm his lies have caused. Or maybe only a monster is incapable of resisting Dexter Sol Ansell’s giant eyes full of tears, who can say? Not Dunk, apparently, who, although giving peak disappointed dad vibes, can’t stop himself from singing the lad’s praises when he’s brought before Prince Baelor.
Given that this show is called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, we don’t spend as much time with Baelor Targaryen as some of us (read: me) might like, but gosh, it’s hard not to wish we could. Thoughtful, deliberate, and serious, he’s a fascinating figure and appears to have summoned Dunk to his presence not to berate him but to try and find a way to save his life. He may be heir to the Iron Throne, but even he can’t prevent Aerion from insisting on a trial. The hedge knight did strike the king’s grandson, and in defense of a girl who is being — however unfairly — branded a traitor.
So he encourages Dunk to request a trial by combat, in the hopes that he’s a good enough fighter to save himself. Aerion, a huge jerk, turns the tables by insisting that they engage in something known as a trial of seven, an ancient, rarely invoked Andal custom in which seven champions face off against one another, in the hopes that the gods favor those seeking to punish the guilty. In short: It’s all extremely extra, which seems rather up this particular Targaryen’s alley. (A throwaway line from Daeron reveals Aerion literally thinks he’s a dragon in human form, which is objectively bonkers, but not a surprising amount of crazy for this family.)
The morning of the trial dawns, and it turns out that Dunk has more champions than he realized. Thanks in no small part to Aegon, who has apparently been running around all night looking for people who either hate his family or are just out for a good time. For his part, Aerion’s champions include his father, Prince Maekar, and his brother, Daeron, alongside Ser Steffon Fossoway, who traded his honor and his promise to help Dunk for a lordship; as well as three members of King Daeron’s Kingsguard who are ordered to fight: Donnel of Duskendale, Roland Crakehall, and a third man, whose name hasn’t really been mentioned on the show, but who is called Willem Wylde.
Standing for Dunk are the newly knighted Ser Ramun Fossoway; the badly injured Ser Humfrey Hardying, who really wants to kill Aerion for breaking his leg; Hardying’s brother by marriage, Ser Humfrey Beesbury; the one-eyed madman Ser Robyn Rhysling; and everyone’s favorite hot mess, Ser Lyonel Baratheon, who is super hype to take part in the first trial by seven in a hundred years. Unfortunately, thanks to Ser Steffon’s betrayal, Dunk doesn’t have the numbers he needs and is told that if he can’t rustle up one more champion, it’s all forfeit and he’ll be found guilty of his crimes with no fighting involved.
Dunk gives an exceptionally rousing speech, exhorting someone, anyone among the various spectators and gawkers looking on, to step up and do the right thing, to be the kind of true knight that Westeros was once famous for. Thankfully, someone answers, but it’s probably not the person that most viewers expected.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has been very deliberately holding itself apart from the larger shared universe it exists in. Sure, there are more than a few references that will make hardcore fans of George R.R. Martin’s world do that Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme, but for the most part, it’s been happy to be its own thing, a simpler, smaller-stakes story. So when this episode finally pulls out composer Ramin Djawadi’s iconic Thrones theme music — and actually lets it play out this time, albeit remixed a bit for this series — as Prince Baelor Targaryen takes the field, it pretty much hits like crack cocaine.
Not sure that there could be a more badass way to end this episode than with Baelor riding onto the field to stand alongside Dunk against multiple members of his own (admittedly awful) family. It’s the sort of big, genuine hero moment that’s rarely given to anyone in the Targaryen clan, and certainly not in a way that is presented as so unquestionably good. Because that is, as it turns out, what Baelor is. Good.
Sure, you don’t get the sense that he particularly likes his nephew — Bertie Carvel is a master at making sure his character is deliberately side-eyeing Aerion whenever they happen to be in the same room — but this isn’t a vengeance thing. It’s a justice thing. It’s the right thing. If only it weren’t exactly the kind of move that this universe usually loves to punish.
New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiere Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max, culminating with the finale on February 22.
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