A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Season 1: review

Peter Claffey as Dunk (L) and Dexter Sol Ansell as Egg (R)

I haven't read the novella series, so this show is my introduction to the adventures of Dunk and Egg, two characters in George RR Martin's grimdark-fantasy world of Westeros, where the A Song of Ice and Fire novels take place. In terms of in-universe chronology, Martin's novellas are somewhere between the events of Fire and Blood and the events of Martin's novel A Game of Thrones. Dunk (Peter Claffey, former pro rugby player) is Sir Duncan the Tall. When we meet him in the series (Season 1 is based on the novella The Hedge Knight), he is but a "hedge knight" (a rootless, wandering, masterless knight, a bit like a Westerosi version of a ronin*), probably not even properly knighted. Duncan's former master is Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), an over-the-hill drunkard of a maybe-knight who takes Dunk in and teaches him the way of the sword and the knightly principles of honor. Dunk is brawny, tall, and not very bright, which makes him naive and thus easy prey for clever, unprincipled people. Ser Arlan does his drunken best to raise Dunk as a father might raise a son in medieval times—that is, with a lot of boxing about the ears, yelling, grouching, and—occasionally—proper teaching about skills and the way of the world.

As the story begins, Dunk's master has just died (but we'll be seeing him—all of him—in many flashback sequences). Dunk has buried him, and he's decided to continue his master's knightly tradition despite having no standing, himself, as a knight. Dunk heads to a nearby town, Ashford, where he knows a tournament will be taking place—jousting, fencing, etc. His hope is to participate in the tournament, win some money, and maybe gain a spot of honor. In town, he meets a scrawny, bald-headed kid whom Dunk mistakes for a stableboy. The kid calls himself Egg (Ansell), presumably because of his bald, egg-shaped head (we find out otherwise later). The kid wants to travel with Dunk, but Dunk spurns him. 

At the local inn, Dunk meets a highborn (noble) drunkard who warns Dunk to stay away from him. In the morning, Dunk wanders into Ashford proper and sets about trying to place his name on the roster for "the lists" (an actual medieval term for the combat arena). Along the way, Dunk meets and interacts with a variety of townies and out-of-town folks: Plummer (Tom Vaughan-Lawler), snot-hawking steward of Lord Ashford (Paul Hunter); artist-puppeteer-mummer Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford); Ser Manfred Dondarrion (Daniel Monks), under whom Ser Arlan had once served; the volatile and unprincipled Ser Steffon Fossaway (Edward Ashley); his much friendlier cousin and squire, Raymon Fossaway (Shaun Thomas); the humorous and drink-loving Ser Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings); and a host of Targaryens arriving in town for the tourney, starting with the noble and honorable Prince Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen (Bertie Carvel), Hand of the king and heir to the Iron Throne; his perpetually angry brother Maekar (Sam Spruell), two of whose sons have gone missing; and Maekar's cruel son Aerion (Finn Bennett). 

It's a lot to keep track of, and Dunk meets these and more people within the first two episodes. By the end of the first episode, Dunk still isn't on the roster, and Egg has somehow contrived to follow him to Ashford, still wanting to be Dunk's squire. Egg, it turns out, has all of the smarts that Dunk lacks; I was often reminded of Haley Joel Osment as Forrest Gump's son Forrest Junior and how the son and father interact.

As the story continues, Dunk begins to make friends, acquaintances, and enemies in town. Prince Baelor, who is wise and gentle, treats Dunk with a stern sort of respect, and he's the only authority in town who even remembers Dunk's master, Ser Arlan. Whether Dunk makes it onto the tourney roster is rendered moot, however, then the arrogant and cowardly Prince Aerion breaks one of Tansell's fingers for doing a puppet play in which a dragon is killed by a knight. Aerion takes offense because the Targaryens are known as "the blood of the dragon," and Aerion believes himself to be part-dragon. As far as he's concerned, the play is an incitement to rebellion. Egg sees Aerion doing violence to Tansell, and he runs over to Dunk, who charges into the tent and proceeds to beat and kick the Targaryen prince. The bloodied prince quips that Dunk has thrown his life away; before Baelor, Dunk demands a trial by combat with Aerion. Coward that he is, Aerion counterproposes a "trial by seven," i.e. two teams of seven knights, reflecting the seven gods in the pantheon of the Faith of the Seven. Baelor hesitantly concedes that his nephew Aerion's counter-challenge is legitimate, so Dunk must assemble a team from among the people he has only just come to know. Some prove surprisingly willing to help Dunk; others make grand promises but end up betraying him. The day of the trial turns into a day of chaos, blood, great triumph, and horrible tragedy (as you'd expect from a George RR Martin story), but I won't give away the particulars. The first season ends on a glum-yet-hopeful tone as Dunk and Egg (who has revealed to Dunk who he really is) ride out of town, possibly headed to the southern land of Dorne.

Praise for this series has been ongoing and constant. Chiefest among the complaints about most recent movies and streaming shows has been lack of respect for story and canon, usually tied to the pushing of a race-oriented and/or feminist agenda. To tackle the politically incorrect angle first: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms stars two white males—one a hulking brute and the other a puny, prepubescent kid. The story of Dunk and Egg is the story of two rootless people who find each other, fall in together, and rely on each other to make it in their often cruel world. Actors Claffey and Ansell, as Dunk and Egg respectively, play off each other perfectly in what may be an example of the most appropriate casting I've ever seen. Claffey plays Dunk as somewhat dim but possessed of common sense as well as a sense of honor. Dunk is also kindhearted and not prone to lose his temper when insulted (many, many people call him stupid). Dexter Sol Ansell, as Egg, is still young enough to have an extremely high-pitched voice when he yells, and for a child actor, the kid is absolutely pitch perfect, taking advantage of the skin of his shaved pate to convey a whole assortment of emotions ranging from excitement to anxiety to extreme sadness and moments of joy. 

Other characters were also very well cast. Bertie Carvel as Baelor Targaryen immediately comes to mind as the incarnation of knightly dignity and honor. Sam Spruell as his temperamental and slightly unhinged brother Maekar is also well cast: Maekar's not exactly an evil man, but he's also not easy to get along with. Finn Bennett as the despicable Aerion Targaryen is talented enough to have you rooting for his ass to be thoroughly kicked on the field of combat. Daniel Ings as Lyonel Baratheon makes Lyonel instantly likable but also someone to be suspicious of. He seems loud and extroverted, but this also appears to be a cover for a character full of complex motivations. I hope we see more of him in Season 2.

Quite a few critics noted this series's lighthearted, comic tone (when it wasn't showing blood, cracked bones, and gore) and made story comparisons to 2001's A Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger (one of my favorite, feel-good movies about whether a man can "change his stars"), a story about an ambitious, determined young man who starts off as a nameless, penniless squire, then works his way up to full knighthood. By the end of Season 1, Sir Duncan the Tall is acknowledged as a knight by everyone around him, but his prestige and status are uncertain given how the season concludes. Those who watched the TV series A Game of Thrones know that Ser Duncan the Tall has four pages devoted to his exploits in The White Book or The Book of Brothers, a.k.a., the centuries-long chronicle of the great exploits of the Kingsguard. Of course, people familiar with A Song of Ice and Fire also know that Dunk and Egg, despite having many adventures and a long friendship, both come to a terrible and tragic end.

I have no idea where to insert (insert!) this into my review, but I guess we're going to have to talk about the elephant trunk in the room: Ser Arlan's enormous penis, which makes its ponderous appearance during an early-episode flashback—a lot sooner than I'd thought it was going to appear. Before watching the series, I had already seen a few YouTube reaction videos of women's eyes bugging out at the enormousness of Ser Arlan's singular gift. Having now seen the monster for myself (it's beyond pornographic proportions), I do have to wonder whether it's a prosthetic, like Mark Wahlberg's hypertrophic schlong in Boogie Nights. True, we see Ser Arlan urinate out of his hose beast, but it could still be a prop. Actor Kristian Nairn, who played Hodor on Game of Thrones, has talked about his own phallic prosthesis during a Hodor nude scene, so there's definitely precedent for this sort of thing. Male nudity in Game of Thrones became an issue as more women started to complain about the colossal amount of female nudity on the show, and I guess A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is the inheritor of the male-nudity bandwagon, a continuing attempt to rectify a perceived injustice.

Unimaginably big dicks aside, I have to agree that the first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was nicely done and very watchable. I binged it in a single night, mainly thanks to the fact that each of the six episodes was fairly short—about 30-40 minutes. And Season 2 is set to come out next year, so we won't have to wait two to three years as we're doing for every season of House of the Dragon (which takes much longer to make because of the sheer quantity of special effects and gigantic sets). Will Season 2 manage to maintain Season 1's balance of comedy and tragedy? I suppose we'll all have to wait and see, but if Season 1 is anything to go by, the showrunners have done a much better job of respecting the rich source material. As long as they stick to Martin's ideas and themes without going overboard "with their own spin on the story," I think this show could succeed where Game of Thrones—which started off amazing—ultimately failed. Fingers and tentacles crossed.

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*The term hedge knight (a wandering knight who sleeps under hedges) wasn't used in our world during the Medieval period, but the concept of a knight-errant or a knight bachelor (chevalier sans terre in France—a knight without land) did exist in our reality, and from what I can see, there was a time in Ireland when the term hedge was applied pejoratively to various professions to indicate that the people plying these trades—doctor, teacher, etc.—were of lower status, lower quality, or lower legitimacy.