‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 3 review: “The Squire”

There’s a moment early in “The Squire” where young Egg is alone in a field at dawn, pretending to be a proper squire for the first time. He’s running back and forth with an imaginary lance, shouting commands at Thunder the warhorse. He’s play-acting the tournament role he desperately wants to fulfill for Ser Duncan the Tall. It’s objectively adorable. The type of scene that could curdle into saccharine mush in less capable hands. But director Sarah Adina Smith and young actor Dexter Sol Ansell understand something crucial. That isn’t just a cute kid playing pretend. This is a prince trying to figure out who he wants to be when he’s not being a prince.

And that’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in microcosm, isn’t it? A show about people trying to figure out who they are when the world isn’t forcing them into predetermined boxes.

There’s a structural problem at the heart of most prestige television criticism, and it goes like this. We’ve been trained to valorize complexity. The more moving parts, the more interlocking plotlines, the more characters whose names we have to remember, the more “serious” we think a show is. Which means that when a show like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms comes along and says, “Actually, we’re going to spend 31 minutes watching two people eat breakfast and discuss the philosophical implications of a dirty song,” we don’t quite know what to do with it.

To that end, “The Squire” is the third episode of a six-episode season adapting a 30,000-word novella. And it spends its entire runtime on a single day at a medieval tournament. Almost nothing “happens” in the traditional blockbuster TV sense. The episode’s big revelation—that Egg is actually Prince Aegon Targaryen—has been so heavily telegraphed that the show doesn’t even bother making it a cliffhanger.

It just lets the information sit there as the credits roll, trusting that we understand what it means. And yet this might be the most dramatically satisfying episode of television the Game of Thrones franchise has produced in years. Because it understands something fundamental about storytelling that the franchise forgot somewhere around season five.

Drama isn’t about what “happens.” It’s about the cost.

The comedy of anticipation.

I’ve written before about how funny this show is. As in, genuinely, deliberately funny in ways that feel completely alien to the Game of Thrones franchise. But “The Squire” does something even more interesting with its comedy. It builds an entire episode around the comedy of anticipation. The nervous energy of waiting for something terrible to happen while everyone tries very hard to pretend it won’t.

Dunk spends the episode vomiting from nerves, only to discover he won’t even joust today because he’s not high-born enough for the first challenge. (“Then why have I been vomiting all morning?” “It’s a mystery.”) Later, he gets propositioned to throw a fight, because that’s how little anyone thinks of him. He watches Prince Aerion deliberately stab a lance through a horse’s throat because the cruel little sh*t can’t stand the idea that anyone might defeat a Targaryen in anything. Even by accident.

And through it all, Dunk and Egg are bonding in that way people bond when they’re both trying not to think about how badly everything could go wrong. They eat terrible food, drink terrible ale, and watch knights get absolutely demolished. And Egg says, quietly, “I think I could be quite happy in a place like this.” And Dunk—sweet, thick-as-a-castle-wall Dunk—replies, “You’re in a place like this.” He completely misses that Egg’s talking about something else entirely.

That’s the comedy of anticipation. We know (because the show isn’t exactly subtle about it) that Egg’s hiding something. We know Dunk’s going to find himself in deep muck. And worst of all, we know this can’t last. In fact, the show knows we know. So it gives us this gift of watching these two idiots enjoy each other’s company for one more beautiful, doomed day.

The squire and the warrior.

“The Squire” does something genuinely unusual with its runtime. The episode contains a series of escalating revelations about systems—how they work, who they serve, and what happens to people caught between their gears. And it uses the specific, contained setting of a medieval tournament to dramatize questions about power, legitimacy, and performance that become the whole point.

We open with Egg alone at dawn, training with Thunder. It’s a purely character-driven sequence with no plot function whatsoever. Dunk isn’t watching; nothing “happens,” we just see a kid trying to figure out how to be useful. But notice what the show is doing here. It’s establishing Egg’s internal life independent of Dunk. This matters enormously for the ending, because when Egg reveals his identity, we need to understand it’s not just about saving Dunk. It’s about defending the version of himself he’s been trying to become.

Then we get the introduction of Ser Robyn Rhysling, “the maddest knight in the Seven Kingdoms,” who materializes out of nowhere to interrupt Egg’s training. On first viewing, this feels like random worldbuilding. (Look, another colorful knight!) But the show is likely doing something more deliberate. Robyn represents a specific kind of masculine performance. He’s the warrior who’s been broken by violence but continues to define himself through it. “We are a vessel for the warrior,” he tells Egg. “When it is madness bid, it is madness delivered.”

This is the opposite of what Dunk represents. Dunk is also defined by violence (he’s huge, he’s a knight, violence is his job). But he keeps trying to be gentle. He teaches Egg to sew. He worries about hurting the boy’s feelings. And in the end, he risks his life to defend a puppeteer. The show sketches out different models of masculinity and knighthood, asking: what does it mean to be “good at” violence? And should that really be the measure of a man?

The system is broken, but occasional grace changes everything.

Then comes the Plummer scene, and this is where the show’s political analysis finally starts to sizzle. Plummer approaches Dunk with what sounds, on its face, like a straightforward corruption: throw your fight, we’ll all make money, everyone wins. But weirdly, Plummer doesn’t present this as cheating. He presents it as pragmatism. The tournament is bankrupting Lord Ashford. The betting pools are already being manipulated by people with more resources. Dunk needs armor and a horse. The system is already rigged. Why not rig it to help you?

And here’s what’s brilliant. The show doesn’t present Dunk’s initial refusal as naive idealism. It presents it as a category error. Dunk already knows the system isn’t fair. But now he has to deal with a choice that makes him complicit in that reality he doesn’t want to accept. Overall, he doesn’t seem to understand that the system and his personal honor are separate. For him, they’re the same. If he wins through deception, he hasn’t won. The victory is the thing itself, not the rewards it brings.

This is the opposite of how power actually works in Westeros (and, you know, everywhere). Power is about results. Aerion murders a horse because the result is fear and dominance. Plummer rigs fight because it results in profit. The entire feudal system is built on the premise that results justify methods. You’re a lord because your ancestor conquered the land, end of story.

But Dunk exists outside this logic. And the show takes the radical position that this is the smart play for a knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Because it’s a different way of understanding what makes life worth living.

Now compare this to the Baelor scene from episode two. Baelor grants Dunk entry to the tournament through a loophole, a technicality, an act of grace from someone with power. That was the show arguing that the system can occasionally work if the people running it choose mercy. But the Plummer scene complicates that argument. Because Plummer is also offering Dunk a kind of mercy—a way to survive in a system designed to crush him. And Dunk refuses it.

So what’s the show really saying? That grace only counts if it’s freely given and freely received? Is there a moral difference between being lifted by the powerful and lifting yourself through deception? I think it’s more complex than that. I think the show is arguing that the way you survive shapes who you become. Dunk probably knows this is his chance to win and buy himself time. Deep down, he knows his chances of winning fairly are slim to none. But he also knows that accepting would require him to stop being the person Ser Arlan tried to teach him to be. And that person—that version of Dunk—is more important than victory.

The riot and the dragon’s decline.

Then we get to Aerion’s joust, and the show’s political analysis shifts registers entirely. Prince Aerion deliberately murders Ser Humfrey Hardyng’s horse. The crowd riots in response, calling it cheating. And people actually throw stones at a prince. The Kingsguard has to hold back a mob physically, and this is—I cannot overstate this—wild for this universe.

During House of the Dragon, Targaryen princes could commit murder in the streets and face minimal consequences. Daemon kills his first wife with a rock to the head and basically gets a stern talking-to. But that was the age of dragons, when Targaryen power was backed by weapons of mass destruction. Here, a century later, the dragons are extinct. And what we’re watching is the slow-motion collapse of a power structure that depended entirely on the threat of overwhelming force.

The show makes this explicit through Raymun Fossoway’s absolutely unhinged anti-Targaryen rant. “They’re incestuous aliens, Duncan. Blood magickers and tyrants who’ve burned our lands, enslaved our people, and dragged us into their wars without a mote of respect for our history or our customs.” This is a complete articulation of the colonial relationship between House Targaryen and the rest of Westeros. They’re aliens. Foreign conquerors who imposed their will through superior technology (dragons) and have been coasting on the afterglow of that conquest for generations.

And now the technology is gone. The dragons are dead. All that’s left is the memory of power, and memories fade. Aerion kills the horse because he’s desperately trying to prove that Targaryens still matter, that the dragon never loses. But the crowd’s response tells you everything. They’re not afraid anymore. In fact, they’re angry.

This is such smart political analysis because it doesn’t make the Targaryens cartoonish villains. Baelor is decent. Daeron’s a drunk but harmless. Even Maekar seems more frustrated than cruel. The problem isn’t individual Targaryens. It’s the entire structure of hereditary monarchy backed by violence. Take away the violence, and what are you left with? Just a family that thinks it deserves to rule because… well, because it’s been ruling. That’s the only argument left.

And into this collapsing power structure walks Egg, a Targaryen prince who’s trying to figure out if there’s a way to be Targaryen without being a tyrant. Which brings us to the fortune teller.

Prophecy and the problem of foreknowledge.

Okay, I have complicated feelings about the fortune teller scene. For starters, it’s the most heavy-handed moment in an otherwise beautifully subtle episode. A random wise woman stops our protagonists and delivers a prophecy that explicitly states that Egg will be king and die in a fire, and that everyone will celebrate his death. For viewers who know the lore, this is ho-hum fan service. For viewers who don’t, it’s laying the dramatic irony on pretty thick.

On the other hand—and this is where I think the show is actually doing something interesting—the scene isn’t really about the prophecy, anyway. It’s really about Egg’s reaction to it.

Watch Dexter Sol Ansell’s face during this scene. He’s terrified. I expected him to be more surprised or skeptical, but no. He’s shaken. Maybe because on some level, he already knows his future. Maybe not the specifics, but the shape. He knows he’s meant for something he doesn’t want. He knows his family’s history and what it means to become a Targaryen king.

And here’s what makes this even more tragic. Egg ran away precisely to avoid this fate. He shaved his head, disguised himself as a commoner, attached himself to a hedge knight, etc. All to escape the inevitability of being Aegon Targaryen, Future King. But the fortune teller’s prophecy suggests there is no escape. You can run from your bloodline, but the story catches up eventually.

Showrunner Ira Parker said in interviews that he consulted George R.R. Martin specifically about this scene, about how much magic to include in a show that’s deliberately more grounded than Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon. And I think what they landed on is: just enough magic to suggest that fate is real, but not enough to make it deterministic. Egg may very well be king someday. But what kind of king? That’s the real question. And the time he spends with Dunk might be the thing that shapes his answer.

This is the same tension that made early Game of Thrones work. The question of whether prophecies create fate or reveal it. Can you change your destiny if you know what it is? Or does knowing guarantee you’ll fulfill it? The show doesn’t answer this question for us, thankfully. It just adds weight to every choice Egg makes from here on out.

The puppet show and the dragon’s death.

Now we need to talk about Tanselle’s puppet show, because it’s the thematic lynchpin of the entire episode. Tanselle performs the story of Ser Serwyn of the Mirror Shield. Oh, you forgot who he is? No worries. He’s the guy who defeats the dragon Urrax through cleverness rather than strength. It’s a crowd-pleaser in the room, as everyone loves the story of the underdog who outsmarts the monster. The puppet dragon is magnificent, complete with sound effects and red ribbon “blood.” It’s joyful, populist entertainment for the whole family.

And Aerion isn’t having it.

Because what’s entertaining to the crowd is existentially threatening to Aerion. The story says that knights can defeat dragons. More than that, it says they should defeat dragons. That defeating them is heroic. The entire Targaryen claim to power rests on the premise that dragons are invincible and that Targaryen rule is natural and inevitable. A puppet show saying otherwise is, from Aerion’s perspective, literally treasonous.

So he destroys Tanselle’s puppets, her livelihood, her art. And then—and this is crucial—he breaks her finger. Not her arm or leg. Her finger. The specific tool she uses to make her art. It’s targeted violence designed to destroy not just the person but their capacity to create things that challenge power.

This is, pretty obviously, a scene about censorship and state violence against artists. But it’s also about fragile masculinity and declining empires. Aerion needs to prove the dragon never loses because, on some level, he knows it’s already lost. The dragons are extinct. The puppet show dragon dies to cheers and applause. And Aerion can’t accept this reality, so he lashes out at the messenger.

The cost of being good.

Big surprise, Dunk doesn’t have a plan. He sees Aerion hurting Tanselle, and he attacks. Even if he considers the consequences, he powers through the calculation and acts. A clever scheme to mitigate the damage would’ve been nice, but this is Dunk we’re talking about. He sees something wrong happening to a person he cares about. And he tells himself: I’m going to stop it. Even though he knows—he must know—that attacking a prince means death or worse. And he does it anyway.

Obviously, the show is very clear about what this costs. Aerion, with his tooth loosened, orders the guards to knock out all of Dunk’s teeth as revenge. It’s petty, specific, and designed to humiliate and disfigure. This is the punishment for trying to be good in a system designed to reward cruelty. You get destroyed, methodically and personally, by people who have the power to destroy you.

Then Egg steps forward, and everything changes. Egg is a prince. Of course, he’s one of Maekar’s missing sons. You don’t have to be a book-reader to have at least suspected this for quite a while now. But the show understands that the revelation itself isn’t the point. The choice is the point.

Egg reveals his identity to save Dunk. In doing so, he gives up everything he’s been working toward. His freedom, his anonymity, his escape from court. He’s going to end up back with his family, back to the life he desperately wanted to leave. And he does it anyway because to him, Dunk is worth saving.

This is the show’s entire thesis in one moment. It’s saying that trying to be good costs you everything. And you do it anyway because the alternative is becoming Aerion.

What “brother” means.

Let’s talk about that line: “I cut it off, brother. I didn’t want to look like you.”

On the surface, it’s a sick burn. Egg tells Aerion that he’d rather be bald than look like a Targaryen. He finds his own family’s appearance repulsive. But there’s something deeper happening here.

The word “brother” does two things simultaneously. First, it confirms Egg’s identity. He’s not just any Targaryen; he’s Aerion’s brother: same father, same family, same bloodline. But second, it establishes distance. By calling Aerion “brother” in this formal, distancing way, Egg is saying, “We may share blood, but I refuse to share your values.” You’re family, but you’re not who I want to be.

And the choice to cut his hair is Egg’s way of literally cutting away the visual markers of his family. In a society where appearance signifies everything, where Targaryen silver hair is a source of mystique and power, Egg shaves himself bald. He makes himself unrecognizable as Targaryen royalty. And he does this not because he’s ashamed of being Targaryen (though maybe he is a little), but because he wants the world to judge him on his own merits. He wants to earn respect through his actions, not inherit it through his bloodline.

This is the exact opposite of Aerion, who clings desperately to Targaryen symbolism (the dragon must never lose!) Because without it, he’s just a cruel, mediocre man. Aerion needs the bloodline to matter because he has nothing else. Egg rejects the bloodline because he wants to discover who he is without it.

The performance problem.

Now I need to address something that’s been bothering me across all three episodes. Outside of Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell, this cast is thin.

Tanselle has maybe a dozen lines across three episodes. The show defines her entirely by being (1) pretty, (2) talented, and (3) victimized. We know nothing about her internal life, her goals, her perspective on anything. She exists to be saved.

Raymun Fossoway gets one great scene of political ranting and then disappears. Lyonel Baratheon is entertaining but one-note. The various knights blur together into “medieval tournament guys.” Even Aerion, who’s supposed to be the primary antagonist, is more a collection of villainous traits than a fully realized person.

This is a structural issue with the source material. George R.R. Martin’s “The Hedge Knight” is told entirely from Dunk’s perspective, so everyone else is filtered through his limited understanding. But the show has made the choice to stay with this single-POV structure, and it’s starting to show its limitations. We’re three episodes in, and I feel like I barely know anyone except Dunk and Egg.

The counterargument is: maybe that’s the point? Maybe the show is deliberately making everyone else feel like background characters because that’s how the world looks to Dunk. It’s a big, confusing place full of people who seem to know more than he does. And maybe by keeping us locked into Dunk and Egg’s perspective, the show can force us to experience their isolation. Their status as outsiders in a world designed for people more important than them.

I think there’s something to this argument, but I’m not entirely convinced. At some point, the show needs to give its supporting cast interior lives, or they’re just going to be props for Dunk and Egg’s character development. And that starts to feel less like a deliberate artistic choice and more like a limitation of the adaptation.

The runtime problem.

Look, I understand the argument for short episodes. Not everything needs to be prestige TV bloat. Sometimes the economy is good. But “The Squire” needed more breathing room. The Plummer scene feels rushed. The fortune teller scene could use more setup. The final confrontation happens so fast that we barely have time to register Egg’s terror before he makes his choice.

Most frustratingly, we get no aftermath. The episode ends when the second Dunk realizes Egg is a prince. We just cut to credits, and presumably all of the consequences will happen next week.

I get that this creates a cliffhanger (sort of? Again, the show telegraphs this so heavily that it’s not really a surprise). But it also feels like the show wants to ration its emotional beats when it could afford to linger. Give me Dunk trying to process this information. Give me Egg, trying to explain, and Dunk, not knowing what to say. Just give me something to mark this as the massive shift it’s supposed to be.

The show’s commitment to economy is admirable, certainly. But there’s a difference between being economical and being stingy. And at 31 minutes for your midseason turning point, you’re edging into stingy territory.

Why it works anyway.

And yet despite its various issues, “The Squire” absolutely works. Mainly because Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell have chemistry that could power a small city. Every scene between them crackles with effortless affection and mutual respect. When Dunk teaches Egg to sew, when Egg explains the philosophy of a bawdy song, when they sit on a hillside imagining their future together—these moments feel wholly earned. We believe these two people like each other’s company, and that belief carries the entire show.

It also works because the show has a coherent moral center. Unlike Game of Thrones, which increasingly became muddled about what it valued, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms knows exactly what it’s arguing. Trying to be good matters, even when (especially when) the system punishes you for it. That clarity gives every scene purpose. We know what’s at stake because the show repeatedly tells us through action, dialogue, and structure.

I adore how this show is more transparent about something. Sure, it’s a fantasy adventure with good production values. But it’s also using the fantasy setting to ask interesting questions. Like, what does it mean to be good in a society organized around hereditary power and violence? Can individuals resist corrupt systems? What do you owe to people who’ve shown you kindness? These are real questions with complicated answers, and the show takes each one pretty seriously.

Most importantly, “The Squire” understands that drama isn’t about what happens. It’s about what it costs. Dunk refuses the fixed fight, and it costs him a path to survival. He defends Tanselle, and it costs him his safety. Egg reveals his identity, and it costs him his freedom. The episode is a series of escalating sacrifices, each one demonstrating what the characters value more than their own comfort or safety.

And at the end, the show asks a simple question. Was any of it worth it? Did Dunk’s integrity accomplish anything besides getting him arrested? Did Egg’s sacrifice do anything besides ensure he’ll end up back in the life he hates?

The show’s answer, I think, is: maybe not! Maybe they’ve just delayed the inevitable. Maybe they’ve lost everything and gained nothing except the knowledge that they tried. But maybe trying is enough. Maybe the alternative—becoming Aerion, becoming Plummer, becoming people who accept that systems can’t be resisted—is worse than losing.

That’s a radical argument in a franchise built on “everyone dies, and nothing matters” cynicism. And it’s exactly what makes A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms feel necessary right now.

The final word.

“The Squire” is the best episode of the show so far, but that’s not to ignore its blemishes. It needs more runtime, it needs better-developed supporting characters, and it occasionally mistakes heavy-handed symbolism for subtlety. The fortune teller scene feels out of place. The giant goose egg at breakfast is almost painfully obvious. Some of the show’s original additions (the fixed fight subplot) raise logistical questions the show doesn’t bother to answer.

But none of that matters as much as what the episode gets right. It gets the central relationship between Dunk and Egg right, which is the engine of the entire show. It also analyzes the idea of declining empires and fragile masculinity. And it gets the moral argument right about why trying to be good matters even when you lose. That’s what also makes it one of the most emotionally satisfying things the Game of Thrones franchise has produced since its earliest seasons.

It’s not consistently epic, shocking, or visually spectacular (though the production values are excellent). But it is itself and confidently so. It’s a show that tries to convince people that small moments of grace, kindness, and integrity can matter in a world designed to crush them.

The next episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will air early on Friday via HBO and HBO Max.

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Images courtesy of HBO.