‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 4 Review: “Seven”

There’s a shot early in “Seven” that towers above almost all the rest in an episode that is already exceptional. Dunk’s alone in his cell, staring up at what looks like stars scattered across a night sky. The camera holds on this image just long enough for you to settle into its beauty, to find comfort in the constancy of the cosmos. But then it pulls back to reveal the truth. It’s torchlight flickering on wet stone. The stars are an illusion. There is no sky, just a ceiling. Dunk is trapped.

It’s the kind of visual storytelling that works because it operates on multiple levels simultaneously. On the surface, it’s effective misdirection. A neat cinematographic trick. One layer down, it’s a perfect metaphor for Dunk’s situation. What seemed like freedom (squiring, knighthood, helping the innocent) was actually a path toward confinement. Another layer is the gap between how Dunk sees the world (full of possibility, love, governed by ideals) and how the world actually works (constrained, governed by power). And underneath it all? The show’s entire thesis about the difference between what we believe should be true and what actually is true. And why fighting for the former matters even when the latter keeps winning.

I’m dwelling on this because “Seven” is an episode that could very easily have been a mess. It’s 34 minutes long, which is barely enough time for a network comedy to tell a complete story, let alone a fantasy drama. And it needs to reconcile Dunk and Egg after last week’s revelation, establish the stakes of a trial by combat most viewers have never heard of, introduce the concept of a trial of seven, gather six champions from a cast we barely know, navigate complex Targaryen family dynamics, seed a betrayal, deliver a prophecy with both immediate and long-term significance, make time for a fart joke, and then stick a landing that justifies using the Game of Thrones theme music for the first time in the series. Well, in a serious way, that is.

That A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 4 pulls all of this off is remarkable. That it does so while maintaining true emotional resonance and thematic coherence is why this show keeps surprising me.

The cost of being lied to vs. the cost of lying.

The Dunk and Egg reconciliation scene is a masterclass in how to write conflict between two people who genuinely love each other but are at completely different developmental stages.

Dunk is hurt. Not just surprised-hurt or inconvenienced-hurt, but betrayed-hurt. The kind that comes from realizing someone you trusted was performing a role the whole time, and you were too stupid to notice. Peter Claffey plays it with this wounded pride that never quite tips into cruelty. Sure, he’s sharp with Egg, calls their meeting “a bit of bad luck.” But you can see him struggling not to take it too far. Because he knows, even in his anger, that Egg’s still a child. A child who lied, yes, but also a child who’s currently dressed in Targaryen regalia, surrounded by armed guards, looking absolutely miserable about the whole situation.

And then there’s Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), with these enormous eyes that are currently full of tears. He’s trying to explain that he never meant to hurt Dunk. He just wanted to be somebody’s squire. Which is such a perfect encapsulation of adolescent logic, right? I wanted something, so I took actions to get it, and I genuinely didn’t think through how those actions might affect you because I was too focused on my own desires. It’s selfish in the way teenagers are selfish, not out of malice but out of a kind of myopic self-interest that comes from a brain that hasn’t finished developing.

What makes the scene work is that the show doesn’t ask us to take sides. Dunk is right to be angry. Egg is right that he didn’t mean harm. Both things can be true. And the scene doesn’t resolve with a hug or a neat apology that fixes everything. It resolves with Dunk being summoned to see Baelor, leaving Egg alone with his shame. The relationship isn’t healed, not yet. It has to pause. Which feels honest in a way genre television rarely is.

Baelor Targaryen and the impossible position.

Next, let’s talk about Bertie Carvel‘s performance in this episode because he might just be this season’s secret weapon.

Baelor Breakspear is a fascinating character in the books. He’s the Targaryen prince who’s universally loved, widely respected, and seemingly incapable of the cruelty that defines so much of his family. But that’s telling us he’s good. Carvel shows us by making Baelor the only person in the episode who seems to fully understand every level of the game being played.

Watch him in the scene where Dunk comes before the assembled lords. He explains the situation to Dunk with this meticulous precision, laying out exactly what Aerion (Finn Bennett) is accusing him of, exactly what the consequences will be, exactly what Dunk’s options are. And underneath it all, you can see him doing the math. He knows Aerion’s lying. He knows Daeron’s lying, too. And he of course knows Dunk was defending an innocent woman from his sadistic nephew.

But he also knows that if he simply pardons Dunk, he’s telling the realm that hedge knights can strike princes without consequence. Which undermines the entire structure of Targaryen authority. Which his family cannot afford given that their dragons are dead and their power depends entirely on the idea that they still matter.

So Baelor gives Dunk the only path he can. Trial by combat. Trust that you’re good enough to win. Trust that the gods favor justice. That the system can sometimes work. But then Aerion, coward that he is, calls for a trial of seven.

The show does a remarkable job of making this feel both like a shocking twist and an inevitable escalation. Of course Aerion doesn’t want to face Dunk one-on-one. Of course he’s going to invoke some ancient tradition that lets him stack the deck. Maekar (Sam Spruell), his father, sees right through it—”fight him like a man,” he says with audible disgust. But he can’t overrule it without losing face. Baelor then explains the whole thing with this weary patience, like he’s seen this kind of legal maneuvering a thousand times and knows it’s BS. But he also knows the BS has to be honored because that’s how the system maintains legitimacy.

It’s such a smart way to dramatize the gap between justice and law. The law says Dunk has to fight. Justice says he should walk free. But there’s no mechanism for justice to override law when the people in power benefit from the law as written. So you get this moment where Baelor looks at Dunk and you can see him thinking: I’m sorry. I believe you, but I cannot help you. Not yet.

The apple core of the problem.

After Dunk leaves the castle, he wanders through the rain to his horses, and Raymun Fossoway (Shaun Thomas) appears out of the rain like a cheerful golden retriever who doesn’t understand why everyone’s so sad. Suddenly the episode shifts gears.

Here’s what I love about the Fossoway scenes in this episode. They work as both genuine comedy and genuine pathos. Raymun tries to cheer Dunk up by being aggressively optimistic about his chances. And it’s funny because his optimism is so obviously misplaced. But it also lands emotionally because Raymun actually cares about this guy he barely knows. And then his cousin Steffon (Edward Ashley) shows up and volunteers to fight for Dunk, and it’s this lovely moment of “oh thank god, someone believes in me.”

Which makes the betrayal the next morning hit that much harder.

Steffon Fossoway is such a perfect villain for this episode precisely because he’s not really a villain. He’s just a guy making a rational calculation. Fighting for Dunk might get him killed, but fighting for Aerion might get him a lordship. One of these is clearly the better deal. The show even gives him this moment where he eats an apple down to the core, seeds and all. Which is both amusing character detail and perfect visual metaphor for someone who takes everything and gives nothing back.

The genius of the betrayal is that it happens offscreen. We don’t see Aerion make the offer, nor do we see Steffon struggle with the choice. We just see Dunk arrive at the tourney grounds to find his assembled champions. They include Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings), the two Humfreys, and Robyn Rhysling (William Houston, whom we saw meet Egg in the previous episode). We also learn that Lyonel has never heard of Steffon Fossoway. He only came because Egg asked him to.

And then Steffon walks out onto the field to declare for Aerion. It’s such an efficient piece of storytelling, isn’t it? One scene, one revelation, and suddenly Dunk goes from “I have six champions” to “I have five champions and a betrayer.” It crystallizes everything the show has been saying about how cheaply justice can be bought. About how people who talk a lot about honor often have the least of it. And how the powerful can always find someone willing to trade their integrity for advancement.

But—and this is crucial—the show doesn’t let cynicism win. Because Raymun Fossoway, disgusted by his cousin’s betrayal, steps forward immediately and asks Dunk to knight him so he can fight. And suddenly we have a different kind of transaction. One based on shame, and loyalty, and the desire to prove that not everyone in your family is a piece of garbage.

The question the show won’t answer.

Okay, we need to talk about the knighting scene. Because I think it might be the most important moment in the episode, and it happens almost entirely through what doesn’t get said.

Raymun asks Dunk to knight him. Any knight can make a knight. That’s established law. So Dunk reaches for his sword, and then… hesitates. The camera holds on his face. He’s clearly struggling with something. And then Lord Ashford summons him, and before he can complete the ceremony, Lyonel Baratheon steps in and knights Raymun himself.

And in the middle of all this, we get a brief flash of Ser Arlan (Danny Webb), Dunk’s mentor, looking at Dunk and simply shrugging. Like, “sorry kid, not my problem anymore.”

Here’s what the show is very carefully not confirming, of course. Whether Dunk was ever actually knighted by Ser Arlan.

Look at the evidence. We’ve seen multiple flashbacks to Dunk’s time with Ser Arlan. We’ve never seen a knighting ceremony. When Dunk was asked by Plummer for proof of his knighthood, he said “a robin in an oak tree” was the only witness. This seems to be a reference to the scene where he was taking a sh** under a tree.

Dunk hesitates specifically when he needs to speak the knighting words. Those are words that Lyonel rattles off without thinking, words that Dunk presumably doesn’t know. The show gives us a vision of Arlan shrugging, which reads pretty clearly as “I never knighted you and you know it.” Or even if he did knight Dunk, he didn’t do it properly.

But the show won’t say what actually happened explicitly. And that ambiguity is doing so much thematic work. Because here’s the question the episode is truly asking. What makes a “true knight”? Is it the ceremony? The words spoken over you? Is it the technical legitimacy of your title? Or is it how you act? What you choose to do when no one’s watching? Whether you defend the innocent even when it costs you everything?

Dunk might not be a knight in the legal sense. But he’s a knight in every way that actually matters. He embodies the ideals of knighthood better than Aerion “I Break Fingers For Fun” Targaryen. Better than Steffon “I Sell My Oath For A Lordship” Fossoway. And better than most of the people who were anointed in proper ceremonies with proper witnesses and proper swords.

The show’s refusal to definitively answer whether Dunk was knighted is a feature, not a bug. Because the whole point is that the answer doesn’t matter. What matters is what Dunk does with his knighthood. And what Dunk does, consistently, is try to be good even when being good gets him thrown in a dungeon.

Daeron’s terrible gift.

Let’s go back to the dragon dream moment, because it’s doing something interesting with prophecy that the Game of Thrones franchise has historically struggled with.

Daeron (Henry Ashton) shows up, and yes he is the drunk from the inn in episode one. We now know he’s Egg’s oldest brother, and he delivers this prophecy where he dreamed of Dunk standing beneath a dead dragon. A dragon so large its wings could cover the meadow. But Dunk is alive, and the dragon is dead.

The show adds one detail that’s not in the book: “And a fire.” Here’s why this matters. For viewers who know the lore, this is a double prophecy. The immediate meaning is “someone is going to die in the trial of seven, and it’s going to be a Targaryen (a ‘dragon’).” The long-term meaning is something I can’t spoil for people who haven’t read the novellas.

But for viewers who don’t know the lore, it’s just an ominous warning that something bad is coming. And it’s delivered by a cowardly drunk who admits he doesn’t know if Dunk killed the dragon or just survived it.

What makes this good television rather than just setup for book readers is that Daeron himself doesn’t know what his dream means. He can’t interpret it. He’s terrified of his own visions. “An impressive talent for an unimpressive man,” he calls it, which is such a perfect encapsulation of the Targaryen experience. They have these incredible gifts and yet they produce generation after generation of people who can’t handle them.

And then Daeron makes his pathetic offer. He’ll fight in the trial, but he’ll fall quickly, make it easy for Dunk. It’s his way of apologizing for lying about the kidnapping. But it’s also just incredibly sad. Here’s a prince who could be great. He has prophetic visions! He’s the heir to his father! Yet he’s chosen to be drunk and cowardly instead because being drunk and cowardly is easier than living up to the weight of expectations.

The show doesn’t judge him for this, really. It simply presents it as fact. That some people break under pressure. Daeron is one of them. And in a franchise that often valorizes strength and punishes weakness, there’s something almost compassionate about how the show treats him. He’s a coward, but he’s a coward who knows he’s a coward. And that self-awareness doesn’t make him brave. I just makes him human.

The shield as benediction.

There’s a moment in the middle of the episode where Dunk goes to the abandoned puppet tent, and Steely Pate (Youssef Kerkour) shows up with Dunk’s shield. Tanselle finished painted it before she fled. The elm tree, the shooting star, the sunset… it’s everything Dunk described. And Pate reinforced it. “It’ll be heavier now,” he says. “But stronger, too.”

He’s not talking about the shield. This is the kind of moment that could be maudlin if played wrong, but the show understands that sometimes you need to just let a moment be what it is. Dunk looks at the shield. It has his sigil, chosen not inherited, created by a woman who barely knew him but saw something in him worth commemorating. And you can see him making a choice. Not to run. Not to give up. To fight.

The shield is proof that someone believed in him. Someone thought he mattered. Someone took the time to create something beautiful for him even though she knew she’d never see him again. And that’s enough. It has to be enough. Because what else does he have?

The silence that eats everything.

The episode comes down to one last gambit. A speech. Dunk’s down to six champions, after all. And he absolutely needs seven. If he can’t find a seventh, he’s automatically guilty. So he does the only thing he can think of. He asks for help.

Standing in front of the assembled crowd, in his armor, holding his shield, Dunk makes an appeal. He talks about what knighthood is supposed to mean. About defending the innocent. Honor. Whether any of this matters anymore, whether anyone still believes that the words mean something.

“Are there no true knights among you?”

It’s Peter Claffey’s best work in the series so far. He’s earnest without being naive, desperate without being pathetic. He believes every word he’s saying. And he’s asking a sincere question. Does anyone else still believe this? Or have we all accepted that power is the only thing that matters, that the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must? That ideals are just pretty lies we tell ourselves?

Then a man stands up. A big guy, bearded, looks like exactly the kind of person who’d fight for a lost cause. It’s Otho Bracken, or the Brute of Bracken, as he’s known. Dunk’s hope starts to lift, if only for a fleeting moment before…  Otho farts. And the entire crowd laughs.

I’ve watched this scene three times now, and each time that fart hits differently. The first time, it’s funny. Like fine, it’s objectively a funny joke, the puncturing of a solemn moment with a ridiculous bodily function. The second time, it’s uncomfortable. This is Dunk’s last chance, and the show uses it for a gag. The third time, it’s devastating.

Because that’s the answer to Dunk’s question. “Are there no true knights among you?” No. No there aren’t. The world is full of people who will watch an honest man beg for help and laugh at him. Who will choose comfort over courage, safety over justice, a good joke over doing the right thing. That’s the world. That’s what Dunk is truly up against.

And then the gates open.

Why the music matters.

Prince Baelor Breakspear rides onto the field in full Targaryen armor. He then removes his helmet and declares he will fight for Dunk. And yes, Ramin Djawadi’s Game of Thrones theme finally swells in its full glory.

I teared up. I’m not ashamed to admit it. That theme hits like a drug if you have any investment in this world at all. And the show has deliberately withheld it for nearly four full episodes specifically so this moment would land with maximum impact.

The Game of Thrones theme represents, in the popular imagination, epic fantasy. Battles and dragons and kingdoms rising and falling. The music tells you: “Hey! This is important. This is mythic. What you’re about to watch matters, not just to these characters but to their world.”

And the show has been so careful to not be that kind of story. It’s been small, intimate, comedic even. Two guys wandering around a tournament. Very low stakes. Very character-driven. And then suddenly, with one moment, one choice, it becomes something bigger.

Because Baelor choosing to fight for Dunk isn’t just about Dunk. It’s about what kind of realm Westeros is going to be. It’s about whether power can be used for justice or only for self-interest. Whether a prince of the blood can look at a system that’s rigged against the powerless and say: “No. This is wrong. I’m going to step in.”

It’s exactly the kind of move that Game of Thrones taught us to expect will be punished. The honorable choice that gets you killed by an unforgiving world. Also, from a pure craft perspective, Bertie Carvel on a horse, backlit, removing his helmet in slow motion while the most iconic theme in fantasy television plays? That’s just good filmmaking.

Sarah Adina Smith, the episode’s director, knows exactly what she’s doing. She talked on the podcast about how in that moment it felt like watching “the birth of a true knight,” and you can feel that in how she shoots it. This is the moment where everything Dunk has been trying to be gets validated by the highest authority in the realm.

Naturally, we get the perfect cliffhanger. Absolutely maddening that we have to wait a week.

What the show keeps getting right.

As I’ve pointed out week after week with these reviews, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a show about someone trying to be good.

Previous shows in the Game of Thrones world have been mostly about people trying to win. Trying to survive. Maybe trying to get revenge or gain power or save the world. In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Ser Duncan the Tall is a man just trying to be good. He wants to keep his promises. To defend those who can’t defend themselves. To live up to ideals that everyone around him treats as quaint or naïve or actively stupid.

And the show takes the position that this is hard. Not because Dunk is stupid (though he kind of is), but because the world is organized to punish this kind of behavior. Every choice Dunk makes that aligns with his ideals costs him. Refusing the fixed joust costs him armor. Defending Tanselle costs him his freedom. Being honest about not knowing how to knight Raymun costs him his dignity. And the show never pretends otherwise. It never says “actually everything worked out fine because you were good.” It says “yes, being good will hurt you, and you should do it anyway because the alternative is becoming Aerion.”

That’s a radical position for a TV in 2026. We’re positively drowning in antiheroes and morally gray characters and shows that pride themselves on subverting expectations by having the good guys lose and the bad guys win and everyone being terrible to each other all the time. And here comes this show saying: “Wait a minute. What if we had a protagonist who actually tries to do the right thing? What if we respected that choice instead of punishing it?”

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 4 is where this thesis receives its fullest expression. Dunk loses almost everything. His freedom, his dignity, his certainty about his squire. Even his belief that people will step up when asked. The knights of Westeros have betrayed and mocked him. Left him with impossible odds. Yet he keeps trying anyway. Keeps appealing to better angels. Keeps believing that someone still cares about doing right.

So the show rewards him. No, it doesn’t make what happens next easy, as the trial of seven is still going to be brutal. But Dunk does learn in this moment that he’s not alone. Baelor saw what he did and recognized it as worthy. Justice can still gather the worthy even when ambition gathers opportunists. Trying matters. Even when the system exists to make you give up.

It’s hard to say if A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms can maintain this optimism. But right now, in this moment, watching Dunk stand on that field and ask if anyone believes in knighthood anymore, and watching Baelor ride out to say yes? That’s already more optimism than two seasons of House of the Dragon combined.

New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiere Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.

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Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery