A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms continues to charm in its second episode, “Hard Salt Beef,” which sees our heroes prepare for the tourney in Ashford Meadow. Spoilers ahead.
Ser Dunk (Peter Claffey) can now enter thanks to Prince Baelor Targaryen (Bertie Carvel), the first and only knight that vouches for Dunk’s former master, Ser Arlan Pennytree (Danny Webb), who henceforth shall be known as Ser Arlan the Long. That was . . . quite the “reveal” though one can’t help but wonder if this is just another of Dunk’s exaggerations as he builds up Ser Arlan in his memory.
We learned last week that Dunk believes his former master only beat him when necessary, but the flashbacks told a different tale. In eulogizing Ser Arlan, Dunk is also inflating his valor and honor and, well, everything else.
“Tales grow with the telling,” Baelor remarks, when Dunk asks the Targaryen princes to vouch for him. In Ser Arlan’s telling, he and the prince broke seven lances before Baelor won the day; Baelor, humbly enough, insists that it was four.
Ser Arlan was a great knight, Dunk insists to any who will listen, but none of what we’ve seen of him suggests that to be entirely true. He was a drunk and a lecher and never won a tourney. In the brief practice combat we see of the old knight and Dunk, Ser Arlan doesn’t seem like much of a fighter, either, though his age is certainly a factor – as is Dunk’s formidable height and reach.
So the tale grows with the telling, and perhaps that includes Ser Arlan’s . . . anatomy, which looms large in this episode’s shocking intro, as if to say “You thought poop was a shocker? Hold my ale.”
Prince Baelor tells Dunk that while he may join the tourney, he must make his own sigil. Only blood relations can pass their crest on, and Ser Arlan is no blood relative of Dunk’s.
The knight and his diminutive squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) go to a puppet show. Afterwards, they speak with Tanselle Too-Tall (Tanzyn Crawford) and Dunk asks her if she’ll paint his shield. He only has a vague idea of what he actually wants painted – a sunset, he suggests, clearly too smitten with Tanselle to think straight – but Egg suggests an elm tree with brown branches and green leaves. Recalling their previous conversation, Dunk suggests a falling star as well.
It’s an appropriate crest for a hedge knight, a wanderer who sleeps not in tents, but under trees. And a falling star for good luck. It also reminds me that not all of Dunk’s memories of Ser Arlan are marred by exaggeration. The two are seen huddling under a tree in the rain, laughing companionably. It’s a sweet moment, and for all his other flaws, it does seem that Ser Arlan taught Dunk to be a good man.
When Dunk introduces himself to the Dornishwoman, he does so as Ser Duncan the Tall, which elicits a grin on her part. She tells him she was called “Too-Tall” when she was young, and he’s quick to tell her that it’s not true. “You’re just right,” he stammers. “For…for…”
“For puppets,” Egg interjects, once again proving his worth as a squire.
The arrival of the Targaryen princes is a big deal for the town of Ashford and the knights and lords and ladies assembled there. It’s worth understanding who these men are.
Prince Baelor, who we mentioned above, is known as “Breakspear” and is both Hand of the King to his father, Daeron II Targaryen and heir to the throne. His younger brother is Prince Maekar, is also at the tourney. He has three sons: Daeron, Aerion and Aegon. He can’t find Daeron or Aegon, though Dunk had a brief run-in with Daeron (Finn Bennett) only moments earlier.
“I trust that they will not be found dead,” Dunk says as he bows his way out of the chamber, awkwardly, as the Master of Games shakes his head “no.” It’s one of several hilarious moments in the episode. You can really feel Dunk’s panicked awkwardness as he makes bumbling exit.
Baelor and Maekar are quite clearly not cut from the same cloth, blood or no. Maekar is impatient and cold. Baelor is warm and generous. Daeron shares both his father’s aloof nature and his white Targaryen hair; Baelor, you’ll notice, has a darker pate.
Speaking of pates, Dunk also visits the blacksmith, Steely Pate, who offers to sell him armor for 800 stags, or cheaper armor for 600. Dunk has just two stags and some old armor he can trade. He sells his palfrey, Sweetfoot, in order to afford the armor, giving a bit of coin back to see that she’s fed oats and an apple, because Dunk is a big old softie.
Of course, any knight who loses in the jousts can have his armor taken as a trophy (something Baelor did not do when he unseated Ser Arlan). Dunk could lose everything, though at this point the reward outweighs the risk.
The episode ends with the tourney’s opening salvo. Contestants include Baelor’s son, Valarr Targaryen (Oscar Morgan), and Lord Medgar Tully (Russell Simpson) among others. The joust is thrilling, both for the attendees watching and for those of us at home. Warhorses charge, lances down, crashing through the tilts as lances break on shields and men topple from their steeds.
Egg cheers and whoops with the best of them, though at times he seems genuinely worried, as though he might know one of the knights and is concerned for his safety. Dunk seems at once exhilarated and overwhelmed.
Back at the camp, Egg reenacts the swordplay, shouting “die!” in boyish glee. Dunk seems crestfallen. Egg asks him what the matter is.
“Do great knights live in the hedges and die by the side of a muddy road?” he says. “I think not. Ser Arlan wasn’t gifted with sword or lance, and he drank and he whored, and he was a hard man to know. No made no friends, either. He lived nigh on sixty years and never was a champion. What chance do I have, truly? But we was good to me. I wasn’t his family, but he kept me like we were. He raised me to be an honorable man. And all these noble lords can’t even remember his name. His name was Ser Arlan of Pennytree, and I am his legacy. On the morrow, we will show them what his hand has wrought.”
If only ‘twere on the morrow but, alas, we have to wait until next Sunday to see what comes next in Dunk & Egg’s adventures.
I remain absolutely captivated by this show. I find myself grinning at the humor, at Dunk’s earnestness. I love the bright white armor of the two Kingsguard that Dunk meets, Ser Roland Crakehall (Wade Briggs) and Ser Donnel of Duskendale (Bill Ward). Ser Donnel tells Dunk his family are crabbers, and when Dunk asks how a crabber became a Kingsguard, the knight tells him “The same way we became crabbers.” It’s only later, when he recounts this to Egg, that the young boy informs him that Ser Donnel’s family owns half the crabbing fleets in Westeros. Perhaps not such humble beginnings.
The tug-of-war scene with Lyonel Baratheon was also a joy to watch, largely because Daniel Ings steals every scene he’s in. Here he recruits Dunk and Egg to his cause and then, mid-tug, capers off for a drink, though he returns in time to help win the day. It’s all such great fun. I think I could spend half an hour longer in each episode, just following Dunk around the tourney grounds. Honing in on one tourney, one location, one fairly limited cast of characters, gives this show a kind of intimacy and focus that’s incredibly immersive.
It’s also easier to connect with the characters in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms than it’s been with the cast of House of the Dragon. Everyone is so dour and gloomy in that show. This feels more like early Game of Thrones, when Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) was still cracking wise and not everything had gone to hell. It’s cozy, for lack of a better term, and exactly the kind of tonal shift this franchise needed. It will get darker and more dire, of course. “Things get worse before they get better” is a key tenet of storytelling. But I appreciate that it’s all so pleasant so far.
Of course, I’m disappointed that the episodes are so short and so few. On the other hand, I’m glad that showrunner, Ira Parker, is remaining so true to the source material. It would have been easy to flesh the novella by George R.R. Martin with lots of original content, but that’s always risky.
So far, the changes feel true to the book, and that’s more important to me than getting longer episodes. Perhaps they should have released two at once, however. Either way, I’m glad we have four more to look forward to in the coming weeks. It may be summer in Westeros, but it’s winter here and good TV shows are a balm against the cold. Oh, and the musical score is absolutely lovely.
What did you think of this episode and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms so far? Be sure to read my recap and review of the series premiere as well.
