The newest Game of Thrones spinoff tells you right from the beginning that it’s not going to be another House of the Dragon. HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms opens with a squire named Dunk (Peter Claffey) facing a crossroads: The knight he served has died, and now he’s got three horses, a suit of armor, and no one around to tell him what to do. Lacking coin, he decides that maybe the right answer is to enter a tournament… An idea which immediately wreaks havoc on his bowels.
Opening with a poop joke is a hilarious way to begin a series that, from its tone to its 30-to-40-minute-long episodes, establishes itself as quite different from the adaptations that preceded it: intimate as opposed to epic, far more lighthearted in nature. It’s still Game of Thrones, so human bodies are still squishy and prone to being killed in brutal ways. But at its core is a tale of the kinds of folks who don’t get written about by maesters in this universe; ordinary men and women focused less on who’s ruling and more on their next meal.
In terms of timelines, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place 77 years after House of the Dragon’s battles for succession and 89 years before Game of Thrones’s all-out warfare. The era’s a relatively peaceful one, but that doesn’t make survival any easier — hence Dunk’s plan to compete in a tournament. On his way to his destiny, though, Dunk encounters a young boy named Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), who volunteers himself as Dunk’s squire… largely against Dunk’s wishes. TV loves an odd couple pairing, though, and so the first season focuses on the budding alliance between the two lads.
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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is co-created by author George R.R. Martin, who wrote the original novellas on which the show is based. Note the word “novellas” there, ensuring that the first season does not feature an overly dense narrative, with the focus on Dunk’s hapless efforts to establish himself as a true knight. The narrative, as a result, feels a little thinly spread out across these six episodes, even with a late-season flashback to help pad things out (a recent TV trend that Vulture’s Kathryn VanArendonk has argued needs to stop).
That said, the lack of plot could be seen as a feature, not a bug, as it allows Martin and co-creator Ira Parker to keep things focused on the trials and tribulations of its core characters. The original stories were known as Tales of Dunk and Egg, indicating how much of the narrative rests on the shoulders of that unlikely pairing; fortunately, Claffey and Ansell have immediate brotherly chemistry, with Dunk’s often sweet nature a nice counterbalance to Egg’s precociousness.
Production-wise, every effort has been made to match the preceding Game of Thrones series in terms of look and feel; directors Owen Harris and Sarah Adina Smith don’t skimp on the muck and grime you can feel oozing into these characters’ boots. The result evokes memories of the charming 2001 movie A Knight’s Tale, with the biggest nods to the original series being the familiar last names and the memory of dragons at the corners of the frame.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (HBO)
Most of the other knights and soldiers that Dunk and Egg encounter don’t pop much on their own, unfortunately, but making a huge impression is Daniel Ings as Ser Lyonel Baratheon, who likes to party and dance and otherwise live up to the Baratheon reputation for having a good time — while also proving himself as a loyal friend when the moment comes. Female characters are largely left on the sidelines (or more accurately, the brothels), but Tanzyn Crawford (Tiny Beautiful Things) does stand out as a puppeteer whom Dunk crushes on.
As showrunner, Ira Parker previously worked on HBO series including House of the Dragon and The Sympathizer, but before that he also worked on two seasons of the FX dramedy Better Things. That grounded droll vibe shines through here, more often than not, in between the battle scenes — you only hear the classic Game of Thrones theme twice over the course of these six episodes, and the first time it’s the set-up for a joke. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms feels determined to be different from previous Westeros tales. And that’s fantastic.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres Sunday, January 18th on HBO and HBO Max. Check out the latest trailer below.