After two laid-back episodes focused on introducing the characters and the developing Dunk and Egg's relationship, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1, episode 3 delivers shocking revelations and takes a surprisingly dark turn. The toilet humor and the silly jokes are still present, but the show now seems interested in showing viewers what exactly is at stake for these characters.
The episode is titled "The Squire," signaling a brief focus shift from Dunk to Egg to tell us more about the boy's past. At just 30 minutes, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 3, is the shortest so far —but it’s also the most thrilling and action-packed yet.
Egg goes on a short journey in the morning
The episode opens with Egg waking at early dawn, taking the horse and Dunk's sword to a nearby clearing to act the knight, which he calls "training." It's easy to forget Egg is just a kid amid all the dirt, greed, and drinking around him, but these little moments mean a lot to him. His make-believe quest is interrupted by Sir Robyn Rhysling.
Sir Robyn mistakes Egg for a thief and the two exchange insults. "What's wrong with your hair?", asks Sir Robyn. "What is wrong with your eye?", Egg retorts. The exchange is punctuated by an abruptly bloody flashback of Rhysling losing his eye on a joust, hinting at why he's known as the "maddest knight in the Seven Kingdoms."
Back at the tree where Dunk and Egg have been resting, Dunk is in a bad mood and on the brink of a meltdown, convinced that the lists are being held that day. Egg soothes his anxiety by explaining that the right of the first challenge is reserved for knights of high birth and renown, two qualities Dunk — as we're constantly reminded — utterly lacks.
Fortune and misfortune at the jousts
Dunk and Egg head for the jousts, but not before Dunk makes a fool of himself to Tanselle (again) with a terrible impression of a goose laying eggs. Later, the knight-squire pair rest by the elm and share a tender moment. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1, episode 3 puts a lot of emphasis on small gestures of kindness and respect shared by the two characters, strengthening their bond. Only three episodes in, and it's clear how comfortable Dunk and Egg feel around each other.
Dunk is visited by Plummer, who wants to enlist the Hedge Knight in a ploy to unhorse Sir Androw, Lord Ashford's son and a skilled lancer, in a rigged challenge aimed at profiting on Dunk's unlikely victory. The knight, proud and naive as usual, insists that he doesn't want a victory that he has not earned. He tells Plummer he will think about it but spends the rest of the episode avoiding him.
Dunk and Egg attend a joust between Prince Aerion 'Brightflame' Targaryen and Ser Humfrey Hardyng, which goes terribly wrong. Aerion maliciously spears Hardyng's horse with his lance, causing it to fall on top of the knight and break his leg. An enraged crowd tries to invade the lists.
At Ser Lyonel Baratheon's tent, Dunk and Egg hear their share of obscene songs and head back to their tree. They are approached by a fortune teller, who says Ser Duncan will become a great knight and "richer than a Lannister." For Egg, however, she foresees a horrible fate: "You shall be king and die in hot fire, and worms shall feed upon your ashes. And all who know you should rejoice in your dying."
Confronting the dragon in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
It is night, and Dunk is drinking cider with Raymun Fossoway. In a drunken haze, the squire vents disdain for the Targaryens in a drunken fit, calling them "incestuous aliens." Later, Tanselle stages a puppet show that depicts the slaying of a dragon, unaware that Prince Aerion is watching from the crowd. Under the pretense that "the dragon ought never lose," Aerion's men smash the place while he assaults Tanselle, brutally snapping her finger.
An enraged Dunk arrives just in time, beating up Aerion and kicking the prince in the face before the royal guard gets a hold of him. The prince is about to curb-stomp Dunk when Egg steps forward and reveals he's actually Aegon Targaryen, Aerion's younger brother. The episode ends with Dunk staring at Egg in disbelief.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1 episode 3 review
After two episodes of basically Duncan and Egg walking from tent to tent, hanging out with fellow knights and squires, and little to no action, the climax of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1, episode 3 kicks the door down, establishing the season's central conflict. That Aerion was a despicable character we knew from his first appearance, but with his assault on Tanselle's puppet show, he now cements himself as a truly intimidating villain.
There were many dark scenes in this A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode, but the tender moments shared by Dunk and Egg continue to stand out. Their time eating and talking by the elm feels like a perfect calm before the storm, adding emotional weight to Dunk's reaction to Egg's identity at the end of the episode. What will be of the pair now? Will Egg's noble blood be enough to keep Dunk safe?
Things won't be the same from now on. With the shocking reveal that Egg is, in fact, Aegon Targaryen, the enclosed world of Westerosi noblemen collides with that of the smallfolk. It enlightens the show's true intention, which is not exactly to show Westeros exclusively from the eyes of the lowborns, but to expose how the great houses inevitably interfere in peasant life, weaponizing a hollow promise of freedom to impose their own interests. Egg stands as the missing link between these two perspectives. Dunk, on the other hand, embodies an ideal of honor that transcends class, money, and renown.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1, episode 3 answers burning questions while laying out new ones for the coming weeks. It is a meticulously paced episode that finally introduces a sense of real stakes within the series' small-scale premise. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is really a show about unusual pairings and unlikely bonds: the early ingredient that helped turn Game of Thrones into a phenomenon. There's thorough attention to the character dynamics and how their relationships have evolved across the past episodes, particularly between Dunk and Egg, but also in Dunk's growing bond with Tanselle and Raymun, the squire.
It invites viewers to think back on scenes from the first two episodes that may have seemed irrelevant but prove crucial to where these characters now stand. "The Squire" is the best episode of the HBO series so far, a much-needed step up to convince viewers to stick around. It concludes with an exciting cliffhanger that will leave fans biting their nails until episode 4.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is streaming on HBO Max.