After a longer-than-usual wait following the epic conclusion to its fourth episode, the penultimate installment of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is here at last. And you know how it goes with Game of Thrones shows: the penultimate episode is often the big one, with major deaths, epic battles, and shocking twists. That's certainly the case here, as Dunk and his allies fight Aerion's team of knights in a trial of seven that's easily the most action-packed sequence of the series.
The trial itself is as brutal as anything to ever appear on Game of Thrones, complete with a surprise death that ranks right up there with the likes of Ned and Robb Stark. But just as big a surprise is this episode's decision to spend more than half its runtime on an extended flashback diving deep into the origins of Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey). It's perhaps the series' most daring episode, and while I admittedly scratched my head at a few decisions, overall it's still a spectacular affair that deserves its credit for realizing one of the most iconic parts of George R.R. Martin's Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas.
FULL SPOILERS ahead for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 5, "In the Name of the Mother."
Let the trial begin!
This episode wastes no time getting us right into the action. We begin with Baelor Targaryen (Bertie Carvel) giving a pep talk to the assembled knights, which reveals a slightly underhanded part of his strategy. While Aerion (Finn Bennett) and his team of knights are all skilled, the knights of the Kingsguard are sworn to protect the royal family — including Baelor. That puts them at a disadvantage, since Baelor can maneuver between them and they cannot attack him, even in a trial by combat.
When Robyn Rhysling (William Houston) questions whether this is honorable, Baelor replies that "the gods will let us know." And as we see by the end, they certainly do just that. Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings) also has an interesting line about boys who are neglected by their mothers fighting harder, which felt a little random to me at first — until the flashback kicked in, and it becomes clear that this is actually setting up Dunk's own tenacity, since he was abandoned by his mother as a child.
But we'll talk about the flashback in a moment. The initial charge of the trial is thrilling, and uses a few neat tricks to put viewers directly into Dunk's shoes like zooming the camera into his helmet and muffling everything with subjective sound design. Dunk takes a lance form Aerion in this charge, and we inhabit his point of view as he tears it out of his side, only to get a morning star to the face and lose consciousness as he falls from his horse. It's a brutal start.
Many specific beats in this initial charge are directly from Martin's novella, such as when Dunk's warhorse Thunder's back legs give out for a second, and the aforementioned lance wound. I'm a huge sucker for a show that adapts choreography from battle scenes this closely, so credit where it's due. Dunk's loss of consciousness is also in the book for a very brief second — except the show uses it as an opportunity to insert its longest, most ambitious flashback to date.
The big question is whether it worked, or totally killed the pacing of the season's most exciting action sequence.
The unexpected journey of Young Dunk
Given how much anticipation there has been for the trial of seven, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' choice to pull viewers out of the action only four minutes into the episode and launch them into a substantial flashback is a strange one. I spent a good portion of my first watch of this episode baffled. It reminded me a bit of the Game of Thrones season 4 episode "The Mountain and the Viper," which builds up to the highly-anticipated trial by combat between Oberyn Martell and Gregor Clegane, only to spend an extended period of time on a seemingly random conversation between Tyrion and Jaime Lannister about their mentally challenged cousin crushing beetles before the trial starts. Yes, that conversation holds extra thematic weight in the same way that Dunk's childhood does for this episode, but the feeling of being Punk'd lingers regardless.
All that said, the flashback to Young Dunk (Bamber Todd) is engaging and interesting, and filled with new information about both Dunk's life and the state of the Seven Kingdoms that he grew up in. We watch as he and his friend Rafe (Dune: Prophecy's Chloe Lea) loot a battlefield outside King's Landing, selling the things they've picked off corpses for enough money to try and book passage on a ship out of King's Landing. Things don't go to plan, and Rafe eventually ends up pushing the buttons of another thief one too many time and gets her throat slit for it.
Right as Dunk is about to join her, none other than Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb) comes to his rescue, drunkenly killing the thieves before heading on his way. In the aftermath, Dunk follows Ser Arlan across the countryside as the old knight goes on a bender that ends with him falling asleep on his own knife and stabbing himself, giving him a jolt of sobriety just in time to see Dunk collapse and subsequently recruit him as a squire.
While I figured these scenes might culminate with Dunk meeting Ser Arlan, I was still surprised by the sheer scope of the flashback section, and how much of a full story it told. This is our best look yet for the franchise at what it's actually like to live in Flea Bottom, and it's heartbreaking to see the struggles Dunk went through as a kid. It's even more impressive for the fact that this sequence is completely off-book from George R.R. Martin's novellas, but still manages to hit with the same sort of weight as everything drawn from the source material.
These scenes also give a lot more context for the world at large. Dunk mentions that "the war is over" because "the Black Dragon's dead." That's a reference to Daemon Targaryen, the leader of the First Blackfyre Rebellion, who was slain at the Redgrass Field. That happens 13 years before the tourney at Ashford Meadow, which confirms that in the show canon, Dunk is older than his book counterpart, since he's already a young teenager here.
Another cool touch: it's hinted that the battlefield Dunk and Rafe are looting is the Redgrass Field itself, since that was the final battle of the war and it took place in the Crownlands near King's Landing. When they try to sell their scavenged goods to a local fence, he says that, "We'll all be plundering that tomb for a dragon's age," about the battlefield. He also refuses to buy the "Blackfyre leathers" that they picked up, since they're the mark of a traitor. More than 10,000 warriors were said to have died at the Battle of the Redgrass Field, so it makes sense that people will be picking over the remains for many months or even years to come.
And yet another interesting tidbit: the man who dies while Dunk and Rafe are trying to pull him out from under a horse is a member of House Frey. We never got confirmation that House Frey supported Daemon Blackfyre in the books, but it's strongly hinted at by their presence in the third Dunk and Egg novella, "The Mystery Knight." The show is establishing this connection much earlier and more clearly.
This whole flashback sequence is littered with these sorts of details, which are a total treat for hardcore fans. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't itching to get back to the battle, so when Ser Arlan finally takes Dunk under his wing, it's a welcome shift to be back at Ashford Meadow for the climactic duel between Dunk and Aerion Brightflame.
Aerion Targaryen vs Ser Duncan the Tall
The scene finally flips back to the trial of seven at the 23:00 mark, as Aerion's morning star sails through the air toward Dunk's face while he's lying on the ground. Yes, that was a 19 minute flashback; I still can't decide if I love it or think it was insane of the show to do.
From there, we're launched into the duel between these two men who have been circling each other all season, and it's a gruesome fight. Unlike the beginning joust, which is adapted very closely from the novella, this duel between Dunk and Aerion is all new material for the show, right up until Dunk finally pins him down and starts beating his face in.
The fighting is bloody and not glorified at all, which feels just right for Westeros. It's edge-of-your-seat stuff...but at the same time, Dunk takes so many wounds that it becomes almost comical at a certain point. We can assume that his armor is helping him not be cut to ribbons, but even still, it's hard to imagine how he survives the sheer amount of damage he takes at Aerion's hands.
It makes sense that the show would extend this fight, inserting additional beats like Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) screaming for the herald to wait before blowing the horn to end the bout when it seems like Dunk is dead. The brief bits of Maekar (Sam Spruell) trying to reach Aerion were also a great detail; yes, Aerion is awful, but it's hard not to feel for Maekar when he bellows, "My son," as Aerion takes his first bad wound. In the book, Dunk pretty immediately beats Aerion after they're both off their horses; the show makes it a much more thrilling sequence, even if it does go a little overboard with some of the wounds Dunk takes.
Ultimately, it ends the same way though: with Dunk beating Aerion's face in, then dragging him over to Lord Ashford so he can yield properly. Dunk did it! He won, and seemingly saved his comrades from certain death! Or so he thinks...
Baelor Targaryen, we hardly knew ye
As Dunk is helped off the field by Steely Pate (Youssef Kerkour), Raymun Fossoway (Shaun Thomas), and Egg, Baelor Targaryen stumbles after them. We get a moment of respite as our heroes catch their breath, and Raymun and Pate fuss over Dunk's wounds. But then Baelor asks for help taking off his helm, which he says has a cracked visor thanks to a mace blow from his brother Maekar.
And that's when A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms hits us with the big shocker death of the season, as the back of Baelor's head comes clean off along with the helmet, revealing a gruesome ruin beneath. He collapses in Dunk's arms, dead. Daeron's prophetic dream of a dying dragon has been fulfilled, and it's heartwrenching to watch as Dunk sobs over Baelor's corpse.
The death of Baelor Breakspear has massive ramifications, not just for Dunk and Egg but the realm as a whole. It's just as stunning a scene in this episode of the TV show as it was when George R.R. Martin wrote it for his novella nearly 30 years ago. Between this and the fist pump moment when Baelor joined the fight at the end of Episode 4, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is delivering the sort of showstoppers that we haven't had in earnest since early in Game of Thrones' run. I'm reveling in it, even though it's horrifically sad to see Baelor taken from the world so soon. We shall never know his like again.
Verdict
"In the Name of the Mother" is an important episode for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1, and while it does make some choices that feel baffling at first, the more times I watch it, the more I enjoy it. The show had the difficult task of taking a 10-page fight scene and turning it into a 37 minute episode of television, and the main ways it does that are by inserting a lengthy flashback and extending the beatings of Ser Duncan the Tall and Aerion Targaryen. The pacing is a little strange because of the split nature of the episode, but there's no denying its overall effectiveness, culminating in the most shocking character death of the franchise since Game of Thrones was in its heydey. Episode 5 solidifies the show's run as a resounding success.
The season finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres on February 22. See you then for one last ride with Dunk and Egg, as they navigate the terrible fallout of Baelor Targaryen's death.