‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Ends With a Tease of Adventures to Come

Gizmodo · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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We’re still scarred from everything that happened in last week’s “In the Name of the Mother,” but after the horror of battle comes “The Morrow.” Dunk survived against the odds—and while the Targaryens and the realm suffered a huge loss, the Trial of Seven proved what we already knew: the hedge knight was always the most honorable guy on the field. But after all that excitement, what’s next? A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms wraps up its first season with farewells both affectionate and uneasy; depending on how close showrunner Ira Parker sticks to George R.R. Martin’s novellas, it’s likely most of these characters won’t be seen again. Episode six also points us down an intriguing new path for season two, slated to arrive next year. We open with Ser Lyonel Baratheon and a Maester gazing with some concern at a very despondent-looking Dunk, who’s sprawled at the foot of his tree. © Steffan Hill/HBO Lyonel flops beside him. “It’s been a wonderful tournament,” the Laughing Storm muses, clutching his aleskin. “Shame it’s all over.” While the Maester prods at his wounds, Dunk remains expressionless. But we can assume his feelings about the tournament are quite different. Lyonel continues. This is a guy who thrives on danger and debauchery and thinks staying home is boring as hell. He has a tipsy brain flash: maybe Dunk, with whom he remains endlessly fascinated, would like to come with him, be his buddy for hunting and hawking and making merry and whatnot? The Maester interrupts, just as Lyonel is asking Dunk if he’s ever been to Tarth. (A fun little shout-out to the very tall Game of Thrones character Dunk reminds us of the most!) “This man is dying,” the Maester intones, adding that he’s not sure he can save him. “An itchy asshole is beyond your abilities, my friend,” Lyonel replies. “Be gone, witch! Fuck off with you.” To Dunk, he says, “You’re fine. He’s a terrible Maester.” Then he doubles down on his offer. “Come with me to Storm’s End, and I will love you like a brother. If not, fuck you. I’ll hate you like a brother.” Dunk, who is feeling great guilt about everything that’s happened, politely declines, then gets salty when Lyonel dares to disparage the recently departed Baelor Targaryen. © Steffan Hill/HBO “Your prince fought for you against men who were sworn to protect him,” Lyonel snaps back. “He risked nothing. And the gods don’t favor a fraud.” “Then why have they favored me?” Dunk wonders. Before he hobbles off, Lyonel—who mentions “there’s a war coming”—asks Dunk again to consider his offer, telling him, “The caravan departs after the roast.” By “the roast,” the cheeky lord means Baelor’s funeral pyre, which A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms makes very clear by immediately cutting to the grim inferno. Amid all the blondes in attendance, the camera lingers on a very solemn Maekar, his feelings inscrutable. Is he glad? Is he guilty? Is he regretful? When it’s over, Dunk tentatively approaches Baelor’s son, Prince Valarr. We haven’t gotten to see much of Valarr this season, but it’s immediately clear he’s more thoughtful and sensitive than, say, our stabby friend Prince Aerion. Still, he’s not giving Dunk a pass. “He had it in him to be a great king,” the prince says of his father. “Why would the gods take him and leave you?” Dunk knows the feeling. He’s been thinking about that a lot and admits to Valarr, “I’ve wondered the same.” As Dunk is crutching away, we can see the mini-village that’s sprung up around Ashford Meadow is being dismantled. Ser Raymun Fossoway limps up behind him. As they talk, Dunk says that everyone blames him for Baelor’s death. © Steffan Hill/HBO “I don’t,” Raymun protests, and the friends share a hug. Then, Raymun explains that he and his cousin, the odious Ser Steffon, have parted ways. Dunk apologizes, but Raymun’s not bothered by it. “He’s just mad that he lost,” Raymun says, which is absolutely true, and proudly shows off his new personal sigil: a ripe apple, green instead of red. But not all the red is out of Raymun’s life; we see he’s now together with Rowan—the sassy lady of the night we first met hanging around the unhelpful Ser Manfred Dondarrion. We also see that she’s very pregnant, though whether Raymun is really thick enough to think it could be his kid is anyone’s guess. Dunk is figuring out how to react when two men ride up and inform him that Maekar Targaryen would like a word. That sounds ominous, but it really is just a chat he’s looking for. The prince tells Dunk he’s sending the troublesome Aerion to the Free Cities, hoping a change of scenery will change him for the better. (Fat chance.) Then he gets down to it. “Some men will say I meant to kill my brother. The gods know it is a lie, but I will hear the whispers until the day I die.” Dunk says that while Maekar did technically land the fatal blow, “it was for me Prince Baelor died.” Maekar allows there’s some common ground between them. “You will hear them whisper as well.” For his part, Dunk points out that if he had not chosen a trial by combat, he would absolutely have lost his hand and foot as punishment for fighting Aerion. Maekar clearly doesn’t understand what he’s getting at, but Dunk has an explanation as to why that wasn’t something he could acquiesce to. “Every day, at evenfall, Ser Arlan would say, ‘I wonder what the morrow will bring,’” Dunk says. “Mightn’t it be that some morrow will come when I’ll have need of that foot, when the realm will need that foot even more than a prince’s life?” We can see Egg outside, eavesdropping. Maekar is very dismissive of this idea. But he changes the subject to his youngest son. Egg doesn’t want to squire for any knight except Dunk; Maekar’s solution to this is to offer Dunk a place at Summerhall, the summer Targaryen castle. While Westeros history buffs know the place will eventually be significant for Dunk and Egg, right now is not that time. © Steffan Hill/HBO “I think I’m done with princes,” Dunk says after barely considering the offer. Egg hears this, and Dunk sees his little disappointed face as he turns to leave. They share a moment sitting side by side. “I can’t, Egg. I’m sorry.” “Maybe you’re not the knight I thought you were,” the boy says. Maybe I’m not, Dunk seems to think, as we flash back to Ser Arlan, this time not long before his death—the event that kicked off A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ first episode. He runs through a story Dunk has clearly heard many times before, explaining “the Pennytree” of his name: a tree in his hometown with literal coins nailed to it, a ritual done by soldiers heading off to war. “Why did you never knight me?” Dunk breaks in. Ser Arlan zones out for so long without answering we (and Dunk) think he has died at that exact moment. But no. With a gasp, he revives. “And that’s why they call it the Pennytree!” Then he adds, knowingly, “A true knight always finishes a story.” Back in the Ashford pub, Raymun, his new wife, and a glum Dunk sit near the bee-swarmed coffin of Ser Humfrey Beesbury. Dunk suddenly hears a familiar voice. It’s Daeron Targaryen, drunk as usual. “Have you no shame? Those men are dead because of you,” Dunk admonishes him. But Daeron has another matter on his mind. “Will you take Egg to squire?” he asks. Dunk reiterates his refusal, but Daeron makes an intriguing point. Aerion wasn’t always a monster, he says; it was the environment he was raised in that turned him from a “glad child” into the cruel creature he is now. Maybe it’s not too late for Egg? We cut back to the castle, where we see for the first time that Egg’s hair is growing in. Holding a knife, he creeps into the room where his most hated brother is sleeping off his injuries. © Steffan Hill/HBO Maekar enters behind him before any violence happens. But even Maekar can now see what we’ve long realized: Egg is on the precipice of either becoming a decent human being… or becoming yet another terrible Targaryen. Just then, the duo hear that Dunk has returned to the castle and requests an audience. Maekar tells him to make it quick. “Before your brother died, he said the realm needed good men,” Dunk says. “I will take Egg to squire, but not at Summerhall.” Away from castles, servants, and “his family” (as Maekar interjects; yes, m’lord, away from the Targaryens is exactly what Dunk is getting at), Egg might have a chance. Maekar doesn’t think much of the idea. Egg hitting the road with a hedge knight? “I forbid him to live as a peasant,” he hisses. Dunk has to spell it out: as he sees it, Maekar applied his preferred manner of upbringing to Daeron and Aerion, and look how they turned out. “He’s my last son,” Maekar says woefully. He does maybe care about Egg after all, it seems. As Dunk is packing up to leave, Sweetfoot—the white horse Dunk had to sell to pay for his armor—trots up out of nowhere. Turns out Raymun has bought her back, a gift to keep Dunk company. He thinks Dunk is headed to Storm’s End (“a sad place”) with Ser Lyonel and could do with a friendly companion. But Dunk says he’s not going to Storm’s End. And though he loves Sweetfoot, he tells Raymun to keep her. She’d enjoy living in his apple orchard, he figures—and we can already see this is going to work out, as the horse happily munches on the apple Raymun offers her. © Steffan Hill/HBO With no future plans other than to “ride hard in the other direction,” Dunk has one last task to attend to: nailing a penny to the tree that’s been his home at Ashford Meadow, in tribute to Ser Arlan. He’s about to mount up when he hears a familiar voice. “Ser Duncan! My lord father says I am to serve you.” There’s a pause. A moment of elation that we know is there, but is kept carefully hidden. Then Dunk gathers himself and corrects his squire: “’Serve you… ser.'” As they ride off, talking about where to go next—did you know there are actually nine kingdoms? Allow Egg to educate you, then the show’s titles to get in on the joke. Amid this lighthearted banter, there’s sudden unexpected poignance.