A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2026) Episode One Review

hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the concession stand here on the kb radio network i am your host kevin reed and

this is the review of the brand new hbo hbo max series a night

of the seven kingdoms yes it is the third tv show that is a adaptation of george rr martin's game of thrones we get our third series from this writer and this

is an adaptation of the tales of duncan egg series of novellas that spawned off from a song of ice and fire franchise and

This show

tells the tale of sir duncan the tall or dunk and his squire egg or argon targaryen and they are both played by peter clafley who plays dunk and uh

dexter so ansel who plays egg and this takes place before the game of yeah it's a prequel to game of thrones

And it's after House of the Dragon.

And so it falls right in that little space.

And this show,

I was wondering how it was going to hit.

Because this is a tonally different show from

House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.

This show,

even though set in the same world,

universe,

however you want to call it.

It has more comedy elements.

There's more levity to this show.

And so I was wondering how would that work in such a dark and heavy show as Game of Thrones is and House of the Dragon?

Will it fit?

Well,

only one episode in.

I can't really say yay or nay at this point.

But it is an interesting.

start to this show i had my questions of course going into it and you know being a big fan of game of thrones and house of the dragon i i was kind of worried you

know it will it be too much of a departure from the tone that was set uh with those two shows and you know i think the tone works

we still got that heavy dark kind of gray scale feel throughout this episode but there are moments of levity there aren't it isn't a saturday night live sketch adaptation

you know it isn't that type of comedy isn't it a parody and that's what i was kind of worried about now like i said only one episode in,

it could completely go off the rails,

but uh

my my worries were kind of dashed away yeah there's comedy elements in it uh our lead character uh duncan the tall or dunk uh he's kind of goofy you know but he isn't overly

goofy you know he isn't just a dumb and dumber version of game of thrones he he's a

man you know he's a good man and he's trying to well i don't know if he's good or not but he is a man who uh uh is just trying to survive in his world and he he's a little goofy that's all you know and then we got the egg character or ergon

uh targaryen who has a lot of backstory with him as well um because he's a targaryen so you know that he's tied to the family he's he's actually

in the lineage to be king.

And I think,

if I'm not mistaken,

he does eventually become king.

I haven't read the books.

I'm only going off of what I have gathered thus far,

watching Game of Thrones and watching House of the Dragon and piecing together some clues.

But,

yeah,

there's something there,

there.

But he's a squire right now.

under dunk so those characters will play a big part in the storytelling of game of thrones later on or

what we've seen you know and we've heard them mention in game of thrones i i remember that and it's crazy i remember that you know i i've gotten to the age now that my mind doesn't retain a lot of stuff and

so when i do remember things from tv shows or even in life in general i i celebrate it like oh my god i remember that you know i remember dunkin the tall

being mentioned in Game of Thrones.

And I celebrated that because I can barely remember where I put my car keys from yesterday.

But I remember that.

It is amazing,

man.

I can remember this stuff.

It has no bearing on my life in general,

but it just goes to show you how immersed I am in TVs and movies.

That is my life,

I guess you could say.

But as far as the show is concerned,

this episode,

which is entitled The Hedge King or The Hedge Knight,

I should say,

it starts off with a kind of a gloomy feel.

We start off with a funeral,

in a sense,

or burial of this guy.

and we see our lead character,

Dunk,

burying this man who we assumed is his father.

puts him in a shallow grave and you know immediately you knew what type of show this was when he was kind of uh speaking to his dead father or father figure but we later find out that it isn't his actual biological father is just somebody who uh

took him in and he became the squire of this uh knight and he's

It's talking to him like,

oh,

you only you only beat me when you had to.

And then we get the flashbacks of all of the backhand slaps and punches to the face and all this here.

And it was done in a comedic way.

And I'm like,

OK,

this is where we're going.

This is where we're going.

And for me,

it worked because it was no point dragging on the comedy element.

There was no point.

trying to hide the fact that there's some there's going to be a lot of comedic moments throughout this show and to mix it in with this gloomy scene that we had i mean you can't get more depressing than a funeral an

actual burial of somebody i mean that's the low of the low and to break it with this comedy in this flashback i was like okay

okay i can work with this i can actually work with this because it got a few chuckles out of me and so he he buries him the next morning he has the sword and he's he's thinking about going to become a knight or uh

work for the guard in king's landing and we get the theme and once again a great moment the old the not the old but the

Game of Thrones theme,

you know.

It just started playing.

And I'm like,

okay.

And then he stops.

As he's looking,

you're thinking he's focused.

He's like,

oh,

yes,

this is what I got to do.

It's this triumphant theme that's playing.

And then we cut to him taking a dump behind a tree.

I'm like,

okay.

And the music cuts.

It is like,

this is perfect,

man.

I love where this is going.

I wasn't expecting for this.

I wasn't expecting.

the comedy to be like this you know just real world comedy you know that forced comedy and so at that moment uh donk thinks about going and participating in this tournament of knights and

he looks at this raven or not a raven but a uh a robin that is in the tree that he's pooping behind

And he comes with the bright idea to participate in this.

So he goes to an inn or a hotel,

motel,

holiday inn,

whatever.

And he sees this little bald young boy coming out of the stables.

And he assumed that he's a stable boy and orders him to take the horses and,

you know,

prep them.

to leave after he goes get a drink and whatnot so he goes in there and he comes back the young boy is playing with the with the armor and whatnot and uh he kind of skulls him you know fusses at him and uh

the young boy offers to be his squire to accompany him to ashfield that's the town where they're going to hold this tournament um to uh assist him and

Of course,

Dunk denies it and goes on to his merry way.

He arrives in Ashford.

He tries to enlist into this tournament and he's being denied because he's not a rightful knight.

And he's trying to explain that he's,

you know,

he's been knighted by his father,

who was a knight.

he served under what?

why the name escaping me but he served as a knight and knighted knighted him before he died and we didn't see this happen and i don't think it happened but that was that's his story and he's sticking to it and nobody nobody believes him uh

he's he's trying to find the guy that his father served under or the son of or whatever the case may be uh to vouch for him because he needs somebody to vouch for him.

in order to participate in this tournament now the tournament uh if you lose the tournament you lose everything you lose your your your your sword your armor and your horses and you have to ransom it back and he can't afford to do that but uh the

risk is worth the well at least how can i word it the reward is worth the risk

That's how I want to say it.

And so he is determined to be a part of this.

He befriends another knight who tries to belittle him at first,

but they end up becoming friends and whatnot.

And the rest,

as they say,

is history.

He meets or he reconnects with Egg.

He finds Egg has found his way to Ashford.

and

He scolds him for coming and why are you here and whatnot.

And the two end up,

drawing an alliance with one another,

to the point where dunk agrees to take egg under his wing as his squire and,

promise to treat,

treat him better than what his night did to him.

You know,

with the beatings,

he promised he'll never beat him and,

you know,

treat him.

like a human being and so as they slept under this tree uh egg notices a shooting star and he calls it good luck he like this is good luck that the shooting star is is smiling on us and dunk asks him you

know is it is it just for us though and that's how the episode goes off i thought this was a good start to the show i honestly wasn't expecting to

enjoy it i really went into it like uh i don't think this is gonna work everything about this the whole concept behind this i just felt like it wasn't gonna work and i feel confident that this is gonna work for some strange reason i really have no dog in this hunt honest

to god i did not i forgot this show was even coming out that's how that's how invested i was in this show it wasn't until done.

the weekend of you know that that i realized it not only realized it because i saw advertised advertisement for it that is premiering sunday and i'm like oh just so happened it was nothing on sunday night so i went ahead and peeped it out and

i was pleasantly surprised and i enjoyed it i think uh uh what's his name peter peter craft uh uh yeah Crafty.

I think he's a fart.

I haven't seen him in nothing else.

But the dude is tall.

That dude is like

6'5". So they had to find a tall actor,

of course,

to play this role.

But I love how he's playing this character.

He's so down to earth.

He's like you and me.

You know what I'm saying?

He's not being funny or comedic for comedic's sake.

You know,

he's just an average,

ordinary guy.

guy we're so used to seeing these i hate to say over the top characters but they're over the top characters there's nobody you would meet in real life when it comes to game of thrones or house of the dragon because all we see are hierarchies you know we see princes and kings and uh knights and all this other stuff you know we barely get to see the

uh middle or lower class of westeros so this is

this is as lower class as you can get here and those people exist you know they exist in this time and we're getting their perspective and so for that reason i enjoyed it i'm i'm curious to see how this is going to play out with uh aragon or egg you

know because he is destined for bigger things,

greater things in the.

world of game of thrones and so how is that going to affect dunk how is that going to affect their friendship that we're going to see develop throughout this show is a lot there and so for that reason i'm

all in on this you know i was i went into this episode saying look if they can't get me on this episode i'll just wait till house of the dragon come out

and to get my uh game of thrones fixed but this is a good show to hold me over until we reach that pinnacle moment what did you think of a night of the seven kingdoms did you enjoy it did you think it was a

left feel from what we know and love of game of thrones or did you think this was a pretty fitting show to fit in between all of the madness that we get on the

quote-unquote main shows of Game of Thrones.

I would love to know your thoughts.

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night of the seven kingdoms currently on hbo max want you all to know that i love you continue to love everyone and until we speak again you all be blessed

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2026) Episode One Review

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