Knight of the Seven Kingdoms review – This is the Game of Thrones we all need right now | television

‘forLess than their little cotton socks!” This is not a response one would expect from any resident of Westeros, the bloody, violent, incestuous and often debauched land of the Game of Thrones series. But the beloved heroes in the latest installment of the series, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, are calling him.

Their names, as in George R.R. Martin’s short novels on which the series is based, are Dunk – short for Ser Duncan the Tall – and Egg. Dunk (Peter Claffey, the towering former Irish rugby union player, last seen in Bad Sisters) was an attendant to the hedge-knight – not-so-noble – Ser Arlan of Pentree (Danny Webb), who took the boy under his wing but was never able to knight the man before he died. We first meet Dunk as he buries his mentor under an old elm tree and raises his arms against the sea of ​​problems about to engulf him. Dunk is a simple soul (too simple, some might say – he may look like a medieval Jack Reacher, but inside he’s more of an enthusiastic but bewildered Labrador) and sets out to find a master who can serve him himself as a hedge jockey.

Fortunately, one of his early stops at a bar brings him into the orbit of the bald-headed, ethereal-looking, smart-alecky wanderer (Dexter Saul Ansel, a powerful screen presence in a small frame who’s so adorable to watch). Egg offers to be Dunk’s companion (“You seem to need me most”) and takes him through the backroads of Westeros, 100 years before GoT, with the Targaryens on the Iron Throne and some familiar titles floating elsewhere, toward a dueling tournament that might provide Dunk with the win and the mentor he needs.

In Game of Thrones franchise terms, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is something of a dud. If House of the Dragon was born out of a desire to turn the tide of fan fury over the finale of the original film (or the final season. Or the final seasons. Discuss so animatedly that Jon Snow will be bored to death) while maintaining an appetite for more life until GRRM completes his great work, this new show seems to be something entirely different. What this means for our collective hopes for the remaining two books in the series, let’s not go into detail.

One of the more obvious departure points is that while GoT burns through the plot like Maester Pycelle’s massive conflagration through Stannis’ fleet, very little happens in the middle episode of AKotSK (which comes in at around the 30-minute mark rather than the full, ponderous hour of its predecessor). We’re here for the budding friendship between knight and attendant, even if it’s not always obvious — given Egg’s knowledge of how the world works far more than dear Dunk does — in the way those roles are assigned, and a level of emotional investment in the pair that would frankly be foolish to apply to any of the characters in GoT once we’ve seen what they’ve done to Ned Stark.

It’s not exactly beginner stuff – there’s plenty of swearing, several inventive torture methods (although they’re more often described graphically than shown in full and precise detail as has traditionally been the case), as well as a bit of full male nudity which… raises questions. Additionally, later on, there is an episode so full of blood that the series cannot be safely shown to unsupervised children. But it’s a much nicer proposition than Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon. Instead of feathers being cut off, we get a donk crashing into thresholds. Instead of red or purple weddings or Sansa weddings, we were spending drunken nights in bars. Instead of offering our children pancakes, we do not have children offering them pancakes. It’s more comfortable. And there is no Ramsay Bolton, except still in your nightmares.

Which makes you wonder who your target audience is? Not children, who might be excited by the tale of a bumbling adult who is periodically saved by the wise child on his heels. Not for epic fantasy fans looking forward to the next installment of A Song of Ice and Fire (although dragons exist within living memory, this early age of Westeros is devoid of magic and sorcery). And while it points to larger questions, such as the corruption of innocence and the pros and cons of feudal mentality, it doesn’t delve into them or carry enough weight in its own right to attract a large audience of non-hardcore GRRM fans.

But perhaps the fact that he won’t set the world on fire, either literally within the show or figuratively without it, is the point. The real world is now too much like Westeros for us to deal with anymore. The land of legendary violence is now our safe place. We’re all without you, just hoping for protection even from something as fragile as an egg.