‘A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 2 Recap: “Hard Salt Beef”

You know Decider loves to include a revealing .gif. But we can’t show you just how revealing things get in Episode 2 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (“Hard Salt Beef”), during a Dunk voiceover, as he describes scenes from his life as a squire for Ser Arlan of Pennytree. The old hedge knight’s exploits, naked to the world, as it looks like he often was. Arlan was never rich. He sired no children of his own. And sometimes, knight and squire were made to share the same single space under one dry tree limb during a raging storm. But the old man was a singer of a lusty songs and a damned dogged fighter, and for every quick edit where Seven Kingdoms shows us Arlan smacking the hell out of Dunk or generally being a salty bastard, their time together is another revealing aspect of this series, because it shows us Westeros from the bottom up. 

“Was he a shit knight?” Egg’s assessment of Arlan’s wavering reputation is more direct. And maybe some of what Dunk describes is glaze off Arlan’s tavern talk or self-professed legend. But Dunk remains determined to find someone among the lords and knights gathered at Ashford Meadows who will remember, and vouch. But when he approaches Leo “Longthorn” of House Tyrell (Steve Wall), says it was he who told Arlan that a hedge knight is the bridge between the lords and the smallfolk, the answer still comes back in the negative. “I know him not, man.” 

Maybe Dunk should take his questions right to the top. A rumble of buzzy commotion surges through Ashford, because the A-listers have hit the lists. Charging up to the outer bailey of Lord Ashford’s castle is a group wearing expensive black armor, riding beautiful black horses, and lofting imposing black banners with a red dragon sigil. It’s the Targaryens, y’all, and this is as top down as Westeros gets in 209AC. Like Baelor “Breakspear” Targaryen (Bertie Carvel), firstborn son of King Daeron the Good, Prince of Dragonstone, Hand of the King, and heir to the Iron Throne. Like Baelor’s brother, Prince Maekar Targaryen (Sam Spruell). And like Prince Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen (Finn Bennett), whose brief encounter with Dunk is charged with the sneering arrogance of the ruling class. The one percenters of Westeros have arrived at the tournament. 

For being everyone’s variation of ‘big and stupid” or “fucking huge,” Dunk is also quite resourceful on his own. He quietly follows a servant’s corridor to place him directly outside the great hall of the castle, where the newly-arrived Targaryens are discussing the ongoing disappearance of two princes, Daeron and his younger brother Aegon. Until they’re discussing Dunk himself, because his huge resourceful ass was discovered outside the room where he hovered. 

He charges ahead with his quest. Ser Arlan “overthrew Lord Stokeworth in the melee at King’s Landing!” Surely some of these Targs must remember him. And while Maekar is dismissive of Dunk and the tournament itself, Baelor not only vouches for Arlan, he remembers facing him in a “hastilude” where he took seven lances to be unhorsed. On the back of Arlan’s exploits, and on Lord Baelor’s word, Dunk is validated. Ser Duncan the Tall has officially entered the building.

But as someone not Ser Arlan’s biological son, Baelor reminds him, “You must needs find a new device, ser.” A sigil of one’s own. And luckily there’s an artist and creative in camp who he’s already crushin’ on. With Egg, Dunk visits Tanselle, the poet and puppeteer, and she shows them how her troupe uses pollen to stage dragonflame. Would she paint something? Something representative on his shield, over the fading chalice with wings that was Arlan’s? Tongue-tied, Dunk says she must think him a fool. And Tanselle’s response is a nice couplet that feels representative of the Seven Kingdoms outlook: “All men are fools. All men are knights…”

With Tanselle and Dunk continuing to quietly flirt, the group also concepts the official sigil for Ser Ducan the Tall. On a background the color of sunset, in tribute to the old man, there will be a sturdy brown elm tree, like the one in their camp by the river. And above, a shooting star. Because as we know, the luck is theirs alone. OK! Dunk’s getting ever closer to competing for real in the lists. Now he will just have to compete for real in the lists, which looks cool as hell and dangerous as fuck.           

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms portrays the first night of competition at Ashford in a flash of pageantry and flame. A lively crowd is gathered beneath the Targaryen-strewn observation platform. Knights in competition, like Valarr Targaryen (Oscar Morgan), enter the lists, where squires hand them new lances with the precision of tire carriers in pit crews. Dunk and Egg are wowed by it all, the thrills and spills the fan wants to see and hear. Horses throw their riders, lances break on breastplates, and sparks fly where metal clashes at speed. This is chivalric virtue as Drive to Survive. 

The sight of it, after all his lobbying to be a part of it, also flattens Dunk’s resolve. “Do great knights live in the hedges and die by the side of a muddy road?” He asks Egg later, by their fire. “I think not.” Ser Arlan, with all his lived experience, was a hard man to know and never once a champion. What possible chance could “Ser Duncan the Tall” have, with a fraying rope cord for his longsword.

Helms and Hauberks for Episode 2 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (“Hard Salt Beef”):

• Sadly, Dunk has to sell Sweetfoot, Arlan’s white horse, to afford a set of tourney armor. But fortunately, he meets Steely Pate (Youssef Kerkour), a blacksmith and someone we trust immediately. Steely Pate says of his work, “Mine’ll serve you better if you take a lance to the face.”

• Dunk also meets two Kingsguards, Ser Roland Crakehall (Wade Briggs) and Ser Donnel of Duskendale (Bill Ward), and these dudes look cool. With so many knights in town for the tourney, Seven Kingdoms is showing off some choice armor and weapons designs.

• “Will you heed my call to war?!” Ser Lyonel Baratheon leads a tug of war across a mud pit and glugs flagons of piss froth and doesn’t do much else in Ep 2 of Seven Kingdoms, but his drunken party lord’s energy feels vital to this series, and cannot be contained. The Laughing Storm to his team of tuggers: “Pull, you cunt-strapped dandelions!” 

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.