House of R - ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 5 Reactions | Talk the Thrones

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson are back to break down ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 5, “In the Name of the Mother.” They discuss the trial of seven, the flashback to Dunk’s youth, and the most shocking moment of the series so far. (00:00) Intro (1:05) CR’s recap (6:40) Favorite moment (8:20) Thoughts on the flashback (15:10) Young Dunk (20:06) The Redgrass Field Battlefield (25:56) The trial of seven (28:10) When did Baelor get hit? (33:02) Baelor’s big scene (44:51) What will be the aftermath? Hosts: Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson Producers: Aleya Zenieris and Carlos Chiriboga Social: Jomi Adeniran Lighting Director: Sarah Reddy Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Order now at order. Sweetgreen.com. Hello and welcome to Talk the Thrones. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio is Joanna Robinson and her helmet is keeping it all together. Mallory Rubin, we are going to jump into the extraordinary fifth episode of a Night of the Seven Kingdoms right after this. All right, guys, we are back, the penultimate episode of this season. I know, where's the time gone? I'm sad.

And this is an episode about time and about what makes us, if we go back to our youth, you know, and what shapes our kind of our worldviews. We're going to get into all of that. When are we getting the Chris Ryan Philly origin? I know. Where's the... It's your podcast. Every podcast. Every podcast is essentially building that origin story.

Why don't we do the recap? Okay. So after some forced trades and free agent signings, the deadline has passed. And we're ready to rock here at Ashford Baylor. Offers to take on the Kingsguard, the logic being that they are bound by duty not to harm him. I love a strategist. Has some tight observation about how unloved sons make good fighters and Duncan Eggshare a laugh and a tear.

We are off to the trial. After the first quarter, it's not going very well for our band of brothers. Different dudes are wearing different armor, but safe to say, Dung catches a lance in the chestal, abdominal front body section, and then frost the cupcake with a mace to the face. Oh my God, what will happen next? Too bad.

Flashback time. Mallory already well actually did your web in is a morning star. It's a morning star. Morning star. Maker's using a mace area in a morning star. It's like a bond they share. Maker our later also uses a morning star. Is this kind of like a tissue and a Kleenex thing where like a morning star is also a mace but a mace is a maze? No, like square rhombus. Morning star is on the chain and then the mace is just like the stick with the ball at the end. Oh. Okay. My bad. Should I see myself out? No. Please continue. Because I just heard her mumble morning star under her breath and I had.

We have to talk about the great crutch of prestige television. Flashback in the throes of the season's climactic battle, we are taken back to yesterday outside of King's Landing, where a battle is taken place. I believe this is the Blackfire Rebellion. Red Grassfield. You had a reaction so much.

And a knight is lying on death's door in a young dunk with his friend Rafa looking to make a little money. You're never going to believe this, but the flea bottom neighborhood of Kings Landing is a little bit of a doggy dog vibe. And it's presided over by a Watch asshole named Alistair, who likes to shake people down like Dunkin Raves.

So they've gone, they've gone to this battlefield. I got some leather, they got some horseshoes, whatever other coin they can find. You ever taken the horses off of a dead horse? We know how you feel about dead horses or injured horses. Or the copper from the tooth of a corpse? You ever raided a battlefield? I wouldn't put it past myself. Spoils the war.

In a dystopian post-apocalyptic society? You don't take a d'allor. You'll take a molar if there's gold around it. If somebody had like a half-smoked camelwain? Yeah. No Reads. R&D. Raph and Dunk. They tried to pawn some of the horseshoes and the leather and sundry battlefield souvenirs, all to fund Rafe's Bruce Springsteen-esque dream of living this one horse town where they probably also eat horses.

Second Bruce Springsteen mentioned in the recap. I did. Are you prepared to sing some lyrics this time? I should. How about this? Give us a lip-prop too. You're going to sing to us. I will write a Bruce Springsteen song about Dunkin Egg.

We got to remind him next. week. When I walk in it, I'm not prepared at all. Schedule a text for Thursday. On the precipice of this journey, they find out about a little something called dynamic pricing for tickets. And before they can throw a tantrum, Alistair shows up and takes their coins. Some grappling ensues.

Alistair cuts Rape's throat, dunk attacks Alistair, and who should come to his rescue but a younger version of the well-hung hedge night, Sir Arlen. This starts their beautiful journey together of Proje and Apprentice or Abund. apprentice and master or whatever you want to call it. We see a bit of Dunks hazing and apprenticeship under Arlen before we were shot back into the present moment. Shit's really going to shit here. And honestly, if you're watching on the first pass,

I'm so glad to be talking about this with you because even before we started this pod, I realized I was a bit confused about what was going on. Largely shot from Dunk's perspective. We have the battle to the death going on here. I thought the trial by seven was supposed to be a little bit more ceremonial than this, but Dunk, Doug's getting stabbed the lot.

To be completely honest, I didn't really anticipate this. A lot. And they're leaving everything out on the field, including Aryan's dick, because that gets sliced off or at least slashed off. Some high thigh. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet

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This is a classic heavyweight fight where Arian thinks he's won right before he actually loses. He withdraws his accusation towards Dunk and the crowd goes wild. But we haven't counted up the bodies yet. What are the casualties? Beesbury and Harding dead. Tough. But he got a line. He did get a line. And a name drop.

I'm so happy for you. Thank you. Thank God. The most beloved character. on this show is still with us. Still alive. And still, Baylor's still just kicking out

like mad knowledge and beautiful. Boiling wine, not boiling oil. Yeah. Not really helpful. Don't kill him. And Baylor, right after saying something

truly idealistic and tender, his brains fall out. Yep. Right onto the floor. Because he has gotten beaten up, I guess, by his own brother. His brother, by Maker. By maker.

He does. He does. Game of Thrones. Game of fucking Thrones. Fuck. Unbelievable. It's interesting, because we've been hearing

from a lot of listeners that they had not watched other Game of Thrones shows because it was too brutal. But they were like, this one seems... They were like, but this one seems kind of nice. I've been worried about this. And then we were like, ugh, someone's brains are going to fall out.

Also, Rae... House of our listeners who were like, I like listening to you talk about X, Y, or Z, not Thrones. Yeah, but we haven't watched Thrones, but we're watching Nine of the Seven Kingdoms because it seems a bit nicer. And, I mean, in the grand scheme of thinking

it is nicer, but when we see Rief like gurgling on her blood in this episode, a head, like, rolling, and then Baylor's brain falls out. It's just, it's a lot. It's Game of Thrones. George is going to George.

What's your favorite moment of this episode? I mean, it feels weird to say my favorite moment is seeing Baylor's back half of his head fall off. I'm curious for your take is a big hat enthusiast, you know, on the structural integrity of the skull. People think it's there. It's actually. It's just keeping it all together. Much more significant brain injury. You know, I think that is certainly the most significant and one of the most monumental

butterfly, dragonfly flaps its wings moment in the entire canon. I thought the entire battle was like revelatory and I can't wait to talk about all of it. I would say I'm mixed, albeit mixed positive on the flashback stuff, which I'm excited to get into and was a big adaptive change. Overall, my heart was going to like explode out of my chest watching this and I just thought that the energy and like the visceral nature of being in the mud was so gripping and mesmerizing and like tonally astonishing. Finn Bennett in the Hall of Fame for just the like most crestfallen and depleted anybody has ever looked in Westrose when he had when he realized

it was not over yet. It was over rim. So Mallory's favorite moment was the whole thing. Yes. It sounds like to me. It was great. I mean everything with Baylor is just an all time to me. All timer. My guy Beesbury did get a line and he got name dropped by Prince Baylor before he died. So that was very important to me. There's a small. small moment in the melee as Mallory and I were like pouring over the tape and rewinding and trying to follow people where Arian's on top of our guy Dunk in the mud and he's got a dagger and who comes along but Raymond Foss away with a that was great like a key hit to Arian to like save the day. So my guy Raymond Foss away really showing up. I thought was my favorite moment. So first time through

I was frustrated by the flashback because I didn't need an explanation for why Dunk might risk everything for Tanzel in his adulthood. I didn't need to know that it also originated with a love that he had when he was a kid and that that person was also stomped out by the ruling class in some way.

So I felt it unnecessary. But then rewatching the episode, I thought a sustained 30 minutes of that kind of fighting would be almost too much. Look, I'll fucking watch the first 30 minutes say, and private,

Ryan, whatever you want. But that is, like, they are so dedicated to keeping things in Baylor, in, um,

Dunk's perspective. Yeah. That you really are having a hard time or I had a hard time understanding who's who, who's getting hit. Yeah. Which is intentional.

Yeah. And so I think that having this weird 15, 20 minute break in between the opening five minutes and the last 10, 10, 15 minutes was, was pretty cool. I liked it better on rewatch

and it was less of the episode than it, than I thought it was the first time I watched it through. Yeah. In my mind, I was like, it was like, it was the whole

And then we have like the Baylor goes out. But what you're saying is that it has to be either or it has to be either the flashback or the entire thing is the melee. And it doesn't that, it didn't have to be that way. But of course, how can you resist ending with Baylor-Brikespeare's brain falling out? So, you know, they had a couple options on how to cut this season up. Like we could have done more tie with my guy at Beesbury at the beginning of this episode instead of a lengthy flashback. I don't know. Seems of equal value. Do you think that that's ultimately then adhering to, we see Beesbury as much as a bunch of

is Dunk does? But that was true of Lionel and all of them and they found room for those guys, but not my guy, Beesbury. Anyway, I will let the

Beesbury thing go, probably. But there is a, there's one, I feel really chill about it. But in, in, like, rereading this section,

there's just, like, one line that jumped out to me is, like, maybe could be the reason for the flashback to be here, and it's when Dunk is wailing on Arian with his shield, right?

And he says, inside Dunk's head, he's thinking he could vanquish Sir Dunk in the tall, but not dunk of Flea Bottom, like that he has to fight dirty street fight in order to win this fight. And that's why...

I feel like when they were reading through, they're like, this is our into a flashback. Okay, but is Alistair, Rave, Fleabottom? Is it in the books? Rafe, putting, ferret, these are mentions across the novellas later as like figures and dunks youth, but this, Rief in this form

and this relationship is this formative love is all new. Okay. We're at like 30 minutes left in the book. book, basically, at the end of episode four. So this is a real expansion to flesh out the fact that we have two episodes of the show of the series remaining. That lines said that to me as well as a good reason to show us what was going to rise inside of dunk, just like when he goes to Tanzel's defense, something just innate, right, intrinsic rises inside of him. I think that the other thing that makes it useful to, I think the Arlen Dunk and Egg Dunk comps are my favorite part of it,

the Rafe-Tanzel element that you guys are identifying my least favorite part as well. I agree. I don't think we needed. The fact that Dunk would help anybody is like the point to me. So I found that kind of puzzling. I also just like I'm never a fan of kill a girl to get a backstory. Sure. Yeah, of course. It's just like very lazy. Great point. I think that just the aging up, like, which is a very normal thing in the adaptations, more time in Dunk's life, it would be harder to explain us knowing basically nothing about those years and like fewer seminal things happen. to him. So I think giving us some glimpse into that time broadly makes sense. But I think that the like Arlen, the name of the episode, in the name of the mother, Arlen coming out as Dunk's

savior and shouting and the name of the mother leave that boy be. So what's the knighting vow? In the name of the mother, I charge you to defend the young and innocent. The fact that Arlen also was a knight like Dunk who remembered his vow is like such a cool and lovely parallel to show us between them as like across this season we've really and dunk had kind of reconciled all of the different unsavory and pure aspects of Arlen, many of which we see in this origin story, he's like very content while in his drunken grieving stupor to let Dunk get his latest bout of like dysentery from all we can always count on it from Dunk from the stream. But I just think that's a lovely comp. The fact that there's an innocent there who

needs help. It's very Breanne coded for both of them. Nothing's more hateful than failing to protect the one you love. Arlen's grieving Roger. Dunk holding in front of that grave holding that little helm. That's his prior squire dead, killed at the redgrass field. The way that dunk slides in there for Roger and Arlen's life. And then egg slides into Dunk's life. The way that that dunk slid into Arlen's egg following dunk. We see dunk following Arlen. There's parallels. Like I thought were just really lovely to better understand. So that part of it I really liked. I thought they were lovely. Some occasionally a little too cute, like a little too cute with the parallels. But very good. connecting it to the Battle of the Redgrass Field.

It's like that moment that Arlen, the reason that Arlen is in such a drunken tear is because his nephew just died, who was his squire, Roger. Okay, so I want to ask a little bit about that battlefield, but I'll just, to put a cap on the flashback and should they, shouldn't they?

Yeah. I can make the argument that, okay, so not, if you had, he's going to compare something to Andor at home, you can check that off the single card, but, but, andor uses flashbacks to Cassian's youth to set up the Fiona Shaw character

and explain the significance not only of her, but also why he is ultimately going to arrive at this anti-imperial, like, rebellion in the first place. I, outside of, like, this sort of not-declared internal monologue about, like, I'm doing this for dunk of flea-bottom,

it's just kind of like, did he really think of this entire story in the five seconds that between he got knocked off his horse and got back up? Like, it's a little bit of a break from the temporal reality of the show itself. That's definitely true. And I also think from like a TV watching point of view, the fact that all three of us bumped a little harder in the flashback the first time and then not. The second is that it's become, it's like one of those.

The reason we don't like an entire flashback episode as the penultimate of a season is usually it halts the action. And you're like, I was watching that. And usually the episode before the penultimate episode ends on some sort of cliffhanger. Right. And then we have to like, I somehow have to wait two weeks to get to this. And that's not quite what happens here. And then also, like, because we, you know, because we had already seen to the end of this episode to then go back and watch, like we had already, we didn't feel like it was disrupting something because we knew we would come back to the melee and get all of that. You're confident you're heading into this, like, astonishing final 10, 12, 13, whatever it was minutes.

That liked a Keynesian quality of their youths, you know, the crawl space that that they tuck down into. I did like seeing that as well. I mean, like you said, Kings Landing, okay, it's always fun to see the red, keeping the distance. Flea bottom, always fucked up in some capacity, no matter where we are in time. When Dunk in the novella, he's taking the initial blows, you know, the lance, the blow to the head. And one of the things he thinks is Dunk thought he could be a night, which like always gives me a chill. It's such a sad moment. He's worried about everything.

Oh, because he's like, I'm going to die out here? Well, no, just like the shame of it, like, why do I think I can do this? Why did I think this could be my life? And then the fact that he emerges at the end that he wins, but what is the cost and, like, the internal monologue of the shame he's feeling not only about himself, but like what might happen, the worry for other people around him. That's the one thing of just, like, I think the idea of he had Rafe, then he had Arlen, then he had Egg, this one person who means so much to him. And like, to your Raymond point, you know, coming in to help or seeing Lionel in the background, like fleshing out the characters in Dunk's world who he would be devastated to in some way. way be culpable or feel culpable to carry that guilt of something happening to them. I thought that that was nice.

I like that you say DeKenzian because I think this is a bit in the weeds, but I think another thing that the flashback really gives us is, if you think back to the beginning of the season, we've got the innkeeper character who's like, what does attorney have to do with the price of eggs, right? And the king right now, Darren the second, is a good king. And he's supposed to have, according to the lore, completely revamped the city watch in a year. But it's been several years And the city watch is still

Like pull out the corruption of it? Yeah, he's supposed to have like cleaned up the streets of King's Landing. He's the good king. He's fixed everything. When you get into the reality of it, absolutely not. It's still as corrupt as ever. So I love that. We run into this a lot with House of the Dragon,

but that contrast between what the history books have told us this king did. He fixed everything in the streets of King's landing and the reality of what the fuck Alistair is doing to these kids in the street. Yeah, I mean, it's also just a great testament to the economy of this show, We've heralded for making the exact right choice and not wasting money and time doing other things. You don't have some expensive tracking shot all through Kings Landing.

You don't have a massive fake version of it. It's like this is the most important five by nine frame. This is everything you need to know is that people are living on top of each other. That even when a city watch person is shaking someone down, they get bumped into another person who's like blackout drunk or running from another crime. The pigs are right here or the girls are right here. I really agree and I love it just makes it all feel so much like harder and claustrophobic and like in comparison to with Love & or Suck for House of the Dragon

like some of the some of the Flea Bottom stuff we've got in House of the Dragon like this looks more like flea bottom to me. You know it's like when you see like you're watching a show and it's like unnecessary drone shots to be like great so you're driving on a highway like I know it's like I don't need that and what we get is what matters. I think like the often we would critique the opposite of that the show the show don't tell we would long to see it and not just hear characters, like, talk about what they're thinking and feeling. But I think this was really an effective example of how sometimes tell, don't show, or the melding of telling and showing, like, hearing Dunk saying to Rafe, like, well, what if it's all shit?

Every place, right? Because he doesn't want to go. What if this is the best place there is? And then what we have seen just this little glimpse of it. And it's like, what a devastating insight into his circumstances and experiences so far. Because the only thing, as he voices that matters is the person right across from him. But, like, I loved that little bit of clarity into his psyche. too, the fact that he was not sitting there as a young boy in the show verse at least and saying everywhere is amazing and all of these idealistic views I have about honor and precinct nights. He wasn't like, Ariel, I want to, I want more. He was like, everywhere's probably horrible because every lived day of my life has taught me that. It's probably also like an indication to the extent that they're doing this of like a class critique critique where somebody born like him is probably like this is probably all I deserve and all I'm ever going to get. Yeah. And I'm not like a boat ride to Dorn or wherever they were going to try and go to is not going to change my free cities.

I also love, I love exactly your point about how narrow and confined what we got of Flea Bottom was, but we also get to see Rafe and Dunk on the Kings Road, which they shot at the Giants Causeway, which they used in Game of Thrones, you know? So we get to be back on the Kings Road where we saw Aria leave Kings Landing for the first time dressed as a boy, where we saw Brianne say goodbye to Jamie when she and Pod are setting out. We've seen that location. We've seen Aria and Brienne and Pod, who are these characters, we've been comparing them to.

And here's Duncan Raff just walking down the road. And they're not on the horses or in the wagons. They have to duck like they're the hobbits and fellowship to nestle and hide. To hide from the Stokehorse. A stature of Brunch is so many great little details like that. And then we see the battle. We do see the battlefield. Yeah.

So what are we do the battlefield and then we'll get into the melee. We'll get to the trial and I'll ask you the questions. I think a lot of people who are not book readers or just one-time viewers of this episode are probably like, I don't understand, like, how did Baylor? We'll get to that. Yeah. They're on this battlefield. I think almost crucially, like, the more significant scene to me was the pawn shop.

Mm-hmm. And the guy being like, this shit isn't is worse. Get these letters out of here. Yeah, because it's Targaryen. So, like, is that? No, Damon Blackfire. Blackfire. Okay.

So the Blackfire pretender. I mean, if you guys want a tag team, it's fine, like, whatever. Like, but like, what is, what's that battlefield and what are we, what witnessing the end of or the post game of? So the Battle of the Red Grassfield, which we've mentioned a couple times because it's where Baylor and Makar really made their reputations as the hammer in the anvil. That's pincer attack that we talk about. So Kings Landing's here. Redgrass Field is about here.

Where are white forests? There's a ridge right here that's important. And Maycar is coming down this way. Baylor comes up this way and the forces get trapped in the middle. Aren't you on Ken Burns' American Revolution? I agree. More crucially, up on the ridge here is a character called Brennan Rivers, Blood Raven. Blood Raven, one of the sickest names.

Yes. With his archers who were called the Ravens' teeth, also extremely sick. So when we see the field just littered with all these arrows, it's because of this crucial moment in the battle where he got the high ground and just rained arrows and killed Damon Blackfire and killed his sons. And so. Egon and Eamon, shout out if you've heard those names before for any other. The Redder's thing is he's not.

Stay tuned. Stay tuned. He'll be a character. He glimpsed him in a hallucinatory vision in Hot D at one point. But seeing the tattered Blackfire banners, seeing the arrows everywhere, that is telling us this is the Battle of Redgrass deal. Well, it is a civil war. So, Damon Blackfire is one of the great bastards of the prior king, Egon the 4th. So he is challenging his brother, Darren the Good, which I mentioned.

Kingdom gets divided and the various houses. I was really surprised to see the phrase there, though. I was laughing with Riley about that. Weird choice. interesting of all the sigils you could have put on that guy. Exactly. Very odd. So another civil war, like we've been talking about, I think another thing that's just worth noting, like, not only was this the decisive final battle because of the deaths Joe mentioned, 10,000 people died here. So this is like one of the most fabled battles in Westrocy history,

not only because you have like songs that come out of it, like the hammer and the anvil or the story of the raven's teeth or... Alice had three fingers. That's where she lost her other two fingers. Yeah. But not fighting. It actually was like... Some other stuff. Yeah.

Born bereft of thumb, but what happened with the other one? Plowing equipment, sure. You know, you have Damon and Sergoin and Corbri, so you have two Valerian steel swords, Lady for Lorne and Blackfired. It's like fabled for all these reasons, but it's also fabled infamous because so many people died.

So the fact that it's the decisive battle, a thing has ended, our characters, donk, Rafe, they are proximate to this card. And historical moment. Yes. And like when the fact that they're picking copper and horseshoes off the dead, it's like, think about what it would be like for people that young for that to be the thing they had to do to try

to get silver stags to leave town. What's really fun about the Turner Dashford Meadow and all of the sort of stories that we will get going on, Dunkin Egg, is that you will have houses here who are on the wrong side of this battle. We just have to be like, um, hello, we're here. Forget that we support the blackfires. It's fine. Everything's fine.

The flipping of the sigil, so like the normal, you know the normal Targaryen sigil, the Blackfield, the Red Dragon. So what Damon Blackfire did was just reverse the arms. There are all these, like, fun little details. I assume at some point we'll get the entire first Blackfire rebellion as a show or a movie. One of the key parts about this was just the conversation that Rave and Dunk have after when he's like, the war's over. The war's over.

And she says, no one forgets shit. You hurt someone. They hurt you back. We could name a million Game of Thrones characters that that made us think of. It's very little finger and then eventually Sansa, of course, in a great people. old moment. There's no justice in the world, not unless we make it, but the thing it made me think of most was Yoran, Willem, Willem, Willem, and then birthing Arya's list, like the way that you carry that need for vengeance inside of you and where it leads you. And sometimes characters

do things for pure reasons and sometimes they don't. And this idea of the ripples being present there and of course then present in the current storyline, the contemporary trial of seven, it's just like, I think, a smart way to remind us that no matter where you are in time, people are doing things that we will feel the effects of. Yeah, that's really cool. And I think the Blackfire Rebellion is one of those stories that has been, it's cropped up in the footnotes of things. It's cropped up in World of Ice and Fire, but it hasn't been fully written by George. So to see the battle, to see, I know, like that's happening. Great point. But to see, to see the Battle of the Red Grass Field, where we didn't even know exactly where

the Red Grass Field was, and now we can slightly bond it from Kings Landing. I know. I can say. It was amazing. That's, you know, there's like the Leo pointy meme. I can barely do that with like Philadelphia, New Jersey. So I'm really impressed that you were able to do that. Okay. Yeah, I just thought that moment in the pawn shop where he was like, this isn't worth anything.

Get this shit out of here. Really an interesting commentary on the relationship between life goes on and like there are markets. Oh, so my God, you can sand the sigil off that leather. Yeah. It was like, less this isn't work anything and more like I would be, it's a risk for me to have this. Yeah. This is from the pretender. So then you think about.

What does it mean that everybody... This is like wearing an A's hat when you're a Philly's thing. Exactly. It's exactly the same as that. But like, you know, people, they declared an allegiance in Ashford, right? So again, it's a little bit of a parallel on a comp there. What does it mean to say I am on this side? Especially if the person on the other side of you is like your brother or your cousin. Those things have real ramifications.

Which we're about to talk about brother, Mr.'s brother. Let's go to Ashford. This battle was sick, man. You obviously both knew that this was coming. I think for some reason when I was watching the sort of, Obviously, this is something that, you know, he's hiding behind thousands of years of Vandals bullshit. Like, Aryan pulls out of somewhere and is like, we're going to try by 7. It seems kind of ceremonial.

It's really about two guys, but we're going to have 14. You thought it was going to be a puppet show. I didn't think it was going to be a puppet show, but I thought, especially look at Baylor and him being just like, they're not going to touch me. Like, they can't touch me because of their duty to me supersedes this stuff. Prince of the blood. Yeah. And then when you get out there and people start swinging things around stuff just goes bad.

Well, the Kingsguard didn't touch him, but the only person who would really be brave enough to swing on Baylor is Makar. And the only reason he swung on his brother is because Arian was under attack. And that's why we get the line of my boy and my boy, Aryan to give Makar justification for the sort of berserkerker flailing that he's doing. Right. In terms of tracking who is where, you've got your three white enamel Kingsguard just sort of riding back and forth with like a lot of shots. So I see them. You've got the bright rose gold of Stefan Foss away. You see a couple times.

Lionel's antlers. It's easiest to spot by far. These horse gets stabbed and he falls off. He falls off and his antlers break off. And so it's just like one sad little antler when he's holding Mekar back. Raymond comes through. You can see the red of his sort of like jerkin or whatever that is as he comes through. But Harding and Beesbury are out right away.

So you don't have to worry about tracking them at all. They're dead. For a second. I was like confused about who, I mean, I knew who he would eventually fight, but I wasn't sure that dunk was fighting Aryan the entire time. He was. He was. He was. He was.

Hopefully the most distinct hell on Aaron. One other person, it might have been make our Knox Stunk down, but mostly it's Aryan. That's the crazy thing is like these guys are fighting. And meanwhile, there are still horses doing passes, like taking shots at them. I loved that part of that. It's much more chaotic than I thought it was going to be. Darren, though we do see him in the lineup and his green silk plume that is in the book is on his helmet. he's down in the mud.

Well, it's also kind of like, it's ironic because he's like, I'll take a hit in the helm and then I'll just sit this one out. And so, were you able to spot first pass? You saw Makar hit Baylor? Can I give you one hint for people

who are rewatching the tape? I'm just going to describe Makar's armor because it is extremely metal, right? It was their father who made the most fearsome appearance, however. Black, curved dragon teeth ran across his shoulders along the crest of his helm and down his back

and the huge spike mace strapped to his saddle was a deadly looking a weapon as dunk had ever seen. So anytime you see someone with ridged, teethy texture on them, that's Makar.

Baylor has that sort of like crenellated sort of folded metal and then Lionel with the antlers. So you see Macar knock Baylor off his horse, right? And then you see them fighting or is it vice versa?

I thought it was Baylor knocked Maycar off. One of the, knocks the other at the horse. You see Maker take a swing at Baylor, but I actually thought that was like the front of his helm. It was. Yeah. That was an interesting one because I, and that was, that specifically

was the, and Aryan is the easiest target to spot because of the red spikes. And he's basically always with dunk. Yeah. But the, that moment where they are on foot so close and Aryan is in peril and as you said, Makar is screaming, Arion, my boy,

my boy, and trying so hard to get through him. And he thrust up with the mace, up under. I had always thought that the hit would be to the back of the head. And there is one later that could just as easily be the hit. Two mornings off rails later. Yeah. But like the idea that, you know, pushing that mace up, who knows, again, he's wearing his son's arm. Baylor is wearing his son Valar's armor. Which is too tight. He didn't bring his own. He never intended to fight. He's not wearing a helm fitted for his head. Armor made for him. He's wearing his kids armor. Seems like it probably would have happened anyway.

It could have been right. Wait, can I tell you why I kind of hope that it's not hope, but I hope, but I hope the later ones, is because it was over. That's the, Arien had already conceded, and then you see Baylor and Lionel holding Make-R-Bel-Haw-Marls twice. And that is in the back. And that is in the back. And so I kind of like it better.

If it's like this was all like after the whistle blew. It was all over. I love kind of any of it. Like they're both so fucked up and tragic. And George R. Martian and Thronean in the best most like kind of sick and disturbing way. Either it's a humanizing thing for Makar. because he's trying to go reach and help his kid.

Even though that kid is a piece of shit, that's like something that can soften you just a touch. If it's after Arian has yielded, then it's like, oh my God, a matter of seconds, just like Egg, egg stops that horn from blowing by a millisecond. If that doesn't happen, it's done. Dunk has lost.

The cool thing about the, like, the reason why I was like I was anticipating this being a little bit more ceremonial or a little bit more mannered is that, like, I almost like the idea of like, quite literally and then, you know, as a storytelling device, fog of war, and that this got too real too fast for everyone involved and they were all like, oh shit, like I kind of thought Arrian was going to take this guy out in a second and he didn't.

And now we're all flailing at each other. And that it just gets kind of chaotic and nobody can control it. I mean, Baylor does say to his side at the start, like, they're going to try to kill you. Yeah. Stay under your voice. Yeah, that warning is like issued and understood. Just like last episode when they learned it was a trial. Seven, Raymond was like, dunk, like, that means lances of war or morning stars. Like, this is not

attorney joust. This is the real shit. So everybody who's a part of this knows what could happen. But I think you're definitely right that the physical setting, the misty quality of the air, which weirdly, even though Hardholm could not be more distinct from this in like every respect. The two things I, the two battle comps I thought of most here were battle the bastards because of kind of like the way the cameras used, but also, yeah, the like suffocating, oppressive. When the mud goes into his helm. Yes. And then hard home just because of the, obviously, that's supernatural, that's very distinct. But the pairing of like close combat between a couple figures we're focused on and then utter chaos around, including the fact that you can't see in that case through the snow and the ice and the clouds.

And here there's like, obviously in a different form, a similar quality where it's just impossible for anybody to know if anyone else is okay. So you have their anxiety in addition to the real terror of what they're, ending off in front of them. But to your point, Chris, I think there's an inherent truth to what you're saying because really, if they had their wits about them, Maycar would have never swung that way on Baylor. Sure, sure. They, they snipes in him a little bit, but they love each other. Because I kind of thought it was going to be like a hockey fight where like two guys are

going on it, but the rest of them are just pulling at each other's jerseys and are just like, all right, like. But the last time this happened, 13 out of the 14 guys died. And Maycar on the pool trial seven. Maybe we should have brought that up. I mean, you know, there's the hubris of that also. Let's also talk about the significance of what Baylor says to dunk before he dies. So Baylor comes into the tent.

He's got some medical advice for how to... Yeah, very important. Not oil. Demetalize dunk skin, I guess. That sounds unpleasant. All the injuries seem bad, and they all looked like they hurt. But the landstip pushing your chain mail into your flesh... I just feel like that's an infection.

It's a no for me. Yeah. It's for sure. Not if you put boiling wine on it, Chris. Have you tried it? Holy Ireland had had some boiling wine. He would have been fine. Dunk Benzini to Baylor and is just like, I'm your man.

Like, I want to basically be, you know, your bodyguard or whatever. I want to be in your coterie of nights. And Baylor grants him that. Through like the pulp of his face. Yes. He is fucked up. Yes. And, you know, I thought that was significant because, like, look, like, regardless

of what happens next episode and what happens in the future, Yeah. Guys just maimed a prince. You know, like, he gets his, Aryan's uncle basically co-signs him after, yeah, of course there's been like a trial and he wins the trial and like his accusations are dropped. Yeah.

But Baylor is like, you're a real one. And I wanted to know if there was. You're the best. Any significance in the same way that dunk is like, you guys weren't there, but Arlen made me a night. Would there be a ripple effect of there's only a, a couple of witnesses to Baylor saying what he said to Duncan. Well, I think what's really helpful here is that egg is there.

And I mean, I don't know how much Sir Raymond Fosterway is there. Steely Pate. I don't know how much Goodman Pate's word is going to do in the court. Pete might need some therapy after being the one to pull the helm off. We will see what the fallout is. It's so gross. It's like Fossoy's looking like this and then the camera comes around. You guys have had a lot of squelching in your lives because you're covering industry, but you got some squelching here.

I'd love to work industry. You're just having a great time with this season. Can I actually think they were quite restrained? Can I read this passage from the book to you? Okay. Dunk saw something red and wet fall out of the helm. Someone was screaming high and terrible. Against the bleak gray sky swayed a tall, tall prince in black armor with only half a skull.

Okay, that all sounds right. He could see blood and pale bone beneath and something else, something blue-gray and Pulpy. Not ideal. A queer troubled look passed across Baylor breaks Gare's face, like a cloud passing before a son. Somebody called Dr. Garcia, get him down here.

We need an adult in the room. He raised his hand, touched the back of his head with two fingers. Oh, so lightly. And then he fell. Horrible. Gray and pulpy. How many innings could Baylor have gone

if they kept the helmet on? I mean, I don't know how brains work because I'm not a doctor or a scientist, but could he have gone forever? But you know, also not a doctor. I don't know. You can't injure your hamstring anymore so you can keep playing. I suspect that's not how synapses and neurons firing the brain actually work.

But again, I don't know. He was already slurring his fingers already. My fingers feel like wood. Like I don't think, I don't think that helmet was going to help him. You should hit me with a morning star and see how many pods I could do. Okay. Do you want to do any days? Do you want to die in a Philly's hat?

We know I think the answer. You can you can swap lids between takes here. I think Chris, to go back to what you're saying about the nighting thing a second ago, It reminds me of like Joe on the, what episode is this? Five, so on the episode four, deep dive, did this really lovely job, sketching out and talking about these mini nightings along the way, right? Because we've been talking about, was Dunk really knighted by Sar Island? Does it matter, et cetera, in these moments where things happen that,

even though thematically part of the point is the nighting that really matters is the choice that Dunk makes to do the right thing, right? To behave with honor. But not the way this was framed inside of this show directed and, And the kneeling, but also bailor, and this is not how it's described in the novella, puts his hand right where a sword would be on dunk's shoulder. So it just felt like a visual rendering of Baylor, to your point, saying, and like the fact that there's basically this kinship of honor between them, that they're both making that

pledge to each other, it is so lovely and beautiful and obviously heightens the tragedy of this already. Yeah. Very classic subversive death and difficult thing in a throne story. This is just an all-timer. There's a line when Dunk is with ringmail embedded in his flesh is unsure if anyone held him off the field or if you rolled himself off the field or whatever, says in his own head, I am a knight now in truth?

He remembered wondering, am I a champion? Did this process make me a knight, even if Sir Arland didn't literally ignite me? Is this one of those moments? And then to your point, like, about where you go from here and what people make of this, like, I think to your Arian point about he fucked up a prince, like, this is, this is sanctioned. Everything that happened on that field is valid. But people will feel a certain way about it, right? So, like, the other thing that's going through Dunk's mind, this idea of like, okay, well, I'm a champion, but is this the way he would have wanted it to be?

Of course not. Like, this thing that happened, this, when Baylor falls on him, you asked last week about Darren's dream, right? You're like, well, we come back to that. So here it is. The dragon falls. Because what Darren said to Dunk in episode four, I dreamed of you. I have a little exchange about how Darren doesn't remember that he's already told Dunk that. I have seen you, sir, and a fire and a dead dragon, a great beast with wings so large they could cover this meadow.

It had fallen on top of you, but you were alive and the dragon was dead. Did I kill it? That I could not say. So does that dream also apply to other events in the canon? That's always one of the fun things about dreams and prophecy. but undeniably, even if the answer is yes, it fits other things, it fits this. And Baylor not only falling on dunk literalizing that moment, but the idea of the shadow of the wings, the idea of Baylor as a figure of such heft and consequence, and that the shadow

of his death will be as big as the shadow of his life, right? Like we've read the World of Ice and Fire quote before the first part of it, if you could doubt that Baylor Breakspeare would be a great king, for he was the heart of chivalry and the soul of wisdom him and came to serve his father most ably his hand. Part we hadn't read yet was, but no man can know the will of the gods. Bailor Briggspeare was cut down in his prime by his own brother. So this is the best thing about an author I have not read a word of George Arr Martin.

Well, you've been in the wikis, man. You know. I know. I get it. I get it. I get it. Game of Thrones is both a myth and then also a story of like happenstance and luck. And people accidentally walking in on a brother and sister humpin.

You know? Happens to the best of us, guys. how fucking Brand gets his third eye, man. You said that with real longing in your voice. No, I'm just saying that like, you love those too. Think about all the little things that happen to get Dunk,

who was a squire for a hedge knight, to be the best friend of a prince and to be a knight fighting against Arian in a tournament with Baylor on his team. Think about all the little things that had to happen for that to happen, but it was always going to happen. And it had to happen, you know,

because he was going to, this is the one true night. I love that. I also, so, like, as we talk about the way in which the story was rolled out, which is a question you asked at the end of episode three, like the Agon reveal, you know, we were talking about how you could sit down and read this novella in one sitting if you wanted to, or when all of these episodes are available, someone can just binge it. But what's true for the people who are coming to the story for the first time,

watching it week for week for week, this is why I will always advocate for week to week, is there's the ecstatic high that so many people felt at the end of last week's episode of like, here comes motherfucking bail or break spirit. This guy, I love this guy. He's my new favorite. I love him so much. And there's no way the hand of the king

to get killed in this thing. And he's going to be fine. And then one week later, but they had a whole week of that. And then one week later, his brain falls out, you know? But that's, it's just right on to the floor.

It's like a cantalope and it looks ripe and wonderful from the top. And then you pick it up and you're like rotten. Oh, no. Where do you look for cantalopes? You know, I need some, tips, I think, on selecting fresh fruit from both of you, two people who spend more time out in

the world. I think that the ability that George R. Martin has and the Thrones adaptations have to continue to give us this feeling, even though we have now seen this type of thing a number of times. The old Oprah and Martel. It's like, just one of the master strokes in the history of story and television, this novella, as we've mentioned a couple times, was written in 98, so it came between the first A Song of Ice and Fire novel, a Game of Thrones, and the second the Clash of Kings, which means that for George and just the great tapestry of his tale-telling, Baylor is just after Ned in terms of the shock deaths, like Rob and Cad and Oberyn and John's. Spoilers! They're all later in terms of things that George will come up with.

Baylor's death is like an OG, just as his declaration last week was like an OG kind of coaching tree moment for George that influences a lot of what is to come. For the people receiving it at home now, you could be like immune to this having the kind of effect on you that it does but we're not. That's why the show is good is because they played the orchestra right and he was yes he was for his limited amount of time on screen you were just like this is the guy this is the one good guy and now he's dead when we're in these meetings and and may car is like what the fuck are we talking about and like everybody else is being sort of rude and he's nice and when it's when this guy is going to lose on a technicality. He puts on his kid's armor

to step in and do something about it. And that kind of selflessness gets punished for the most part. And that's another thing George does. George's near- What did you guys think to that point? Because we got a couple very deliberate and interesting lines from people on Baylor and Dunk's side, kind of putting a little

bit of a, oh, a little bead of like a question out in the ether, right? The Kingsguard Gambit. Now we love a... Is that show of us? We love a GM. We love a coach. We love a player coach. We love a five-star. recruit who inks up on signing day. But that question, like, is it honorable? And then everything Lionel...

From the mad knight. Everything Lionel says of like, Mother loved you best. Oh, Mother loved you best. This is also... This goes to the larger, like, the Targaryans. People can... People feel like they can talk shit.

People feel like they can say something a little bit out of pocket about the Targaryans at this point. No dragons. Be vigilant. Don't die. That's what he said. I said it to himself in the mirror. Can I call out? Can I call out?

One thing. We've been noting, like, as we consider this show in the sort of Game of Thrones Hall of Fame, and we talked about how this is, like, a smaller show and a smaller budget, I want to shout out in this episode, the clarity of the act. Like, despite, you know, us having to rewind the tape a few times, like, you know what's happening with, like, Aryan and Dunk, and you can see what's happening. So, like, I didn't have a doubt about, like, the main story of what's happening on the melee in the field as I was watching it. That's important. Game of Thrones hasn't always gotten that, right? And then also I want to shout out the sound design in this episode because there's this line in this section where Dunk says, because we're only in Dunk's point of view, and it's like he's got his helm on, there's mud in it, whatever. And it says the noise of the crowd was no more than the crash of distant waves.

And there's just these moments when, you know, Dunk has had his bell rung so many times. And then Aryan's talking, it almost sounds like a monster is talking, his voice is all distorted. when the sound of the crowd comes in, when the whole crowd is shouting up, up, up, you know, Rudy, Rudy. Like, it's just, it's great sound design stuff in this episode. Excellent episode. I'm very interested to see the aftermath of it

because obviously we have a full episode of, okay, so that happened. Yeah. And also, obviously, like, this episode sidelines Dunk and Egg's relationship. And to some extent, it's been sidelined for two episodes ever since The Big Reveal, because Egg is now a child again. in the sort of world traveling party. That shot went because everybody is like

preparing for the trial and Ag is standing there because he is his dunk squire and he's holding the lance and he could not possibly look smaller than he looks in that moment. A rapid quick change into the velvets and he's in the same. He does. I know he's got a really really fast. That was great. I want to say Dougal LeBron like

Yeah exactly. And then he runs back. But Dexter Sol Ansel like who is like and red who are like the only people in the Did you just spoil something? about a book that hasn't even been written. And we will talk about that in the spoiler section of our podcast, I promise you. But it was a big deal. We will talk about that. But he did like he. It's so dope. I mean, it happens. I don't, did you see the book's bro? Did you see the video of it that? Because like, I didn't, I didn't see the video, but I heard that Peter Claffley was like,

tried to jump on a grenade. I will just say that they were on a talk show and whatever they were doing on the talk show, they were making puppets. So they're sitting there making puppets. Peter has like a puppet on his hand as he's going like. this. It's like one of the best it's got a big spoiler in it, but it's one of the best videos I've ever seen if you don't mind. But it's a story of written yet, right? Right, but it's a future of these characters.

So if you don't want to know what happens to these characters, don't watch. Maybe watch it with the sound off. And you can just see the puppet. Just see Peter do this with a hand puppet. It's great. Oh, man. You know, on the they were kind of separated. They are, yes, but I like that we still got little moments like the exchange about, you know,

if you try to rob me and like I'll hunt you down with dogs. Like they have inside jokes now. You know? Great chemistry. It's the shared language of a relationship formed in terms of relationships formed to another,

it's literally a sentence but Baylor saying about his, like my brothers may smoke most like and smiling in everybody right before he's about to drop dead with his brain sloshing

to the floor saying of his brother he's strong. Like he's proud. There you go. I'm sure Mayharr will be psyched about that. We've died complimenting me. Honestly,

Maycar probably would be psyched him. Very worth it. Okay. So next week, the finale. same time, same place. I don't want it to end though. And we'll come back next year.

All right, fine. Yeah, great. You solved it. That's how TV works. Now. Thank you to Joanna. Thank you to Mallory. Please listen to How I Savar.

They go much more in depth about the books. Please listen to the watch. Sure. Yeah. Check it out. We do our homework on that show right before the show starts. And we'll be back with you next week for the finale of season one of 90th of the Kingdoms. Oh.

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