A Knight Finale Unspools: Maekar’s Betrayal, Dunk’s Secret, and Aegon Targaryen’s Role
Major spoilers ahead. The season one finale "The Morrow" left key relationships and identities shattered—most notably the complicated paternal failings surrounding aegon targaryen (Egg) and a finale blow that forces the show’s characters into new moral and narrative territory. Sam Spruell, who plays Prince Maekar Targaryen, has spoken about Maekar’s grief and the self-justifications that follow, and he also answers whether Maekar will return for season two—details of that answer are unclear in the provided context.
Aegon Targaryen and Egg’s Lie
The series centers part of its season-long arc on the boy known as Egg, who is Aegon Targaryen in disguise. That reveal is a central twist in the novella source material, and the finale amplifies the personal stakes around the young prince. The show dramatizes Aegon’s loyalty to Ser Duncan "Dunk" the Tall: Egg intervenes when Dunk is accused and later is at the center of Maekar’s efforts to secure his son’s future. The provided context makes clear that the question of Egg’s true identity is both a narrative pivot and an emotional detonator for the Targaryen family.
Maekar’s Guilt, Grief and the Fatal Blow
Sam Spruell’s Prince Maekar is portrayed as a widowed single father who badly missed the mark raising his three sons, Daeron, Aerion and Aegon ("Egg"). Maekar has long lived in the shadow of his more popular older brother, Prince Baelor Targaryen (played by Bertie Carvel), the heir to the Iron Throne. The season’s central event—the jousting tournament at Ashford Meadow—sets a chain of discoveries and confrontations in motion. After a trial of combat ends with Dunk compelling Aerion to withdraw his accusation, Dunk bends the knee to Baelor, only for Baelor to drop dead from a fatal head wound received at Maekar’s hand. Maekar insists the Gods know it was an accident, but Spruell sees the character as susceptible to self-delusion and using divine certainty to absolve himself—framing the sequence as a depiction of corrupt power.
Dunk, the Trial of Seven, and the Ashford Meadow Confrontation
At Ashford Meadow, tensions escalate: Ser Duncan "Dunk" the Tall (Peter Claffey) clashes with Aerion (Finn Bennett) over Aerion’s assault of a puppeteer. Aegon steps in on Dunk’s behalf because Dunk had secretly been squiring Egg under the alias Egg. A drunken Daeron is found nearby and, apparently to cover his neglect, falsely accuses Dunk of kidnapping his youngest brother. Aerion challenges Dunk to a "trial of seven, " where each side gathers six champions. Baelor joins Dunk’s side for the trial; after a hard-fought battle Dunk forces Aerion to withdraw the claim. The subsequent sequence—Dunk kneeling to Baelor and then Baelor’s unexpected death at Maekar’s hand—reorients loyalties and exposes family fracture.
Dunk’s Past and the Question of Knighthood
The finale also adds new, non-novella material that bears directly on Dunk’s identity. A flashback shows Dunk as Ser Arlan of Pennytree’s squire: Arlan is propped against a tree, pale and babbling and apparently dying, and Dunk asks why Arlan never knighted him; he receives no answer. That scene was filmed on the same hillside where Dunk later buries Arlan’s body. Book readers had long suspected Dunk may be lying about his knighthood; the show drops subtle hints consistent with that reading. Dunk claims Arlan knighted him before dying, with only a robin in a thorn tree to witness it, but when Dunk tries to enter the tournament at Ashford Meadow he is told to find a lord or knight to vouch for him—no one can verify Arlan and hardly anyone remembers him. Privately Dunk struggles with identity and how he presents himself, and the show deliberately leaves the question open to interpretation.
Offers, Rejections, and the Road Ahead
After the fatal sequence, Maekar offers Dunk a home at Summerhall so Dunk can train Egg as his squire and finish his own training with the castle’s master-at-arms. Citing royal exhaustion, Dunk rejects Maekar’s offer and later counters by asking if he can take the young lad on the road with him; Maekar refuses to let his royal blood live like a "peasant. " The provided context includes a cut-off line—"[Aegon] is his last chance to have an heir that’s worth anythin"—which is unclear in the provided context.
What Season Two Will Face
The first season ran six episodes and is judged in the provided context as a triumph that breathed new life into the broader franchise at a moment when that larger universe had been struggling—citing widely panned final seasons of the original series, a choppy second season of a related show, and a long gap in new pages from the author. Season two is already in production and will adapt The Sworn Sword, George R. R. Martin’s second Dunk-and-Egg novella. That story features even lower stakes—its central conflict revolves around a dispute over water rights to a stream, and much of it consists of characters talking rather than action, with no tourney. The plan is to tell another six-episode story, but The Sworn Sword is less naturally suited to episodic breaks and lacks a twist on the scale of Egg revealing himself to be aegon targaryen to serve as a midseason climax.
Casting, Locations and Budgetary Strains
Expect a new cast of characters orbiting Dunk and Egg in season two; per the novella, the secondary figures from season one—Daniel Ings’s Lyonel Baratheon and Shaun Thomas’s Raymun Fossoway, and every single Targaryen outside of Egg—are unlikely to return for that adaptation, though Dunk and Egg (played by Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell) will. Showrunner Ira Parker has noted that the budget has stayed the same while costs have risen due to inflation, and that book two’s drought setting means the production cannot shoot exteriors in Belfast and must film in a sunny, waterless location—a major added expense not present in season one. These practical constraints, combined with the source material’s quieter scope, shape expectations for season two’s tone and structure.
