But Dunk and Egg are such endearing figures — good-natured, adorable, deeply committed to the chivalric virtues to which other knights and lords pay only lip service — that when things get dangerous, the show feels as epic and high-stakes as anything from “Game of Thrones.” Such is our attachment to them, and such is the skill with which Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell portray them.
Add it all up, and you have a show that plumbs the same emotional and thematic depths as “Game of Thrones” or “House of the Dragon,” in a fraction of the running time, with a jaunty rhythm and a sense of humor all its own, signing off to the dulcet tones of Tennessee Ernie Ford — a decency fantasy, in which the man who proves truest to knightly ideals is not a knight at all.
“Ser Duncan” may think himself a fraud, but it is virtue, not vows, that make a hero. That’s great news! It means that in the battle to protect the innocent, any one of us can pick up a metaphorical sword and win the day.
