A review of this week's A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, "The Squire" — with spoilers — coming up just as soon as I ask why I've been vomiting all morning...
Alan Sepinwall
Appropriately for its title, "The Squire" is primarily about its title character, young Egg. It's bookended by one scene about who he wants to be, and another about who he really is. And everything in between is meant to illustrate why he prefers the former to the latter.
We open with an epically charming sequence. Egg is up at dawn ahead of Dunk and takes one of his master's horses out in the woods. It's equal parts him doing his job, by giving the horse some exercise and preparing both it and himself for the tournament; and him getting to playact as the knight he so badly wants to be. Like Dunk, he talks to the horses — and refers to his father's admonishment against this practice — and has more affection for them than he does for many people. Later, while the two are back at camp discussing their ideal futures, Egg's dream is a relatively modest one: grow up to be a war hero, get a small parcel of land, and marry a family's second-prettiest daughter. (Because the first would of course go to Dunk.) It's a better life than many men of Westeros get to enjoy, but it's not a wild dream where he becomes as rich as a Lannister, or gets to sit on the Iron Throne.