Thank you for the thoughtful feedback!

Re: relative cheerfulness: several reasons, one of which was that while I let Gwen contemplate a lot of angsty themes, I also wanted to do justice to the fact that she's quintessentially a happy (and practical) person. She feels deeply, but she's also able to focus on the upside of things and get on with the business of living quite well. (Both Gwen and Morgana have secrets to brood about in s2, but for Morgana this results in her withdrawing more and more into herself and becoming more and more passive interspersed with anxious attempts at freedom via strangers, whereas Gwen seems to manage to maintain an active life and interaction with her friends; of course, being a maid, she has far less spare time for contemplation anyway. :)) And well, we did not see everyone's expressions in that threesome shot of Gwen, Merlin and Arthur silhuoetted against Camelot just before the Gwen/Morgana reunion scene. There could have been slight smiles, I say.

About Arthur/Gwen, I cannot make up my mind if I think "they're terribly cute and I love how they have this ongoing conversation about good rulership and are building a partnership without knowing it" or "they're terribly cute but the difference in status and power between them freaks me out and I don't trust the show to resolve it in a satisfying way.

What gives me a bit of confidence in that regard is how the show handled the tried and true "royalty in disguise among commoners, lives as one of the people" motif in The Once and Future Queen. Because the way this is often handled in many a novel/show/film/play (*cough* Henry V *cough*) never satisfied me, as it seemed to me to ignore the quintessential dishonesty of the set-up. The royal person (doesn't matter whether a prince or a princess or a king or whatever) is only play-acting, with the safety net of going back to his or her privileges, and the fact he/she does so is itself a privilege. Now, by contrast, the Merlin episode addressed head-on and made it an important subject of the episode that Arthur at the start is kidding himself about wanting to be treatet like everyone else, that he's simultanously expecting (most) of his privileges, that it's a matter of ego initially. And while the episode ends with Arthur having taken in what Gwen told him and performing an actual feat of humility (letting the farmer take the credit for the tournament), not a pretense one, the viewer isn't told or expected to believe that Arthur now is completely without his entitlement issues. And we're shown both him and Gwen very aware of their difference in social status, and what this means.

So: I might be wrong and they'll go for an easy fix in subsequent seasons, but so far I'm cautiously optimistic. I also really like that the viewers aren't just expected to root for these two because the Arthurian legends present them as a couple or because they're pretty, but because we're shown they are actually good for each other and for the people around them. Plus: as of current show status, I don't think theirs is the most intense or important relationship they have with another person in their respective lives, but I think right now it's the most honest one. They don't lie to each other, which in a narrative where circumstance has assured nearly everyone else lies to each other or at least withholds truths is not to be underestimated.