selenak

You know, in the last year, I've become aquainted with three shows which weren't recommended to me as smart must-tv but as fun pop corn entertainment. (Not that I actually like pop corn. My fast food of choice during movie watching is more of the crisps type.) These were the newest version of Robin Hood, Fringe and Merlin.

Now, Robin Hood had, as promised, the smouldering Richard Armitage, but little else to recommend it. Especially since I was quite fond of Robin of Sherwood when it comes to British tv versions of the Robin Hood saga and coldn't help but compare. Fringe (watched th first season, don't spoil me for the current one if you comment) is entertaining J.J. Abrams type pulp fiction; I like Olivia (Our Heroine) quite a lot, appreciate J.J.'s dysfunctional family type constellation he gives her with the Bishops, father and son, and John Noble is great as the newest Abrams obsessive of moral ambiguity, mental instability and genius shot through with strong emotions. Also, the science is so comic book like it makes Rambaldi and his inventions look wonderfully plausible (which I find endearing somehow), and I was absolutely in stitches about the self-pimping when one of the people Our Heroes interrogated explained it was all a plot by Romulans who wanted to change the timeline. So yes, I'll keep watching Fringe, but not with any particular urgency. And, as with Robin Hood, I haven't had the wish to rewatch a single episode.

Meanwhile, I should be working on other things, which were interrupted by me rewatching Merlin episodes after having watched them for the first time just pre-Christmas. It's not that the writing for Merlin is more sophisticated than it is for Fringe (though I'd argue both are better than Robin Hood in the scripts department, and with the general ensemble acting), or that show is less flawed. But God help me, I've completely fallen in love with it in the last two weeks. It reminds me of falling for Heroes during the first season in that I can see the point of complaints about various issues and yet am brimming over with character and episodes love. (May it not resemble Heroes when it comes to later seasons, she says with an urgent crossing of fingers.) In lieu of figuring out just why Merlin worked so well with me and the other two did not, I'll ramble about some of my favourite and/or most pondered over episodes from both seasons.

The Moment of Truth

Pre-watching, I heard a lot about the OT4 vibe the show supposedly had in the first season. I didn't actually find that to be the case in most episodes (usually one or two of the four isn't really involved in the episode story, or they don't follow the same aims), but in this particular episode, it's definitely there, and it shines. The basic plot - Merlin's home village is menaced by a war lord, his mother goes to Camelot for help, and all of the younger generation team up for friendship and justice - is simple, and this being the type of show it is, it's not a question of "will they succeed in helping the village?". (Though they play with some suspense about the "will Merlin out himself in front of Arthur?" question, the outcome of which honestly given this wasn't the season finale wasn't that hard to guess, either. More about this later.) The viewing enjoyment comes from all the character scenes showing how that goal is obtained, from some ongoing themes, from interesting guest stars and as always from the pretty (Gwen and Morgana get so rarely the opportunity to wear male clothing and sword fight along with the boys, and it becomes them so!). This is also one of those rare instances where Uther makes an unpopular decision which has nothing to do with paranoia or anti-magic fanaticism, and you can see his point. Sending your knights into a neighbouring country you only have a brittle peace treaty with is not a good idea, and as king he's first responsible for his own country. (Note that Arthur when he does follow Merlin & Co. to help is wearing his armour without his usual Pendragon insignia.)

Gwen and Morgana are both immediately supportive of Merlin and his mother, and on Team Help Ealdor, but in retrospect, it's both interesting and telling what kind of interaction scenes they get. While both point out to Arthur that given their shortage of defense for the village, the female villagers should be allowed to fight as well as the male ones, Morgana gets the bickering sibling scenes ("remind you of how I used to beat you?") with Arthur which are fun but status quo for their relationship, and not about Ealdor or anyone in it, whereas Gwen gets the both continuity and character relevant scene where she reproaches Arthur for being snobbish about Hunith's food, and points out to him what it means to the starving villagers to share their meals. It's the first appearance of Gwen in this sort of role, and, of course, by no means the last.

As far as Arthur is concerned, this is is definitely one of the "education of a future king" episodes as he's out of his normal environment, has to win the villagers over who aren't his subjects and have no reason to trust him, and has to come up with a defense of the village. He aquits himself rather well, and I think it's a good example of the show keeping the "gifted but flawed" balance with him. He's been trained for war from childhood onwards, and knows how to motivate a fighting force, so it's not that surprising he's good at it, but he's also still bad at human interaction outside of what he's used to, so the thougtlessness of his response to Hunith's food, the fact he can't bring himself to tell Merlin he's come along out of friendship (instead, we get treated to the fun of indirect expressions of concern and subtextual foot playing), that he's momentarily discouraged when the first of the villagers dies (because this is different from the death of experienced fighters like the knights) or the way he freezes and gets angry when watching the magical display isn't surprising, either. This is of course one of the episodes which toy with the "will Arthur find out? No, he won't!" gambit the show really should stop in season 3 because by then it's reached Lois Lane like proportions, but here I think they're playing fair because it makes an important point: Arthur, while not as "all magic users must die!" minded as Uther (he's helped Morgana with Mordred an episode earlier, and even really early in the show, in 1.03 when Gwen is suspected of witchcraft, argues that magic used without evil intentions should not be treated the same way as magic used with evil intentions is), still instinctively reacts with hostility and not acceptance. Now I don't think he'd have dragged Merlin back to Camelot and handed him over to Uther if not for Will's lie, but he probably would have told him to stay in Ealdor.

Though we briefly saw Merlin's mother in the show's pilot, this is the first episode that gives her characterisation and fleshes out Merlin's background, complete with childhood friend and home village. I have to say the actress playing Hunith really impresses me because she could have come across as a cliché and instead her mixture of human warmth and courage are very appealing, and her scenes with Colin Morgan are very tender; you really believe this as a mother-son relationship. As for Will, Merlin's ~~old boyfriend~~ old childhood friend, here again the show impressed me for while jealousy of Arthur clearly is an issue, the points Will gets to raise are valid and are treated as such, from the "is Arthur in this for the villagers or for some personal glory?" question via the "he's not your friend, you're just his servant" challenge to the most central challenge to Merlin: given that he could get rid of the threat to the village via magic, isn't he putting his relationship with Arthur/ his destiny above the lives of everyone else if he doesn't?

The Labyrinth of Gedref

Or, the one with the unicorn. Great example of how this show can pull off the absolutely cheesy with fun and flair, and, incidentally, actually uses topics of medieval lore. If you've read Marie de France's Arthurian tales, or Hartman von der Aue, who wrote a medieval poem called Der arme Heinrich, then the whole story arc of "proud knight commits sin, natural catastrophe results, atonment must happen, ultimate test is via life of other person" is very familiar. (In Der arme Heinrich the hero, a knight punished by leprosy, eventually is promised healing, but at the price of the life of his tennant's daughter who has helped taking care of him in his misfortune and has been his companion on his way to Salerno to achieve healing. She's willing to die for him; he refuses, being willing to die instead, and that of course causes his healing.) So I got quite a kick out of the three trials Arthur has to pass, because they really do concern knightly virtues - for compassion, which he passes, for pride, which he fails (he's Arthur and the arrogance and prat-part are among what makes this show's characterisation of him so entertaining), and for responsibility and self sacrifice (instead of allowing someone else to die for him), which he passes again. There is also a neat continuation of the ongoing "what makes a good ruler?" theme combined with the pride issue as Arthur, after failing the second test, gets treated to an adult display of the same failure in his father. Uther refusing to ask other kingdoms for help, putting his pride before the starving people, is played as one moment of enlightenment for Arthur.

And of course the visual of Merlin and Arthur by the sea with the fake! poisoned cups is drop-dead gorgeous. In conclusion, I dig this episode.

To Kill The King

This is one episode with a reputation that preceded it; before watching the show, I had heard about it as a highlight of the first season as well as the best episode for Morgana as a character. In actual watching, I found it somewhat problematical for that reason.

I mean, it is chock full with good character scenes regarding Morgana, no question, but you know, it should have been Gwen's episode. She is the one who loses her father in it, and she's only a tertiary character here; the episode is mainly about how Morgana reacts, secondarily about how Merlin reacts and his "do I let Morgana kill Uther or not?" dilemma, and only
thirdly about Gwen's response. Now, given Merlin is the title character, it's inevitable he should be the secondary focus. But prioritizing Morgana in this particular episode over Gwen just sat wrong with me, and I think within the story, it came across as worse than the writers intended about Morgana as well. Assuming they didn't WANT me to think she's prioritizing her own growing Uther issues which just exploded on the occasion of Tom's death over helping her friend deal with her pain. One can also speculate Morgana has comforted Gwen off screen (Gwen says at one point "Morgana has been amazing these last days"), but there's a show, not tell problem here. What we do see is Morgana making the entire event about herself and her own relationship with Uther. We do not see her talking with Gwen about how Gwen feels; we do see her talking with Gwen about how she herself fared in her night in the dungeons. Merlin comes across a little better in that he actually attempts to comfort Gwen, but he, too, mainly uses her as his moral arbiter for the "to kill or not to kill" question. The only one of the youngsters who manages to do something for Gwen instead of making her loss about himself is Arthur with his not very sensitive but practical reassurance that Gwen's house and job are safe.

Viewed purely in terms of Morgana's relationship with Uther, of course, the episode is a gem. She's been shown to have issues with his treatment of magic users since the pilot, and is, as Merlin told his mother, the only one not afraid of Uther. (Of course, Morgana is arguably also the apple of Uther's eyes and one of the two living people he's shown to love, which makes the not being afraid easier.) What Uther does to Tom the Blacksmith isn't different from what Uther did to previous unlucky suspects, but because it's Gwen's father, it's the straw that breaks the camel's back for Morgana. What I find fascinating is that her going from defiance to planning Uther's death after her night in the dungeons (i.e. the proof that Uther can turn against her as well), and that her eventual inability to go through with it - or at least to see Uther killed right in front of her - comes after a combination of one the one hand him reassuring her of his love for her and on the other his admittance he might have been wrong to execute Gwen's father. This is actually a rare admission for Uther - unless he was under a spell, I don't recall him admitting to having been wrong about anything - and this particular episode leaves it open whether it is this admission or the proclamation of affection for Morgana that brings her around. (In the second season, we'll get a scene where she refers to this, but more about that in the relevant episode.)

Also relevant in terms of Merlin's own character development: in a preceding episode, he's come close to let child!Mordred die because of what the child might do, but finally couldn't bring himself to go through with it. Here, he's again seriously tempted to let a death happen via inaction, though this time for different reasons. When he asks Gwen whether she actively wants Uther dead and gets his reply, it's really late in the game and a very last moment decision to take the moral high road. Come the season finale, he takes the step from passive to active and kills for the first time not in self defense or in response to an immediate threat to someone else's life when he takes Nimueh's life for Gaius'. There is a road to morally grey here which (so far) culminates with The Fires of Idirsholas in s2.

The Once and Future Queen

Or, the one where the show starts a new 'ship. Aside from the scene in The Moment of Truth I mentioned, there were some other tidbits, like Gwen's speech to a sick Arthur in the s1 finale and his amused and somewhat intrigued reaction later, that were preparing for this. Note: they weren't romantic in nature, but were about Gwen specifically specifically addressing Arthur in his capacity as future ruler and presenting a challenge to do the right thing. Here, however, things start to get romantic, and I was surprised of how well this worked for me. One of the reasons is that, as I mentioned in a comment a few days ago, the show's way of handling the tried and true "royalty in disguise among commoners, lives as one of the people" motif. 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. Plus we're shown both him and Gwen very aware of their difference in social status, and what this means.

In addition to all of this: the episode is just plain funny, as when Arthur and Merlin audition the farmer in his role as nobleman and use the opportunity to get digs about each other in. Or Gwen's "you snore", or Arthur's look at the chicken. I'm really rather fond of it.

The Sins of the Father

Probably my favourite s2 episode. I just love everything about it, the introduction of this show's version of Morgause, the brief Morgause/Morgana interaction, the Merlin/Arthur road trip routine in fine form, the big revelation scene with Igraine and Arthur's furious showdown with Uther afterwards, and the fact that moral ambiguity is maintained all through. The reason why Morgause works better for me as a character than Nimueh in s1 did is that while we got sympathatic background on Nimueh (i.e. the whole backstory with her granting Uther's wish for an heir with its catastrophic results for her kind), her present day actions were so one note evil and regardless of anyone's innocence or guilt that she wasn't a very interesting villain. Meanwhile, Morgause in this episode is unquestionably manipulative (she does set Arthur up for asking for Igraine and getting the crucial information, and she points him towards his father afterwards), and whether she conjured up the actual Igraine or an apparation who simply said what she wanted Arthur to hear is up to debate - but the information itself is not a lie. Simultanously, she's shown to be concerned for her sister (whereas we didn't see Nimueh caring for anyone but herself), and the episode is careful to make it clear she doesn't beat Arthur by magical means but in fair combat. So far, she comes across as ruthless, smart but also brave and potentially having her own code of honour. (I'm only qualifying this with "potentially" because Morgause has only been in two episodes so far. In these, she was responsible for deaths of people not Uther, but no civilians yet, "just" knights and guards, which does make a difference.)

There's one crucial bit changed from the backstory as referred to between Uther and Nimueh in 1.09 to what Igraine ("Igraine"?) tells Arthur, and of course whether or not it is true is important to both Uther's characterisation and Morgause's: that Igraine had no idea of the bargain Uther struck with Nimueh for an heir, and that Uther himself did know. Now, until we get told more I'm going with the assumption, based on both episodes, that a mixture of everything is true. Nimueh did tell Uther that the price for Igraine's pregnancy would be a life, but not that it would be Igraine's; he genuinenly did not know that. However, I see it entirely in character for Uther to neglect to mention to Igraine any type of bargain was struck at all - he's just the type to think she should be protected from knowing their child would cost someone else his life - and if she realised this as she died, she might have wondered whether he hadn't agreed to the full deal. Depending on what their relationship was really like - we know Uther loved her, but we don't know anything about Igraine's feelings - she might have assumed he was capable he was sacrificing her knowingly if he got a son out of it.

Or Igraine really wasn't Igraine, but that's less interesting.

For an episode which culminates in attempted patricide, Sins of the Father has a great mixture of humour along with the serious drama. I love how we get the full spectrum of the Merlin/Arthur relationship, with Merlin on the one hand rather enjoying Arthur's chargrin at having been beaten by Morgause but on the other being immediately concerned and sympathetic when he realises this is at its core about Arthur's dead mother. With Arthur, you get the full spectrum as well, from injured pride and sulks about having been beaten to that fairness that drives him to compliment Morgause on her swordsman - swordswoman! - ship (and to let her retrieve her weapon while they were fighting), from the vulnerability in his confession to Merlin about his mother and in the scene with Igraine to the homicidal rage with Uther afterwards. With regard to Arthur's attitude towards magic, we're already pre-revelation several steps from the one in s1, with his willingness to accept Morgause on her own terms rather than to condemm her as evil just because she uses magic. Then, post-revelation, things get heavy with the dramatic irony as Arthur in his anger sees the true reason for Uther's persecution of magic users all too clearly (the fact that Uther can't bear to admit his own guilt to himself), but is persuaded away from this conclusion by Merlin. I understand Merlin's stopping Arthur from killing Uther by calling Morgause a liar (despite just having had confirmation by Gaius that the core of Morgause's story is true), thereby making Arthur come around to hostility towards all things magic again is pretty controversial, but I must say, as opposed to Arthur's many convenient absences whenever Merlin displays magic, I don't think that was a lazy block device. At this point, it was either letting Arthur kill his father or stopping him, and Merlin had already tried to stop him by simply declaring "he's your father, and it won't bring your mother back". While in general I think the show's excuses to keep Uther among the living are getting flimsier, here I think they came up with a credible one because I doubt that Arthur, the way he's been presented through two seasons, would have been able to live with himself if he'd killed his father. It would have destroyed him, and Merlin knew that.

(Mind you, this does not mean they should press the reset button with Arthur another time.)

Season 2: The Fires of Idrisholas

Much like To Kill a King, this is simultanously an episode I find utterly compelling to watch and in part very infuriating to contemplate, though for utterly different reasons than the earlier one. It displays everything that jars about Morgana's season 2 storyline, or lack of same. If you write someone going dark side, you do that via letting him or her make active decisions. Circumstance and misfortune can add to this, but it should never be all. Whereas Morgana throughout season 2 is entirely passive, reacting to what happens. As

kathyh has pointed out to me, Morgana's behaviour is actually consistent with depression, and you can explain the difference between her s1 headstrongness and her s2 passivity by the fact that in s2 she's for the first time experiencing something she has no control over and which puts her in daily danger, and retreating into depression and self pity isn't ooc if you're a spoiled girl/young woman who has never seriously dealt with this kind of adversity before. Which is true, but it doesn't make this easier to swallow. This particular episode actually isn't about Morgana, primarily, any more than To Kill The King was about Gwen. Morgana remains passive and is being used by both Morgause and Merlin without getting explanations from either. Morgause gets a general agreement to Uther's destruction from her, but pointedly does not tell her anything about the spell she then casts.

With Merlin, it's a bit more complicated. I've seen reviews complaining that he never gives Morgana the chance to explain herself before making his own fatal decision, but actually, that's not true. There are two points where he asks her and provides an opening for her to tell him the truth if she wants to, and Arthur isn't around for either to hear. One is after they've spotted Morgause in Camelot. Morgana: "Morgause..." Merlin (carefully): "You don't seem surprised." Morgana: "No, I am." She could have told him about their nightly encounter, but she doesn't. The other point comes after one of the undead knights has caught up with them, but spares Morgana, and Merlin asks her: "Why did that knight spare you?" (Not having been told the truth by Morgause, Morgana isn't lying when she says she doesn't know, but I think given the Morgause + undead knights in castle thing, she can make an educated guess.) But he does not ask her directly whether or not she's responsible for the spell, and of course as he has consistently lied to her about his own abilities and never told her about the dragon, he doesn't tell her the dragon told him Morgana was the vessel through which the spell keeping everyone asleep and hepless is maintained. From Morgana's pov, what Merlin finally does comes completely out of the blue and is not earned by her own behaviour.

So why do I still find the episode compelling? Because of everything else, and because as part of Merlin's character arc, it's great. The sleeping spell is genuinenly creepy; when Merlin and Arthur return to Camelot to find everyone asleep, I felt for the first time viscerally what a frightening thing the tale of Sleeping Beauty can be. The scene with the dragon goes from black humour (the dragon pretending to be asleep as well, and Merlin figuring out the dragon is just messing with him) to real black (when the dragon tells him that the only way to break the spell is to kill the vessel, who is Morgana), and Colin Morgan's acting afterwards is a thing of beauty. You can see him silently struggling with the decision for the next twenty minutes, with events like Morgana's reaction to Morgause's appearance and Morgana being spared by the zombie knight heigtening the distrust. Then the stakes are made even worse when both he and Arthur start to fall prey to the sleeping spell as well and are this close to succumbing, and Morgana still doesn't show any sign of being affected. Until this point, Merlin has killed, but never a friend, never someone who trusted him, and the exact moment when he finally decides to go through with it, hands over the poisoned water to Morgana and urges her to drink it is incredibly suspenseful. While the sequence afterwards as she starts to feel the effect, as he turns around and looks at her and catches her as she breaks down is absolutely heartbreaking. Followed by yet another great display of ambiguity as Morgause, the nominal villain of the episode, breaks in to save Morgana and Merlin, the hero of the story, seeing this, practically and ruthlessly blackmails her by withholding the information about the poison he used until Morgause has lifted the spell that drives the zombie knights (in additon to the sleeping spell which is already breaking up as Morgana shuts down).

In conclusion: I wish Morgana in s2 had been written differently, but this episode itself I can't unwish. (I think it could have been improved not only if Morgana had been an active agent of her own fate but also if Merlin hadn't stopped reaching out to her after 2.03., because the way the stakes were raised, I think he would have poisoned her in any circumstance. It was Morgana's life versus everyone else's, so you still could have had the same denouement with a different road towards it.)

One more thing: the dragon silkily declaring "I think enough bargains have been struck, don't you?" when Merlin in the very last scene asks him for a promise not to attack Camelot before releasing him is one shiverworthy scene where you utterly forget to smile about the dragon GCI.

Season 2: The Last Dragonlord

I like the s2 finale way better than the s1 finale. We open in medias res, as the freed dragon is busy revenging himself on Uther by burning down Camelot. That the dragon's insistence on Merlin's career and Arthur's rule is somewhat understandably selfish (Merlin was the one who could free him, and at first he thought it couldn't happen as long as Uther was still king) had been established since the s1 finale, and given, as Balinor later in the episode states, that the dragon - who we then find out has a name, Kilgarrah - is the last of his kind and Uther has killed all the rest, it's really not that surprising the dragon responds to his regained freedom this way.

(It also makes it less and less likely Merlin will ever tell Arthur the truth voluntarily. By now, we can add to "I'm really a sorceror" in addition to "I poisoned your sort of sister for the greater good" also "I released the dragon who by the opening of the episode has already gotten over 40 people killed, with more to come".)

The sudden "there were dragon lords, and Merlin's long lost father happens to be the last of them" reveal has been somewhat prepared by the Arthur/Merlin conversation about dead and absent parents in Sins of the Father as well as by the dragon responding to Merlin's "I thought we were friends" in the s1 finale with "we are something else; we are kin", and the result works better than I thought it would when Gaius dumped exposition on us. It's the execution, I think. In some circumstances, I don't believe feelings for parents who weren't around to actually raise the children we're supposed to believe love them, but I had no trouble believing Arthur's longing for Igraine and guilt over her death in 2.08, or here the fact Merlin responds to the daddy announcement the way he does. The quest for Balinor starts with another of the increasingly more frequent scenes of Arthur defying Uther. This one showcases the change two seasons have wrought. Just compare it with their argument in 1.04. when it was about Arthur getting that Mortuis flower for a poisoned Merlin. He was upset and incredulous his father wouldn't let him go then, and Uther was the one who held the power. In this confrontation, however, Arthur is the one being calm, and Uther is the one upset, and Arthur going anyway and openly has nothing childish in it anymore; it's the act of an adult.

Not too adult, because we get another Merlin/Arthur road trip, which means another bundle of scenes with their very own mixture of banter, awkwardness and emotional connection. Arthur is getting better at noticing when people are distressed, but his consolation attempts remain endearingly adolescent in their mixture of physicality (in this case thrown pillows) and declarations of affection via negatives (the whole "I can't be your friend, but if I could be..." rigmarole). And I think Merlin getting out of his Unexpected!PaternityRevelation funk via listing up all kind of synonyms for arrogance as describing Arthur is one of my favourite scenes.

Balinor turns out to be Sirius Black, which just has to be intentional. No way they missed the resemblance. Again, his initial refusal to help, then coming around, bonding with Merlin followed by tragical death are all predictable (especially once it's been established the dragon lord power goes from father to son), but the execution is rather compelling to watch, and the details like Sirius!Balinor crafting a wooden dragon for Merlin are genuinenly touching. Also importantly, he repeats that "kin" claim between dragon lords and dragon, and along with revealing the dragon's name gives us his pov on the whole affair. This is an interesting contrast to how things went down with Nimueh last season, because Merlin remained ignorant of her backstory throughout and made no attempt to empathize with her. Of course, Nimueh herself was not given dimension, either, see above. Which is why I like this finale better; the culmination of this year isn't the destruction of an enemy but Merlin showing mercy, using what he's found out about the dragon not to kill him but to understand him and give him another chance.

Mind you, I do hope we get the application of the lesson about mercy learned here to female ambiguous or villainous characters as well next season, but for now, I like this conclusion. Go show.