Merlin Gets Mature!

Mom's making Dad's birthday pumpkin pie. Whisper's watching the game. Spritey's pissed because it's cold out and she is NOT going outside despite what she wants. Dad's downstairs building a fire. And I am here telling you about "Sorcerer's Shadow," the 11th episode of the third series of Merlin.






SPOILER LINE





Yes, little Merlin who declared in first series that without his magic he was a nobody had someone toss the same line at him...and he offered an explanation as to why he hasn't let Uther be offed yet (apparently if Uther dies by magic that would be a bad thing for Arthur, whose heart would harden against magic forever. OK. That's AN explanation...)

Despite my initial reservations concerning this episode, it was superbly done. Hats off to Colin Morgan for making Merlin the ultimate voice of reason here. Merlin was so mature and advisorly here I started checking Colin's handsome head for grey hairs.

Gilli needed to be told about the magic and it's nice that Merlin and he had no bad blood despite Merlin making him sort of lose the match with Uther.

Morgana unsubtly tried to get Uther or Arthur to at least wound the other, but no damn luck. I could barely stand the disappointed look on her face...until I remembered that she wants the both of them DEAD. Try again next week, Morgana dear...

No Gwen at all. I would have thought we'd at least have seen her giving smoochies to Arthur (again) because they've stuffed it in anywhere and everywhere this series, but nope. Guess this is the two of them "backing off."

I thought it was odd that Uther declared Arthur now ready to be king. Foreshadowing?

Also, Kilgarrah returns! YAY! Merlin has to apologize for the whole Morgana saving debacle (funny how that pops up in an episode where someone else is using their powers the wrong way.) Merlin agrees he was an idiot (thank God.) Merlin has a nice chat with his realio, trulio, little pet dragon and everything seems to be very nice between them.

I predict that we probably won't see Killy again this year, unless Merlin decides that the only way to get rid of Morgana is to get her toasted by his scaly reptilian kin.

So for a one-off, not bad. For ANOTHER tourney ep, not bad. For Merlin's wonderful and impassioned speeches to Gilli, well, I was declaring my undying love for Colin Morgan before the episode was over, so you know it was good.

One last thing: Merlin's plate of food at the end was hilarious only because Colin Morgan is A)lactose intolerant (so there goes the cheese), B)allergic to tomatoes (so get rid of those) and C)a vegetarian so Richard can have as much of that chicken as he likes. It's like the meat they keep putting down in front of the one who plays Uther and yet he always takes the bread off his plate first when he has to eat in a scene, thanks to him being a veggie, too. I got the joke and it's funny. Ha ha ha.

Next week, Cup of Life issues. Cenred, Morgause, and Morgana want the cup. Uther wants it too, and sends out Arthur and Merlin to fetch it before Evil, Inc. gets ahold of it. Merlin sends it off a cliff by accident. Arthur gets another arrow in the back. Morgause gets it and then her, Morgana, and Cenred take over Camelot and put Uther Pendragon on his knees before the throne of a magical sorcerer. You remember how Uther said Camelot wouldn't fall to a sorcerer while he was king? Well, guess he was wrong!

Questions abound: Are these Richard Wilson's last days as Gaius? Is Princess Evil Smirkana gonna get what's been coming to her all series? (One can ONLY hope.) Or is Uther going to die and let Arthur be king of all the land already?

These, and other burning questions (who's gonna drink the water, is Freya the now watery tart of legend, will she throw the sword at Merlin, why is Percival so damn much taller than Arthur, are Lancelot and Gwain gonna get along?) will be answered in the next two weeks.

Ta,
Bec