Arthur's Bane Review

My take on the recent Merlin two-parter. There are spoilers.






















SPOILER LINE


Arthur's Bane 1 and 2


I wasn't going to do a review for Merlin this year since I didn't do one for Doctor Who at all, but these two episodes...well...

PROS: Shirtless Percy, Gwaine, and others. Merlin's snarky.
CONS: What have they been growing in the caves at Ysmir?

Let's break it down into people, shall we?

Morgana: Three years have passed since she was "mortally" wounded. She's lost none of her bitchy, but taking over a whole abandoned castle and digging pits in the mud for three years is a tad bit wacky. That the thing she's looking for doesn't want to be found never seems to occur to her, nor apparently does the idea to give up and try another artifact.

I'm getting a little tired of the writers conveniently stabbing, bashing, or otherwise apparently killing off Morgana and then she miraculously reappears. This is about the fourth time (and the second in three episodes) and it gets old fast. Just have Mordred say no, OK?

I strongly dislike that Arthur gets to ask her why she's become such a nasty little person and all we get in answer is that Uther taught her hatred well. Come on, writers. She's monologuing like Dr. Octavius here-can we PLEASE get a better explanation than that? She could have snarled a meaning to her sudden nasty instead of giving Arthur ANOTHER concussion.

Also Arthur's reiteration that they're brother and sister isn't all that necessary, but Morgana consistently denying that Uther was her dad is getting a little old. He's her bio-father and I'm thinking she should really get over it.

Aithusa: I have no idea what's going on here. He's mute, so that would mean that Merlin can talk at him but the dragon can't talk back. Maybe he hasn't gotten his voice yet, maybe he lost it by hanging out with Morgana, or maybe he was born that way. Did Kilgarrah kick him out of the nest or did he leave? And how in bloody hell did Morgana find out his name if he's supposed to be MUTE???

After a rewatch of Merlin and Aithusa's interaction, I think he must have had his voice taken from him in some manner, because Merlin seems to realize there's some form of damage to Aithusa's voice. Maybe Kilgarrah and Aithusa had a falling out and Kilgarrah injured him so that he can't use his voice, thereby making him a pet to Morgana and not much else.

Arthur: Same old Arthur, same old story. Hasn't really changed in three years-still mildly arrogant and still doesn't listen to Merlin. He's still loyal to his men and a pain in the arse, but him and Merlin's banter was hilarious if you were able to catch some of it-Merlin has never been one to hold back on insulting Arthur at every turn and Arthur gives it right back to him.

Gaius: Barely here, but still doing his thing. I'm not predicting his death this year because they haven't done in four years and they ain't gonna do it now (famous last words.)

Merlin: Appears to be growing tired of Arthur not listening to him (surprise) and seems to be bursting to tell him that he's magical. Recall the moment at the beginning of Season 3 where Morgana was in the basement of Camelot calling up eternal fighting skeletons and you got the sense that Merlin was about to tell her everything but he balked? I had that feeling for the whole hour and a half these episodes were going on. He's also rasher with the magic in front of Arthur-he's not fearing his own demise as much as he used to, but then again Uther's been dead three years.

The whole predicted Arthur death thing is awful, yes, and Merlin's well aware that he needs to keep his fingers out of the Mordred-Arthur relationship and let the thing play out. Of course Arthur's his own worst enemy-he always has been in the past. Despite Merlin's attempts to protect him, Arthur has always walked head held high into danger and trouble, and even if Merlin told him to run if Mordred comes after you with a sword in his hand and an angry glint in his eyes, Arthur would see the thing as a challenge, fight Mordred, and get stabbed anyway. Uther created his own demise by denouncing magic and thereby pushing Morgana out, infuriating her and eventually leading her to kill him. He didn't know it would lead to that, but it did. In the same way, Arthur will unwittingly do something stupid and blind and unknowingly piss Mordred off, thereby sealing his fate at Camlann (if we're sticking to the legend here.)

I keep thinking that either Mordred has a bigger plan and he's lying his arse off, or he's actually really nice (ha ha) and Merlin's going to accidentally turn him into the bad guy by telling him too much. Plot will tell. I can't believe the writers would conveniently forget the fact that Mordred swore he'd never forgive Merlin for his betrayal, so I'm suspecting Mordred has a plan to get to Arthur by any means necessary.

Guinevere!-Looked like she'd gotten some of Uther's nasty in episode 1, but then the writers backtracked and made it look like Gwen was plotting. Somehow I think that's going to backfire in her face someday. They let the girl go pretty blatantly and she wasn't in a good mood because her dad had been killed off, and she's magical. Usually that means trouble.

In any case, Gwen was fairly nasty this time around and I was kind of surprised on a couple of counts-A) Arthur's actually given her some power and influence-he didn't have to. She's also a member of the Round Table and is in on secret meetings and the like. Betcha Igraine didn't get all that when she married Uther. B) Gwen's typical reaction in the old days was to be nice. Not anymore, not in front of the treasonous. Queen Gwen is a meanie and I would adore seeing her and Morgana meeting now-what a battle of wills that would be.

The See-Through Elfy Alien Thing With Smoker Voice: I had a hard time not laughing at the creature design on this one. This show has had some odd looking creatures (the chimaera that wasn't a chimaera but a lizard from Primeval, and the unicorn that looked like a horse dressing up for a Halloween party) but the Diamr has to take the cake. There's suspending my disbelief but even I couldn't go there with this-too out there even for me.

That's my review of Arthur's Bane 1 and 2. Next week: Uther comes back from the dead as a poltergeist. Let's hope he comes after Morgana...