- Okay, so here we are with the galloping horses and the dramatic music and the running outlaws, and Robin stands there in the middle of the road/path, with his hands on his hips, defying the horsemen. What kind of idiot does that, even if there is a rope stretched across the road? And don’t you think the horsemen were wondering the same thing? Like, weren’t they thinking, “Uh, oh. He’s up to something!"
- And that shirt is the foulest green I’ve ever seen. Though I think they were able to recycle it in the costumes they made for the Turkish ninja lady assassins later in the series.
- Gordon Kennedy commentary: “Was Harry every allowed to have a live baby in his hands, or was it always a doll?" Hee! I want to know the story behind THAT!
- Interesting that Will knows the baby’s mother is “long gone” because the baby’s cold. That, and the way he was holding the baby/plastic doll makes you think he knows something about kids. But Li’l Lukey isn’t that much younger than him, is he? I mean, not so much that Will changed his diapers or anything. Plus, in that very last scene, Will’s the one who looks most longingly at the departing baby. Think there’s some backstory here? (Or if there is, that we'll ever see it?) I mean, I don’t usually think of 18-year-old guys as being so consumed with baby love.
And at the same time, Allan’s the one who’s stunned that the baby was just lying there in the middle of the road where they could have easily run over him. Allan keeps coming back to that, even while everybody else has moved on and is looking for clues. Again, backstory? (For other reasons, I fanwank that Allan’s father abandoned his family when Allan was, well, older than an infant. And now I have proof!)
- They’re saying all these things in the commentary about how hard they worked back in the audio studios in Budapest to get the ring and scrape of the swords just right, which was especially difficult considering the swords were made of rubber. I never noticed that before, but I did notice all the scabbards are made of leather, so even if they take these hardened steel blades out of them, it wouldn’t make any kind of cool swish sound like we hear. Watch Team Leather, especially, try to quietly draw their blades. They just can’t do it, and it doesn’t make any sense!
- Poor Roy! And I never liked Roy. The actor seemed too hammy to me, trying too hard to be “northern.” I thought I read that the actor who played him only signed on for a few episodes at the beginning, and he and everybody else thought of this as a short-term assignment, but then the producers said in the commentary that he tried to make it so Roy’s death was somewhat ambiguous so there would be an excuse for the character to return. They went on to say that that was one thorough killing he got by the castle guards, so …. I guess not.
- What does Annie see in Guy? (I mean, besides the leather-clad obvious.) He’s downright rude to her when she crosses his path and asks about the baby. And if he’s that way in that context, how is he in other circumstances? I’m betting he raped her. And she convinced herself that that meant he had an overwhelming desire for her, which meant that he really loved her, and thus something like an affair began. But not really an affair the way most of us think of the term. There’s usually some sense of reciprocity in an affair, and I can’t see it with those two.
- The woman who played Roy’s mother was very good. Doesn’t look old enough to be his mother, but I think she did a good job. And looked like a middle-aged peasant woman in the Middle Ages should look, dumpy and lumpy and like a sack of potatoes.
- Gordon Kennedy says in the commentary that Jonas was “very brave” for picking up the horse’s foot. But then Gordon Kennedy also says we’ll only see him [GK] on a horse that one time, and that’s just to turn the horse around. I don’t think Gordon Kennedy likes horses.
- What are those straps on Robin’s shirt? They’re laced all up his arm, but there was something similar in his very first scene where his chest was all strapped up.
- How did they keep the food from sliding up and down the arrows when they shot them into Clun? I can’t get it to stay still on kabob skewers, and they’re not flying through the air!
And Lucy’s right: why didn’t Roy use the excuse of a stray arrow to kill Robin there and then?
- Okay, so Robin’s shot, the guards are coming….and he still takes the baby galloping off into the forest instead of leaving it with Marian, who I’m sure could come up with some excuse for its presence. Why? Why, Robin, why?
- Jonas isn’t skinny! He’s hardly bulky, but he’s not skinny. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t wax his chest, though: it makes him more “manly” and kind of makes up for the lack of pecs. (It was funny how the guys in the commentary did all the hooting when Jonas took his shirt off. Lucy didn’t.)
- Commentary: “Can’t Gisbourne stand up straight? He’s always lounging against the wall.” “That’s because Keith pays [RA] extra to make [KA] look taller.” Snerk!
- Gordon Kennedy noticed they never explained why cutting Marian’s hair was supposed to be so traumatic. He said he had to explain it for his kids, who still didn’t get it. So I’m not alone in that criticism!
- They improvised that fight scene? And it took a whole day to film? Why? Why didn’t they choreograph it? From the sounds of it, it would have been much easier on everybody involved. GK kept saying the basic theory the director was working from was to have four guys half his age fling themselves on him for a whole day, and that that would work out. fine on screen. What worked out was that GK took days to recover, and I think I heard them say something about Joe and stitches in the commentary. (The voices were a bit jumbled at that point.) But watch when John tackles Roy: not just Roy, but Will (especially) and Allan, who are trying to hold Roy, are sent flying like rag dolls.
- “I hate the Sheriff…..I hate Gisbourne!” Quite the hater, aren’t ya, Will?
You know, as much as I loved Djaq, I kind of regret her coming now. I would have liked to see more of this brooding, glowering, angry Will. We saw it when he was the Angel of Death (or whatever) in series 2 but not a lot elsewhere. He’s usually under control and thinking a step ahead of everybody else, but I would think that constant anger would have messed him up and gotten in the way of that control and those smarts if it would have been allowed to continue. Which I guess was the point of the Angel of Death, but I would have rather seen that loss of control show up in increments rather than all burst out at once and burn itself out.
- Annie! And Allan! Oh, how I ship them! Both these wounded souls in pretty curly-haired bodies. I remembered Allan rescued her when she pulled the knife on Gisbourne, but I had forgotten he actually hauled off and kicked Guy in the face! Bwah! And yay! (RA said Allan was wearing steel-toed boots and that was why Guy was flat on his back for the rest of the scene.) Annie seems so naïve in some ways, but I would bet getting knocked up by the Knight of Black Leather who then ignores you and tries to kill your baby would wipe that out real quick. I picture Allan being the first guy who’s really nice to her, and she’s the first woman who’s really appreciative of him, so they’re all happy-happy-happy with Wee Seth and their own little babies. (Well, until Allan loses all their money in tavern games and Annie gets so mad she pulls a knife on him, but anyway….)
- I also picture a grown black-haired Seth getting the story of the toy bow and arrow wrong, stomping into the forest yelling, “Who’s my daddy?” and zeroing in on pool Will because his hair matches.