Merlin 3.08 The Eye of the Phoenix
In which the show continues to make me happy in many ways even if some of its continuity is headache inducing.
To get the nitpicks out of the way first, how many lakes of Avalon are there in this 'verse? Since apparantly the one with the Lord of the Rings nicked hourglass can't be the one where Merlin killed Sophia in s1 and buried Freya in s2. Also, coming up with a quest for Arthur as a kind of qualification test for the succession after he's been the heir to the throne for several years now is extremely random, but since the episode itself spells out Arthur's quest is just a pretext for Merlin's quest, I'll handwave that.
Meanwhile, the Merlin and Gwen friendship continues to be showcased and treated so very well, and Gwaine remains my favourite future knight of the round table, continuing his distinction of being the good guy solidly refusing to serve or accomodate Uther, and joining the quest for Merlin's sake, not Arthur's, which is just right - Merlin is the one he befriended and had time to bond with, though he likes Arthur well enough for a prince. What was a very welcome surprise, though, was that this was the episode where Gwen, continuing her inofficial role as Camelot's detective, this time without Merlin, finds out the truth about Morgana. I love that the way she does is due to both Gwen being observant and Gwen, with all her old affection for Morgana, not prone to just take Morgana's word for everything and be reassured with an apology and a tearful smile the way Uther is. Gwen recognising Morgause and drawing the right conclusions, Gwen then looking for proof and getting it while being heartbroken about what she found which does not stop her from looking, those were all excellent scenes. When Gaius started with "all may not be as it seems" I was for a second afraid the show and Gaius would patronize Gwen by a comforting lie and was prepared to scream "why?" but no, Gaius and the show did not and Gaius treated Gwen as an adult human being. However, the climactic scene was the last one with Gwen in it, when Morgana saw Arthur alive and reacted in utter shock, and Gwen realised who had been the target of the spell she'd seen Morgana perform. The impact of that on her face.
Incidentally: I'm still not crazy about the way Morgana is written to have no scruples killing Arthur, but that shock and devastation on her face when she saw him again was an oddly humanizing moment in her season of supervillaindom, because at least in this moment, it didn't seem to me to be primarily "oh, I won't get the throne after all" but just what she'd done and been willing to do becoming real. She had no problem killing guards but then they had stopped being "real" people to her a long time ago. Uther always recovered from her attempts, and besides, given everything he's guilty of, she could feel heroic about killing him in her own eyes, not guilty. But Arthur had always been loyal to her, she was willing to kill him from afar, out of sight, out of mind, disappearing like one more inconvenient obstacle, and now he's there again alive and it suddenly becomes all too real.
(We all see what we want to see, but that was how I interpreted Morgana's reaction.)
The use of the Fisher King tale made for some gorgeous visuals which this show really excels at; I had been wondering from the start how they'd resolve it because the sight of the long-suffering Fisher King should move the questing knight to compassion and to grant him the wish to end his suffering, but if Arthur had killed a magician king, it would be near impossible not to see anti-magic prejudice motivating as much as anything else. Whereas Merlin as the true quester granting death does come across as motivated by compassion.
Big question for the next episode: when/if Gwen will tell Arthur what she found out about Morgana. She's not Merlin and doesn't have his reason to keep secrets from Arthur. I could see her keeping Morgana's power a secret to protect her if she had found about it in earlier seasons or even now if Morgana had not acted as she did all through the season, but realising what Morgana had done means Gwen now knows Morgana is prepared to kill any and all of them. Given that Arthur describes Morgana in this episode as "someone very dear to me" and when Merlin shows up in the Perilous Lands with Gwaine asks him whether he brought Gwen and Morgana along as well (in irritation, yes, but never doubting Gwen and Morgana would want to come), the show definitely build up to the truth being as devastating to Arthur as it was to Gwen.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/622706.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
To get the nitpicks out of the way first, how many lakes of Avalon are there in this 'verse? Since apparantly the one with the Lord of the Rings nicked hourglass can't be the one where Merlin killed Sophia in s1 and buried Freya in s2. Also, coming up with a quest for Arthur as a kind of qualification test for the succession after he's been the heir to the throne for several years now is extremely random, but since the episode itself spells out Arthur's quest is just a pretext for Merlin's quest, I'll handwave that.
Meanwhile, the Merlin and Gwen friendship continues to be showcased and treated so very well, and Gwaine remains my favourite future knight of the round table, continuing his distinction of being the good guy solidly refusing to serve or accomodate Uther, and joining the quest for Merlin's sake, not Arthur's, which is just right - Merlin is the one he befriended and had time to bond with, though he likes Arthur well enough for a prince. What was a very welcome surprise, though, was that this was the episode where Gwen, continuing her inofficial role as Camelot's detective, this time without Merlin, finds out the truth about Morgana. I love that the way she does is due to both Gwen being observant and Gwen, with all her old affection for Morgana, not prone to just take Morgana's word for everything and be reassured with an apology and a tearful smile the way Uther is. Gwen recognising Morgause and drawing the right conclusions, Gwen then looking for proof and getting it while being heartbroken about what she found which does not stop her from looking, those were all excellent scenes. When Gaius started with "all may not be as it seems" I was for a second afraid the show and Gaius would patronize Gwen by a comforting lie and was prepared to scream "why?" but no, Gaius and the show did not and Gaius treated Gwen as an adult human being. However, the climactic scene was the last one with Gwen in it, when Morgana saw Arthur alive and reacted in utter shock, and Gwen realised who had been the target of the spell she'd seen Morgana perform. The impact of that on her face.
Incidentally: I'm still not crazy about the way Morgana is written to have no scruples killing Arthur, but that shock and devastation on her face when she saw him again was an oddly humanizing moment in her season of supervillaindom, because at least in this moment, it didn't seem to me to be primarily "oh, I won't get the throne after all" but just what she'd done and been willing to do becoming real. She had no problem killing guards but then they had stopped being "real" people to her a long time ago. Uther always recovered from her attempts, and besides, given everything he's guilty of, she could feel heroic about killing him in her own eyes, not guilty. But Arthur had always been loyal to her, she was willing to kill him from afar, out of sight, out of mind, disappearing like one more inconvenient obstacle, and now he's there again alive and it suddenly becomes all too real.
(We all see what we want to see, but that was how I interpreted Morgana's reaction.)
The use of the Fisher King tale made for some gorgeous visuals which this show really excels at; I had been wondering from the start how they'd resolve it because the sight of the long-suffering Fisher King should move the questing knight to compassion and to grant him the wish to end his suffering, but if Arthur had killed a magician king, it would be near impossible not to see anti-magic prejudice motivating as much as anything else. Whereas Merlin as the true quester granting death does come across as motivated by compassion.
Big question for the next episode: when/if Gwen will tell Arthur what she found out about Morgana. She's not Merlin and doesn't have his reason to keep secrets from Arthur. I could see her keeping Morgana's power a secret to protect her if she had found about it in earlier seasons or even now if Morgana had not acted as she did all through the season, but realising what Morgana had done means Gwen now knows Morgana is prepared to kill any and all of them. Given that Arthur describes Morgana in this episode as "someone very dear to me" and when Merlin shows up in the Perilous Lands with Gwaine asks him whether he brought Gwen and Morgana along as well (in irritation, yes, but never doubting Gwen and Morgana would want to come), the show definitely build up to the truth being as devastating to Arthur as it was to Gwen.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/622706.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.