Merlin: I Wish I Could Quit You....
Especially after that finale....*sigh* *bashes head against the wall* I just....I know I will keep watching, but you are terrible for my blood pressure! >:( Seriously writers, what did the concept of "character development" ever do to you that you hate it so much? How is it so hard to understand that you can't just completely change/adjust the characters' personalities at whim and at the drop of a hat to fit your contrived and stupid plot conveniences, and with no explanation? *rolleyes* That's just shitty writing....those who complain about the writing or Sam's characterization on Supernatural or him being "evil" all the time can't have seen, I feel, because in comparison, well, SN has NOTHING on Merlin! Not even the same league...
More thoughts on Merlin 3x13 and the season on the whole, not all negative, lol:
I mean, there were epic and great parts of this episode to be sure--I loved Gwen being all ~sneaky (though I'm glad that Morgana wasn't really that stupid and gullible, and that she and Morgause used her to their ends), I loved Merlin and co being fugitives at the beginning, and the knights of the round-table stuff (especially Gwaine and Lancelot becoming knights, quite unexpected! Still kind of meh about Elyah though, could do without him, kind of just seemed thrown in there, as was Perceval lol, how random!), as well as the way they incorporated both the Lady in the Lake sword hand-off and the sword-in-the-stone aspects of the legend--this show has been too scant on legend stuff in recent seasons, so I did enjoy seeing all that, moving a little closer to the legend. There were also a few nice Arthur/Merlin moments, and loved the line in the cut. Gwaine was awesome as always, and Lancelot a lot more enjoyable than last time--poor guy, he liked Gwen/was there first, back when Arthur was crushing on his now half-sister and didn't even notice Gwen! :( And I have to say, despite the Deus Ex Machina-ness of the Fisher King object and such (though at least it was a few episodes earlier), it was one of the more believable triumphs, especially given the circumstances (much better than the idea that a novice like Merlin could have killed Nimueh in 1x13!).
I'm not sure I liked Freya being the Lady of the Lake literally (I always saw Nimueh as fulfilling that function, reigning over that Avalon Lookalike place on the lake), though, I mean how exactly did she get this position? Lol, I remember getting into a debate in one of the discussions on merlin_land I think about whether her body was set out in the same lake he put the sword in/whether we can really know which lake is which since they all seem to use the same lake for filming each time, and I did feel vindicated about being right on this one--because I HIGHLY doubt that Merlin dragged Freya's body for SIXTY-NINE MILES (20 leagues, also 111 km) on foot to bury her....;) So she couldn't have been buried in the same lake as the sword, meaning her being the ~real~ Lady of the Lake was all that much random. But I digress...Merlin's face when he saw her was touching, even though I thought their romance was pretty ridic in season 2 and their episode the most boring of the series save for the Gauis epp this season.
I also mostly enjoyed of course the Uther/Morgana scene in the dungeon at the beginning, at Uther being so heartbroken and crying emo tears when he sees Morgana doesn't love him--he loves her so much, clearly. *will stan U/M to the grave* And I mean seriously, their chemistry, as always, so taut, that shot of them standing face-to-face, only about a foot apart with him held back by the chains (kind of an interesting parallel/call-back to when he chained her in the dungeon and was facing her in 1x12)...unf! Sizzling....I am really going to miss their interactions (I hope they interact at least a few more times on the show, even with her not in Camelot anymore), since that's probably the most interesting part of the show for me these days, and even more I'm going to miss affectionate besotted!Uther interactions and hugs with Morgana, which can never happen again now I suppose....*sigh* Though angsty love/hate interactions could be good too. Ideally I'd love for Morgana to realize her errors when she kills him and for him to die slowly in her arms, and forgive her as she cries tears of remorse....but I doubt that's EVER going to happen, lol, especially not on this show. Oh well, head canon. It was also sad seeing Arthur's bewildered reaction.
BUT do they even know she's magical, Uther and Arthur?!?! I mean, she kind of hinted at it with Uther, but not Arthur, and they don't see her doing magic....so it looks like the writers once again denied us a nice magic reveal, I mean FFS she has shown herself to be an enemy of Camelot, why couldn't they show the "holy shit she has magic?!" shock and reveal as well?! Like, WHY NOT WRITERS?! Was it because you were too busy being shitty to remember that? Another disappointment...
Basically, as good as some parts of this episode were, it was all based on this premise of EBIL MORGANA taking over to be queen and killing innocent people and such, and I just could NOT BUY THIS PREMISE or her as the villain like that! It's just TOO ridiculous and absurd and OOC....I mean, there have been episodes this season where I was able to enjoy the epp despite her being her new OOC and evil self (such as the season premiere for instance), but there was never as much focus as now, and it went further than ever this time around, so that I really couldn't enjoy the good stuff or the epp as a whole because the Morgana stuff made me rage too much and detracted from it...:( I mean SERIOUSLY, she's now just executing innocent people to get her way?!?!? When Uther doing so is EXACTLY what first made her begin to grow apart from Uther and go to the dark side in the first place, what caused the final break and disowning in 2x11?! This character and her motivations make absolutely NO SENSE now, I've never seen something so utterly illogical and absurd (are the writers perhaps allergic to logic?). I hate the way she's just nothing like the original character we saw and that I fell in love with--and how we had NO transition getting to this point. The writers decided she needed to be totally evil, god knows why (lazy and uncreative again?), and so went, "voila, evil now, insta-presto!" I still don't get why she had to be so evil anyway....there are so many ways her character could have gone, they could have just made her fall out with Uther and leave Camelot over her magic and problems with his killing people and kept her the same person, but an enemy of Camelot....but no, guess that would have been too sympathetic, too complex and gray, and this show must be as pure black and white and simplistic and uninteresting as possible! And if they were trying to not confuse kids then it's too late, because when you do something that makes no sense at all, it's more confusing than a more morally ambiguous but logical progression, sorry writers! *rolleyes* (Plus DW is for kids too and manages to have morally grey and complex villains). So yeah, total fail there, and I hate that I can no longer really enjoy my favorite character even as she finally appears on screen more and even makes it onto the series boxset! :(
Plus there's the question of her magic....if she's going to be evil, she should at least be a badass powerful sorceress, but no, after two years under Morgause's tutelage she STILL is in the same place she was in 2x03 FFS, having some powerful magic, but having no idea how to use it and only able to really display it at moments of fierce emotion, as a reflex without spells. Instead of a "NOOOOO!" scream and inadvertent castle destruction I'd have liked AN ACTUAL SPELL being used...it just seemed lame. I'm also really pissed and sad if Morgause is dead--especially that the only deaths this season would have been again the baddies and nameless knights....grow some balls, show! It was touching seeing Morgana's distress and sorrow over her though, her only sympathetic moment in the epp...
So I'd say this is definitely my least favorite season finale so far for Merlin, I think the season 2 one is actually my favorite so far, since with the father background and such it was pretty touching and nice. The season 1 finale also always gave me trouble, since so many things bugged the shit out of me and made it hard for me to enjoy the epp as a whole, though god, little did I know back then how much worse it would get where Morgana was concerned! *sigh*
Plus, this season went....nowhere! We ended just about where we were in 3x02, save for Morgause and Morgana succeeded in taking the castle. And then after all the epic shit that went down in this epp....we STILL ended up pretty much in the status quo (save for Morgana again), I mean WTF writers?! Their resistance to change and resetting abilities seem nearly magical in of themselves! *rolleyes* I really think they should not have tried to do a 5 year plan, because milking it all out is resulting in so much stagnation and lameness--though at the same time that they are dragging certain things out too long, they also rushed other things too much/didn't drag them out enough, like Morgana's turn to the dark side and Arthur/Gwen's romantic development. So an all-around fail for the writers when it comes to pacing as well as all the other stuff.
Pretty much the only really fun/good things to come out of this season for me were a) GWAINE!!!! (such an awesome character, honestly, I think he's now my favorite character, since the writers have so thoroughly ruined my bb Morgana to the point of making me not even enjoy watching her most of the time anymore)--can he be a regular next season please?, b) epic Uther/Morgana shippy moments (in spite of the lameass retcon I choose to ignore, and the fact that it was all pretty much faked on Morgana's part)--I want to see more vids using them, and c) more awesome Morgause (definitely one of the better villains on this show) and the hot Morgause/Cenred while it lasted. *sigh*
Anyway, I am interested to see what will happen in season 4, what Morgana will be up to, and how much they include her--I'm guessing it won't be a lot. Which is why they need to at least have Gwaine be a regular then to make up for it...I also wonder if they'll cut some of the stupid fillers with only 10 epps, but knowing this show probably not.
Luckily GG was really good (even better than last week's!), and thus cheered me up a bit, glad I waited to watch Merlin until yesterday (as opposed to the same night I watched SN and VD--I had feared it would make me rage), and before GG. I also saw a fun cultural spectacle last night, which I'll say more about in another post. SN and VD were also great, for the most part, though I had a few issues with the SN....
SN 6x10:
I loved the episode for the most part, there was an exciting enough plot, I liked seeing Cas again and hearing that he did still care about them and hadn't turned his back on all he had grown and learned in season 5, but just was too busy with the angel war to come down more (NGL I kind of smiled when I heard Raphael was winning--what can I say, TH leaves a mark! ;)) I loved Crowley, though so sad to see him dead!!! :( Here I thought stupid Meg would die at least and was looking forward to it, but no, this instead, so unexpected....*sob* (The opening though with 'Crowley torturing Crowley' was awesome too, though I was so confused at first!). Because yeah, Meg as always irritated me to death, and even more so with the stupid publicity stunt kiss they did with Cas which made NO sense (like he'd be willing to lock lips like that with an abomination, much less let her take his sword?!), and the porn stuff and boner was a bit much as well.
LOVED the Sam/Cas interaction, especially him tricking Cas into coming with the plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark, lol forever! (I recognized the plot and squeed as soon as he said "Nazis"...). I was kind of like, "No, Sam, don't say that!" when he first threatened to kill Cas, but lol, the eyesexing and Cas's "boy" response were pretty hot....an intense scene in any case! I do love that even without a soul, Sam seems to care about Cas ignoring him and almost feel hurt/outraged--again he showed more emotion here in this exchange (and in 6x03) than he has all season! And I loved the way he pretended like Cas had just come when he called because "that's what friends do for each other"--he sure seemed eager to show that he had a bond with Cas as well, not just Dean! ;) Also LMAO at "I owe you a chicken dinner!" :p Plus it was nice to see Cas concerned about Sam, though on the other hand he wasn't concerned with real!Sam being tortured in Hell, which is kind of disturbing...O_o IDK what to think about this....if I were Soulless!Sam though I don't think I'd want my soul back either after hearing this possibility! And are we supposed to believe then that Crowley was telling the truth about bringing Sam back? :s Anyway, looking forward to seeing what happens next..
Why did all the CW shows decide to hiatus like one episode later this year, by the way? I was originally expecting SN 6x10 and VD 2x10 to be the big episode before hiatus...I mean, this is better, but it's funny!
More thoughts on Merlin 3x13 and the season on the whole, not all negative, lol:
I mean, there were epic and great parts of this episode to be sure--I loved Gwen being all ~sneaky (though I'm glad that Morgana wasn't really that stupid and gullible, and that she and Morgause used her to their ends), I loved Merlin and co being fugitives at the beginning, and the knights of the round-table stuff (especially Gwaine and Lancelot becoming knights, quite unexpected! Still kind of meh about Elyah though, could do without him, kind of just seemed thrown in there, as was Perceval lol, how random!), as well as the way they incorporated both the Lady in the Lake sword hand-off and the sword-in-the-stone aspects of the legend--this show has been too scant on legend stuff in recent seasons, so I did enjoy seeing all that, moving a little closer to the legend. There were also a few nice Arthur/Merlin moments, and loved the line in the cut. Gwaine was awesome as always, and Lancelot a lot more enjoyable than last time--poor guy, he liked Gwen/was there first, back when Arthur was crushing on his now half-sister and didn't even notice Gwen! :( And I have to say, despite the Deus Ex Machina-ness of the Fisher King object and such (though at least it was a few episodes earlier), it was one of the more believable triumphs, especially given the circumstances (much better than the idea that a novice like Merlin could have killed Nimueh in 1x13!).
I'm not sure I liked Freya being the Lady of the Lake literally (I always saw Nimueh as fulfilling that function, reigning over that Avalon Lookalike place on the lake), though, I mean how exactly did she get this position? Lol, I remember getting into a debate in one of the discussions on merlin_land I think about whether her body was set out in the same lake he put the sword in/whether we can really know which lake is which since they all seem to use the same lake for filming each time, and I did feel vindicated about being right on this one--because I HIGHLY doubt that Merlin dragged Freya's body for SIXTY-NINE MILES (20 leagues, also 111 km) on foot to bury her....;) So she couldn't have been buried in the same lake as the sword, meaning her being the ~real~ Lady of the Lake was all that much random. But I digress...Merlin's face when he saw her was touching, even though I thought their romance was pretty ridic in season 2 and their episode the most boring of the series save for the Gauis epp this season.
I also mostly enjoyed of course the Uther/Morgana scene in the dungeon at the beginning, at Uther being so heartbroken and crying emo tears when he sees Morgana doesn't love him--he loves her so much, clearly. *will stan U/M to the grave* And I mean seriously, their chemistry, as always, so taut, that shot of them standing face-to-face, only about a foot apart with him held back by the chains (kind of an interesting parallel/call-back to when he chained her in the dungeon and was facing her in 1x12)...unf! Sizzling....I am really going to miss their interactions (I hope they interact at least a few more times on the show, even with her not in Camelot anymore), since that's probably the most interesting part of the show for me these days, and even more I'm going to miss affectionate besotted!Uther interactions and hugs with Morgana, which can never happen again now I suppose....*sigh* Though angsty love/hate interactions could be good too. Ideally I'd love for Morgana to realize her errors when she kills him and for him to die slowly in her arms, and forgive her as she cries tears of remorse....but I doubt that's EVER going to happen, lol, especially not on this show. Oh well, head canon. It was also sad seeing Arthur's bewildered reaction.
BUT do they even know she's magical, Uther and Arthur?!?! I mean, she kind of hinted at it with Uther, but not Arthur, and they don't see her doing magic....so it looks like the writers once again denied us a nice magic reveal, I mean FFS she has shown herself to be an enemy of Camelot, why couldn't they show the "holy shit she has magic?!" shock and reveal as well?! Like, WHY NOT WRITERS?! Was it because you were too busy being shitty to remember that? Another disappointment...
Basically, as good as some parts of this episode were, it was all based on this premise of EBIL MORGANA taking over to be queen and killing innocent people and such, and I just could NOT BUY THIS PREMISE or her as the villain like that! It's just TOO ridiculous and absurd and OOC....I mean, there have been episodes this season where I was able to enjoy the epp despite her being her new OOC and evil self (such as the season premiere for instance), but there was never as much focus as now, and it went further than ever this time around, so that I really couldn't enjoy the good stuff or the epp as a whole because the Morgana stuff made me rage too much and detracted from it...:( I mean SERIOUSLY, she's now just executing innocent people to get her way?!?!? When Uther doing so is EXACTLY what first made her begin to grow apart from Uther and go to the dark side in the first place, what caused the final break and disowning in 2x11?! This character and her motivations make absolutely NO SENSE now, I've never seen something so utterly illogical and absurd (are the writers perhaps allergic to logic?). I hate the way she's just nothing like the original character we saw and that I fell in love with--and how we had NO transition getting to this point. The writers decided she needed to be totally evil, god knows why (lazy and uncreative again?), and so went, "voila, evil now, insta-presto!" I still don't get why she had to be so evil anyway....there are so many ways her character could have gone, they could have just made her fall out with Uther and leave Camelot over her magic and problems with his killing people and kept her the same person, but an enemy of Camelot....but no, guess that would have been too sympathetic, too complex and gray, and this show must be as pure black and white and simplistic and uninteresting as possible! And if they were trying to not confuse kids then it's too late, because when you do something that makes no sense at all, it's more confusing than a more morally ambiguous but logical progression, sorry writers! *rolleyes* (Plus DW is for kids too and manages to have morally grey and complex villains). So yeah, total fail there, and I hate that I can no longer really enjoy my favorite character even as she finally appears on screen more and even makes it onto the series boxset! :(
Plus there's the question of her magic....if she's going to be evil, she should at least be a badass powerful sorceress, but no, after two years under Morgause's tutelage she STILL is in the same place she was in 2x03 FFS, having some powerful magic, but having no idea how to use it and only able to really display it at moments of fierce emotion, as a reflex without spells. Instead of a "NOOOOO!" scream and inadvertent castle destruction I'd have liked AN ACTUAL SPELL being used...it just seemed lame. I'm also really pissed and sad if Morgause is dead--especially that the only deaths this season would have been again the baddies and nameless knights....grow some balls, show! It was touching seeing Morgana's distress and sorrow over her though, her only sympathetic moment in the epp...
So I'd say this is definitely my least favorite season finale so far for Merlin, I think the season 2 one is actually my favorite so far, since with the father background and such it was pretty touching and nice. The season 1 finale also always gave me trouble, since so many things bugged the shit out of me and made it hard for me to enjoy the epp as a whole, though god, little did I know back then how much worse it would get where Morgana was concerned! *sigh*
Plus, this season went....nowhere! We ended just about where we were in 3x02, save for Morgause and Morgana succeeded in taking the castle. And then after all the epic shit that went down in this epp....we STILL ended up pretty much in the status quo (save for Morgana again), I mean WTF writers?! Their resistance to change and resetting abilities seem nearly magical in of themselves! *rolleyes* I really think they should not have tried to do a 5 year plan, because milking it all out is resulting in so much stagnation and lameness--though at the same time that they are dragging certain things out too long, they also rushed other things too much/didn't drag them out enough, like Morgana's turn to the dark side and Arthur/Gwen's romantic development. So an all-around fail for the writers when it comes to pacing as well as all the other stuff.
Pretty much the only really fun/good things to come out of this season for me were a) GWAINE!!!! (such an awesome character, honestly, I think he's now my favorite character, since the writers have so thoroughly ruined my bb Morgana to the point of making me not even enjoy watching her most of the time anymore)--can he be a regular next season please?, b) epic Uther/Morgana shippy moments (in spite of the lameass retcon I choose to ignore, and the fact that it was all pretty much faked on Morgana's part)--I want to see more vids using them, and c) more awesome Morgause (definitely one of the better villains on this show) and the hot Morgause/Cenred while it lasted. *sigh*
Anyway, I am interested to see what will happen in season 4, what Morgana will be up to, and how much they include her--I'm guessing it won't be a lot. Which is why they need to at least have Gwaine be a regular then to make up for it...I also wonder if they'll cut some of the stupid fillers with only 10 epps, but knowing this show probably not.
Luckily GG was really good (even better than last week's!), and thus cheered me up a bit, glad I waited to watch Merlin until yesterday (as opposed to the same night I watched SN and VD--I had feared it would make me rage), and before GG. I also saw a fun cultural spectacle last night, which I'll say more about in another post. SN and VD were also great, for the most part, though I had a few issues with the SN....
SN 6x10:
I loved the episode for the most part, there was an exciting enough plot, I liked seeing Cas again and hearing that he did still care about them and hadn't turned his back on all he had grown and learned in season 5, but just was too busy with the angel war to come down more (NGL I kind of smiled when I heard Raphael was winning--what can I say, TH leaves a mark! ;)) I loved Crowley, though so sad to see him dead!!! :( Here I thought stupid Meg would die at least and was looking forward to it, but no, this instead, so unexpected....*sob* (The opening though with 'Crowley torturing Crowley' was awesome too, though I was so confused at first!). Because yeah, Meg as always irritated me to death, and even more so with the stupid publicity stunt kiss they did with Cas which made NO sense (like he'd be willing to lock lips like that with an abomination, much less let her take his sword?!), and the porn stuff and boner was a bit much as well.
LOVED the Sam/Cas interaction, especially him tricking Cas into coming with the plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark, lol forever! (I recognized the plot and squeed as soon as he said "Nazis"...). I was kind of like, "No, Sam, don't say that!" when he first threatened to kill Cas, but lol, the eyesexing and Cas's "boy" response were pretty hot....an intense scene in any case! I do love that even without a soul, Sam seems to care about Cas ignoring him and almost feel hurt/outraged--again he showed more emotion here in this exchange (and in 6x03) than he has all season! And I loved the way he pretended like Cas had just come when he called because "that's what friends do for each other"--he sure seemed eager to show that he had a bond with Cas as well, not just Dean! ;) Also LMAO at "I owe you a chicken dinner!" :p Plus it was nice to see Cas concerned about Sam, though on the other hand he wasn't concerned with real!Sam being tortured in Hell, which is kind of disturbing...O_o IDK what to think about this....if I were Soulless!Sam though I don't think I'd want my soul back either after hearing this possibility! And are we supposed to believe then that Crowley was telling the truth about bringing Sam back? :s Anyway, looking forward to seeing what happens next..
Why did all the CW shows decide to hiatus like one episode later this year, by the way? I was originally expecting SN 6x10 and VD 2x10 to be the big episode before hiatus...I mean, this is better, but it's funny!