Merlin 2.7: The Witchfinder
One of the things this episode bought home was how far Arthur has come. By this point in the last series everyone, apart from the dragon on a bad day, knew that Arthur wasn’t ready to be king. He still isn’t completely ready but I don’t think him succeeding Uther right now would have been the problem it was a year ago.
Despite the problems with the relationship between Merlin and Arthur in the first part of this series, I think this episode shows that there is still a genuine bond between them, from Arthur being out of his chair the moment Merlin started to shout at the Witchfinder, to breaking the law in allowing Merlin to say goodbye to Gaius. The deterioration of the relationship between Gaius and Uther shows that even longstanding bonds of friendship and loyalty can be broken and shows both how badly things could go wrong for Merlin and Arthur and how far they are from that point, pratliness at the beginning of the season notwithstanding.
Things that made me go HA!
The dragon, could it sound any more smug.
Merlin and Gwen being the ones to save the day.
Things that made me go ARGH!
I understand, and partly agree, that the pleading (for Gaius) itself might be more effective coming from someone who has limited day-to-day interaction with Arthur and who, as a result, he may expect to have a more idealised image of him than someone who spends a lot of time with him and sees more of his flaws first hand. But there is no need for Merlin to be hidden in the background when he could be standing right next to Gwen. Show, what is your obsession with not allowing anyone to act on their own behalf?
Fragile and unstable Morgana. We all know at some point she’s going to break with Camlelot, and the Witchfinder investigating is scary for any magic user in Camelot but this is a woman who has lost both parents in her childhood, survived being thrown in jail by the King, fought and escaped from bandits and helped to defend a village as one of the only two trained warriors they had. There is no need for her to look like she needs a fainting couch every time something challenging happens.
Merlin, for the second consecutive week you’ve gone to snoop in someone’s rooms and left a cupboard door open. I would complain about your stupidity but I think the problem is more to do with some very lazy writing.