Merlin 4x08 Lamia
I don’t disagree with the general consensus that this episode is one of the weakest in series 4, but it’s interesting to examine why.
The main problem is a confused narrative structure. There are too many plots at work, several of which are abandoned abruptly or given inadequate setup. By trying to tell too many stories-or not deciding effectively which ones to foreground-the narrative saps the strength from the plots we do see. (To me, personally, this screams of poor editing more than poor writing; but then I have a professional bias there.)
This is a shame, because several of these plots, particularly the one focused on the Merlin/Gwen relationship, are fascinating. But the end result is an episode whose parts are far less than their sum.
Bait and switch. Most of the episode’s first third sets up a plot about Merlin taking on more responsibility as a junior physician at Arthur’s court. This is a wonderful development, which builds on the increased medical knowledge Merlin showed in series 3, and Gaius’s more recent attemtps to slowly make Arthur more aware of his support.
Gaius’s incremental method (in clear contrast to Merlin’s in “The Wicked Day”) cleverly pushes both Arthur and Merlin himself, who value our hero for a very particular and narrow range of skills, to imagine him in a position of greater responsibility. There’s characterization in Gaius’s caution, Arthur’s difficulty imagining a future different from the present, and the closer advising relationship between them both.
We see Merlin’s own self-doubts (a hint to the gap between his fantasy of recognition and his readiness for a public role), work ethic (as he crams for the job), and his very real respect for Gaius’s abilities as a physician. We also see the loyalty of his friends, as both Gwen and Elyan back him up when John challenges his abilities.
(Incidentally, Elyan’s shout-out to the intro-“His name is Merlin!”-is the funniest joke in the episode. If my job involved being unconscious for much of the episode I’d queue up to take over Kilgarrah’s lines too.)
So far, so good. This plot provides a clear starting place for both Merlin and Arthur, a well-defined conflict, and an arc of Merlin proving himself that is easy to imagine and resonates perfectly with the show’s overall trajectory.
But this plot is abruptly abandoned as soon as our heroes decide to leave Longstead for Camelot. The brief echo when Gaius tells John that Merlin is right has no resonance, because Gaius already knows how capable Merlin is and John is too minor a character for his change of mind to carry any weight. Neither Merlin nor Arthur, the two doubters, changes their assessment of Merlin’s capabilities.
Nor do they have any reason to, because Merlin is not particularly useful in this episode. He is largely ineffective with Lamia not only because her enchantment preys upon his disempowered position vis-à-vis the knights, but also because in the end, his magic isn’t enough to contain her. (At least not alone.) So the Merlin-proves-himself plot fizzles out to nothing.
Instead, the narrative runs smack into an entirely different plot and its second major pitfall, which is Lamia.
Once and future stereotypes. Far more eloquent posts than mine have already pointed out the many problems with Lamia, who is not only a walking misogynistic stereotype but a cliché for both the genre and this particular show.
But protests about Lamia herself have eclipsed the problematic backstory she brings to light. In this episode we learn for the first time that the high priestesses of the Old Religion fought wars with the ancient kings, which reinscribes the good man/evil woman binary all over again.
By this time it has become clear that Morgana is heir to the former tradition as Arthur someday will be to the latter, for these ancient kings (who, in a head-scratching conflation of democracy with autocracy, “believed in equality in all things”) first established the Round Table ethos. The fact that the history of this fantasy land is built on a battle of the sexes between good men and evil women is very problematic.
At least it therefore makes sense that the lamia can’t affect women, because the priestesses didn’t want to fall prey to their own creations. Lamia is basically a genetically-engineered supersoldier in a fantasy setting, but sadly, the episode doesn’t elaborate on Gaius’s implication that the lamia were more powerful and dangerous than the priestesses expected. (Also, clumsy borrowings from The Lord of the Rings, or at least Peter Jackson’s films thereof, are always a bad sign on Merlin.)
This backstory raises many questions that I only hope fic will answer: Where did the girls whose blood was used come from? Do the lamia retain any of their memories? Were the lamia in fact intent on overthrowing the priestesses? What have they been doing for the past hundred years? Why is the CGI in this episode so painfully bad?
Then there’s the question of who in the south has sent for our Lamia, why Lamia consider it "home," and what purpose this unknown figure was planning on using her for. The fact that this is never addressed is another gaping hole, but I suspect the show might answer the question in an upcoming episode.
Still, given that Lamia has a backstory involving the priestesses and potential tension with the same, it seems a terrible loss that there was no attempt to connect her to Morgana-even if only in dialogue.
Missing in action. Alas, Morgana was evidentally off attending the prestigious World Interfantasy Convention of Knaves and Evil-Doers, leaving her co-conspirator behind to pine and pout. Agravaine would have joined her, except that his membership in the prestigious villains club was about to expire, and he had to commit an immediate act of evil to renew. Hence his utterly unprepared-for moment with the trail in this episode.
Yes, I know Agravaine finds Arthur’s devotion to Guinevere threatening. This is still the most logical explanation.
Lamia. Sadly, on her own, Lamia lacks even a shred of motivation, and is deadly dull. (One feels for the actress handed this part, who at least manages her material with grace.) Even worse, much of the narrative tension is drained by Gaius’s exposition, which removes any faint trace of suspense.
This is truly unfortunate, because Lamia seems intended to distract the audience from the story’s structural flaws, and that would only work if she were a compelling, scene-stealing villain. Her thematic role in the story-the idea that Lamia, Gwen, and Merlin are all more dangerous than they seem-is also weak.
At least in terms of its internal structure, the Lamia plot does work. There’s a clear escalation of the tension between her and Merlin from their instant sensing of each other’s magic and mutual hatred.
Merlin tries to assess her threat, Lamia uses Percival to lash out at Merlin, Merlin stops her from draining Percival’s life, Lamia turns the knights en masse away from Camelot, Merlin starts to feel Gwen out as an ally, Lamia drains Elyan, Gwen joins Merlin and they begin to actively plot together, Lamia traps them in the abandoned castle.
The stakes get bigger with each movement, but the most interesting moment-and the closest Lamia gets to an actual personality-comes in her brief exchange with Guinevere. Flush from her success in draining Elyan, she arrogantly tips her own hand-and Guinevere carefully steps away and instantly becomes her enemy. (Do not mess with the future queen’s brother.)
Importantly for both characterization and plot, Merlin doesn’t persuade Gwen that Lamia is a danger and a threat; Gwen comes to the conclusion on her own. In fact, as the climax shows, Lamia’s big mistake throughout is identifying only Merlin as her enemy and discounting Gwen.
This is important. We don’t really care about the Merlin-v.-Lamia battle, and we’re not really meant to. Lamia is simply a device to highlight the relationship between Merlin and Gwen, which-although inadequately set up-is the central plot of the episode.
The heart of the matter. The Merlin/Gwen plot has three key scenes, and a number of smaller moments (including a lovely shout-out to their first joint detective adventure, when Merlin looks at her as he discusses using a tincture of belladonna as medicine).
The first scene occurs after Gwaine and Leon fight, and Leon shows marked hostility to Merlin but not to Gwen as both tend his wound. Merlin for the first time shares his suspicions of Lamia, and Gwen asks, “How could she affect them like this?”
The answer, obviously, is magic, but Merlin cannot answer it without outing himself; the question is a synedoche for the larger shadow Merlin’s secret casts over their friendship, creating distance, forestalling honesty, and preventing him and Gwen from teaming up.
As soon as the question arises, Merlin withdraws-first looking down at the ground and falling silent, then getting up and walking away. The next morning we viewers see that he has even moved further to the edge of the campsite, and though he and Gwen are paired, there is more distance between them than between Leon and Gwaine, who just tried to kill each other.
So this first exchange illustrates the cost to Merlin and Gwen’s friendship of the magic secret. The second key moment, coming after they have started to work effectively as a team-by conniving to leave Arthur a trail and by using their very different approaches to try to steer the knights-is when Guinevere draws close to that very same secret.
“As if you were the enemy.” This second scene repeats elements we’ve seen before. Again, Guinevere asks a question whose only answer is Merlin’s magic; again, Merlin dodges. But this time, Gwen is too perceptive to let it drop.
One note on the background: Gwen has been weeping for Elyan, who is near death, and during the entire exchange her voice is roughened by tears. Her turn toward analyzing their situation and using her detective skills is an attempt to distract herself, to escape her grief.
Her intelligence and tenacity are displayed as she identifies the flaws in Merlin’s clumsy lie, but Gwen isn’t just smart-she’s also a skilled reader of interpersonal dynamics. Her suspicions arise not just from Merlin’s immunity to the spell, but from the revulsion with which Lamia treats him.
Just as earlier Gwen’s ability to read Lamia convinced her that the helpless damsel was dangerous, here that same skill leads her close to Merlin’s secret. It’s not only Lamia who’s underestimated Gwen; Merlin has also overlooked her abilities.
Again, Merlin responds to her probing by withdrawing-basically running away-though here Gwaine’s scream provides a much better excuse. Gwen is terrified to be left on her own, understandably; her friends have gone off one by one as in a haunted house flick.
Sir Guinevere. The final scene comes after Gwen has, despite her fear, taken up a sword and gone in search of Merlin. When he comes pelting down the corridor with the lamia on his heels, he pushes Gwen ahead of him, saving her but being caught by the monster himself.
Truly terrified now, Gwen clearly has a chance to get away, but instead makes a desperate decision not to leave Merlin. Despite the fact that she has no sword-training, she rushes the lamia and wounds it with a direct sword-thrust. It’s an act of absolute loyalty to her friend and courage in the heat of a hard moment. And indisputable proof that Guinevere is awesome.
The almost-reveal. Which brings us to the crux of the episode: the fact that Merlin very nearly reveals his magic to Guinevere. Everything that’s gone before-the exploration of the Merlin/Gwen friendship dynamics, the edging up to his secret-prepares for the moment when both friends are crawling on the floor, and Merlin prepares to use magic in front of her.
And Gwen is the obvious choice to whom to reveal himself. She and Merlin not only have years of friendship, but have just bonded when everyone else has turned on them, giving Gwen a taste of what Merlin lives every day. Gwen has already started to figure out his secret, and Merlin has just seen her willing sacrifice herself for him.
By refusing to let him die, Gwen has just demonstrated the traits of a friend who could keep his secret. And their emergency situation provides Merlin with the perfect justification-exactly the dramatic reveal that he’s been looking for.
Had the story actually gone there, I think Gwen would have been shocked and unhappy, but wouldn’t tell Arthur right away. (If “The Servant of Two Masters” establishes anything, it’s that Gwen has no problem lying to Arthur about magical matters to protect Merlin.) Part of me still wishes we didn’t get to see Arthur arrive to awkward silence, implausible explanations, and tensions that would have worked their way through future episodes.
Almost good to see you. Little wonder, then, that Merlin is disappointed when Arthur steals his thunder. Once Arthur makes his dramatic entrance, you can see Gwen’s joy rise as Merlin’s face falls. And where they were once united crawling on the floor, Gwen immediately rises to embrace Arthur and the friends are physically separated once more. Merlin’s reply to Arthur that he too finds it “almost good” to see him holds some bitterness about the road not taken.
Arthur ex machina. Arthur’s abrupt entry serves the show’s mandate to keep the magic secret, of course. But structurally, it creates several problems. First, we’re robbed of a climax to the Merlin/Gwen arc, which despite taking up most of the episode ends as abruptly as the aborted Merlin-as-physician plot did earlier.
Second, the plot remains undersupported because we never get another Merlin/Gwen interaction in which we could see them reestablish equilibrium. Such a scene would have demonstrated where the friendship is after the almost-reveal moment passed, as we’ve seen in other episodes, in which Arthur almost finds out.
Maybe they avoided such a scene because they couldn’t come up with a plausible and in-character explanation for Gwen to let the matter of Merlin’s secret drop. But the result robs us of resolution.
Instead, both Merlin and Gwen get concluding scenes with Arthur instead. This mirrors the beginning of the episode, of course, and moves us into yet another plot, about Arthur and Guinevere.
Village king and queen. The episode both begins and ends with our main couple-not simply because Gwen’s advocacy with the king for her friend Mary starts the ball rolling, but because John and Mary Howden, the village leaders, are clearly mean to be analogs for Arthur and Guinevere, an image of what their marriage might look like decades later.
John as village elder shows courage, a strong sense of responsibility, and (not incidentally) lack of faith in Merlin’s abilities; Mary uses personal connections and diplomacy to advocate for her fellow villages. In addition, they clearly love each other deeply, and their hug once reunited parallels Arthur and Gwen’s embrace.
The episode coda emphasizes that Arthur has been impressed with Guinevere’s conduct under stress and sees it as a form of growth. Gwen herself knows better-she takes his compliments in stride but without false modesty, valuing what she’s done without feeling it makes her exceptional.
Her line, “Maybe you just didn’t notice before” indicates that it’s not so much that under pressure Gwen has discovered skills she didn’t know she had, but that the adventure outside Camelot has forced Arthur to see her in a larger context. Besides exhibiting how much Gwen has grown in self-confidence from her shy series 1 self, this leads to a moment in which Arthur praises Gwen and expresses his belief in her, a reciprocation of the role she frequently plays with him.
But the problem is obvious. If the episode is really about Arthur gaining a new appreciation of Guinevere, why did we waste all this time on Merlin? Why wasn’t Gwen simply the main character all along?
I have no good answer to that question. In fact, I’d say the episode never seems to decide whether Gwen or Merlin should be the main character, and as a result we don’t have enough time in either’s perspective to create a coherent narrative line.
Tridents and trios. This leaves us with a jumble of plotlines-Arthur and Merlin, Merlin and Gwen, Gwen and Arthur-all of which revolve around the OT3 of our future kingdom. Beneath the jumble, the episode seems to be trying to say something about the way the central threesome work together as a team.
That theme is foreshadowed in our first establishing shot, when we see the village of Longstead flies flags with the emblem of a trident. This is distinctly odd, as that’s not Camelot’s flag, and the show is very careful about this type of continuity and heraldry in particular. (Remember when Cenred’s emblem appeared in “The Last Dragonlord,” long before Cenred himself and his armies did?)
But four separate scenes show the trident flags with their golden backgrounds. I believe they’re meant to remind us of the golden trident Arthur saw in his vision and sought in the Perilous Lands in “The Eye of the Phoenix.” As in that episode, we have a team of three people who get the job done.
This time, Merlin, Guinevere, and Arthur working together despite distance ultimately get Arthur to the castle to dispatch the monster. Even more compelling, the lamia only dies when she’s been stabbed by all three members of the OT3.
Strength, magic, and courage. It might be a stretch to connect the lamia to the “triple death” story motif in the Arthurian legends, in which a magical figure can only die once killed three times.
But it’s surely not a coincidence that all three members of the OT3 stab the lamia with a sword, using their respective talents: Merlin, his magic; Gwen, her courage; and Arthur, his strength. In both of the latter cases, the characters are also demonstrating their tenacity and loyalty to friends in need in terrible circumstances.
(In fact, you can dimly sense the outline of a plot in which Merlin learns a version of the lesson that Arthur has struggled with all series 4-that he can count on his loved ones to be loyal to him, and that he is actually more effective as part of a team than on his own. But it doesn’t come through, because we never see Merlin reflect on the experience.)
After all, the only reason Arthur manages to kill the lamia is because a) Merlin forced her to change forms with his initial attack, so she can’t enchant him, and b) Guinevere has wounded and distracted her in the moment he delivers the killing blow. And Arthur actually gives Gwen some credit in his interactions with her and Merlin both.
Masculinities. Arthur’s sexism has come up for discussion in this episode, where it connects strongly to the misogyny of both Lamia’s character and the entire good-king-v.-bad-priestess backstory. Unfortunately, at this point, sexism is an established and consistent (if unlikeable) part of Arthur’s character-rather like Merlin’s tendency to use lethal force.
But I have seen a number of discussions that excuse Arthur’s misogynistic statement that it’s better to die than be saved by a woman because he is “a man of his time.” This is patently ridiculous. Merlin is not set in any recognizable historical era; it’s a fantasy, and the gender dynamics it presents (like its use of race and many other facets) are drawn from contemporary life and ideas.
(It’s fascinating to me that in a show filled with dragons, witches, and tomatoes, viewers will try to play the historical accuracy card when it comes to gender. You see this in the fan idea Morgana doesn’t have any claim to the throne because she’s an illegitamite daughter, for instance-a claim that tries to impose political and religious norms from a specific European historical era onto an ahistorical fantasy.
But the institutions of kingship, marriage, and religion-to say nothing of political relationships between kingdoms and gender dynamics-of Camelot bear no resemblance any historical era, and certainly not the Middle Ages. It’s like trying to apply Newton’s third law in a setting that disavows the existence of gravity.)
Nowhere does the show indicate that Arthur’s idea of gender are at all normative or a function of his era. In fact, given that several high-born women are trained in sword-fighting, and the occasional woman has appeared among the redcloak knights, his position-that women can fight but men are supposed to beat them-is clearly not universal.
That’s why his sexist statements come up most often in jest with Merlin. It doesn’t matter whether Arthur actually believes what he says (which is debatable); the point is that he’s using the idea to ridicule Merlin, enforcing a certain type of masculinity and his and Merlin’s respective positions in the pecking order of manliness.
Knights under pressure. This episode gave the knights a lot of exposure, but no great chances for growth. Despite the fact that they spent much of the episode enchanted, each got small moments that reinforce their characterization.
So we see Leon’s role as leader, Percival’s susceptibility to the vulnerable, Elyan’s tendency to back his friends, Gwaine’s hotheadedness, and the like. The battle with the bandits, which demonstrates character and fighting style, is the best example. When Leon wisely counsels caution and avoidance of the bandits, Gwaine rashly runs in, and the other daredevil of the bunch, Elyan, is right behind him.
There’s a lot of pairing of Gwaine and Elyan in this episode. (Remember the knife-throwing scenes, when those two grinned madly while the more sober Leon and Percival looked concerned about Arthur?) They each have friendship moments with Merlin before the spell begins, and and once Elyan falls ill, Gwaine carries his body. And the spell creates parallel ruptures in Merlin’s friendship with Gwaine and Gwen’s relationship with Elyan.
And while the spells distorts their personalities, it doesn’t entirely change them. Leon has always been a defender of class hierarchies and the status quo from the first moment he appeared (when he threw the joust to Arthur, his superior), and the oppressive attitude that informs his reasoning when he attacks Merlin is entirely in character. At the same time, it’s very out of character for him to be so nasty to Merlin, which augments the sense of menace.
Likewise, Gwen’s reaction (she actually tears up) to Elyan’s cruel dismissal shows how far he is from his usual self. But though we’ve seen little of the sibling relationship so far, Elyan’s earlier disappearing act would indicate that their disagreements aren’t entirely new.
It’s also interesting that Elyan appears to grow uneasy or wary of Lamia just before she gives him the kiss of death, and that Leon is actually able to throw off he enchantment when he sees Lamia drain Percival.
Done at last! Off to watch the next episode and try to catch up…
The main problem is a confused narrative structure. There are too many plots at work, several of which are abandoned abruptly or given inadequate setup. By trying to tell too many stories-or not deciding effectively which ones to foreground-the narrative saps the strength from the plots we do see. (To me, personally, this screams of poor editing more than poor writing; but then I have a professional bias there.)
This is a shame, because several of these plots, particularly the one focused on the Merlin/Gwen relationship, are fascinating. But the end result is an episode whose parts are far less than their sum.
Bait and switch. Most of the episode’s first third sets up a plot about Merlin taking on more responsibility as a junior physician at Arthur’s court. This is a wonderful development, which builds on the increased medical knowledge Merlin showed in series 3, and Gaius’s more recent attemtps to slowly make Arthur more aware of his support.
Gaius’s incremental method (in clear contrast to Merlin’s in “The Wicked Day”) cleverly pushes both Arthur and Merlin himself, who value our hero for a very particular and narrow range of skills, to imagine him in a position of greater responsibility. There’s characterization in Gaius’s caution, Arthur’s difficulty imagining a future different from the present, and the closer advising relationship between them both.
We see Merlin’s own self-doubts (a hint to the gap between his fantasy of recognition and his readiness for a public role), work ethic (as he crams for the job), and his very real respect for Gaius’s abilities as a physician. We also see the loyalty of his friends, as both Gwen and Elyan back him up when John challenges his abilities.
(Incidentally, Elyan’s shout-out to the intro-“His name is Merlin!”-is the funniest joke in the episode. If my job involved being unconscious for much of the episode I’d queue up to take over Kilgarrah’s lines too.)
So far, so good. This plot provides a clear starting place for both Merlin and Arthur, a well-defined conflict, and an arc of Merlin proving himself that is easy to imagine and resonates perfectly with the show’s overall trajectory.
But this plot is abruptly abandoned as soon as our heroes decide to leave Longstead for Camelot. The brief echo when Gaius tells John that Merlin is right has no resonance, because Gaius already knows how capable Merlin is and John is too minor a character for his change of mind to carry any weight. Neither Merlin nor Arthur, the two doubters, changes their assessment of Merlin’s capabilities.
Nor do they have any reason to, because Merlin is not particularly useful in this episode. He is largely ineffective with Lamia not only because her enchantment preys upon his disempowered position vis-à-vis the knights, but also because in the end, his magic isn’t enough to contain her. (At least not alone.) So the Merlin-proves-himself plot fizzles out to nothing.
Instead, the narrative runs smack into an entirely different plot and its second major pitfall, which is Lamia.
Once and future stereotypes. Far more eloquent posts than mine have already pointed out the many problems with Lamia, who is not only a walking misogynistic stereotype but a cliché for both the genre and this particular show.
But protests about Lamia herself have eclipsed the problematic backstory she brings to light. In this episode we learn for the first time that the high priestesses of the Old Religion fought wars with the ancient kings, which reinscribes the good man/evil woman binary all over again.
By this time it has become clear that Morgana is heir to the former tradition as Arthur someday will be to the latter, for these ancient kings (who, in a head-scratching conflation of democracy with autocracy, “believed in equality in all things”) first established the Round Table ethos. The fact that the history of this fantasy land is built on a battle of the sexes between good men and evil women is very problematic.
At least it therefore makes sense that the lamia can’t affect women, because the priestesses didn’t want to fall prey to their own creations. Lamia is basically a genetically-engineered supersoldier in a fantasy setting, but sadly, the episode doesn’t elaborate on Gaius’s implication that the lamia were more powerful and dangerous than the priestesses expected. (Also, clumsy borrowings from The Lord of the Rings, or at least Peter Jackson’s films thereof, are always a bad sign on Merlin.)
This backstory raises many questions that I only hope fic will answer: Where did the girls whose blood was used come from? Do the lamia retain any of their memories? Were the lamia in fact intent on overthrowing the priestesses? What have they been doing for the past hundred years? Why is the CGI in this episode so painfully bad?
Then there’s the question of who in the south has sent for our Lamia, why Lamia consider it "home," and what purpose this unknown figure was planning on using her for. The fact that this is never addressed is another gaping hole, but I suspect the show might answer the question in an upcoming episode.
Still, given that Lamia has a backstory involving the priestesses and potential tension with the same, it seems a terrible loss that there was no attempt to connect her to Morgana-even if only in dialogue.
Missing in action. Alas, Morgana was evidentally off attending the prestigious World Interfantasy Convention of Knaves and Evil-Doers, leaving her co-conspirator behind to pine and pout. Agravaine would have joined her, except that his membership in the prestigious villains club was about to expire, and he had to commit an immediate act of evil to renew. Hence his utterly unprepared-for moment with the trail in this episode.
Yes, I know Agravaine finds Arthur’s devotion to Guinevere threatening. This is still the most logical explanation.
Lamia. Sadly, on her own, Lamia lacks even a shred of motivation, and is deadly dull. (One feels for the actress handed this part, who at least manages her material with grace.) Even worse, much of the narrative tension is drained by Gaius’s exposition, which removes any faint trace of suspense.
This is truly unfortunate, because Lamia seems intended to distract the audience from the story’s structural flaws, and that would only work if she were a compelling, scene-stealing villain. Her thematic role in the story-the idea that Lamia, Gwen, and Merlin are all more dangerous than they seem-is also weak.
At least in terms of its internal structure, the Lamia plot does work. There’s a clear escalation of the tension between her and Merlin from their instant sensing of each other’s magic and mutual hatred.
Merlin tries to assess her threat, Lamia uses Percival to lash out at Merlin, Merlin stops her from draining Percival’s life, Lamia turns the knights en masse away from Camelot, Merlin starts to feel Gwen out as an ally, Lamia drains Elyan, Gwen joins Merlin and they begin to actively plot together, Lamia traps them in the abandoned castle.
The stakes get bigger with each movement, but the most interesting moment-and the closest Lamia gets to an actual personality-comes in her brief exchange with Guinevere. Flush from her success in draining Elyan, she arrogantly tips her own hand-and Guinevere carefully steps away and instantly becomes her enemy. (Do not mess with the future queen’s brother.)
Importantly for both characterization and plot, Merlin doesn’t persuade Gwen that Lamia is a danger and a threat; Gwen comes to the conclusion on her own. In fact, as the climax shows, Lamia’s big mistake throughout is identifying only Merlin as her enemy and discounting Gwen.
This is important. We don’t really care about the Merlin-v.-Lamia battle, and we’re not really meant to. Lamia is simply a device to highlight the relationship between Merlin and Gwen, which-although inadequately set up-is the central plot of the episode.
The heart of the matter. The Merlin/Gwen plot has three key scenes, and a number of smaller moments (including a lovely shout-out to their first joint detective adventure, when Merlin looks at her as he discusses using a tincture of belladonna as medicine).
The first scene occurs after Gwaine and Leon fight, and Leon shows marked hostility to Merlin but not to Gwen as both tend his wound. Merlin for the first time shares his suspicions of Lamia, and Gwen asks, “How could she affect them like this?”
The answer, obviously, is magic, but Merlin cannot answer it without outing himself; the question is a synedoche for the larger shadow Merlin’s secret casts over their friendship, creating distance, forestalling honesty, and preventing him and Gwen from teaming up.
As soon as the question arises, Merlin withdraws-first looking down at the ground and falling silent, then getting up and walking away. The next morning we viewers see that he has even moved further to the edge of the campsite, and though he and Gwen are paired, there is more distance between them than between Leon and Gwaine, who just tried to kill each other.
So this first exchange illustrates the cost to Merlin and Gwen’s friendship of the magic secret. The second key moment, coming after they have started to work effectively as a team-by conniving to leave Arthur a trail and by using their very different approaches to try to steer the knights-is when Guinevere draws close to that very same secret.
“As if you were the enemy.” This second scene repeats elements we’ve seen before. Again, Guinevere asks a question whose only answer is Merlin’s magic; again, Merlin dodges. But this time, Gwen is too perceptive to let it drop.
One note on the background: Gwen has been weeping for Elyan, who is near death, and during the entire exchange her voice is roughened by tears. Her turn toward analyzing their situation and using her detective skills is an attempt to distract herself, to escape her grief.
Her intelligence and tenacity are displayed as she identifies the flaws in Merlin’s clumsy lie, but Gwen isn’t just smart-she’s also a skilled reader of interpersonal dynamics. Her suspicions arise not just from Merlin’s immunity to the spell, but from the revulsion with which Lamia treats him.
Just as earlier Gwen’s ability to read Lamia convinced her that the helpless damsel was dangerous, here that same skill leads her close to Merlin’s secret. It’s not only Lamia who’s underestimated Gwen; Merlin has also overlooked her abilities.
Again, Merlin responds to her probing by withdrawing-basically running away-though here Gwaine’s scream provides a much better excuse. Gwen is terrified to be left on her own, understandably; her friends have gone off one by one as in a haunted house flick.
Sir Guinevere. The final scene comes after Gwen has, despite her fear, taken up a sword and gone in search of Merlin. When he comes pelting down the corridor with the lamia on his heels, he pushes Gwen ahead of him, saving her but being caught by the monster himself.
Truly terrified now, Gwen clearly has a chance to get away, but instead makes a desperate decision not to leave Merlin. Despite the fact that she has no sword-training, she rushes the lamia and wounds it with a direct sword-thrust. It’s an act of absolute loyalty to her friend and courage in the heat of a hard moment. And indisputable proof that Guinevere is awesome.
The almost-reveal. Which brings us to the crux of the episode: the fact that Merlin very nearly reveals his magic to Guinevere. Everything that’s gone before-the exploration of the Merlin/Gwen friendship dynamics, the edging up to his secret-prepares for the moment when both friends are crawling on the floor, and Merlin prepares to use magic in front of her.
And Gwen is the obvious choice to whom to reveal himself. She and Merlin not only have years of friendship, but have just bonded when everyone else has turned on them, giving Gwen a taste of what Merlin lives every day. Gwen has already started to figure out his secret, and Merlin has just seen her willing sacrifice herself for him.
By refusing to let him die, Gwen has just demonstrated the traits of a friend who could keep his secret. And their emergency situation provides Merlin with the perfect justification-exactly the dramatic reveal that he’s been looking for.
Had the story actually gone there, I think Gwen would have been shocked and unhappy, but wouldn’t tell Arthur right away. (If “The Servant of Two Masters” establishes anything, it’s that Gwen has no problem lying to Arthur about magical matters to protect Merlin.) Part of me still wishes we didn’t get to see Arthur arrive to awkward silence, implausible explanations, and tensions that would have worked their way through future episodes.
Almost good to see you. Little wonder, then, that Merlin is disappointed when Arthur steals his thunder. Once Arthur makes his dramatic entrance, you can see Gwen’s joy rise as Merlin’s face falls. And where they were once united crawling on the floor, Gwen immediately rises to embrace Arthur and the friends are physically separated once more. Merlin’s reply to Arthur that he too finds it “almost good” to see him holds some bitterness about the road not taken.
Arthur ex machina. Arthur’s abrupt entry serves the show’s mandate to keep the magic secret, of course. But structurally, it creates several problems. First, we’re robbed of a climax to the Merlin/Gwen arc, which despite taking up most of the episode ends as abruptly as the aborted Merlin-as-physician plot did earlier.
Second, the plot remains undersupported because we never get another Merlin/Gwen interaction in which we could see them reestablish equilibrium. Such a scene would have demonstrated where the friendship is after the almost-reveal moment passed, as we’ve seen in other episodes, in which Arthur almost finds out.
Maybe they avoided such a scene because they couldn’t come up with a plausible and in-character explanation for Gwen to let the matter of Merlin’s secret drop. But the result robs us of resolution.
Instead, both Merlin and Gwen get concluding scenes with Arthur instead. This mirrors the beginning of the episode, of course, and moves us into yet another plot, about Arthur and Guinevere.
Village king and queen. The episode both begins and ends with our main couple-not simply because Gwen’s advocacy with the king for her friend Mary starts the ball rolling, but because John and Mary Howden, the village leaders, are clearly mean to be analogs for Arthur and Guinevere, an image of what their marriage might look like decades later.
John as village elder shows courage, a strong sense of responsibility, and (not incidentally) lack of faith in Merlin’s abilities; Mary uses personal connections and diplomacy to advocate for her fellow villages. In addition, they clearly love each other deeply, and their hug once reunited parallels Arthur and Gwen’s embrace.
The episode coda emphasizes that Arthur has been impressed with Guinevere’s conduct under stress and sees it as a form of growth. Gwen herself knows better-she takes his compliments in stride but without false modesty, valuing what she’s done without feeling it makes her exceptional.
Her line, “Maybe you just didn’t notice before” indicates that it’s not so much that under pressure Gwen has discovered skills she didn’t know she had, but that the adventure outside Camelot has forced Arthur to see her in a larger context. Besides exhibiting how much Gwen has grown in self-confidence from her shy series 1 self, this leads to a moment in which Arthur praises Gwen and expresses his belief in her, a reciprocation of the role she frequently plays with him.
But the problem is obvious. If the episode is really about Arthur gaining a new appreciation of Guinevere, why did we waste all this time on Merlin? Why wasn’t Gwen simply the main character all along?
I have no good answer to that question. In fact, I’d say the episode never seems to decide whether Gwen or Merlin should be the main character, and as a result we don’t have enough time in either’s perspective to create a coherent narrative line.
Tridents and trios. This leaves us with a jumble of plotlines-Arthur and Merlin, Merlin and Gwen, Gwen and Arthur-all of which revolve around the OT3 of our future kingdom. Beneath the jumble, the episode seems to be trying to say something about the way the central threesome work together as a team.
That theme is foreshadowed in our first establishing shot, when we see the village of Longstead flies flags with the emblem of a trident. This is distinctly odd, as that’s not Camelot’s flag, and the show is very careful about this type of continuity and heraldry in particular. (Remember when Cenred’s emblem appeared in “The Last Dragonlord,” long before Cenred himself and his armies did?)
But four separate scenes show the trident flags with their golden backgrounds. I believe they’re meant to remind us of the golden trident Arthur saw in his vision and sought in the Perilous Lands in “The Eye of the Phoenix.” As in that episode, we have a team of three people who get the job done.
This time, Merlin, Guinevere, and Arthur working together despite distance ultimately get Arthur to the castle to dispatch the monster. Even more compelling, the lamia only dies when she’s been stabbed by all three members of the OT3.
Strength, magic, and courage. It might be a stretch to connect the lamia to the “triple death” story motif in the Arthurian legends, in which a magical figure can only die once killed three times.
But it’s surely not a coincidence that all three members of the OT3 stab the lamia with a sword, using their respective talents: Merlin, his magic; Gwen, her courage; and Arthur, his strength. In both of the latter cases, the characters are also demonstrating their tenacity and loyalty to friends in need in terrible circumstances.
(In fact, you can dimly sense the outline of a plot in which Merlin learns a version of the lesson that Arthur has struggled with all series 4-that he can count on his loved ones to be loyal to him, and that he is actually more effective as part of a team than on his own. But it doesn’t come through, because we never see Merlin reflect on the experience.)
After all, the only reason Arthur manages to kill the lamia is because a) Merlin forced her to change forms with his initial attack, so she can’t enchant him, and b) Guinevere has wounded and distracted her in the moment he delivers the killing blow. And Arthur actually gives Gwen some credit in his interactions with her and Merlin both.
Masculinities. Arthur’s sexism has come up for discussion in this episode, where it connects strongly to the misogyny of both Lamia’s character and the entire good-king-v.-bad-priestess backstory. Unfortunately, at this point, sexism is an established and consistent (if unlikeable) part of Arthur’s character-rather like Merlin’s tendency to use lethal force.
But I have seen a number of discussions that excuse Arthur’s misogynistic statement that it’s better to die than be saved by a woman because he is “a man of his time.” This is patently ridiculous. Merlin is not set in any recognizable historical era; it’s a fantasy, and the gender dynamics it presents (like its use of race and many other facets) are drawn from contemporary life and ideas.
(It’s fascinating to me that in a show filled with dragons, witches, and tomatoes, viewers will try to play the historical accuracy card when it comes to gender. You see this in the fan idea Morgana doesn’t have any claim to the throne because she’s an illegitamite daughter, for instance-a claim that tries to impose political and religious norms from a specific European historical era onto an ahistorical fantasy.
But the institutions of kingship, marriage, and religion-to say nothing of political relationships between kingdoms and gender dynamics-of Camelot bear no resemblance any historical era, and certainly not the Middle Ages. It’s like trying to apply Newton’s third law in a setting that disavows the existence of gravity.)
Nowhere does the show indicate that Arthur’s idea of gender are at all normative or a function of his era. In fact, given that several high-born women are trained in sword-fighting, and the occasional woman has appeared among the redcloak knights, his position-that women can fight but men are supposed to beat them-is clearly not universal.
That’s why his sexist statements come up most often in jest with Merlin. It doesn’t matter whether Arthur actually believes what he says (which is debatable); the point is that he’s using the idea to ridicule Merlin, enforcing a certain type of masculinity and his and Merlin’s respective positions in the pecking order of manliness.
Knights under pressure. This episode gave the knights a lot of exposure, but no great chances for growth. Despite the fact that they spent much of the episode enchanted, each got small moments that reinforce their characterization.
So we see Leon’s role as leader, Percival’s susceptibility to the vulnerable, Elyan’s tendency to back his friends, Gwaine’s hotheadedness, and the like. The battle with the bandits, which demonstrates character and fighting style, is the best example. When Leon wisely counsels caution and avoidance of the bandits, Gwaine rashly runs in, and the other daredevil of the bunch, Elyan, is right behind him.
There’s a lot of pairing of Gwaine and Elyan in this episode. (Remember the knife-throwing scenes, when those two grinned madly while the more sober Leon and Percival looked concerned about Arthur?) They each have friendship moments with Merlin before the spell begins, and and once Elyan falls ill, Gwaine carries his body. And the spell creates parallel ruptures in Merlin’s friendship with Gwaine and Gwen’s relationship with Elyan.
And while the spells distorts their personalities, it doesn’t entirely change them. Leon has always been a defender of class hierarchies and the status quo from the first moment he appeared (when he threw the joust to Arthur, his superior), and the oppressive attitude that informs his reasoning when he attacks Merlin is entirely in character. At the same time, it’s very out of character for him to be so nasty to Merlin, which augments the sense of menace.
Likewise, Gwen’s reaction (she actually tears up) to Elyan’s cruel dismissal shows how far he is from his usual self. But though we’ve seen little of the sibling relationship so far, Elyan’s earlier disappearing act would indicate that their disagreements aren’t entirely new.
It’s also interesting that Elyan appears to grow uneasy or wary of Lamia just before she gives him the kiss of death, and that Leon is actually able to throw off he enchantment when he sees Lamia drain Percival.
Done at last! Off to watch the next episode and try to catch up…