Merlin. Sorry, *what*?

[daibhidc]

The start of this episode looked interesting, with Gwen's father being given a mysterious job by a figure with an echoing voice, concealed by a black, hooded robe. At first I wondered if, like Jason Ogg, he was being given the task of shoeing Death's horse. But that's too much like an actual myth for this show[1], so instead we get another farrago of sorcerers plotting against the King, and the king showing us why. But this time, Gwen's dad gets killed on the king's orders for consorting with sorcerers.

Now, normally, even though I spend these posts being sarcastic about anachronisms and odd alterations of the sources, I enjoy the show. But this episode left me feeling really perplexed. Uther's crossed the line; he's killed an innocent man. And what happens? Morgana plots his death, then changes her mind when he says sorry. Merlin learns that leaving someone to be killed is murder, but blasting a potential assassin with lightning from behind is fine. And Gaius points out that at least the ox-carts run on time.

As far as I'm concerned Uther has gone from misguided good-guy to significant villain, and I'm amazed none of the characters see it that way.

[1]I'm being unfair. Last week's unicorn story was so mythical, I spent a while online trying to track down the source, before concluding there wasn't one.

Comments

[cat63.livejournal.com]

As far as I'm concerned Uther has gone from misguided good-guy to significant villain,

I've thought that about him almost from the get-go.

He's obsessed.Mad as a spoon. He's literally unable to think straight on the subject of magic and won't listen to reason from anyone else. Someone like that in charge of an entire country is a disaster waiting to happen.

I thought this episode was going to give us Morgana's (quite justified) turn to the Dark Side. Instead we get the scriptwriters making more excuses for King Irrational. Bah.