Dear whoever is in charge of writing Merlin,
THANK YOU.
It is not a secret that I skipped the last episode. Honestly, I couldn’t deal with it, and after watching a few clips on YouTube, I absolutely made the right choice. What was that, show? I can only conclude that a) you’ve decided that completely re-writing Arthur’s character on an episode-by-episode basis is excusable as he has so much brain damage from passing out constantly even he can’t remember who he is anymore, and b) there’s a new “awkwardest kissing ever” award and you really want to win it.
Maybe I should skip episodes more often, because that seems to scare you. Like, you really seem to want to win me back this week. First of all, there was no Gwen, which I’m really sorry to say this but … made the episode way better. Well, scratch that; Gwen in an episode doesn’t make it bad. Gwen and Arthur attempting to be star-crossed lovers makes an episode bad, because not only is it awkward, but you spend the entire episode knowing how utterly screwed that relationship is; and frankly, if you know a relationship is screwed, its pretty impossible to care about it. If Gwen and Merlin stayed doing their whole little magical detective agency thing, you could use her as much as you liked. But man, you really went all out this week, didn’t you? You let Morgana be evil without smirking every five seconds! In fact, I don’t think there was one smirk the entire episode. She was downright subtle! Uther was both deliciously loathsome as well as weirdly sympathetic. Harry Melling made for a great guest star. And Arthur — oh, Arthur.
Look, Arthur, I’m never going to be cool with the fact that you’ve been treating anyone whose name isn’t Gwen like total crap this season, but you somehow made me feel better about it this episode. You made me feel like, hey, it’s not so easy being Arthur. Of course he’s all proud and bullying around everyone, he’s treated like that by his father all the time. It’s what he thinks having a relationship with someone means. And the look on his face when he threw the tournament? Oh Arthur. It’s almost enough to make me forgive you.
But man, if we have to name the number one superstar this episode, I think we have to talk about Mr. Colin Morgan. Colin Morgan is … I don’t even have words for what Colin Morgan is. He acts every episode like it’s the last episode he’ll ever do, or like its the thing that’s going to decide if he wins an Academy award or not. He brings up the caliber of everyone in a scene with him by a factor of about a billion. The range and depth of emotion he gave this episode was honestly staggering.
A lot of my complaint about Season 3 can be summed up by saying, “yes, but what about Merlin?” Because, really, Merlin does it all. Merlin constantly saves Arthur’s life, Merlin’s always risking his own life, Merlin got Gwen and Arthur together, Merlin lost his father and his girlfriend, Merlin gets kicked around as comic relief every single gosh-darn episode, and he gets nothing. No kissing, no glory — maybe a dead arm from Arthur, if he’s lucky and Arthur’s feeling in an emotionally demonstrative mood. And you keep thinking, yeah, okay, Arthur is Merlin’s destiny, but why isn’t Merlin going away and just coming back when Arthur’s less of a douche? Why does Merlin care about Uther? And this episode, while maybe it didn’t answer all of that, made at least some effort to answer those questions. In short, Merlin stays for Arthur. Merlin’s entire world is Arthur, and the future he and Arthur are going to have together, where magic is free and birds sing in the trees and the rivers run with milk and honey. And he sees this as not only the reason he’s special, but it’s what keeps him from being corrupted by his power — because he doesn’t believe his power belongs to him, he believes it belongs to Arthur. And to get all that character and emotion just from a few lines and some big old blue eyes shiny with tears? Bravo, Colin Morgan. Bravo.
There’s still work to be done with the two-part finale coming up, even though it looks promising. For one, more Arthur and Merlin interaction. That was the second-best part of the episode (the first-best being the conversation between Merlin and Gilli when Merlin admitted his magic, nothing can top that). That chemistry has been so tragically neglected this series it’s ridiculous. Never neglect when two actors have chemistry! Ever! It’s like the first rule of television! Also? I’d like more swashbuckling adventures and good times, which it seems you guys are on top of. I continue to believe that every episode of Merlin could be improved a millionfold by sticking Bradley James and Colin Morgan in the middle of the woods on some vague quest for some magical-sounding object, giving them the direction to ad-lib a bunch of banter, and just filming that, punctuated by occasional epic sword fights, for forty-five minutes straight.
Overall, writers, you get an A+ for effort. You are showing marked improvement. At no point in this episode did I tug at my hair and yell “WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT” at my computer screen.
And dang, it feels good to say that for the first time in a long time.
Love,
Julia
Clacked by Julia Hass 
on Nov 20, 2010 @ 21:47 EST5EDT
Colin Morgan. I think no words can describe how talented he is. He REALLY IS.
Bradley James and Colin Morgan. I think no words can describe how GREAT their chemistry is. It REALLY IS. But I think in S3, the show kind of waste the chemistry. It is such a pity. The B/C chemistry (to me) IS THAT RARE THING WHICH CAN ROCK THE WORLD AND MY SOUL.
Definitely one of the best epis of the season. I loved the focus on Merlin, instead of focusing on Morgana, Arthur and Uther.
I agree with all of this but this chunk right here? it is why Colin Morgan is the man of my heart:
He acts every episode like it’s the last episode he’ll ever do, or like its the thing that’s going to decide if he wins an Academy award or not. He brings up the caliber of everyone in a scene with him by a factor of about a billion. The range and depth of emotion he gave this episode was honestly staggering.
The boy is magic, pure and simple. I don’t even know how else to say it.
And this episode was just excellence all around and finally, the return of the Arthur I recognized, sounding fond even when he tells Merlin to shut up. I kind of wanted to cry from sheer joy after the let down the past few weeks (months?) have been.
I think you’ve pick out the best part from Julia’s review. YES, Colin Morgan’s acting. The man is TRULY AWESOME. With HIM, and together with Bradley, this show is totally on another level.
I agree with all of the comments posted today.
When I saw the trailer for 3×11 last week, I thought — not another episode about a misunderstood creature of magic like Freya! I was very pleasantly surprised by this episode — Merlin really came into his own: thoughtful discussions with Gilli, good advice to Arthur (which Arthur actually took!), joking with Kilgharrah, and soul searching about why he was actually doing all of this. The focus of the episode was all on Merlin, which was a welcome relief from episodes in the beginning of Season 3 where the only function Merlin served was someone to throw dishes at!
I liked the good, but unfortunately short, A/M interactions: Arthur saying fondly to Merlin “shut up!”, and Arthur asking Merlin (with a very casual look like friends talking) what to do about fighting his father. On this point I agree with all above: we need more Arthur/Merlin time — it is the heart of the show (as Julia mentioned — put them in the woods and let them talk by the campfire). This episode made it even clearer: a relatively simple plot can made a lot better by some A/M banter and face time. To finish off Season 3 we need the two to really deepen their relationship in a significant way — we will see what Episodes 12 and 13 bring.