We all knew this televisual make-out session Merlin and I were having was too good to last. It’s physically impossible for me to love every single episode of a season, and while season four and I had a great run, we’ve reached it: the first episode of the season I really didn’t like.
It’s not because of the blatant sexism (and oh, I could go into such a long, Women’s Studies 101 rant about the portrayal of female sexuality in this episode, but that’s boring and off-point, so I’ll refrain), or just because I’m just plain sick of Everyone’s A Dick To Merlin episodes (though they still grate mightily), but because the writers of this show seem capable of writing Merlin and Arthur interaction well, or Merlin and Gwen interaction well, but the second they put all three of them together, and everything crumbles.
Let’s get a few misconceptions out of the way first. One, I have no issues with Gwen as a character. I love Gwen, and I adored her this episode. Everything about her was perfect. I want this Gwen being competent and sword-wield-y and independent and figuring stuff out to stay around forever. (Also I want that blouse she wore under her purple cape. It was gorgeous.)
Second, as much as I totally want Arthur and Merlin to make out and run away into the sunset holding hands, that’s mostly just because I can’t see a narrative conclusion that in any way makes sense besides that one. I mean, yes, the rest of it is because that would be objectively super-attractive, but mostly it’s just that I don’t understand how Merlin can possibly be construed as anything other than the most epic gay love story of our time. I’ve tried. But it just doesn’t make sense otherwise.
This, however, is not my ideal direction for the show to go in. No, my ideal version is something I call “Merlin and Gwen’s Magical Detective Agency,” which is basically like a medieval Veronica Mars. Gwen and Merlin are old-timey PIs, Morgana is their morally gray informant, and Arthur is head of the knights who are Merlin and Gwen’s hired muscle. Arthur, Merlin, and Gwen have a friendship that occasionally ventures hints at various permutations of them together romantically, and eventually Merlin and Arthur probably get together, but mostly they are all best friends. Together, they fight magical crime. It’s awesome. The only reason I’m okay with this not being the essential plot of Merlin is because then it leaves me something to write if I ever want to create a TV show of my own.
My issue with this episode is twofold. One: I hate Everyone Is Mean to Merlin episodes. Hate them. I’m resigned to them on a certain level, but I still prefer to avoid them as much as physically possible. We’d been doing so well with not having any of those this season, and it was such a relief to finally have a season where Merlin’s life was’t a never-ending chasm of suck. But my second and biggest issue was the Arthur/Gwen romance that was shoehorned in. This would have been an okay episode if there were no gratuitous attempts to remind us that Arthur and Gwen are True Love Forever. If Arthur had just been concerned because not only Gwen was missing, but so was Merlin and all of his knights, it would have been a pretty unremarkable episode, but instead we had gratuitous Arthur/Gwen overtones, and that made the story clumsy and heavy-handed and soured every bit of Gwen character growth we got, because it was somehow all for Arthur and not about her agency and ability to be her own person at all. It’s like we have two versions of Arthur and Gwen — the ones where they’re attempting to be pathetically in love with each other, and the ones where they actually follow some sort of internally consistent logic as characters. Apart, they’re great. Put them together, and everything begins to fall apart.
Here’s my problem with Arthur and Gwen, and it’s not what you think: it is terrible, terrible writing. I want to like it so badly. He’s good-looking, she’s good-looking, together they’d make good-looking babies, it’s a rags to riches story, it has everything that should make me root for those two crazy kids to rule the crap out of Camelot. But it is perhaps the biggest sledgehammer relationship I have ever seen. Let’s take, oh, any other relationship on the show. You don’t even need to choose a romantic one, or even have to compare it to Merlin and Arthur. Let’s compare it to something simple: Merlin and Gaius. You know their relationship; Gaius is Merlin’s ersatz father/grandfather figure and adviser, and Merlin trusts him and relies him as much as he sometimes feels a little suffocated under his mentorship. Is this ever said? Not really. There are a few mentions of it when Gaius is in mortal danger, but you don’t need to be told it. Think about it this way, when you hear “Gaius is in mortal danger!” you don’t even have to think about why this would be awful for Merlin, you know. And sure, it’s nice to hear Merlin and Gaius say nice things to each other about their relationship, but you know those things already.
In comparison to that sort of relationship, Gwen and Arthur is like the very worst example of why you need to show, not tell. In order for any plot with them to make sense, you need to basically be hit over the head with an exposition anvil. Dialogue between them tends to go like this:
Gwen: Hello, Arthur.
Arthur: Hello, Gwen. You look pretty today. I’m telling you that because I’m secretly in love with you due to our kind-of secret relationship.
Gwen: Thank you Arthur. I un-secretly return your feelings.
Arthur: That’s great, because I have just … so … many… feelings for you.
[They kiss, sunlight streams in, and the camera thankfully pans out, because every time there is a close-up of them kissing it is so profoundly close-mouthed and uncomfortable it makes never kissing anyone ever again seem like a really stellar idea.]
You shouldn’t have to do that, when it comes to a romantic relationship. You shouldn’t have needed the reason behind Arthur’s frantic searching this episode to be specifically for Gwen, because if it wasn’t clarified, the viewer would assume (and rightfully so) that like every other episode, Arthur was frantically searching for Merlin. If I need to be explicitly reminded of Arthur (or Gwen’s) romantic feelings, that’s bad writing. It feels awkward and shoehorned in and, as a viewer, I end up resenting them simply because I feel like I’m having them forced on me instead of being led to accept them like I should have been.
Look, I don’t expect Merlin to be a perfect, well-executed show. I don’t expect it to have consistently good writing. I’m okay with filler episodes and I’m okay with this show being more about the eye candy and less about having any sort of artistic integrity. But I draw the line at a few things, and being told I should have feelings about characters that I have no logical narrative reason to have? That’s a big old line, right there.
Clacked by Julia Hass 
on Nov 21, 2011 @ 18:45 EST5EDT
OMG, Julia thank you for this review. It’s like you took everything that was in my brain after watching it and put it on “paper”. I know we were bound to hit a dud after so many great episodes, but this is literally my least favorite episode of the entire series. Maybe it just seemed so much worse by comparison, but really all of the frustrations you articulated are SO accurate. Here’s hoping this week was an anomaly.
Don’t you think that the Arthur/ Gwen interaction is “chaste” (in the courtly love sense) because they both have a passion for someone else? This seems to me an attempt by Arthur and Gwen to force their lives into what others expect from them. And of course in series 5 it’s all going to go wrong.
I just can say: wow! that´s EXACTLY what I thought about that episode.. just love your reviews and I look so badly forward to your articles after every merlin episode! sry my english isn´t good because I´m from germany and I just have been living here in england for 2 months.
Thank you Julia!!! This is the review I’ve been searching for as I’ve read around desultorily after that episode. It says it all and so brilliantly too.
After incredible, intelligent eps through season 4 this was a horrible jolt back to earth- so bad I had to force myself to watch to the end and I’m sure I nodded off through some Arthur tracking/knights being angry/Merlin and Gwen looking helpless scenes. There were so many. Im pretty sure I missed nothing.
4.08 would have fitted into S3 seamlessly but after the first 7 eps this year this was like a horrible reminder that the same people who thought S3 was a great direction to take are still in charge. The endless repeated scenes, the pointless, long, moving-around shots, the insane illogic of the script (Arthur killed the Lamia, not Gwen and why was it a surprise to him that she used a sword?; the ‘who cares about the knights, Merlin and the villagers- Gwen’s with them!'; the ‘I’d know that anonymous scrap of fabric from an anonymous tunic anywhere’ Gaah!) There was one tiny Arthur & Merlin scene at the end that showed what effortless, natural chemistry is, and what we could have had in that episode if they hadn’t gone grimly back to The Project. So on we went to the final horrifying scene where Arthur patronises poor Gwen like an elderly boss with a young protege who’s met her targets, and they cue the comical heavenly music and beams of sunlight yet again when they ‘kiss’. When do they start with the little bluebirds fluttering around their heads? When do they put up the caption;”This is happy ever after fairytale love by the way. See the sunbeams’? Do they know how ridiculous it is? My head is in my hands. :p
The A/G stuff you pointed out is spot on and why I believe they churn out episodes as criminally clumsy as this one – they’re desperately telling NOT showing because showing doesn’t work. In fact they’re past telling; they’re shouting. I suspect the point of the episode was to remind the audience (since as you say we have to be bludgeoned violently over the head with it periodically) that Arthur is crazy about Gwen and Gwen is born to be queen – in preparation for next week’s proposal and the blip in their eternal fairytale happiness that is Enchanted! Lancelot. I cant see any other reason why they wasted a whole episode on that pointless, drawn-out pap.
The ‘everyone’s mean to Merlin’ ep was a regular feature of the last season as the A/G relationship was pushed to the fore with increasing determination and decreasing subtlety. As you pointed out they still cant seem to manage an episode where Arthur is crazy about Gwen AND obviously close to Merlin. Maybe they know the comparison in chemistry and flirtation will be too painful. The addition of ‘Merlin’s magic is ineffectual to suit the plot’ was another hated trope from last year and once again present and correct. This does not make me feel any more optimistic about the episodes to come that involve Arthur, Lancelot and Gwen.
I thought for a while that the sterility and stiffness and blandness of A/G was entirely deliberate – two good people who love each other in their way but weren’t meant to be romantically bound- in contrast to Gwen/Lancelot which has the effortless chemistry of 2 characters who suit. I told myself through S3 that they were being subtle, building to show why no one is to blame when it goes haywire, even if the haywire is post-S5.
I have to say that now I think I was wrong – they’re not being clever, they just don’t know what else to do. Shrek and Fiona are sexier and more believable and they also have beams of sunlight and orchestras of violins when they do the True Love Kiss. But then they really are meant to be a cartoon fairytale for kids. And they’re ogres.
I agree this episode was indeed the weakest thus far. Perhaps the one true redeemable factor would be Gwen`s heroism . The last time we saw Gwen pick up a sword was in The Moment of Truth. She hasn`t done anything that radical since then.
This show eventually teaches me what is Heteronormative.
And the relationship between Arthur and Merlin is the LOVE dare not speak its name. One can deny they are gay, I totally understand. But if anyone try to deny Arthur and Merlin LOVE each other, then their definition of love is cheap.
I always enjoy your episode commentaries, because you bring up elements that really need to be addressed about this show, and I often completely agree with your perspectives. I’ve simply never understood why people like the Gwen/Arthur relationship — to me, it feels like the series is never more wooden or forced than during their ‘romantic’ exchanges. The writing is clunky at best (in fact, I’m often dismayed at the level of writing quality on this show as a whole, although, to be fair, this is the best season so far) and I don’t see any real chemistry there either.
Merlin and Arthur, on the other hand, instantly click nearly every time they’re on screen together. I don’t even think of their relationship in a homoerotic sense, but I can see why so many people support that angle. Those two really work well together, and (as I’ve said so many times) they’re the real heart of the show.
‘Lamia’ is easily the worst episode of this season so far. The next episode promises to be much more significant and dramatic, but I suspect that it’s going to be a massive cop-out and a disaster. We’ll see…