By: Howard Overman
**Spoilers**
If you have not yet seen this episode, please go and do so before proceeding.
Now things start to look a little bit more like the Camelot we were all expecting to see whenever this show first started to air. This is the true beginning of the Arthur/Gwen story arc and is written by the wonderful Howard Overman. For all I complain about the writing in Merlin and all of the continuity errors and just plain badly-constructed stories, I've found that Overman is the man. His episodes are always interesting, almost always tightly written, and are just a lot of fun to watch.
This is no different. Usually I'm not much of a one for romance-based episodes, but this one was such a delightful character study that I just have to give it a thumbs-up. The reason for this is that the romance very much takes a back burner to the expansion of both Arthur and Gwen's characters. We've known for a while now that Gwen is nervous, shy, and has a tendency to speak without thinking and then awkwardly backtrack (she reminds me a bit of Molly Hooper, to be honest). We've also known that Arthur is a well-meaning, oblivious, immature prat. So naturally, before they could put these two into any kind of believable relationship, they had to deal with these personality traits and the way they affect the ability of the characters to even connect in the first place.
Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:
- The episode opens with the clichéd-king of clichéd-evil-kings seeking revenge on Arthur by hiring the most feared assassin in the land (who very quickly displays that Camelot's guards are not the only useless ones) to kill the prince. Some of the most hilarious stuff you've ever seen.
- Also...I think I spotted Sir Leon in that scene?! Was he spying on this king for Uther or were they just running short on extras that day?
- We have jousting this episode. JOUSTING. *wriggles in seat excitedly* Somehow the whole existence of this show is made far more authentic by the presence of a jousting tournament. Now all we need is for Sir Kay to show up...
- This episode is also our introduction to Sir Leon, the Incredible Bouncing Knight.
- Somehow Arthur making the connection about winning the tournament because the knights are too afraid to actually try to hit him and then grousing about it as he stalks through his chambers, shedding pieces of armor for Merlin to pick up, just cracks me up.
- Historical inaccuracy, there, though. Those suits of jousting armor would be so heavy that the knights could barely walk. They had hoists to get them up on their horses. (Poor horses!)
- "Now YOU'RE doing it! You're tell me what you think I want to hear!" "NO! Yes. Um...what was the question?" Smooth, Merlin, smooth.
- The scene where Arthur is lying to his father (I wonder if Uther realizes he is so easy to manipulate?) so that he can 'disappear' for a week never fails to get a laugh out of me.
- Neither does Merlin tripping over an invisible chicken. And I still don't know where Merlin got that shirt nor, if it is indeed his, why it actually fits Arthur.
- And I wonder what exactly those guards did while Arthur was gadding about in Camelot...
- You know...Arthur is really lucky that he didn't get picked up as a druid, stalking through Camelot in that cloak like that. Guess the guards are more useless than I thought, because he wasn't exactly subtle.
- I really feel like the assassin plot was unneeded. It literally feels stapled on to the episode, like Overman handed the script in to the show runner, only to be told that contract mandates that Merlin must have some sort of foe requiring him to use covert-yet-painfully-obvious magic to defeat it so he went back and spliced in the assassin subplot to appease. The story with Arthur and Gwen and Arthur learning to grow up would have been plot enough.
- Poor Merlin is SO overworked this episode! But it's worth it because we get the rant to rule all rants (completely improvised by Colin Morgan, I might add...)
- He just summed up Merlin's life in one paragraph. They should fire a few people and hire HIM to write for them!
- This is the episode that convinced me Arthur Pendragon is a superbly written character. This show...it really feels like they flung all of their creative power and skill into creating and fleshing out these characters (helped by the wonderful cast) and then had little left over for story-telling. Because the characters are great. All of them. I can't think of a single member of the main cast who is clichéd, boring, or badly-written. Arthur himself is a very interesting character. He's noble and proud and has all the right ideas, but is too immature to notice whenever he's being rude. He's loving and smart and wants to help people, but is too inexperienced to notice whenever he's doing the exact opposite. It took Gwen finally getting disgusted to the point of getting over her timidity and royally dressing him down for this to start to change. Oh the look of shock and sudden understanding on his face whenever he realizes that he accidentally took her bed and left her on the floor!
- And, of course, once he realizes that what she said was true he mans up to it and apologizes. He even offers to make her dinner and gives it a good try despite the fact that he mucks it all up.
- Arthur cooking, though...
- Apparently Merlin agrees with me because he's only too willing to fetch two dinners from the palace kitchen, despite the fact that the cook hates him.
- I don't know why they teased the assassin actually killing Arthur so many times. This isn't SPN...we're not actually worried that one of our leads could die at this point!
- It is nice that Arthur is enough of a gentleman to admit whenever he's wrong and then try to give Gwen a lovely evening as thanks for it all. There is a noble king hiding somewhere under Prince Prat. I can't even fault him for the 'ordering from palace kitchen' trick, though maybe he should have owned up about it. Arthur can't cook worth squat, that's obvious (at least he didn't have to butcher the chicken too...) and I rather think that anything he attempted to make would have made poor Gwen rather ill.
- Also...I think I spotted Sir Leon in that scene?! Was he spying on this king for Uther or were they just running short on extras that day?
- We have jousting this episode. JOUSTING. *wriggles in seat excitedly* Somehow the whole existence of this show is made far more authentic by the presence of a jousting tournament. Now all we need is for Sir Kay to show up...
- This episode is also our introduction to Sir Leon, the Incredible Bouncing Knight.
- Somehow Arthur making the connection about winning the tournament because the knights are too afraid to actually try to hit him and then grousing about it as he stalks through his chambers, shedding pieces of armor for Merlin to pick up, just cracks me up.
- Historical inaccuracy, there, though. Those suits of jousting armor would be so heavy that the knights could barely walk. They had hoists to get them up on their horses. (Poor horses!)
- "Now YOU'RE doing it! You're tell me what you think I want to hear!" "NO! Yes. Um...what was the question?" Smooth, Merlin, smooth.
- The scene where Arthur is lying to his father (I wonder if Uther realizes he is so easy to manipulate?) so that he can 'disappear' for a week never fails to get a laugh out of me.
- Neither does Merlin tripping over an invisible chicken. And I still don't know where Merlin got that shirt nor, if it is indeed his, why it actually fits Arthur.
- And I wonder what exactly those guards did while Arthur was gadding about in Camelot...
- You know...Arthur is really lucky that he didn't get picked up as a druid, stalking through Camelot in that cloak like that. Guess the guards are more useless than I thought, because he wasn't exactly subtle.
- I really feel like the assassin plot was unneeded. It literally feels stapled on to the episode, like Overman handed the script in to the show runner, only to be told that contract mandates that Merlin must have some sort of foe requiring him to use covert-yet-painfully-obvious magic to defeat it so he went back and spliced in the assassin subplot to appease. The story with Arthur and Gwen and Arthur learning to grow up would have been plot enough.
- Poor Merlin is SO overworked this episode! But it's worth it because we get the rant to rule all rants (completely improvised by Colin Morgan, I might add...)
- He just summed up Merlin's life in one paragraph. They should fire a few people and hire HIM to write for them!
- This is the episode that convinced me Arthur Pendragon is a superbly written character. This show...it really feels like they flung all of their creative power and skill into creating and fleshing out these characters (helped by the wonderful cast) and then had little left over for story-telling. Because the characters are great. All of them. I can't think of a single member of the main cast who is clichéd, boring, or badly-written. Arthur himself is a very interesting character. He's noble and proud and has all the right ideas, but is too immature to notice whenever he's being rude. He's loving and smart and wants to help people, but is too inexperienced to notice whenever he's doing the exact opposite. It took Gwen finally getting disgusted to the point of getting over her timidity and royally dressing him down for this to start to change. Oh the look of shock and sudden understanding on his face whenever he realizes that he accidentally took her bed and left her on the floor!
- And, of course, once he realizes that what she said was true he mans up to it and apologizes. He even offers to make her dinner and gives it a good try despite the fact that he mucks it all up.
- Arthur cooking, though...- Apparently Merlin agrees with me because he's only too willing to fetch two dinners from the palace kitchen, despite the fact that the cook hates him.
- I don't know why they teased the assassin actually killing Arthur so many times. This isn't SPN...we're not actually worried that one of our leads could die at this point!
- It is nice that Arthur is enough of a gentleman to admit whenever he's wrong and then try to give Gwen a lovely evening as thanks for it all. There is a noble king hiding somewhere under Prince Prat. I can't even fault him for the 'ordering from palace kitchen' trick, though maybe he should have owned up about it. Arthur can't cook worth squat, that's obvious (at least he didn't have to butcher the chicken too...) and I rather think that anything he attempted to make would have made poor Gwen rather ill.
The episode then plays out pretty much as you would expect. Arthur jousts, Merlin saves the day, Gwen is wonderful, Arthur wins, blah, blah, blah. Really the only notable thing that happens is that Arthur gives Gwen a kiss goodbye and she gives him a scrap of cloth to wear as her favor. Clearly his attempts to make up for his prattish ways made and impression and the two of them part ways in this episode friends and maybe something a little bit more. And Merlin finally gets that leech tank cleaned...so all's well that ends well. The Once and Future Queen is a 4/5.
What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?
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