meta: the death song of uther pendragon
Rubberglue keeps me updated on Selenak’s wonderful reviews. I always want to reply, but never get around to it. I started writing a reply tonight, and as is often the case when my fingers touch a keyboard, it turned into a massive essay. Brevity is not my strong suit.
I was excited when I heard about ASH returning. While I thought that it was indeed time for Arthur to become king in series four, there was quite a lot left unresolved with Uther’s character. We never did get to see an Uther/Arthur confrontation post 3x13, about Morgana, about Arthur’s knighting of commoners, his openly courting Guinevere, the way he ran as regent, etc. (even though I greatly enjoyed the scenes Bradley and ASH shared in 4x01 and 4x03.)
Instead, they took one more chance that had Arthur dealing with Camelot’s dark legacy under Uther into yet another "slapstick/scary” episode, if that makes any sense, which detracted from more substantive scenes they could have used the forty some minutes for. I agree with Selenak that 4x10 was indeed more effective in the chilling department-- it dealt with a chilling event, but it still had failed to push as far as I wanted to with Camelot’s treatment of Druids and Arthur’s new policies, an afterthought in the end, when these are BIG, multi-series issues that should be treated as such.
Unsurprisingly, 5x03 only focused on Merlin and Arthur’s reactions and feelings and didn’t even really do that in a satisfying way. Arthur was made to look insensibly blind about his father to the point that I was too annoyed to even care when he had come to his senses. I understand that grief can soften memories of the departed, but his actions just came off as reckless and made me understand Morgana’s lack of faith in Arthur ever being different from his father.
Furthermore, Merlin got a reveal that was a nonreveal. I could live with Colin never having to say “I was born with it!” ever again. These game changer avoiding reveals to people who are soon to be deceased are becoming parodies of themselves. I’ve now given up hope that anyone recurring or of the main cast will ever learn of Merlin’s magic.
Even if they didn’t address the knights or Gaius’s views of Uther, both Morgana and Guinevere had extremely interesting relationships with Uther. This could have been touched upon. Oh boy, I would have wanted to see Uther's reaction to knowing what his magic laws had done to Morgana for the past three years. Nope.
It’s as if they gave this assignment to Overman, he waited until the last minute, downed some Red Bull and then typed up something that maybe could pass as an episode on the basic, formulaic, obligatory level (i.e. there will be borderline scenery chewing, SFX and Merlin/Arthur banter and a frustratingly silly coda with Arthur threatening to hurt Merlin like a sadistic older brother, even though he’s probably almost or well into his thirties by now).
Gwen’s part in the episode was offensively wasteful and the violence done unto her felt… gratuitous. It’s not necessarily that I’m rigidly against Gwen ever being in danger or having to face conflict. This is something the dynamic duo, Morgana and the knights face on a weekly basis and is essentially the Merlin badge of being in an episode.
It’s just that it seems as though her pain is always used to move forward the men’s plotlines somehow, that she’s constantly a narrative prop, the literal damsel-in-distress, when they had long ago set the foundations for her to subvert and develop on that trope. Hell, they even did that in the openers.
Don’t get me wrong-the knights face the same fate- as Selenak stated, my new favorite Mordred and Elyan being used as exposition and Percival standing in as Commoner Victim #1 are good examples, but what a colossal wasted opportunity that the Queen of Camelot was just Commoner Victim #2 after she had spent a year caring for Uther. I was one of the few people who had been excited about her caring for Uther in series four, thinking that would complicate their opinions about one another and lead to some interesting scenes between Angel and ASH. I was hoping that Uther’s return might be a chance to ultimately get something like that.
Despite my “scenery chewing comment,” (I was mostly referring to this moment)
(Source: http://frommyheartdowntomylegs.tumblr.com/post/34163319278)
-one thing with Merlin is that the actors manage to make the best out of what they’re given. This was essentially the highlight for me and why the isolated Arthur/Uther and Merlin/Uther scenes worked well, but they were more or less minutes in an otherwise unsatisfying episode.
If only they had been put into a better episode.
There were moments of humor that I did enjoy. Yet again, this has more to do with Bradley and Colin being great comedic partners.
I will admit that I liked that it was Arthur who saved the day and not Merlin’s Lite-Brite eyes. I like it when Merlin and Arthur are shown as complementary and partners-not Merlin as Arthur’s secret fairy godmother/put upon nanny.
It was surprisingly cool that Uther’s first death was caused by one child, Morgana, and his second exit from the world of the living was by Arthur-although he certainly played a part the first time, this time was on purpose-and if they ever decide to do the continuity thing (doubtful), it might put an interesting twist to Merlin’s role in Uther’s death. Remember how Arthur decided that all magic was evil because it took away his precious dad? Well, what about now when it was Arthur himself who sent Uther to the underworld because Camelot was better for it?