psych style adaptation of king arthur where everyone thinks merlin has magic because he keeps solving camelot’s problems but he actually has no magical ability at all and it’s just that everyone else is incompetent. he keeps up the magic thing though by making up weird prophecies and cryptic comments because he kind of needs a job
sir kay is the lassiter figure like so pissed off all the time that merlin is obviously lying and won’t stop interfering with his job, but arthur just kind of keeps merlin around because like yeah the magic thing is ridiculous…but somehow he still is solving everything and doing better than the actual people i hired (kay). so fine by me!
people keep saying this is just connecticut yankee NO. connecticut yankee kills the whimsy and the magic and says look isn’t it funny now? isn’t it funny to strip away the whimsy? no. we are keeping the whimsy. in this plot line magic is still very much real and a very useful skill to have in a royal advisor, one that’s highly sought after. it’s just that merlin doesn’t have it
real magician shows up to court and merlin is like im so fucked. desperately trying to take notes on what real magicians do the whole time. toward the end of the episode merlin realizes this guy is faking too and reveals him as a fraud to the whole court, of course in a way that confirms everyone’s belief that merlin does in fact have magical abilities. arthur is very pleased, patting merlin on the back. “wow I can’t believe he almost got away with that. it’s crazy how easy magic is to fake.” merlin smiles, sweating buckets. sir kay is staring daggers
