#nilrem

Hey, it's Princess Mithian again! And Helios and Agravaine (who is Arthur's uncle, although apparently not Morgana's, and is a lord, not a knight). Boy, if nothing else, it sure is refreshing to see Morgana working with the same allies for multiple episodes in a row. In season five it seemed like she had a new second-in-command every week, which made it hard to care about any of them. Consistency is a plus, even for the bad guys.

Unfortunately, consistency also means that Morgana is consistently terrible at everything she tries to achieve. Oh, Guinevere is unconscious at my feet, and I want to kill her and/or prevent her from spilling my secrets? I guess I could magically snap her neck... but nah, I guess I'll just turn her into a deer for a few hours and assume that Arthur's hunting party will kill her before the spell wears off. Nice job there, Morgana.

Of course, the good guys aren't particularly good at what they do, either. Arthur refuses to listen to Merlin's claims about Agravaine, which makes some sense, since he says he's known his uncle since he was a child. But apparently his confidence extends to the point where he doesn't even post additional guards or anything on the access tunnels between this episode and the next. That's not just trust, that's idiocy. Arthur with all his resources (and Merlin, with his) can't seem to find Gwen, either... Even though she's apparently hanging out in the village where Merlin's mom lives, unbeknownst to either of them.

On the other hand, Merlin can at least tell when an animal is actually a shapeshifted friend of his, so that's something. But back on the main hand, Guinevere doesn't find anything unusual about that in the slightest, and so Merlin's secret magic is preserved another episode. I swear, some days all of these characters seem pretty useless.

Morgana even calls Agravaine out on his uselessness, accusing him of failing her in the past. Plus, he starts out this episode as a bad guy. These things together make me figure that his revelation as a traitor is still ahead for me. I wonder how long I'll go until that reveal, and how long he'll be around on the show acting shifty afterwards. Quite a while, I hope. Again, consistency in bad guys would be a nice change of pace for this show.

Other notes:

--Still no overt discussion of what Guinevere did wrong, but both she and Arthur view it as a betrayal on her part. Interesting. She's also in hiding from him, although I couldn't tell whether the village she's in at the start of this episode is supposed to be the same one she's in with Merlin's mom at the start of the next.

--Arthur ends this episode by refusing to marry Princess Mithian, because he's still in love with Guinevere. And yet he TOTALLY gives Gwen the cold shoulder two episodes from now, initially refusing to take her back and forgive her. Make up your mind, dude.

--Same advice goes to Merlin. At the end of this episode, he tells Arthur that the king should trust what his heart tells him, "Because...you're Arthur. You're noble. You're the once and future king." At the beginning of the next episode, he mind-controls Arthur because the king disagrees with him over how to react to Morgana's attack. Nice consistency there, pal.

The worst part about watching this show backwards is that I keep seeing these really climactic finales to events and assuming that they had equally epic build-ups, only to learn in most cases that that simply isn't true. Here, for example, I get to see Morgana take Camelot. It turns out she does it just by walking out of the woods with an army of Saxons, fighting her way past the castle guards pretty easily. I mean, maybe there was more build-up to this moment in the episode beforehand, but there was definitely no development here for a plot the show expects me to take seriously. Morgana comes out of the woods and takes the castle. What's next?

And then there's Tristan and Isolde, whom I had hoped would be a little more in touch with their traditional characterization in this episode (which turns out to be their first) than in the one after (which ended up being their last, whether planned that way or not). Traditionally, Isolde is a maiden and Tristan is her brave knight, and they defy her husband with their forbidden love, to a disastrous end. Here they're not even sellswords, as I had assumed, but simply smugglers who are pretty good at fighting. And despite this being their introductory episode, they're not really given any further characterization or background. Tristan hates Arthur because Arthur made smuggling illegal -- what a horrible king, right? -- but otherwise we aren't told anything about these characters besides the fact that they love each other. That is the single reason I can think of for why the writers would have named these characters the way they did, and I have to say, it's a pretty weak one. I'm disappointed, especially as this means the show is probably not going to do a version of the actual Tristan and Isolde story, which I rather like.

  Finally, rounding out this episode of mundane beginnings, we get to see Arthur and Guinevere's passionate reuniting. I don't know how long they've been apart or what the nature of their grievance is -- Arthur remembers why at the start of this episode, but he doesn't share that information with me -- but I do get to see these lovers reunite. And what epic journey of true love brought them together? Well, Guinevere just happened to be around, because everybody has to be somewhere.

  Now, there's at least a small chance that Merlin orchestrated this turn of affairs. After all, he led Arthur to that village (which happens to be his former home), and it's certainly possible that he knew Gwen was there beforehand. But if so, the show doesn't dwell on that point at all. It also doesn't make much of the fact that Merlin is seeing his mother again, for what will be the last time on this show. And, unfortunately, I didn't get a sense of whether his mother knew about his magic or not. That's a mystery for another day, I guess. The ghost of his father seemed pretty well-informed in The Diamond of the Day Part I, but that might just be a ghost thing.

  Other issues:

--I didn't realize this in the episode I watched right before, but Elyan was apparently made a knight before Guinevere was named queen. Good for him! I had assumed that she probably got him that position, but maybe it was the other way around.

--Speaking of Elyan, Morgana stops Agravaine from killing him because they "don't have time to play soldiers" right then. That's as stupid an excuse for sparing an important character as I've ever heard, especially when you remember that it's Morgana herself who kills Elyan in season 5. I guess she, uh, found time to play soldiers in the Dark Tower.

--I'm still clueless about how much of the Sword in the Stone story Merlin made up on the spot, but I'm even more baffled by why the writers would name this episode (which doesn't even feature any discussion of the thing) after it. Also, Arthur has a nice enough sword that even Tristan comments on it. It's apparently not Excalibur, though.

--Hey, it's the return of Morgana's torture snakes! Every time she uses them she explains what they do, which means every time she uses them I assume it's the first time they've been shown. This has been a bigger source of surprise for me than anything else on the show.

Now that was a great episode! Much better than the premiere of Season 5, despite the fact that I probably understood much less of what was going on. Hopefully this is a sign that the show is getting better and better as I go backwards through it.

Last episode, I complained that Merlin did barely any magic at all, and that his first spells were a signficant amount of time into the episode. Here almost as soon as the episode begins, our heroes are being chased through the woods, and Merlin volunteers to Arthur to lag behind and cover their tracks. It's some immediate action, and I'm content, expecting Merlin to magic up a rustling wind to blow through the leaves or something. NOPE! Instead he summons up his dragon friend, who proceeds to burn almost all of their pursuers alive. Utterly bad-ass.

Merlin also got what I'm assuming was a major character moment later on in this episode, when he stands up to Agravaine and his men in the caves and ultimately kills them. This is one of those moments that probably would have had more resonance if I knew more about the relationship between the characters involved, but it was still very powerful. I look forward to seeing more of Agravaine, who appears to be one of Arthur's knights who has betrayed him.

Here's where my prior knowledge of Arthuriana gets tricky. I know Agravaine is usually one of Arthur's nephews: son of Morgana, brother to Gwaine, and half-brother to Mordred. But this version of the story casts all of these characters as roughly the same age... So while I still don't know whether Arthur and Morgana have ever hooked up, I'm reasonably certain that she doesn't have any sons who are of an age to be knighted, barring some sort of aging spell. Arthur says later on in this episode that he's trusted all the wrong people, and he includes both Morgana and his uncle in that list. I suppose it's possible that Agravaine was the uncle in question, although that's a pretty major change for his character. But then, he was never really this evil, either. Arrogant and dishonorable, yes, and generally included in Mordred's plot to reveal Guinevere's adultery. But seeing him as an out-and-out traitor on his mother's/niece's(?) side was a bit of a surprise.

Even more surprising, though, was the inclusion in this episode of two people calling themselves Tristan and Isolde, who appear to bear absolutely no resemblance to the usual portrayal of those characters. Isolde is generally in love with Tristan but married to somebody else, while Tristan is a knight -- often of King Arthur's court -- who nevertheless pursues her, to his unfortunate end. I'm hoping some of that story was present in earlier episodes featuring these characters, because there was absolutely none of it here. Instead, Tristan and Isolde were a duo of fighters, possibly sellswords -- still in love with one another, but definitely not a knight and his lady. That made their presence in this episode more than a little confusing, and I'm hoping this gets cleared up as I move further back in the series.

Understand, I have nothing against adaptations making changes to the source material, and a lot of times, those changes can yield great results. I just get confused when a new character is named after an existing one but has no obvious similarities to the original at all.

That's probably part of why I didn't really care so much when Isolde died at the end of this episode, but honestly, that was mostly just because she had gotten zero characterization at all. Hopefully she was more fleshed out in earlier episodes, because before her death scene in this one, she really did very little. Tristan got a tiny bit of character growth, going from doubting Arthur to believing he wasn't like other kings. But Isolde was all but silent in these scenes, simply agreeing with whatever position Tristan held from moment to moment. I'm really interested in these two and in how their story here differs from its usual form. But I really hope Isolde is given more of a personality!

Mostly, of course, this was an episode about Arthur getting his groove back. Not having seen anything before this point, I couldn't tell how much of the Sword in the Stone business really was foretold and how much Merlin was making it up on the spot. But I really appreciated the fact that Merlin essentially cheats the system here. He tells Arthur that only the truest king can pull free the sword, but there's actually nothing in Arthur himself that gets the job done. Like he's told Merlin, it's simply not a possible thing for anyone to do. Yet Arthur does pull free the sword -- but only because Merlin secretly uses his magic so that Arthur succeeds. That's a really interesting take on the situation, which to the best of my recollection I've never seen before in a telling of this story.

It does raise some questions, of course -- Is that Excalibur in the stone? And if so, how did it get there and what was Arthur using before? Also is that the dragon-forged sword that Merlin eventually uses to kill Morgana, or was that something else?

Speaking of Morgana and weaponry... Despite her gloating in the series finale that no ordinary blade can slay her, she seems pretty worried about all the swords in Camelot here, and even gets cut by one which seems to do some pain as she's fleeing the throne room. She's also much more adept at using a sword than I would have guessed, managing to outduel two of Arthur's knights just before that third one cuts her. Good for her!

One thing that confuses me, as always, is exactly who knows what about Emrys. Morgana, for example, tells Arthur in the throne room that not even Emrys can save him now... which doesn't seem to confuse the guy. So is he aware that there's a sorcerer named Emrys working for him behind the scenes? There's certainly no indication of that after this point. Agravaine, too, greets Merlin as Emrys once he reveals his magic powers to him. Is it just the case that everyone in Albion knows Emrys is a magic-user close to the king? I'm surprised Arthur stands for that.

And finally, the last big surprise for me in this episode was that Guinevere hasn't been queen for very long. She gets crowned at the end of this episode, so that means she's only really queen for season 5 (a good chunk of which she spends under Morgana's control). That was a surprise to me, and while I of course didn't follow the relationship drama going on between her and Arthur, it's interesting that she'll be just a serving girl for the rest of the time I watch this show. On a side note, it is incredibly amusing to hear someone say, "I know why you can't forgive me, but I never once stopped loving you," when you have no earthly idea what they're talking about.

Other Thoughts:

--Merlin's dragon addresses him as "young warlock." What's a warlock, in this series? Is it a magic-user? Is it a Druid? Will this sort of thing ever make sense to me?

--Arthur asks, "What happeneded to you, Morgana? I thought we were friends!" To which Morgana replies, "As did I." I'm assuming what happened is she got thrown in a pit, although I'm not quite sure why she's blaming Arthur for that. But I'm really excited to get to see these guys be friends at some point.

--Arthur also tells Morgana she can't blame him for his father's sins. I have no idea what this refers to, but I'm adding it to the Uther-is-a-dick pile.

--At least Uther's children are aware he's a dick, though. Morgana tells Arthur he's not as different from Uther as he'd like to think, and Arthur retorts that neither is she. Neither child seems happy at this comparison.

--Obviously there's a time jump between this episode and the next one of at least 6 weeks, the time Gwaine has been gone on patrol for. Probably longer, since he spends most of this episode in a dungeon and doesn't exactly seem fit to go off patroling anything. So what does Morgana do in that time, besides take up residence in her Fortress of Solitude and begin digging? I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be her dragon that flew overhead at the end of the episode, but if so, it looks remarkably different... Almost as if it hadn't yet been kept in a pit for two years. So wait, is Morgana's imprisonment all between seasons 4 and 5? That would be a shame, but I don't know how else to explain the discrepency of her dragon.

--If Morgana's time in the pit does entirely take place between "The Sword in the Stone" and "Arthur's Bane," what set her against her brother this time?

--Toward the end of this episode, but before Arthur proposes to Guinevere, Morgana tries to kill her with a sword. Guinevere asks, "What did I do to make you hate me so much?", to which Morgana replies, "It's not what you've done; it's what you're destined to do. I'm sorry, Gwen, but I cannot let that happen." So... Wait. What? What exactly is Guinevere destined to do, and why doesn't Morgana try to prevent that in season 5 (when she has her trapped in a tower and could easily kill her)?

Well, that was a bit of a letdown.

Not really this episode in particular, although that had some issues too. More just the answers that I finally got concerning the prophecies surrounding Arthur's death. This whole season, I've watched Merlin fret about those prophecies, and be suspicious of Mordred. Just last episode, I saw him learn that Arthur's Bane is Arthur himself. Now I finally get some context for both of those things, and I have to say, it's pretty underwhelming.

Let's start with Mordred. Merlin mistrusts him, right? He's convinced that he's going to bring about the death of Arthur? Here we finally see the source of that mistrust: the vision of an old man in a cave that Merlin had never seen or heard of before this episode. That's it?? That's all it takes to get him to thoroughly mistrust a knight who (after betraying Morgana at the end of AB, Part II) has been completely loyal to Arthur? Despite knowing that Morgana could probably have planted that as a false vision and even after the Diamair tells him that Mordred *isn't* Arthur's Bane? I just don't get you, Merlin.

I mean, obviously, yes, Mordred does end up stabbing King Arthur at Camlann. But it's ridiculous for Merlin to be so convinced of this on the evidence he's been given, unless there are other reasons to mistrust Mordred that I haven't seen yet.

Also, Arthur's Bane. I mentioned before that Morgana would probably have been upset to learn that it's Arthur himself, and I can definitely confirm that now. Her good friend Davos/Ruadan tells her at the beginning of this episode, "Arthur's Bane is real. Once it is known to us, his end is nigh... [The time we've spent searching for it] is but a moment compared to the eternity of knowledge the key will bring." But when the Diamair reveals his secret to Merlin next episode it is literally just that Arthur's Bane is Arthur himself. Hardly an eternity of knowledge, and certainly not something that is helpful to know in any way. I don't know where Ruadan gets his facts from, but he should probably ask for his money back.

He's not the only one confused on this issue, of course. The old man in the cave also tells Merlin, "The prophets speak of Arthur's Bane. You would do well to fear it, for it stalks him like a ghost in the night." But once again, Arthur's Bane is just plain old Arthur. Clearly this guy's information isn't so hot either, which supports my earlier position that Merlin is a fool for taking him at his word.

The episode itself was a little weird simply in that it was all so anticlimactic. Are all Merlin season-openers like this? I figured the last season would have ended on some kind of cliffhanger (like seasons often do), but this episode is pretty laidback as it starts. Some of Arthur's knights have been missing for six weeks, but since we see them get captured that's probably not something that happened last season. And since we see them alive, we're not really that worried about what's happening to them. Meanwhile, for a show about magic, the episode doesn't really give Merlin much of a chance to use it. It's almost three-quarters of the way into the episode before he uses his powers for something other than juggling, which makes the stakes never really seem all that high.

Also, magic can help you juggle. Good to know. You know what it apparently can't do? Cut you out of a net. Seriously... Merlin and Arthur are trapped in that thing from before the sun has set one day until after it's rise the next, including a period of time when Arthur was asleep. And even when he was awake, he probably couldn't really see Merlin well enough to notice his eyes flashing gold or see what his hands were doing. But in all that time, Merlin couldn't do anything to fray the rope and let them escape? Are rabbits like his Kryptonite or something?

All in all, this was not the best place for me to end the season on, and I'm kind of surprised that it's how the writers chose to start this final stretch of stories. If someone had chosen the start of this season as a time to jump into the show and see what it's all about, I don't know that I would blame them for putting it back down again.

Other thoughts:

--Sefa starts out this episode as Guinevere's servant, and appears to have something of a mutual crush going on with Merlin. I'm happy that that probably means I'll be seeing more of her and hopefully her father, but disappointed that her last moments on the show were away from Merlin. He never even got to confront her about being a traitor, which feels like a weird plotting decision after seeing their adorably awkward flirtations in this episode.

--Sefa does say to Merlin that she keeps getting him into trouble, so it will be interesting to see what that's all about.

--Morgana's idea of a good time: enslave a group of muscular men, take off their shirts, and then make them dig in a cave underneath your castle. But don't, under any circumstances, tell them what exactly they're  looking for. Or set a proper guard on them, for that matter. Basically Morgana is like the people who run Camp Green Lake in Holes.

--Speaking of holes, Morgana tells Ruadan that for two long years, she saw nothing but darkness, another reference to that time in the Sarrum's pit. Once more I wonder whether I'll get to see that time, and if perhaps maybe she's freshly escaped. That would explain why the first shot of her this episode is just before its opening credits as though it's some big reveal, and also why Arthur announces at the episode's start that Camelot has been enjoying "peace and prosperity for three long years." I guess the next three seasons I watch are gonna be kind of boring, then.

--Shoutout to Morgana, though, for actually getting something right: when Gwaine tells her to kill him, she replies, "I will. But first..." Twelve episodes later, guess who's getting bitten to death by Morgana's snakes? She takes her time, but she gets there in the end. I guess I have to give her credit for that.

--I'm still not sure when/whether we'll see Mordred again, but he tells Arthur, "You saved my life once, many years ago" -- which suggests it won't be a moment that's actually featured on the show. On the other hand, Merlin recognized him straight away, and his knowledge that Merlin is Emrys clearly predates this episode. So at some point, I assume I'll be seeing a meeting between the two Druids, if nothing else.

--Okay, so here's where Mordred becomes a knight. Got it. All of a sudden his backstory became even more mysterious, though. He starts this episode as part of a band of bad guys who have taken Merlin and Arthur prisoner and are taking them to Morgana. But when he gets to her snowy fortress, she's amazed to see him again and it looks like they've been apart for quite some time. I'm not really sure what to make of that, honestly.

--Mordred is explicitly identified as a magic-user and a Druid, though, and he already knows Merlin as Emrys. And of course, he's trusted enough by Morgana that he was able to get close enough to her to literally stab her in the back, but he believes in Arthur enough to make such a betrayal. Hopefully all of this will become clearer in time.

--Everyone is back to insisting that Arthur is nothing like his father, even though Guinevere comments that Uther is long dead (which fits with my conclusions from the last episode I watched). Morgana also hisses that he wasn't her father, but it seems pretty clear that she means that figuratively.

--Merlin can speak Dragon, but apparently Morgana's dragon can't speak Human.

--At the beginning of the episode, Morgana awakens from a dream of being trapped in a well with her dragon. I've seen her discuss this with Guinevere, of course, and I've seen the death of the Sarrum, the guy who trapped her there. It remains to be seen whether I'll actually see the event itself.

--Mordred is not Arthur's bane; Arthur himself is. What? I don't know what exactly that means, but it's probably for the best that Morgana didn't get to the Diamair to ask it, because I imagine hearing such of a cop-out of an answer wouldn't do much for her temper.

--Granted, apparently there is some prophecy about Arthur being killed by a Druid, but it doesn't sound like that's connected to the Diamair. I'm surprised, though, that Merlin never stops to wonder whether the Druid is him.

--The Diamair sure took a liking to Gawain, huh?

--Also Gawain and Percival and maybe some other knights are Morgana's slaves at the start of this episode, so presumably I'll get to see them get captured next. Maybe someone will also explain why slaves aren't allowed to wear shirts.

--Morgana's friend Ruadan appeared for the first time this episode, which meant that it was fairly unsurprising when he died before the end. I hope we'll get to see him again, though! More Davos Seaworth is always a good thing.

--In response to Ruadan's military prayer, Guinevere expresses her surprise that Druidism isn't always a peaceful religion. Does this mean less conflict with the Druids in the future?

--In the "Why is Uther such a dick?" category, apparently he was responsible for the Great Purge which killed a lot of Druids / magic-users. (Almost a whole season in and I'm still not sure of the distinction there.) Arthur thinks that slaughter was unconscionable, but many of his subjects think he's no better than his father.

So that's Uther, huh? I have to say, if that's what he was like while he was alive, I'm not really looking forward to the episodes before his death. On the bright side, though, there was some indication in this episode that that's a while before now. That is, Elyan tells Mordred that Arthur is always moody at the anniversary of his coronation, because it's also the anniversary of his father's death. That means Elyan must have seen Arthur on at least one anniversary before, which means Uther's death must have been at least two years before this point.

Speaking of Elyan: he was in this episode! And so was Mordred, talking to him! But for no more than a minute or so, and I really don't think I learned anything else about either of them. I had assumed when Elyan died that he must have been someone audiences cared about, but so far in his earlier episodes he hasn't really been given much to do. Also Mordred was dressed as a knight here, which makes me confused as to why he seemed to be just starting out a few episodes from now. On the other hand, he was the one asking Elyan about Arthur's mood, so that suggests he's been at Camelot for under a year.

Figuring things out like this is so much fun.

The other major revelation of this episode was that Guinevere was apparently a serving-girl before Arthur married her, and that Uther hugely disapproves of their marriage, which happened after his death. He also doesn't think Arthur should have made knights out of any commoners. Really, this episode introduced a lot of class issues that were really interesting yet don't seem to have ever been mentioned again after this point. I'm guessing they'll come back up once Uther is alive again, though.

Other thoughts:

--Uther does have a point when he says it would have been beneficial to the kingdom if Arthur had married politically, rather than for love. Nevertheless, it all seems to have worked out in the end. (That is, that doesn't appear to be one of the mistakes that leads to Arthur's downfall.) And hey, Gwen gets to rule the kingdom after Arthur's death! That's even cooler now that I know she was commonborn.

--Who else are the commoners, though? Merlin, obviously, and Elyan, since he's Guinevere's brother. Probably Mordred too, and I'm going to assume even Percival, since Uther threw an axe at him. Maybe Leon, since he was the one talking when Uther disrupted the council meeting... I guess the better question might be who ISN'T a commoner!

--Having now had a taste of Uther, I think I can agree with Merlin and whoever else has been saying that Arthur makes a better, fairer king.

--On their way to the standing stones, Arthur says to Merlin, "If you were given the chance to see your father again, wouldn't you do the same?" And Merlin agrees that he would. One problem I have with this is that when Merlin does see his ghost father again, he doesn't seem to have nearly the daddy issues that Arthur does. But more importantly, Merlin DOES have the chance here in this episode. He could blow the horn just as easily as Arthur could! So really this was just a piece of writing that wasn't too well-thought-out given the episode's plot.

--Arthur seems entirely too cavalier about using magic to commune with his father, given his attitude toward sorcery the rest of the time. And Uther never once denounces the magic that his son has used to speak with him, which seems even weirder. I also find it bizarre that, having resorted to magic here, Arthur doesn't change his opinions on it (or the relevant laws in Camelot) after the fact. He may be a better king than Uther, but he's still kind of a hypocrite.

I feel like this was a great episode, at least as far as pieces of the series story falling into place for me. How did Arthur's father die? He was killed by Odin, a man whose son Arthur had killed sometime before. (It wasn't specified in this episode, by I assume those events are related.) Why is Morgana -- despite still not officially being at war with Camelot -- attacking Arthur all the time? She seeks his throne, which she feels is rightfully hers. And since it sounded like Odin killing Arthur's father wasn't all that long ago, I'm guessing that Arthur only recently became king and that Morgana was expecting the crown to pass to her instead. Of course, these guesses may end up being totally wrong, but I think they make sense with what I've heard so far!

I also learned that Gaius can in fact use magic, so that explains how he's able to counsel Merlin on such matters all the time. But after using his eye-glowy powers to heal Merlin in this episode, Gaius tells his young padawan that it was very difficult and that he doesn't think his heart could take something like that again. So, that explains why I haven't seen any magic out of him in the episodes after this one. Hopefully there's more to come as I watch him get younger, though!

What I still don't get is why Gaius shrugs off Merlin's suspicions time after time, when he turns out to have been right time after time. I realize I'm watching this course of events backwards, so clearly Gaius isn't going to get any smarter here, but Merlin rightly suspected Mordred, he rightly suspected the brainwashed Guinevere, and he rightly suspected the under-duress Princess Mithian. Every time, he took his (justified!) concerns to Gaius, who insisted he was imagining things. I'd really like to see the missing scenes in this process where Gaius admits that he was wrong and that Merlin actually has a pretty good judgment about these things.

Arthur continually downplays Merlin's worries too, of course. But I get the sense that that's supposed to be part of his brash warrior's nature, plus the fact that Merlin can't openly tell him what's wrong. Gaius knows all about the magic stuff, so he understands the scope of what Merlin is actually worried about, but he still shuts him down over and over again, no matter how many times it turns out he was right. It's ridiculous.

This episode was also nice in that it showed Morgana butting heads with Merlin again without knowing that he's a magic-user. I'm getting more of a sense of why she would have tried to have him killed in the episode The Hollow Queen, and how that was entirely unrelated to her efforts to dispatch Emrys. (Although I still don't know how she knows about Emrys or why it's so important to her that he be put out of the way. But I guess that's coming.)

Other thoughts:

--No Mordred in this episode, which is a shame. Like I said before, I sense that the beginning of his time on the show is coming up soon for me. Given that, it would have been nice to see him in this episode... but I guess he couldn't accompany Arthur on the mission, since he's not yet a full knight!

--Then again, Merlin and Morgana-disguised-as-an-old-lady were allowed to come, so I really don't know what Mordred's excuse was.

--Morgana has the power to become temporarily super-old, just like Merlin. It's apparently quite exhausting for both of them. On the other hand, no one recognizes their old forms, even one another.

--When Morgana sheds her disguise, she says to King Arthur, "Appearances can be deceiving, dear brother." Arthur then waits about five seconds before responding, "...Morgana." Does he have other siblings I don't know about? Brothers and sisters that he had to stop and consider before coming to the conclusion that Morgana was the one who just led him into a death trap?

--Guinevere's brother Elyan was around again, but was still given very little to do. He was the first one of the captured knights to recover and go on the offensive when Gawain killed his guards, though, so I guess that counts for something.