Merlin – Series 2

Episode 9:  the Lady of the Lake

In the wake of discovering his dead mother was lying to him, Arthur has apparently gone full-tilt Veruca Salt.  He throws things at Merlin, on Merlin, around Merlin.  Really if Merlin’s in the room, Arthur’s going to be throwing something.  To balance that out, someone’s decided to make Bradley James mostly naked in a lot of episodes.  We think it’s probably the same person who wants to make Colin Morgan cry all the time.  Play to your strengths, gentlemen.  So this episode we have Arthur with only a towel covering the royal bottom, and Merlin in tears even while he’s macking on someone.  Score!

This guy knows what's up.

The titular character is named Freya, and she’s a young magic girl who’s stuck in a wheeled cage.  Merlin, in keeping with his tradition of making things worse, releases her, steals food from Arthur to feed her, and a dress from Morgana to clothe her.  He’s very sweet about the whole thing and is like, “And we will be in love and we will run away together and raise sheep in Wales!”  But if you’re at all familiar with the Lady of the Lake, you’ll know that she kinda has to be in a lake.  It’s pretty hard to breathe in a lake if you’re alive.  You see where we’re going with this.

It turns out Freya was locked up because she was cursed to turn into a giant cat every night.  That sounds like delight and joy to most of the people on tumblr, but this cat is very bad and likes to eat people.  No kitty that’s a bad kitty!  Arthur and the knights corner the bad CGI and stab it to death the cat and mortally wound her.  Imagine that conversation in the future.  “So you remember that cat you killed?  Yeah, that was my girlfriend.”  “Sorry dude, my bad.”

Merlin carries Freya off to the lake where all the things happen (are there other lakes around?  We don’t know), and she’s like, “Oh, you remembered that I wanted to live by a lake!”  Of course he remembers, you’ve known each other for like three days and you just said that yesterday.  But we’ll forgive her, since she’s dead and it’s sad.  Merlin sends her off in a little burning boat.  It’s so tragic.

So what if your girlfriend's dead. We've got plenty of fun right here.

Of course, no one can be sad with Arthur around.  He’s that friend you hate who’s mean to you until you finally tell him to go the hell away and then he comes around when you’re really sad and tries to cheer you up because god forbid you actually look glum when Jazzhands over there is making an effort.  Smile, dammit!

Episode 10:  Sweet Dreams

Pull out your wacky hijinks music, because guess who’s coming to town!  It’s Shakespeare a bunch of kings from the surrounding areas, come to have peace talks with Uther!  There’s King Olaf, who is apparently one of Uther’s best friends though we’ve never seen or heard of him before and never will again.  He has a really, really hot daughter named Vivian who has a worse personality than Arthur, even, though we don’t see her throwing food at anyone.  There are a few other kings we don’t care about, and then there’s King Alined.  Seriously, Merlin writers, you need to pick another letter of the alphabet for your guest characters.  Anyway, Alined doesn’t want peace, but he doesn’t want to actually fight, so he decides to create friction between Olaf and Uther by making Vivian and Arthur get sexy with each other.  Personally, we wouldn’t want our enemies to unite their kingdoms in marriage, but hey, that’s just us.  Olaf is crazy overprotective of Vivian, so we suppose it’s not an entirely stupid plan.  Alined’s jester, Trickler, is the one carrying it out.  That’s like having a character named Naughtypants.  Everybody else is like, “Oh, don’t worry about him, that’s just Naughtypants.  He’d never be naughty or have pants.”

Boobs are my favorite!

Trickler gives Arthur a little potion to make him fall in love with Vivian, which makes Arthur hop skip jump all over the place, all happy and out of character.

Unfortunately for Trickler, Vivian still thinks Arthur’s a dumbass and is not persuaded by his destiny chicken, so a little love potion is required for her too.  And then they’re both hopping and jumping around like silly, pretty blond ponies in heat.  Merlin is both horrified and intrigued, but more of the horrified part, especially since Arthur’s messing things up with Gwen AND he’s about to get into a sword fight with King Olaf.

Hot like broken ribs.

Luckily, there’s a spell to break love enchantments.  All they have to do is get Arthur a kiss from his true love.  Since Arthur probably won’t kiss himself, or Merlin, Gwen is a good third option, and comes through like a champ.  In between Arthur getting his ass beat by Olaf, Gwen goes into his tent for a good true love kiss.  It’s wicked hot.

Afterward, off all the kings leave, Alined with Trickler and Olaf with Vivian.  Who, by the way, still hasn’t had her enchantment undone, so she’s going to spend the rest of her days pining for Arthur.  Haha!  It’s funny because her unpleasant traits need to be punished.