Grade: A
They say there's a first time for everything. Well, in this episode of Merlin, we witness the first of many tournaments held at Camelot, of Arthur's bizarre asymmetrical armor, of Uther having the wool pulled over his eyes by a shady sorcerer, of Arthur's "polish-my-armor-and-muck-out-my-stables" spiel, and of Merlin's desperate bids to save Arthur's life from some nefarious plot. In other words, quite a few elements that will become week-to-week plot staples of this show. Good times.
We open with a shifty-looking character striding through some medieval black market type of location and carrying out a secret meeting with yet another unsavory type, who gives him a magical shield. The shield's emblem of snakes possesses the ability to briefly come to life and carry out vicious attacks, and its new owner quickly employs it to dispatch the former one. He then heads to Camelot, where we learn that he has arrived to participate in a tournament, and that his name is Knight Valiant.
Meanwhile, Arthur is getting the most out of his new servant/punching bag by practicing his sword- and mace-work on Merlin. Merlin claims to Gaius that the work he does is dreadful, with no redeeming features whatsoever, and Gaius counters that Arthur isn't exactly free of responsibilities himself. Merlin's current task is to learn how to dress Arthur properly for a tournament, one at which he fails dismally the first time around, much to Arthur's disgust.
The tournament gets under way, with Knight Valiant forced to use his snake-shield only one time in order to come out on top at the end of the first day, placing him in the finals against Arthur for the next. Valiant's victim is brought to Gaius for treatment, who notices the snakebites immediately, triggering Merlin's memory of having heard a hiss from Valiant's shield in the armory the day before. He puts the evidence together and manages to catch a glimpse of Valient summoning the snakes. Gaius doesn't believe that Uther would listen to evidence from him and Merlin on the matter, and sets out to cure the bitten knight in the hope of acquiring his testimony as well. To do so, however, he needs to be able to examine the venom in the knight's system, leading Merlin to Valiant's rooms at night. He is nearly discovered, but manages to trigger one of the snakes on the shield and cut off its head.
Gaius sets about procuring an antidote to the poison, while Merlin takes the snake's head to Arthur. Already distrustful of Valiant, Arthur believes Merlin's claims, and calls the court with the intention of using the bitten knight's testimony to prove the allegations. One of the snakes from Valiant's shield, however, dispatches the knight before anyone but Gaius can hear his story. Arthur is humiliated in front of the court when no evidence can be produced, and Merlin is nearly arrested for originating the claims against Valiant. Mortified and publicly embarrassed, Arthur throws Merlin out of his chambers, telling him not to come back. In despair, Merlin returns to the Great Dragon, claiming that it's impossible for him to protect Arthur when the prince hates him. The Dragon tells him that Arthur doesn't, and can't, truly hate Merlin when their destinies are so closely intertwined. Merlin returns to Arthur and tells him frankly that Valiant is going to kill him the next day; Arthur knows, but feels he can't do anything about it. Merlin is sitting about, in despair of being able to change anything, when a statue of a dog catches his eye.
He carts it back to his room and begins attempting a spell from a book of magic given to him by Gaius; however, nothing happens. Staying up all night with the thing, he eventually falls asleep without obtaining any results. That morning, Arthur proceeds down to the field of combat to begin his battle with Valiant. Merlin awakens to find that one of his final spells worked: the dog is now alive. He rushes down to the field where he employs his new ability to summon the snakes on Valiant's shield before the entire crowd, proving the knight's use of magic. However, the snakes begin attacking a disarmed Arthur, forcing Morgana to toss him a sword from the stands. Arthur decapitates the snakes and kills Valiant, making him the tournament's champion.
That night, at the celebratory feast, Arthur argues with Morgana over whether he truly needed saving on the field. Complaining over it to Merlin, Arthur belatedly realizes that he did, indeed, need help from Merlin, and awkwardly apologizes for sacking him. The two of them reconcile over Arthur's trademark list of menial duties that he needs Merlin to do for him.
This episode, while nothing particularly remarkable, is a solid installment, and sets up some specific dynamics for the future of the show and its key figures. Besides, we get to see the brief John Hurt-narrated opening teaser for the first time, without which no Merlin episode is truly complete. We witness the first of many plots against Arthur's life from magical forces, as well as Merlin's inventive plans for saving him without betraying his own secret.
One of the most interesting elements of the episode, a recurring theme throughout the series, is Uther's susceptibility to ingratiating sorcerers of all descriptions, despite his extreme paranoia of magic. One wonders how far he would ever have gotten without people like Gaius waiting quietly in the wings. For that matter, how did Arthur ever survive an ordinary day before Merlin was there to protect him?
One aspect of the story which I found particularly telling was the fact that Arthur believed Merlin's story about Valiant immediately, and, even after he threw Merlin out, never stopped believing him. He was willing to go out and fight Valiant to the death, sure, but he believed that that death was coming because Merlin told him so. Considering the brief, prickly relationship which is all the two of them have shared as yet, there's a remarkable level of trust already built; and one is led to believe that the presence of a person like Merlin, someone under Arthur's authority but unafraid to talk to him like an equal and tell him the truth, is not something Arthur has ever experienced before. It's quite detectable in the scene directly following the first day of the tournament, after Valiant has paid his obsequious compliments and departed; Merlin calls Valiant a creep, and Arthur looks genuinely amused. For just a split-second, there's a bit of rapport between them, upon which Arthur immediately snaps out of it and replaces the cold-hearted employer facade. Even when alone, he has a particular set of guidelines he believes his interactions with Merlin should fit into, and makes sporadic attempts to enforce them; but it's obvious that he's never had to deal with a servant like Merlin before. Merlin is too independent and opinionated, has too vivid a personality, for Arthur to keep up the proper master/servant attitude towards him. The uncomfortable pattern of awkward trust, argument, estrangement, and inevitable reconciliation that they establish in this episode sets a template for their entire relationship over the following years, and really, it couldn't be any other way. They're unique, two halves of a whole, and neither of them quite knows how to deal with it yet.
Meanwhile, Arthur's relationship with his father also has some defining moments in this episode. It is implied that what really stung Arthur following the encounter in the court was not that he had been humiliated in front of a room full of courtiers, but that his father believed him to be a coward. They set a perfect example of a demanding parent and a child who can never quite meet the expectations imposed upon him. Arthur is a model knight and future king, and some part of Uther knows it; but he still can't resist forcing Arthur to live up to some impossible ideal, supposedly exemplified by Uther himself. Exactly how much of it is guilt over Uther's own dismal failure to meet this ideal in real life, it's difficult to say.
So, overall, a very solid installment, complete with a good chunk of character development.
Complaints:
- As mentioned above, Arthur's inexplicable one-sided armor will never make sense to me. Never.
- It amuses me that after the first episode, in which so much time and suspense was devoted to Merlin getting past the guards and down to the vault with the Dragon, we never see this process again. He just walks into the caves whenever he feels like it.
- Did the writers really think that they were going anywhere with Arthur/Morgana at this point? According to all the legends and the later canon of the show, they are half-siblings... was that a later decision on the part of the showrunners, or is the flirting between them in these first episodes merely misdirection?
- It would have been hilarious if one of the painted snakes of Valiant's shield had been missing a head after Merlin cut the real one off. Valiant: "Err... the headless snake... yeah, it's an old family symbol!"
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