Apparently I need to talk about Merlin...

[mangacat201]

Well, did anyone notice just how many fricking LINES Percy had this week? I'd hazard a guess and say that this is the most words he's strung together in one place than in all of his previous appearances combined. I like. Though I absolutely do not buy the fact that Percy and Leon where downed my magical snakes (and not so magically thrown by their horses) and then up and a-doozy by dawn to go questing with the king. But I really love the QUESTING part that kinda got a front row seat this week in my mind, visions of the holy grail etc. come to mind. ahem, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The rest of this episode ... I can't even. Was not impressed with Gwen's torture chamber (I don't know the pacing and effects felt off), was not impressed with Elyan's death (though I knew he was a gonner the moment they stood at their father's grave, don't ask me why) and was THOROUGHLY not impressed by the absolutely redundant rehash of the hooded-lady-sneaks-out-of-castle-plot. Not even talking about the absolutely unnecessary shot of the marital bed (after Gwaine called her a MAIDEN, we DO know what that means, right?). I don't know. I don't really want to write off the episode completely, but I feel like I get what they set out to do and somewhere along the way every character took a step aside and things went wonky as all hell. Case in point of MORGANA being the most consistent and actually layered and properly motivated character in this whole shindig which is baffling in as much that hasn't happened to her in like three seasons and the name-dropping for the mysterious backstory actually made me take an interest in her character.

Also, what in the heck was Queen Mab doing there? Absolutely no introduction, no reason for her to help (or hinder) Merlin and Co. at least not that we got a motivation and this is a seriously high class name in the Arthurian canon, why oh why would they use her as inter-episode-exposition?? Though I seriously dig the Shakespeech.

Anyway, my reaction to this episode is best summed up by a thorough W.T.F. though I'm not sure if there's much good in that. I encourage discussion and people who want to explain the appeal of this episode to me.