“Merlin has meddled in my plans once too often”

Arthur’s not the brightest spark yet again this week as he can’t even dress himself let alone pre-empt the weekly attempts on his life. You’d think he’d have sussed out when something isn’t as it should be – and yet he fails to notice the recent change in his wife; But then he does have a visit from treacherous formidable leader, Lord Sarrum of Amata to worry about, whose arrival brings anxiety to the king as he prepares to sign a treaty between the Kingdoms.

When a young boy, Daegal (not that different from a younger Merlin) sneaks into Camelot (with a little help from Gwen) pleads with Merlin to travel with him to help him save his dying sister, spotting the boy’s mark on his arm denoting that he is a druid Merlin reluctantly agrees hoping Arthur is too distracted by Sarrum’s visit to notice. Of course Arthur does notice as he relies on Merlin for pretty much everything from wise advice to dressing him. With his servant out the way he calls upon Gaius and Gwen to help him. Gwen is only to happy to use her feminine wiles to distract Arthur from her plans to conspire with Sarrum to have her husband killed – AGAIN (wake up Arthur). While Deagal lures Merlin into Morgana’s trap where she poisons him and leaves him for dead, Colin Morgan puts in a great performance in making us believe he’s in danger when really we know he’s not; It is called “Merlin” after all. Luckily Daegal has a crisis in conscious and saves Merlin just in the nick of time.

As we all know Morgana is a very sad, lonely damaged character who this week treads the line of being disliked for attempting to kill Merlin – painfully; and sympathy as we learn of her capture and subsequent imprisonment with her beloved dragon, Aithusa. Sarrum’s pleasure in describing what he put Morgana through showed one of the more darker tones to the series as he describes how the white dragon came to be deformed. I am baffled why Sarrum said Morgana wouldn’t use her magic against him or he would kill Aithusa. Surely without any magic Sarrum is weaker? She could have used her powers to stop him hurting Aithusa surely?

A strong episode that for once showed us the capabilities of all of our leads as Merlin and Arthur were separated, and Gwen, Gaius and Morgana got to show more interaction with other characters something which I’d being waiting a while to see. Hopefully this will continue more in the following episodes. Mordred seems to have disappeared into the background again but I think were being led into a false sense of security on that one.

John Shrapnel played the despicable King with confidence, with no illusions to someone who could show mercy making Morgana’s story and vengeance more believable. While Alfie Stewart as Daegal had an innocent naivety about him that gave us a sense of someone whose not really bad, just caught up in a bad situation – which made his death all the more sad. Actually sadder than Elyan’s as I felt I knew more about Daegal than I ever did of Elyan.

Gwen’s time as Morgana’s puppet is running out, can Arthur and Merlin save her? Looking forward to seeing how the writers get round this one and the Mordred/Morgana/Aithusa storyline.