“A White Dragon, is indeed a rare thing, and fitting!”

This wasn’t the best episode of Merlin in my opinion. It was more of a stand-alone episode that relied heavily on just a few characters who were on an Indiana Jones-type quest for a dragon’s egg. We got no real emotion or mention about last week’s death of Arthur’s father. I expected to see more about Arthur’s new responsibility as King. Plus the lack of female characters of which there were none! Yes that’s right, ZERO! It’s annoying me no end.

A former pupil of Gaius’s, Julius Borden (Battlestar Galactica’s James Callis) arrives in Camelot with two pieces of an ancient key to the tomb of Ashkanar, which contains the last dragon egg. Borden having stolen the first two parts from the Druids, now seeks to steal the third part from the vaults of Camelot and hopes that his old mentor will help him. Having left on bad terms and feeling Borden is not to be trusted, Gauis (Richard Wilson) refuses to help him and forbids Merlin (Colin Morgan) from helping after he overheard the conversation.

The Great Dragon reminds Merlin of his duty to protect the last of the dragonkind as the last remaining Dragon Lord. With his determination to assist the quest he helps Borden, whose motives are unsurprisingly power-led. Merlin, as Arthur’s serving boy, has perfect access to the key to the vault. Cue some general tomfoolery as Merlin attempts to get the key. Of course he succeeds. Borden then steals the third key piece from the vault, in which out of all the jewels, he finds in record time in the second box he looks in. How lucky! I don’t see why he had to hit Merlin to get away though. When Arthur learns of the theft and the dragon’s egg he vows to hunt the intruder and destroy the egg.

After a warning to Merlin from the Druids that the key to the mausoleum is not just a key but a trap, we skip to a bit of Merlin-teasing by the knights who so far seem to be comic fodder rather than heroic, and a bit of archery shoot out and poisoning by Borden to handily knock out the knights, leaving just Merlin to follow Borden to the tomb. Merlin of course defeats Borden in an underwhelming confrontation where we seem to get the same old line about Merlin being a servant boy who could be so much more. With the toss of his hand Merlin throws Borden to the wall, which must be Merlin’s most common power, before grabbing the egg and exiting the falling mausoleum.

With the egg saved and Arthur buying that it was destroyed with Borden and the tomb, Merlin returns the egg to the Dragon who tells the emotional Merlin: “Young dragons are called into the world by the Dragon Lords. They had the power to summon them from the egg. As the last Dragon Lord this solemn duty falls to you, Merlin! You must give the dragon a name!” Merlin names the dragon after “the light of the sun” and a white dragon is born. The Dragon, pleased with this, tells the crying Merlin: “This to me is clear. A white dragon bodes well for Albion. For you, and Arthur, and for the land that you will build together!” I somehow doubt that, but we shall see. Hopefully next week will be better.