Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Five/@comment-5102537-20140517082836/@comment-24785400-20140518041109

I'm not sure what else can be said about this final two-parter that hasn't already been said a thousand times over in other threads, and other forums. Yes, it felt very rushed as if they hadn't prepared at all. There were quite a few things that made little or no sense whatsoever. Again it felt as though the writers wanted to put in scenes or just have the actors say certain sentences just for effect, but it didn't matter if they were logical at all. Why else would you show the image of Merlin trapped in a cave, playing on the audiences knowledge of the legends with Merlin trapped beneath a Hawthorne tree, or within a cave. But how it happened - Morgana trapping him there when he was seeking to regain his magic by going to the cave in the first place is simply daft. The scene with Balinor is quite beautiful (although its very Star-Wars-y), but is rendered meaningless by the very scenes following it (where Merlin is in his old-man disguise). As for the battle itself, it felt to me as though they'd watched the movie Excalibur a few times. It was over very quickly. Well, Arthur didn't really win the battle did he? Merlin did from the sidelines,athough he was late. Even though he managed to find his true potential in the cave, he wasn't able to do the magic-transportation thing that Mary Collins managed to do in the very first episode. So again, we have Merlin's magic depending on what the writers wanted to achieve, which in this episode wasn't much. Then we have Arthur getting separated from the rest of the knights - how did that happen?. Giaus suggesting the Sidhe to heal Arthur must be some kind of joke, twice they've been shown as trying to kill him. I can't imagine they would be interested in helping him, or Merlin at all. And then the long trek to Avalon. (Just why Merlin didn't call the dragon to start with is anyone's guess). The whole encounter with Morgana was pretty disappointing, and what did she mean "no mortal blade can harm me?" Where did that come from? Gwaine and Percival going after her was never going to end well. There's other examples as well,  But when you're watching or reading something that asks you to suspend your disbelief, and accept things like magic and dragons, but then doesn't follow up with logic in their own world, it becomes a bit too big an ask. I guess they though that by focusing on Merlin and Arthur and giving us the (non-important, according to them) magic reveal, the writers and producers felt they would be making the fans happy and giving them what they thought they wanted. (again, I obviously wasn't the intended audience for this relationship, as I think there where some negative aspects about their friendship so I really could never buy into it. I think that the writers gave us what they think is an"idealised romance",  by having Merlin being always self-sacrificing, and obsessed about Arthur.  I always thought that he was putting up with Arthur, so when the time came, he could push Arthur in the right direction of uniting Albion etc.  I would like to add too, that not "believing in Merther", or whatever is not in anyway homophobic, that is a very simplistic label that many fans have thrown at others who do not agree with them.  I simply think their relationship itself is problematic, in much the same way as Bella and Edward in Twilight, or other similar relationships are problematic, being two males doesn't come into it.  I would much prefer proper representation of LGBT couples on television then the sort of things we get now)  While I understand some people were truly happy with it,  the vast majority I've come across thought it was horrible, badly written and completely heart-breaking at the same time. That final coda might have felt like a good idea at the time, playing around with the audience's perception of Merlin as old man, but really it didn't come across as very hopeful - more like he was tragically hanging around the Tor just waiting.

Why they felt they had to end it by sticking with tradition  by having Arthur killed (or the more common re-telling - being mortally wounded and taken of to Avalon in a barge by priestess's) at Camlann, I will never know.