User blog:Emily Windsnap/Review for Arthur's Bane Part 1

Hey!

Ok, so, I just watched the new Merlin episode, Arthur's Bane Part one. This my review:



The storyline was a bold one. The characters have grown alot in the past three years, thus giving Julian Jones a chance to intensify a bit.

When I first saw the round table, I felt that there was more unity in the whole atmosphere. We could clearly see the concern on the knight's faces as Arthur told them of the disapearence of Gwaine, Percival, and the others. The episode also gave the palace a bit more of a...royal feel. With Gwen as the new (and surprisingly fierce) queen, and Arthur a more experienced king, there seemed to be a bit more order and control.

Now for the characters:

Merlin was definatly older, and more mature, yet we were reasured that he hadn't lost his humorous...Melriness, when he smiles dorkily as Arthur tells him to preform for Queen Annes. I loved that entire scene with the egg juggling! And the rabbits...that was amazing.

Arthur hasn't seemed to have matured very much, considering the fact that he still talks to his best friend as a lower being. However, as I said before, he seems to be more organized and has things under control.

Poor Gwaine! I think 80% of his screen time was just him getting beat up! But I loved all of the attention he was getting! He's stepped up as a more major character. I felt season four was a bit lacking in the knight's character development, perhaps season five will take us further into that. As for Percival, I was glad that he also recieved a more major part. Being a more quiet character, his is often neglected.

Gwen was surprisingly harsh in this episode! Her passing of judgement on Cefa was surprising...although Cefa's betrayal was not. I predicted her actions within the first five minutes of seeing her. The first scene with her and Merlin holding hands--how sweet--was so...quick. They showed her and Merlin together before they even really introduced her character, as if they were desperate for us to like her immediatly. Although, I was not expecting her true intentions to be revealed so soon. I was thinking she would be trusted well into the season.

Morgana is still her evil self. She's obviously gained some allies and has started working on a larger scale. Her cruelty to Gwaine made me cringe.

Queen Anni's return was great. Her character was much more of a friend. Although, it seemed slightly unneeded. The whole scene in her castle was kind of random, but maybe the writers are just giving us a chance to see her return before she becomes more significant.

Kilgarrah's breif return seemed slightly weak to me. His character seemed almost as though he had served his purpose. He showed up, gave Merlin advice (although it was hardly even that) then left. But of course, it's only the first episode of the season, we're still getting some background and setting.

The cliffhanger was almost unbearible! Mordred returned with a really creepy smile, and Gwaine is stuck with some weird, glowing alien thing. Is it nice or evil? It was chanting some kind of spell or something over Gwaine. It sounded like a healing spell--let's hope that's what it is.

As for Mordred's return, I was kind of surprised he was openly evil. I was expecting him to start out by saving Arthur or something. The vision of him killing Arthur was unusualy clear. Usualy when Merlin is shown a vision, it shows a bunch of clips put together, giving is a suspicion of something that might happen. This time it was quite clear. Mordred walked up to Arthur with a sword and killed him. There was no fog covering up people's identities, no random clips of people's faces, it was short and precise, which makes it a little harder for Merlin to fix.

Over all, I would rate the episode nine out of ten. It was exciting and suspensful, with great character development. :)

So there you have it! I don't ever really write reviews so it might not be very good, sorry. Please leave a comment below, thanks! :)