Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Two/@comment-5102537-20130614195429/@comment-5102537-20130615140338

Ha, I have the time :-D I agree with both of you, Edrea and Merlinarthur. The episodes were quite funny and Sarah Parish was great.

I wrote above that once again magic endagers the kingdom, which is true. However, it should be noted that Merlin's magic saved it in the end. Nevertheless, it was magic in the first place that was a big threat to the entire kingdom and the only way to stop it was to use magic. Even if Arthur or any other person had killed the troll before Uther saw who she really was, Uther would have never ever forgiven it and instantly killed the one in question (except Arthur).

If the troll had succeded to keep up her disgusting and dangerous game, soon Camelot would have been ruined, would have have ruined (and therefore slowly killed) the peasants/farmers/servants/commoners by raising the taxes, plus, it would have been very vulnerable to attackers of all sorts, magical creatures, sorcerers and other kingdoms alike.

As funny and lighthearted the episodes were - and I loved Uther's softer and romantical side - it was also not a harmless thing that happened to him and Camelot but quite a dangerous situation for really everyone, even for Merlin, had the troll found out about him. Sooner or later she might have found out.

Another thing that actually wasn't funny but truly sad was the fact that after more than twenty years of being faithful to his dead wife, the first love affair he had was with a disgusting and most of all magical creature. Even though he was under a spell, he actually betrayed his dead wife with the very thing he hated the most, which was magic (a magical creature in this case). It was the very first time in decades that he fell in love with another "woman" after Igraine died after all. And even before the troll enchanted him he already was interested in "Kathrina", yet rejected her attempts of getting closer because of Igraine.

How terrible it must have been for him when he realised that he was with a "woman" again who was as disgusting as the troll and also a magical creature. Not t9 mention that he even married her. Replacing Igraine, his one and only love and the great queen with the troll must have been such a cruel thing to him, and it was sad to see that he was happy for the very first time in at least two decades, only to be disappointed and reminded of cruel reality again shortly after it. At that point of time I thought that they would give him a new love interest later which would balance out what went wrong with the troll. Alas, they left him being lonely which actually turned these two episodes into a story of pure humiliation of Uther.

Anyway, Uther telling "Kathrina" that he has never been with any woman after Igraine shows how much he loved her and how faithful he was. It may also have shown that he was afraid of falling in love again in order to not lose another loved one again. And itt also gave a hint that Morgana was older than Arthur when we later learnt that she was his daughter.

Aside from the sad sides of this story, I enjoyed the humour (at least most of it, except the much too disgusting things) and I loved Arthur's facial expression when he was disgusted by his father's romantical feelings for a woman. Nevertheless, he was happy for him and never ever had the slightest feelings of jelousy.

Merlin and Arthur almost hugging was funny too.

Most people say that they were only filler episodes, and up to a certain extent it might be true. However, they also showed some character progress, for example Uther's faithfulness towards Igraine and the way he behaves towards women he loves which was much more mature and romantical (even when being enchanted and behaving like a fool) than Arthur's pal-like behaviour towards Gwen. A bit of his father's way to treat women would have done good to Arthur and would have made the relationship between Gwen and Arthur more believable and interesting.

Morgana didn't have a big role here but I liked that she obviously was amused by Uther being in love, yet it surprised me since she had started to really hate him at that point of time already. I wonder why she didn't try to destroy his "happiness".

The scene with Leon and Gaius trying to talk to Uther was piceless :-D