Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Five/@comment-5102537-20140426100805/@comment-24629321-20140427200054

Everyone has covered this episode pretty well already, so there's not much to add except that it had the distinction of finally bringing me around to liking Mordred. It was also a relief to finally bring another 'traitor in Camelot' arc to a close. For me, the only sad things about the whole evil Gwen storyline were seeing her turn on Merlin (since they had once been such good friends), and the fact that she never got to properly mourn her brother. Other than that, it was actually nice to see Morgana get a friend again.

I had also really hoped that we'd see the White Goddess as being different from the Triple Goddess, and perhaps some insight into differing opinions among the Goddesses—for instance, that the White Goddess would decide to help Gwen, even though the Triple Goddess had already forsaken Arthur. (Though seeing as Gwen will be left in charge of Camelot by the end, and implied that she may have a higher opinion of magic, it makes more sense that the White Goddess may have helped her even if she was the same as the Triple Goddess.) But of course, we don't get to see anything like that—but we do get to see Merlin finally live up to his crossdressing potential that's been a running joke all along! I may have wanted substance over silly, but I can't deny that Colin Morgan acted the Dolma well, and the best part of the whole thing was Alex Vlahos's barely concealed laughter.

Fimber wrote:

''All in all, Gwen was most interesting to me when she teamed up with others, but sadly, it happened only twice. One time in "The Moment of Truth" and the other time with M erlin in "The Witchfinder". I'm not counting evil-Gwen teaming up with Morgana.''

I always loved seeing Gwen working as part of the team too. I see it as happening several more times than twice (though she did play a much smaller role in some of these): when she helped get the flower from Arthur to cure Merlin in "The Poisoned Chalice" (plus helping Gaius look after Merlin all that time); when she helped Morgana prepare for getting Mordred out of Camelot in "The Beginning of the End"; when she helped outfit Lancelot to play knight in "Lancelot"; letting Arthur hide out in her home in "The Once and Future Queen"; helping Merlin catch the goblin in "Goblin's Gold"; helping Gaius work out what's happened to Merlin in "A Servant of Two Masters", and saving Merlin in "Lamia" (my personal favorite Gwen moment).

Merlinarthur wrote:

did anyone notice the minor slip-up when Merlin drank the potion to turn into Dragoon instead of turning back to Merlin.

I definitely noticed that they could not get the potion aspect of Dragoon straight! Sometimes he needs it to turn, sometimes to turn back, sometimes not at all! It was one of the most frustrating little details! The showrunners brush off complaints about historical accuracy saying they're creating their own fantasy universe, but they can't even keep the details of that universe straight!

Issy5209 wrote:

''I think its telling that Capps and Murphy were so insistent that their Morgana HAD to be the villain, she turns bad in every story doesn't she? (well, actually, no she doesn't, and she had good reasons to be against Gwen in particular), and she  is also ambiguous - she's quite often shown loving her brother dearly.   At this stage I still thought she might be redeemed in some way, perhaps Merlin takes her to Avalon, (or banishes her there) and she's waiting for Arthur after Camlann, but *sigh" it was not to be.''

Do you mean that Morgana in the legend had good reasons to be against Gwen, or Morgana in this show? I agree that it was very disappointing that she didn't get redemption in this version of the story. It's also a shame that the writing was flawed and inconsistent in her turn to evil, because her arc had amazing potential.