Episode II.VII – The Witchfinder
Join us for episode of all of the potential and all of the hard work and… just not quite enough logic and reason. We discuss episode 7 of Season 2 of BBC Merlin!
#DestinyAndChicken
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21st April 2020 @ 10:50 pm
I really loved this episode. Charles Dance was hilarious in his evilness. Sometimes he just made me laugh because it was so over the top. I agree about using the magic at the end and having the knife hot and Aredian having a toad come out of his mouth. It made no sense. It did turn him into an evil sorcerer rather than the evil person that he was.
28th April 2020 @ 12:32 pm
I think if you do not get joy out of the occassional campy over the topness of merlin, then merlin really is not for you haha
17th March 2020 @ 3:35 am
Oh gosh. This might end up being an inane comment, as I haven’t quite finished the podcast ep yet, but I feel tremendous pressure to say something after my Gaius rant last episode.
Did Gaius redeem himself this episode? Yes, I suppose so. But my bigger takeaway was that I have never watched any show that has given me so much whiplash. Everything that’s true one week is not true the next (REALLY sorry I missed the comment period on Gwen and Lancelot because whaaaa…??) and Michelle’s Yahtzee theory is the only way I can explain any of this. (I laughed so hard at that. I’m already dreaming of a Merlin producer coming on the pod and asking about it.)
RE my rant last week…I hope Gaius has learned to stop trusting Uther so much after this episode, but I question that now that I have learned not to expect seemingly pivotal plot points to carry through from one episode to the next.
On the positive, Charles Dance was fantastic to watch and I now want to watch all the things he’s ever been in. You are so right that this deserved to be the double episode!
The one real lesson from this ep seems to be that Merlin has learned that sometimes he has to solve problems for himself. Or at least that his expert consultants (Gaius, the Dragon) won’t always be there. I do sort of wish he hadn’t had to learn this around a problem he created, but I think that’s because I want this to be more of a heavy life lesson. When you create your own problem, it feels like more of a parenting lesson, if that makes any sense.
Finally, I might be an outlier in that I didn’t love the dragon scene. It just seemed so pointless this time in terms of advancing the plot. However, I do enjoy the dragon’s completely random reinforcement of his “I won’t speak to you unless you release me” ultimatum. If he’s only going to bring that up every 3-5 times, I’d risk asking his opinion, too.
Sorry for the rambles. I’m surviving social distancing on carbs and alcohol and perhaps it’s starting to show 😉
17th March 2020 @ 5:58 am
I have the feeling that social distancing is going to be the word of the year! It’s crazy… I have to remotely teach all my classes from home and I feel like I now have to work twice as hard. 🙁
But, regarding your episodr comment, I completely agree that Merlin has (hopefully) learned some autonomy in this episode. To be fair, I think he was pretty independent to begin with. Sometimes, he was a bit rash and youthful in his choices which caused him to be told off by Gaius and the dragon frequently. But, more often than not, he was actually wiser than both of them yet their voices were so authoritative that he listened to them anyway so I feel like since coming to Camelot, Merlin had actually unlearned some of his original autonomy and now has to slowly relearn it. However, whether the influence of Gaius and the dragon will cause him to make better choices throughout the series. .. Not sure. (Or at least I can’t talk about it yet.)
In a way (and this might sound super cruel), I would have been happy if the show had actually allowed Gaius to die. Firstly, no reset button from that (and no inevitable whiplash!) and secondly, Merlin would finally be able to stand on his own two feet and make his own decisions. I think the show would have been better if it had allowed Merlin to be more proactive rather than reactive to the things that just happen to him. He could have purposely set in motion so many things to actively contribute to the fulfilment of Arthur’s destiny and the acceptance of magic both (Re my comment above).
Plus, we could have seen so much awesome magic rather than the usual ‘I’ll just do a little bit of magic here to save Arthur yet again last minute’ or the occasional smoke horse and toad.
17th March 2020 @ 6:03 am
Sorry forgot: If you love Charles Dance as a performer, you must watch the 2005 BBC version of ‘Bleak House’. He plays Mr Tulkinghorn and he’s (possibly) even more awesomely villainous than as a witchfinder!
16th March 2020 @ 11:19 pm
The thing that I will always remember this episode for is the anticipation the preview at the end of the previous episode managed to build up: Merlin being accused as a sorcerer, in prison, a burning pyre, Merlin taken away by guards etc. This is the one, I thought. No more reset button from here on out, I thought. And then watching the actual episode, I felt so disappointed, deflated, even slightly cheated because all the danger for Merlin was basically over within 10 minutes and then we embark on Gaius’ arc. I do care for Gaius, of course, but not as much as Merlin, and I didn’t appreciate becoming aware of being barely more than the target of a clever marketing strategy, the producers cutting the trailer to ‘sell’ the story as a Merlin magic reveal to the audience when it really wasn’t.
On another note, I do enjoy watching this episode for the many reasons you have discussed. I am especially grateful for your comment about Merlin being the tonal catalyst for each episode, determining whether we should feel light-hearted, tense etc. about certain characters and events. It’s so obvious now that I think about it but I had just never considered him in that way. So, thanks for that revelation.
In terms of the order of the episodes in season 2, I am not sure whether they made any last- minute changes. However, there are a couple of reasons why I think episode 8 was perhaps meant to precede ep 7. 1) You mentioned that between ep. 5/6 and 7 there was an extreme tonal shift. I agree. Having ep 8 as ep 7 would have made the transition a lot gentler and more fluid because the sense of danger and gravity comes in the shape of an outsider, literally (re)introducing it to Camelot with her challenge to Arthur. 2) The conversation between Merlin and Uther at the end of ep 8 (one of my favourite ever scenes in all of Merlin) would explain why Uther doesn’t cart Merlin off to the chopping block the second Aredian accuses him, even addressing him by name and giving him a chance to reply to the accusation.
With regards to lessons, I kind of have one that we as viewers have learned, two that should/ could have been learned but probably haven’t and one lesson that I am not sure has sunk in quite yet. Hm…
We learn that in Camelot it is apparently worse to be dismissed from your job than to be executed. In ‘Remedy to Cure All Ills’, Morgana and Arthur try to speak up and protect Gaius. This episode: condemned to death: no one lifts a finger in his defense.
Arthur could have learned that magic users and non-magic users aren’t all black and white, evil and innocent, but that there can be abuse of power, lies and deception on both sides. He could have realised that Uther’s ban on magic basically created monsters like Aredian and ep 8 seems to suggest that perhaps he has become a little less inclined to mistrust all magic users. (Of course, we could say he goes to see Morgause simply because he wants to learn about his mother. But you can’t tell me there weren’t any other people Arthur could have gone to see to learn about his mother.) However, due to Merlin’s toad, I don’t think Arthur can actually be said to have learned this lesson; it is certainly never textualised nor is the witchfinder ever mentioned again.
Something we never learn is what happens to Merlin’s toad! After Aredian has fallen out of the window to his death, there is a shot of Camelot, at peace yet again (grr, reset button!), underlaid with the sound of frogs and toads ribbitting. I feel like there is a missed story opportunity here: What are the sound designers/ editors suggesting happened to the toad? Did it escape from the castle? Did it find some nice friends in the local Camelot pond? If this were Pixar, they’d already have made a short film about this! But Kudos anyway to the sound team for being so subtle and clever!
Merlin has (possibly) learned that using his magic for any other purpose but for Arthur will ultimately backfire. Both the toad and the horse of smoke do little to advance Arthur’s destiny or ensure his safety. The latter is innocent amusement for Merlin, the former serves to revenge Gaius, I suppose. The smoke horse backfired by bringing on the witch hunt; the toad prevented Arthur (or Uther – one can hope, right?) from learning the lesson I have outlined above. In this way, the toad simply solidified the Pendragons’ belief that magic is inherently evil. I have checked this theory against other episodes we have seen so far and it holds: Merlin heals Gwen’s father and it backfires. Merlin tries to help Lancelot by making a fake certificate of nobility and it backfires.
So, if Merlin can really only use his magic for Arthur and nothing else unless he wishes it to backfire, he is effectively robbed of all free choice and made a slave/ puppet to his destiny (or fate – sorry, I never quite understood the difference). Furthermore, the decision whether to champion the cause of magic as Emrys should or Arthur’s cause, which has and will be often opposed/harmful to the cause of magic, is taken out of Merlin’s hands as well. He must choose Arthur! I might be too dramatic here, but isn’t Merlin set up to fail and disappoint at least one ‘party’ that puts their trust in him (knowingly or not) and, worst of all, himself? And due to his inborn magic and his identity as Emrys, he isn’t free to get out of this debacle and do something entirely different – gosh, destiny is really awful to Merlin!
13th March 2020 @ 3:42 pm
Ok so there seem to be these sort of stock lines throughout the show that get used to build tension etc without enough work being put in to make them make sense: the biggest one is Uther saying “we need to do more to stamp out sorcery!” just to make the audience or the characters go “ohhhh no it’s got serious!” – in this episode, for example, we already Aredian giving an evil little speech about the evils of magic, how it’s a plague, how Uther’s got soft, and we can believe that from Aredian’s perspective maybe Uther has (ie Aredian would go way further than even Uther), so why not just already have Aredian in Camelot by chance so that when a minor instance of magic happens and Uther goes “wait that’s illegal” it can be Aredian who talks him up to much harsher methods? I mean, you could even just have Uther at a loss for who caused the magic horse and to call upon Aredian for his witchFINDING skills, to identify the sorceror, and then have him be the one to amp up the stakes, instead of Uther calling upon Aredian for More Seriousness.
The Stinky Lizard bothered me less than usual, which was a nice surprise. In Ruth’s words, though, more for the tone than the content.
Arthur dragging Merlin out of the room after Gaius is accused is one of my favourite Arthur moments in the show so far. It’s just beautiful. The quiet “I’ll deal with this,” using the prince mask and not letting it slip until he’s safely out of the room; no one follows them because Arthur so clearly has the situation under control but he doesn’t for a second threaten Merlin. The “I know you’re upset, I know you’re angry” is lovely because of course Arthur knows how Merlin must be feeling, and he doesn’t blame him for it. He’s firm and there’s no room for Merlin to argue or struggle because Arthur is holding him back for Merlin’s safety, but there’s no judgement there. Merlin is allowed to feel how he feels, and Arthur understands. And then “I’m breaking the law” – the second time in two episodes where Arthur breaks the law for Merlin’s sake, but this time it’s not to save his life but to do something smaller, kinder, less heroic and more simply an act of friendship. Thinking about that scene in conjunction with what you said about the hiding-under-the-bed scene, it emphasises the age and maturity gap between them: I don’t think Merlin’s feelings or actions here are inherently childish, but in reality yelling at Aredian is obviously not going to help, Arthur kind of takes the adult role like a teacher or parent restraining a child who’s having a tantrum. I think it’s mostly a sign of Arthur’s upbringing and how it’s forced him to mature faster in ways that aren’t always healthy, but maybe something can be said about Merlin’s naivity here too – when Arthur called him sheltered last episode, it’s possible that that could be extended here too – like a child he still expects the world to be fair, for good to triumph, for honesty to work out, and Arthur had to learn at a young age that that’s not true. It ties in well with Gwen and Merlin’s horror at Aredian too actually.
The episode definitely should have been two parts. So many good dramatic shots of Gaius in the cell to finish ep 1 with that would leave everyone tense all week until ep 2…
One final thing before I stop rambling: I’ve had a vague (definitely not canon) personal headcanon since I rewatched series 1 episode 1 that Merlin is autistic (using anachronistic labels obviously) and/or that magic makes an interesting parallel with neurodivergence. It stems from some moments in that first episode where I related to Merlin’s awkwardness and misteps that everyone else points out that he’s an idiot for, as well as the fact that magic is something that’s innately tied to who he is and that it in many ways defines who he is and how he moves through the world… and there was a comment you made about Merlin in front of the king clearly having to think about how to act that reminded of me of that. So if anyone wants to chat about neurodivergent headcanons, let me know! I see so little of it in fandom but I’m so fascinated by it.