Contributor: Gregg Wright
Without having seen the rest of the season yet, I can’t be completely sure of this, but currently this episode seems like a colossal misstep for not only the season, but the show as a whole. Despite “Merlin’s” ambitions to become a darker, more serialized show, this episode makes me wonder if the writers really know how to properly utilize the arc-based material.
In past seasons, the show has always had season arc material peppered throughout the show, but there was usually a fairly clear distinction between the predominately stand-alone episodes and the big myth-arc episodes (which usually served as bookends for each season). Colin Morgan’s statements have indicated that this season would not be as strongly bound to that formula; that each episode would be a part of the overall puzzle.
One of the most important lingering plot threads that had to be woven into this season’s story was Uther Pendragon himself, still almost catatonic from Morgana’s betrayal at the end of the previous season. Uther has been a highly important and sympathetic regular character in “Merlin” since day one. It was obvious that one day Uther would have to die for Arthur to become king, but I’d always assumed that this would be a well-planned, climactic moment of the show. This would have been the perfect season to plan Uther’s eventual exist from the show.
But, oddly, the writers are given only a single episode to completely wrap up Uther’s involvement in the show. It’s almost as if Uther was an afterthought that needed to be dealt with before the show could move forward. I don’t have a problem with Uther being killed off. But my problem is with how the show handles his exit. A character death as major as this one surely deserved more build-up over more than one episode, and shouldn’t have occurred so early in the season. But the writers are still being forced to work within an overly episodic construct.
Episode writer Howard Overman may have been responsible for the worst episode in the show: “Goblin’s Gold”. But his episodes for the show have not been consistently bad. In fact, Overman wrote one of the finest episodes of the show: “The Beginning of the End”. And the rest of his episodes (besides “Goblin’s Gold”) have been average to good. So there was no real reason to suspect that he couldn’t handle such an important episode. It even makes sense to have Overman write the episode, given that he wrote the other episode featuring Old Merlin. But it is, unfortunately, a highly problematic episode.
Judged on its own merits, “The Wicked Day” is not quite as bad as some of the worst episodes of the show, but at least those horrible comedy episodes could be ignored, as they ultimately had no effect on the larger narrative. This episode, on the other hand, has irreparably damaged the show’s overall story. The episode, no doubt, accomplished what the producers and writers wanted it to accomplish. Uther is now dead, and Arthur, who now hates magic as much as Uther did, is now king. These story developments aren’t necessarily bad, in concept. But the execution of these ideas was dreadfully poor.
For one thing, the episode is written as if it’s a stand-alone episode right up until Uther actually dies. In concept, this might seem like a brilliant idea. But it simply doesn’t work. The episode has an overly lighthearted, comedic feel for much of the running time, particularly in regards to Merlin’s behavior as an older version of himself. So when Uther actually dies, I spent the rest of the episode in disbelief, thinking that it must all be a dream from which Arthur will soon awake; perhaps a result of that poisoned apple?
The odd thing is that a show like “Game of Thrones” can take this kind of storyline, unceremoniously kill off seemingly untouchable characters and leave you with this “they can’t do that!” feel, and yet it feels all the more compelling for it. But “Merlin” tries something immensely similar, and it falls flat on its face. I’m still struggling to determine exactly why this is. Why did Uther’s death and Arthur’s change in attitude toward magic frustrate and disappoint me so much, when “Game of Thrones” can do something extremely similar, and it will simply seem like great storytelling? So far, I can’t come up with much more than “it just felt wrong”.
Perhaps it’s just that Uther’s death did not feel like an organic part of the story. In “Game of Thrones”, a similar event would occur and it would be shocking as hell and extremely emotionally affecting. And yet when it’s all over with, we feel as though it was an inevitable consequence of the story; that it couldn’t have happened any other way. Uther’s death simply did not feel earned. It feels as though the writers took what would normally be a fairly typical stand-alone episode and forcefully jammed Uther’s death and Arthur’s coronation into it. There should have been more build-up to this. Take Lancelot’s death in the previous episode, for instance. It was certainly sad, but it ultimately felt like a natural and rather satisfying consequence to the current situation.
As with all art, reactions to this episode will no doubt vary greatly, depending on the person. But for me, I can’t help but feel that an enormous amount of storytelling potential has been wasted, and that an extremely important character was given the short end of the stick, thanks to the inability (or unwillingness) of the producers/writers to properly craft multi-episode arcs. Instead of being a defining moment of the show, this episode is yet another unfortunate example of “Merlin’s” reach exceeding its grasp.
Rating: 5/10