~~*Previously, on Robin of Sherwood*~~
When Huntingdon is offered the sword Albion by Lady Marion, he’s reluctant to assume the role with which he alone is charged. But then the sword – forged by a god, specifically Wayland, and granted the first Robin by Herne the Hunter – displays its magical powers and burns the youth’s enemy in a surprise strike. He then realises that Albion is indeed a mark of his destiny, a sign of his rightful place as the Hooded Man, because it cannot harm him; thus, he truly becomes Robin Hood, declaring “so must it be.”
This episode begins by introducing the audience to a boldly innovative new concept of Tarot reading; thus we learn, from the opening scene, that the Tarot is best employed by someone willing to seek answers about situations he already understands. This mostly-psychic man should approach an ignorant reader, who will shuffle the deck and draw the cards for him, and as she turns them over, he can thoroughly explain each card to her.
Since this struck me as a peculiar approach, I decided to test for myself whether the Tarot could indeed provide visual exposition of things I already knew. So I pulled out my Morgan’s Tarot deck and chose a simple two-card spread, asking, “Will I need to drink copiously during the next fifty-one minutes?”
And lo, the Tarot reveals an already-evident truth.
So, The Venerable Tarot Itself has assigned Goldschläger to this episode, and with that, we fortify ourselves with a shot and then go to Caerleon Castle, which is filled with enough hoarded antiquities to resemble an Etsy seller’s house:
In the next room, the lazy residents – a father and daughter, who do even less castle-cleaning than did the late Baron de Belleme – sit across from each other to demonstrate how a Tarot reading might go if it were a contrived plot device:
She deals a four-card layout–
–and her father proceeds to dramatically misinterpret them all, starting with the highest card:
He explains that the depiction of Death shows his own death and that he expects it; this is quite sensible, as castle-dwelling noblefolk in the Middle Ages generally had a 100% mortality rate. But if the cards are really that literal, then the Major Arcana should predict other inevitable life events, like “Breathing” and “Lunch”. Let’s see what the next entry shows:
This seems to relate to the previous card, indicating impending demise from one-footed arboreal suspension. But self-interest is a powerful motivator, so the old man decides not to take this card at face value, instead calling the Hanged Man a depiction of Judas and identifying the betrayer with his own former steward Mortimer:
Again, I question the validity of this reading. The Hanged Man’s halo shows that, like Odin, he hung for the sake of knowledge and enlightenment, while this steward looks like the offspring of Oliver Platt and a fish, and his name of “Mortimer” clearly indicates that he’s up to no good. And indeed, he hisses some sinister, card-framed words: “There’s an old man, and a girl, alone in a run-down castle. And a treasure. Just waiting to be taken…”
The old man just shakes his head with a rueful smile, as though remembering the good ol’ days with that wacky backstabber–
–and then his daughter turns over The Tower:
This receives a decent explanation, of catastrophic change, but it then dissolves into a shot of a literal tower that’s actually on fire. Finally, the girl turns the fourth card, and it confuses her–
–for it shows an image of a blond twerp walking over a bridge:
This is the only card that her father describes fairly well, telling her that The Fool can represent the home television viewer idealism and independence, but may also signify…darker things:
“The Fool,” she repeats. But since Roooooobin, The Foo-ooo-oool, :dahn-dahn: makes for an awfully bland chorus, her father clarifies the card for her: “The Hooded Man.”
Clannad joins in with a harmonious theme-songical confirmation, and then we see our unenticing title:
It’s late morning, and the Merries are gathered round a lake, where Much is slingshotting waterfowl to death as the others nap peacefully in the sunshine. John suddenly asks them what day it is; apparently it’s Thursday, and that calendar confirmation having been given, the Merries return to their snoozing:
But John was actually going somewhere with that question, so he exasperatedly answers it himself: “It’s the Summer Solstice! We got three days to Midsummer’s Eve!” (1) Tuck asks John how he knows that; I guessed “pure narcissism,” since Midsummer coincides with Saint John’s Eve, but it seems that the day “meant something in Hathersage” – something besides keeping track of the seasons, that is, which people tend to do when they live off the land.
John reminisces happily, explaining that his fellow mud-dwellers habitually celebrated with banquets, games, and Maypoles – erected just in time for the Summer Solstice in June – and that they even had girls in Hathersage and everything. And the menfolk pipe up with sudden interest, as though women will spontaneously spring forth from the Sherwood foliage by mere acknowledgment of the Solstice. Then John declares that they must do something for the holiday:
Tuck suggests that they could have something to eat, which provokes the ghastly response of, “oh, Tuck, that’s all you ever think about.” But John is determined, so after firmly establishing that (a) the Merries are of the avidly girl-interested, not-gay persuasion, and (b) it’s fun to mock Tuck for being overweight, John sends Tuck out to hunt them a deer and decrees that the rest will have a tug-of-war, just like they used to have in Hathersage. Then he pours a bucket of water onto Will who, instead of murdering him, just laughs. And rather than suggest that John just go back to Hathersage if he wants to Derbyshire it up so much, the other Merries rise and prepare to celebrate. This scene exemplifies why having a guest writer craft storylines for an established show is not a great idea, and I’ll explain why in a bit.
Robin is currently not with them because he’s off getting schooled by Herne, and he seems kind of pissy about it, like I COULD BE SLEEPING IF IT WEREN’T FOR ALL OF YOUR MYSTIC-ING, YOU KNOW:
But Herne is bound by the Hunter’s magic to confuddle Robin Hood at every turn, so the following conversation of confusion takes place:
Robin: Why have you called me?
Herne: To warn you. It is a time of trials. A power is drawing near. The King that was and the King that is to be.
Robin: What King is this?
Herne: I cannot tell you. I cannot help you. Isn’t that convenient? His power is greater than mine, and I am bound by it.
Robin: Soooo…why do we worship you again? But I serve you.
Herne: For the present. Soon, you will be asked to choose. And you must make that choice alone.
So, we’ve got an obfuscating power on its way that’s even less comprehensible than Herne, and which Herne cannot clarify, ward off, or explain, and Robin must choose whether to serve The Vagueness or Herne. As tempting as this offer of…something…sounds, “Vague’s Son” is a damned unimpressive title, and I’m guessing that the Merries are safe in their leadered-ed status. Besides, you know that Robin Hood did not go through all of that ZOMG AM I WORTHYYYYY hand-wringing, just to ditch the Merries in the very next episode.
Back in the forest, a man sharpens a knife, and since it’s one of those “super-stabby for your convenience” type daggers–
–you’ll instantly guess that this man sucks, and he’s cackling sinisterly with a lowlife companion who also sucks. Approaching them is the young woman from the earlier Tarot reading, now wearing boy’s clothes and a hood, carrying a longbow and arrows and walking through the forest:
For some reason, she’s holding her bow and quiver in the same hand–
–which will prevent her from actually using the weapon if anyone were to say, jump out at her with a knife. And indeed, you can see right there the dagger-polishing man, who appears on the road and inquires after her destination, and though every child over the age of three is shouting STRANGER DANGER! at the screen, she just nods and explains that she’s looking for Robin Hood, then asks if the man knows his whereabouts. The man replies calculatingly that it’ll cost her, and though she insists she has no money, he points out that she talks like a lady despite her peasant dress and so is probably higher – in both rank and means – than she pretends to be.
The plot now requires that she be rescued, so instead of drawing her bow – a weapon she later shows exceptional skill in wielding – she pulls a knife and tries to engage the man one-on-one. Unfortunately for her, his companion has crept up behind her and now leaps into the fray. She’s able to stab him before being thrown on the ground by the first man, and struggles prettily against him until an arrow hits him in the back:
Then Tuck appears in the glade, lowers his bow, squints at her, and blurts out something that’s Gisburne-level dumb!blunt: “Bless me, you’re a girl!” (2)
Elsewhere, it seems that King John’s rule has sparked a boom in tavern-building throughout England, so we now go from the forest to YET ANOTHER BAR, where MEN ARE DOING MAN-THINGS, like arm-wrestling, yelling, and generally being filthy stinky boors:
One of them even has a glass eye and some shaggy shreds of chain-maille adorning his neck–
–so he probably ranks as Head Boor. And sure enough, the “treacherous steward” from the Tarot scene approaches him with a ewer and a cup and offers him wine:
He introduces himself as “someone who could make you rich,” so after enjoying a BAHAHAHA laugh at the expense of this wealthy, groomed fop who probably practices hygiene, Head Boor takes the wine and tells El Foppo to start talking.
In Sherwood, the Merries are playing a tug-of-war like overjoyed six-year-olds, the game pitting Will, Nasir, Much, and Robin against John alone; meanwhile, Marion has completely forgotten how hard she fought to be included in the men’s activities in The Witch of Elsdon, and now shouts encouragement from the sidelines like some Dark Ages cheerleader. Then Friar Tuck approaches the clearing, with the rescued young lady in tow, and explains to her that the Merries’ tug-of-war is an enactment of the struggle between winter and summer, good versus evil. “That one’s definitely evil,” he jokes to the girl, as John hauls the other Merries into a dog pile of defeat.
Remember what I wrote earlier about the perils of guest writers? In Carpenter’s novel, the first line of dialogue in The Greatest Enemy was Marion telling Robin, “I wish that summer would never end.” Though it seems that everyone’s now forgotten this, it was summertime two years ago when Robin of Loxley’s warm youthful vitality was cut down by a cold elder man, in a horrifying enactment of the Summer King/Winter King legend. (3) The Merries should be devastated upon hearing this interpretation of their little game; for that matter, John’s earlier pronouncement that they “must do something” to mark the summer’s arrival should have been met by Marion’s incredulous, reproachful, tear-filled gaze, or else by her staffing him in the face.
But I’ll put down my silly “nothing’s forgotten” pedantry for a moment and return to the forest, where Will and John are both dazzled by the appearance of ZOMG A GIRL, whom we discover is named Isadora. John kisses her hand and introduces himself shyly as John Little, but Isadora only has a moment to acknowledge him before Will butts in, all like IGNORE HIM BECAUSE I’M WILLIAM SCATHLOCK AND ZOMG UR A GIIIIIIIRL–
–while everyone else grins knowingly like D’AWWWW, RUTTING MENFOLK!
Anyway, the Merries have learned nothing from the last two seasons, in which people who came to the forest in apparent mortal peril were not always friendly, and sometimes were even moles working for Nottingham Castle. So Friar Tuck blithely introduces the others to Isadora, and it’s a nifty coincidence that she was found by Tuck since she was looking for Robin Hood anyway. BUT IF THERE’S ANYTHING THE OTHER MEN CAN DO FOR HER, BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL SEVERELY AFFLICTED BY THE NOT-GAYS AND IT’S SUMMER SOLSTICE AND THERE ARE MAYPOLE CELEBRATIONS IF YOU GET THEIR DRIFT….LAAAAAAADY.
Over in the bar, Mortimer speaks the exact lines heard seen through the cards earlier, about an old man, a girl, and their castle home with its unguarded treasure. To add vagaries to mysteries, he now confesses that he doesn’t know exactly what the loot is and that during his two years in Caerleon he never succeeded in learning any details, though his boss frequently spoke of the treasure. In fact, the old man said that there was nothing more precious in all of England, and if this “treasure” turns out to be Isadora, I’m going to barf. However, it certainly would make the division more interesting, for Mortimer now offers the brigands a half-split if they help him chase after this unspecified thing of unknown size and untallied value.
Simultaneously, in Sherwood, Isadora is trying to feed the Merries this exact story, except she wants them to defend this treasure rather than steal it. But Robin, though he’s been warned of approaching absurdity, can’t quite link these peculiar plot points involving an empty long-undusted castle, an ornery resident who refuses to leave, bandits approaching with intent to thieve a thing that may or may not be there, and the urgency of needing to leave NOW to stop the bad men from taking the valuable randomness. Will and John, blinded by hormones, insist that Isadora needs help regardless of the reason, but Robin, bless him, decides that he can’t drag the entire band across England, based solely upon the insistence of two horny Merries that plot holes don’t matter if they’re accompanied by a pretty face.
In the next scene they’re all resting, and Marion is cuddled up to Robin in the usual sleeping posture of grieving noble widows :cough:
But Isadora wakes up Robin and quietly beckons him away, towards a completely unwatched forest fire:
And while the Merries sleep, Smokey the Bear weeps.
Then she hands Robin a ring that glows cobalt in the bluefilter twilight–
–and he’s all OHHHHHH, YOUR FATHER AGRIVAINE. This is the missing piece of the puzzle, which Isadora didn’t bother to mention before: that her father is Lord Agrivaine, who also happens to be Robin’s godfather. “He sent for you alone,” explains Isadora, so I can only surmise that her father’s gone batty and can no longer grasp the strategic advantage made possible by a whole group of experienced, battle-ready comrades. (This also makes contradictory and pointless Isadora’s earlier attempt to convince all of the Merries to escort her back to Caerleon.) So disowned!Huntingdon once again grapples with old loyalties versus new; in the end, he silently gathers up his weapons, and Tuck must have spiked the evening stew with medieval Vicodin, because the others don’t budge as Robin skulks away with Isadora. Only Much awakens, notices, and decides to follow them alone instead of just yelling HEY ROBIN, ARE YOU CREEPING OFF TO CAERLEON WITH THE BLONDE LADY AFTER TELLING US NO?
Dawn breaks, and the Merries find Robin and Isadora gone, so Will and Tuck immediately start lashing out at each other with all the ire of thwarted masculinity, betrayed and angry that their ZOMG GIRL leader is gone, while Marion pouts by the fire, all like I TOTALLY DON’T EVEN CARE THAT I HAVE TO SLEEP ALONE AGAIN, AND MY HAIR’S NICER ANYWAY, JUST SO YOU KNOW:
And as the arguing continues, jealous estrogen finally outstrips even inflamed testosterone, as Marion just snaps and yells at them all to STFU:
Further off in Sherwood, Robin realises he and Isadora are being followed, so he tells Isadora to keep moving and hands over his bow and arrows to her, thus rendering himself less defended, and bogging her down with a second bow so that she can’t shoot either:
I’m starting to think that chivalry is dead because all of its adherents got themselves shot, but anyway, Robin discovers Much, much to both his and Isadora’s chagrin:
But Much pleads not to be sent back to the others – in a plaintive tone that implies beatings and starvation if he returns alone – so reluctantly, they allow him to come along.
You know, this situation constitutes one hell of a betrayal, especially for a brand-new leader: to expressly forbid his followers to do something, and then just sneak off and do it himself, motivated by private loyalties that he doesn’t disclose. There’s no damn reason, except TEH ANGST, that Robin couldn’t have implored Much with words like, my friend, I need you to return, to tell the others I had to go to Caerleon, after discovering something that I didn’t know before – something personal that I can’t yet discuss. Please ask them to trust me, just this once, and I’ll explain everything when I get back.
But since even that miniscule consideration is too much to ask from Huntingdon – THIS KID, Y’ALL – Marion pouts alone in the forest, staring dolefully into the fire–
–as the men return from their searches empty-handed. But tracker!Nasir comes back with two pieces of information: marks indicating that Much followed Robin and Isadora, and an arrow, which he declares as a sign, left behind by Robin, to request that they follow him:
So now I’m thoroughly confused; Robin couldn’t have delivered the same message by just “accidentally” making enough noise to wake up the other Merries? And the expert archer and forester Isadora – who walked all the way from Caerleon and made it to Sherwood Forest, alone – really didn’t notice Robin spiking an arrow into a tree? But I’m going to leave this mess alone now, because the plot’s about to get even more fantastic, since Marion bullies them all into going to Caerleon because ZOMG ROBIN.
And when I say “fantastic,” it’s because Caerleon is in Wales, which explains why this episode is already packed full of whimsical Welsh-style weirdness. Let’s go, everybody! Our destination is 235 kilometers from Nottingham, and I’m sure that these hormonally-motivated outlaws will dash across that distance at whatever speed the plot requires quite expeditiously.
The bandits, too, have scruffily set off for Caerleon, and they reach the outskirts of Caerleon village just as the villagers’ Midsummer celebration begins:
The festive music from Lord of the Trees plays, and the brigands snigger and prepare to attack. Mortimer – a man who’s filled with avarice and idiocy, but isn’t uselessly violent – looks at his hired swords in surprise and asks why they’re bothering to ambush the town, when their target is the castle. So the leader takes this opportunity to State His Motivation for the Camera:
Raven: I’m a soldier, Mortimer. So are all of us. You take that scully there; he used to be page to a knight chevalier, before he cut the man’s throat to follow me. We fought three years for God in the Crusades. The Holy War! [spits] Three stinking, lousy years in the heat and the dust and the filth, dying of thirst, starvation, and disease before we even set eyes on a Saracen. They promised us a seat in Heaven, and they sent us to Hell. So now we work for ourselves, as soldiers of fortune, and this village has just had the misfortune to get in our way! [shouts to the others] Forward!
And Mortimer looks on in horror – like I JUST ASKED ABOUT THE FREAKIN’ TOWN, I DIDN’T NEED YOUR AUTOBIOGRAPHY, GAWD and also ZOMG, I’VE HIRED PSYCHOPATHS—
–as the Battles theme begins, and these ratty old assholes trample and burn Caerleon town as an outlet for Crusades-inspired PTSD. Oddly, these “soldiers of fortune” don’t actually take anything or profit by this assault at all; they just do things to establish their EEEEVIL, like torching rooftops and spilling ale and punting kittens, while the villagers scream and run.
EVEN THE CAMERA LENSES ARE NOT SAFE.
Meanwhile, Caerleon Castle remains unthreatened by puppy-torturing ruffians, so we go now to its silent stones, where Isadora is bringing Robin to her father:
Agrivaine promptly establishes the relationship between them by exclaiming, “The last time I saw you, you were still being wet-nursed; now look at you! The Earl of Huntingdon’s son! My godson!” But Robin, to his credit, does not look disturbed by the oddball welcome – because when you think about it, “you were hanging off a tit when we last met” is a pretty weird greeting – but simply speaks appropriate platitudes in reply to Agrivaine. The lord then explains that Caerleon holds a treasure, which Robin is to inherit:
Poor Isadora’s face visibly falls, while the old man relates that there’s been a man named Agrivaine guarding Caerleon for 700 years now – until his own wife died in childbirth, with their only child a girl. “Isadora’s been a dutiful child, but…a girl,” sighs Agrivaine ruefully:
This bullshit explains why Robin had to come alone, because Marion would have beaten Agrivaine with a stick the minute he produced that chauvinist little gem. Hell, the other Merries would have joined in, upon realising that Agrivaine dragged them all out of Sherwood – and away from their starving, persecuted people with actual problems – because he insisted upon giving his tatty old castle with its rickety furnishings to someone with a penis.
Robin looks a tad uncomfortable, but dutifully asks what this treasure is. Could it be? Is this where we finally receive a much-needed explanation for all of this nattering? NOPE. “You’ll find out in good time,” Agrivaine smiles – DUDE, IT’S BEEN TWENTY MINUTES, WE DON’T HAVE MUCH “GOOD TIME” LEFT – and then explains that Robin must first defend the treasure in order to claim it. With this addled twit in charge, I’m now thoroughly expecting this “inheritance” to have come out of a gumball machine and be made of adjustable brass. But Agrivaine apparently got a mystical pass-phrase from Herne, and he now repeats it to startle Robin into cooperation: “A time of fails trials is upon us.”
Meanwhile, Much is waiting for the others in a dirty grey foyer, when suddenly, he hears laughter, music, and merriment nearby. So he descends a staircase in search of the celebrants, but the joyous sounds die away as he enters a decrepit feasting hall, its past revels buried under layers of cobwebs and despair. SO THIS CASTLE FULL OF EXPOSITORY BULLSHIT AND DUST BUNNIES IS NOW HAUNTED, Y’ALL.
Isadora and Robin stand atop the castle walls and survey the environs, as Isadora explains that they’ll have to defend the castle soon, because her psycho psychic dad said the villains would arrive the next day:
Together they decide to leave the main gate open and allow the men to ride in, but then close both the main and inner gates and, from the walls, pick off the trapped invader wannabes. Robin sighs about the herculean task ahead of them, whining with unusual specificity that they have only two defenders to keep the castle from being overrun. This allows Isadora to protest that her presence makes the count three, and for Robin to immediately dismiss the outlandish notion that women are useful and instruct her to stay inside with her father and perhaps prepare some post-battle sandwiches.
BOY, I KNOW YOU DID NOT JUST. At least Loxley wanted to keep Marion out of danger because he loved her; Huntingdon’s just driving the plot with this ignorant assholitude, and so Isadora keeps her dignity pitched to painfully high levels, as she sternly reminds him that Caerleon Castle’s inheritance should be hers, that she’s fully aware of its value, and that the castle is her home, which gives her a far greater stake in the castle’s defense than anyone:
So Huntingdon smiles indulgently and graciously allows her to participate in executing the battle plans that she just helped him make and THIS KID, Y’ALL.
The other Merries then arrive in Caerleon town, where they find the villagers engrossed in a deep post-ravage mope. Marion gently explains to the be-ambushed people that they’re heading urgently to Caerleon Castle and need directions to locate it. So the townsfolk point to a mound in the distance and state that the castle lies on the other side, which seems a bizarre scheme for building a fortification. “But see, over yonder! There stands a high majestic hill, its peak an unassailable position that affords a far-reaching view in all directions! Verily, we shall set our fortress on its other side, at the bottom.”
One woman then announces that the town-burning bandits have already gone ahead to the castle. “But they won’t come back,” she declares rapturously. “He’ll see to that.” Confused, Marion asks who she means, and I HOPE YOU DO NOT EXPECT THIS WOMAN TO GIVE A CLEAR ANSWER. Instead, she looks hill-ward with an almost religious ecstasy in her features and names–
—“the King that was, the King that is to be!”
And I am totally down with that, because at this point, the answer had better be “Jesus” or “Osiris” or “Shango” or some other dying-resurrected king-god, in order to make THIS MUCH BUILD-UP worth my time.
Near Caerleon’s front gate, Much and Robin have assembled a huge wall of twigs and now begin coating the whole mess with tar. But suddenly, the Gisburne-torturing music from Lord of the Trees starts to play, and Isadora shouts warning to Robin that some strangely-soundtracked scruffballs are approaching, so Robin and Much dump off the rest of their tar and run inside the gate.
Outside, the goons are indeed drawing near the castle walls, and from their plot-deepening conversation, we discover that Mortimer had another motivation for turning on Agrivaine: the former steward wanted Isadora and – as Raven guesses – both she and her father considered her “too good for you.” This development will go nowhere and is included for no reason except to heighten the tragedy of beautiful, unbearably desirable Isadora, pining away amidst the tumbleweeds in a vale of Welsh crazy.
The brigands enter the front gate, and Robin shows himself and orders them to leave; when the leader responds NO by riding forward, Much fires a flaming arrow to set the wall of wood alight. So the “Tower” scene from the Tarot deck is confirmed–
–the ruffians are penned between a barricade and a fire, and Robin, Much, and Isadora just start whaling on the punks, but with arrows instead of fists. One of the bandits decides to stop these shenanigans by ascending the wall-walk where the defenders are standing; Robin, having just run out of arrows, actually hurls his quiver at the man, then draws Albion and gashes him dead. Another guy climbs up after his buddy, and he swiftly engages Robin in some ferocious sword-crossing and wrist-gripping:
Mortimer, meanwhile, shrieks like a little girl as he’s shot in the shoulder by Isadora, in a nicely-twanged confirmation of I SAID I WON’T MARRY YOU, GAWD. Finally, these pitifully ineffectual mercenaries realise that they’re no match for the combined might of three people with bows, so they flee, and Robin emphatically bars the gate behind them. Much and Isadora start crowing happily over their apparent victory, but Robin hushes them with a psychotic psychic scriptual warning that the men will surely return.
Outside Caerleon’s walls, the men regroup. Raven snarls an angry warning to Mortimer that this stupid plot had better have one hell of a payout, and yanks out the latter’s arrow with callous unconcern. Then he orders his diminutive second-in-command to return with four men to Caerleon village, instructing them to nab a woman or child or something cute with appropriate pathos. And the little man openly salivates over the idea of abducting a female, thus establishing that these mercs are slimeballs and are also of the not-gay. (4)
The other Merries, meanwhile, have gotten themselves lost, in the woods between village and castle, even despite the expert trackage of Nasir:
They stop for a few minutes to rest, and then a rather contrived exchange takes place: Marion takes her water-skin and wanders off alone, and when Will pointedly asks her where she’s going, she answers, “I’m setting myself up to be abducted by lusty mercenaries thirsty, Will!” Indeed, she gets copped by the mounted mercs not five seconds later, and starts yelling HELP! HELP! in a most un-Marion-like, dumbass-damsel-in-distress fashion. The only cool part of this scene happens when the Merries give chase, and Nasir throws a knife into one of the men, and he is smolderingly, death-dealingly pissed, because ONE DOES NOT MESS WITH A MARION-PROTECTING NASIR:
So the mercs ride back with Marion; Raven asks after their missing comrade, but he doesn’t wait for his second’s answer, just mocks him with, “my lord, my lord, that’s all you ever say, innit?” I can’t quite think who that reminds me of…
..but here’s a pic, just in case you were missing them. Herne knows I am.
But at least the hired dumbbells have secured the requested member of the female population, so Raven heaves an annoyed sigh, and finally just threatens Mortimer – who’s using his teeth to anchor a tourniquet onto his own arrow-wound – with death if anything else goes wrong–
–then orders the the men to advance again.
Inside the castle, because OF COURSE ALL WOMEN KNOW HEALING, Isadora is binding Robin’s wounds that we never saw him get–
–and Agrivaine is slumping wearily in a chair, and Much runs in to announce that the men are returning. Isadora and Robin run outside, and when they reach the castle walls, they see a shocking sight:
The bandit presses the weapon threateningly to Marion’s neck, and Raven warns that they’ll cut her throat unless the castle gate is opened. So Isadora and Robin get into a big argument of no-you-can’t/but-I-must, and Robin ends the fight by stalking off, because he “has to,” because MARION–
—and because, clearly there are no other possible solutions to this particular dilemma:
The Merries, meanwhile, are running at full tilt for Caerleon Castle, following the horse-tracks to catch the riders. Alas, Tuck gets winded pretty quickly, so they leave him behind and keep running.
But it seems too late already: the men motion Robin forward, and though Marion nobly cries out that he should turn back, Robin obeys and begins walking across the drawbridge. Suddenly, Isadora appears at the portcullis and orders Robin to halt. Shouting loudly and angrily that he’s a TRAITAH and has betrayed the castle that he swore to defend, she draws her bow and shoots the traitorface through his traitory heart:
The mercenaries howl with laughter, Marion freaks out, and Robin falls backwards and lies still in a shallow pond, the very image of The Fool from the episode’s Tarot!start:
So the invaders enter Caerleon Castle at last, and while the others raid the castle larders – trying to figure out how to make sandwiches out of lint and debris – Raven interrogates Agrivaine, telling the old man, “If you don’t tell me, Imma have to kill you, you understand?”
I have never, ever understood the reasoning behind this threat. “Only you possess the information I require, and if you don’t reveal it, I’ll kill you, and then, I shall never, EVER find out!!” At the very least, there should be some counterbalancing incentive offered for cooperation, such as cake. But Raven grows too quickly frustrated and growls at Mortimer to make him talk (because after two fruitless years of living with Agrivaine in Caerleon Castle, Mortimer has clearly proven his skills in effective interrogation).
Marion, Much, and Isadora are imprisoned together within the castle, and the moment the door closes, Marion seizes Isadora and starts smacking her around in a fine bout of stereotypical female hysteria. But Isadora and Much finally manage to get through to her, hurriedly explaining that Robin isn’t dead and that the whole traitor!angst was a ruse, planned (offscreen) to buy them some time:
Marion then calms down and looks terribly sheepish at her jealousy-fueled reaction. And outside the walls, as though underscoring the obvious plausability and logic behind this plan, Robin waits until the sounds of brigandry have died away and then stands up, pulls a small square of wood from his tunic, and shows that the arrow is embedded in that:
While I’m trying to figure out the odds of Isadora hitting this tiny target, at a distance, under duress, while Robin’s moving away from her, after two seconds of planning and no rehearsal whatsoever – I eventually calculated them at WTF-to-one – Robin then climbs up a ridge, and BEHOLD, THE REST OF THE MERRIES HAVE ARRIVED AND ARE STANDING RIGHT THERE. Even Tuck has caught up to them, after being so emphatically left behind earlier:
Robin then guides them stealthily to the castle walls and explains that the rest of this plan – OH YEAH, Y’ALL, THERE’S MORE – will involve him shimmying into the castle, because Much managed to sling a rope over the battlements before he was dragged inside as a captive; in fact, the rope-over-walls was MUCH’S IDEA.
Inside, Agrivaine is half-dead in his chair, and he’s still revealed nothing, so in an impatient fury, Raven pulls his dagger on Mortimer–
–drives it into Mortimer’s belly, and leaves him dead on the floor, then orders the other prisoners brought in.
Outside, Will – determined to do something this episode besides spew irritation everywhere – declares that he’ll be first to Saxon!parkour into Caerleon, so he climbs the rope all swaggeringly. The others look up, steadying the rope for him–
–and this puts them all into position to notice a shooting star arcing overhead:
“Midsummer’s Eve!” cries Robin, a complete non sequitur unless there’s a shooting star that marks every Midsummer’s Eve. In fact, this exclamation is really unfortunate for the script, since the episode started with three days to Midsummer’s Eve. Isadora arrived that afternoon, left with Robin the same night, and the Merries followed the next day, implying that the outlaws walked all the way to Caerleon in two days’ time.
But I’ll leave logic behind and follow Will, who now scrambles over Caerleon’s merlons and crouches on its wall-walk. There, he gleefully deploys his finely-honed murder skills, killing one guard in direct combat and throwing a huge boulder onto another one.
Inside, Raven drinks and looks over the prisoners, who have been shackled to a pillar with their arms over their heads – because if there’s one truly useful, visually-appealing architectural feature in a castle’s great hall, it’s surely a structural support with manacles attached to it – and he threatens to slaughter them all one by one unless Agrivaine talks:
FINALLY, he’s getting the hang of this “questioning” thing, as this proves to be the correct motivation for Agrivaine to say something and stop driving everybody nuts. He mutters, “the King…with his son…in Avalon…” and immediately I am all ears, because Avalon is like freakin’ El Dorado to a show entirely Fueled By Apples.
(I cannot emphasize enough how incredibly disappointing the dénouement of this hugely-anticipated secret is going to be, y’all. The potential impact of crests poised to fall is staggering.)
Will then quietly opens Caerleon’s main gate, allowing the others inside, and a Big Damn Fight starts. Inside, Raven’s still interrogating, still getting nowhere, and still getting angrier. Finally he orders one of his dudes to kill the boy, and when Agrivaine murmurs a delirious protest, he shouts, “WELL, TELL ME, THEN!”
I’d depict the Duels of Dramatic Defense if I could, but someone decided to set an in-motion fight scene against a backdrop of bluefilter and then capture it all in TrembleVision. However, I did get this blurry!pic for you, to demonstrate how vitally important the sword-upcross is to season 3’s fight choreography. Because when the schedule doesn’t give you the time needed to invent and safely rehearse new moves, then you’ve got to repeat what you know and hope that nobody notices:
Inside, Raven’s character arc of “irked–>irritated–>maddened–>angered–>infuriated–>UNSTOPPABLY ENRRAAAAAAGGGGED” is now complete, so he gives the go-ahead for killing the kid, provoking a big NOOOOOOO from Marion. So thank goodness Raven’s second runs in at this point to warn Raven of approaching opponents because, even though there’s ample time to murder Much, and the bandit’s been given a direct order to do it, by a leader who just knifed a steward for no real reason except *HATE*, and he’s got his sword lifted and ready to go–
–the mook just pauses there, dutifully waiting for the second wave of distractions to arrive. And that gives the Merries just enough time to form a doorway tableau of Wolfsheads Assemble With Leader In Front:
“You! You’re dead!” Raven shouts furiously, to which Robin answers, “Am I?” And though he’s surrounded by all of his outlaw buddies, Robin holds Will back and growls, “he’s mine,” because logic and wisdom are nothing in the face of Man-Duel Machismo. Raven pulls a mace, Robin draws his sword, and they start yet another fight, marked by a huge audible *SWOOP* every time the mace flies. So we get some more wrist-grips, and thank goodness there’s a table in this one so that they can roll around on it:
In fact, there seems to be something awfully peculiar about this table, besides being a convenient surface for man-squabble: Raven’s final blow brings the mace down next to Robin’s head, but the weapon explodes on impact:
And Raven finally owns up to his angry dunderheaded stupidity, as he realises he’s been staring at Caerleon’s treasure the whole time – A TABLE THAT BLOWS SHIT UP, Y’ALL, THIS THING IS LIKE CYCLOPS IN CARPENTRY FORM – and gasps, “the table…” as Robin kills him. “The table,” Marion repeats. “King Arthur and the Round Table!” Robin cries. “The King that was, and the King that is to be!”
So apparently Caerleon was once Camelot, and Arthur is coming back from Avalon because it’s Midsummer, and THE CASTLE IS HAUNTED BY DEAD KNIGHTS AND WATCHED OVER BY A DYING GUARDIAN WHO’S ALL LIKE NOOOOO, MY PRECIOUSSSSS TAAAAABLE, and then King Arthur appears, because we could really use some goddamned exposition at this point. The creepy Castle Belleme music plays, and the mystical blue-glowy Arthur summons Agrivaine forward:
Then, in deep, resounding, authoritative tones, Arthur monologues the plot to everyone, describing the original days of King Arthur and bringing the timeline forward to now, and the only important part is when he says this: “It is the table that unites us. A symbol of our power now past, the emblem of our power to come. The table must be protected. Should it ever be destroyed, the power that binds our knights together in the vale of Avalon will perish with it.”
So that’s why nobody can ever fortify the castle or dust the furnishings or polish the table, I guess, and now that the hour of Agrivaine’s Tarot!Death has come, it’s time for him to name his heir. Agrivaine’s voice pitches into humbly apologetic tones, implying to King Arthur his intense regret that WOE, HE WAS NEITHER VIRILE ENOUGH TO SEED MAN-CHILDREN NOR INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO RE-MARRY AFTER HIS FIRST WIFE’S DEATH, and therefore must volunteer his godson instead of the proper penis-having child that his oathbound loins should have sired.
I love how, this entire time, nobody has ever once asked Robin his opinion of this whole thing, or explained to him any aspect of what exactly he’s being asked to swear. And although there’s a brief un-tense moment, when the Merries all show fear of Robin’s impossible departure–
–Robin has no incentive to go along with any of this. So Agrivaine finds himself embarrassed as Robin gives a quite reasonable answer – a NO which takes him all of two seconds to decide:
Robin: No, great King. I cannot.
THE RESONANT SPECTRE OF THE ONCE-AND-FUTURE KING: Cannot? Or will not? Or Camelot?
Robin: I cannot. I serve another. (Which they’d have known far in advance if they’d, you know, ASKED ME.)
Then Robin turns to Agrivaine and tells him, “You have no son, but you have a daughter worth any son” – YOU SEE, EVERYONE, SHE’S JUST AS GOOD AS A MAN – reminding him of Isadora’s loyal service and asking him how he can deny Isadora the thrilling chance to languish in a mouldering prison fortress.
Now, I was truly expecting there to be some compelling reason that Isadora couldn’t serve as Guardian, some occult numinous rule that the Table’s heir had to be male, in synergy with the knights and King who are joined to it. Because surely all of this Sturm und Drang happened according to a higher purpose, especially if this King is even greater than the mystical Herne?
Then Arthur’s like, OH, A GIRL. WELL, THAT’S COOL. HEY, ISADORA, WANNA COME BE ALL FEALTITUDINOUS TO THE TABLE AND TO ME AND THE BROS?
I’m serious. King Arthur has absolutely no problem with this. The entire episode happened because Agrivaine was an old-school moron who didn’t bother to ask his boss if it’d be okay to hire a chick.
To her credit, Isadora does not reply with YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU CAN TAKE YOUR MANLY-MAN TABLE OF MANNESS AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR MACHO—well, anyway. She accepts–
–and the Caisleán Óir theme plays gorgeously as she steps forward, kneels, and bows her head, telepathically swearing herself to the lifelong service of militant English ghosts. The force of her commitment even seems to cause a lunar eclipse overhead:
At last the shades vanish, and Isadora returns to her father, who gasps out his last in her arms:
She starts to tear up – because her dad really was a nice man, even despite his decades-long be-moaning that she wasn’t a boy – and then Robin pipes up with this consolation: “Don’t weep, Isadora. Your father died knowing the table had found its rightful guardian.” HEY, HUNTY? STFU.
So the outlaws depart Caerleon, with Tuck exclaiming, “another three days’ walk!”, because everybody’s dying to get back to their trailers home and not fuss too much over timelines. Marion and Robin are holding hands all like TEE HEE PLOT-DICTATED LURVE, and back in Sherwood Forest, Herne’s awaiting their return, at which point he’ll probably be screamed at by Robin like DUDE, WTF, YOU REALLY SENT ME TO GO FIND KING ARTHUR BECAUSE 46,XX SEEMED POTENTIALLY OBJECTIONABLE??!
In summary, then, this episode depicts how Robin Hood is offered a term of servitude that comes with unknown benefits, unnamed duties, and unspecified consequences, with the condition of living in a filthy haunted castle and watching a table gather dust until the end of time. Unsurprisingly, he refuses, and only after THE MAN declines is a woman is deemed an acceptable backup plan, so after taking an oath of fealty and vowing to remain within Caerleon, alongside the unburied corpses of her father and her father’s former steward, she probably wastes the rest of her beautiful young existence throwing pebbles listlessly at a tabletop to watch them go boom, before dying alone and rotting amidst the cobwebs.
What a great story.
The Inheritance is noteworthy for three reasons: first, it’s one of two Norman-free episodes this season, the other being Cromm Cruac. Second, it marks Herne the Hunter’s last appearance for quite a while; since He’s legitimized the reunited outlaws, the new Robin Hood, the right of women to do things, and the twoo eternal wuv of Robin v.2.0 and cougar!Marion, Herne has little to do in the upcoming plots. So He’s written out, and won’t appear again until the series finale. Finally, this episode sparked some Pagan-biased ranting the first time I saw it, and that leads me to the name of this blog.
You see, when King Arthur appears in Caerleon Castle, he explains that the table isn’t just a symbol, it’s a necessary artifact; Arthur can’t be the Once and Future King without it. This Round Table channels his power and links him from Avalon to the outside world.
When we add this rather surprising, furniture-dependent theology to the series’ overall mythos so far, we can now deduce the following:
1. King Arthur’s power is greater than Herne’s – Herne Himself said so at the beginning of this episode – and that power is bound to a rotting table.
2. Last season, Herne commanded Robin to protect Albion with his heart’s blood – implying that Herne Himself couldn’t protect it – and we learned that the sword was originally forged by Wayland, a different God. Wayland’s power was tied to his swords, and apparently it’s also superior to Herne’s.
3. Herne is a spirit channeled by a shaman-priest, who dons a headdress of an elk stag whenever he does so, implying that Herne’s power is somehow dependent upon antlers.
So we now have a Robin of Sherwood divine hierarchy that goes like this:
King Arthur > Wayland the Smith > Herne the Hunter.
With each being’s power held, in descending order of potency, by:
Table > sword > antlers.
If you ever played “Rock Paper Scissors” as a kid, then you already how to do this redonkulous RoS variant, “Sword Table Antlers.” Here are the applicable hand gestures:
Antlers beats nothing, since at this point Herne could be vanquished by a soap-on-a-rope. Sword triumphs over Antlers, and Table defeats everything. So now you too can play the joke after which “Sword Table Antlers” was named, and much like this episode, the game’s a lot of fun, for about a minute, when drunk.
I don’t know what else to say about this episode, y’all; the plot resembles a sieve, the episode prattles on like the rambling of a nervous liar, and the overall effect is eminently forgettable:
“On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot.
‘Tis a silly place.”
Now let’s check the roster to see what’s coming up next…..
……………oh. Look at that.
:loud bang as forehead hits table: (er, ordinary table, not ‘splodey Table)
The next episode is The Cross of St. Ciricus, and its plot began with an observation that Kip Carpenter made at a cocktail party, and that inspiration plays out about as insanely as you’d expect from a room full of enthusiastic and/or drunk people slapping together a major plot twist by an unreasonable filming deadline. Cross is the third-season episode where one of my favourite characters is ruined AND the show is broken irredeemably, and I do not intend to be forgiving in my upcoming dissection. So join me, along with CAPSLOCK, INDIGNANT ITALICS, and Schlitz – yes, I’m recommending Schlitz for this one, because mecum omnes plangite, suckas – next time, on Robin of Sherwood.
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Fun Stuff:
Gisburnes: 0. Just drink, y’all. Don’t wait for a cue.
Apples: At 19:52, a basket of apples scatters on the ground.
Quotes: Here.
Since this episode began with Tarot, I thought I’d mention that there was a fanzine for Pagan RoS fans called Cousin, and in two of them appeared brief discussions about assigning Tarot cards to the various show characters. In issue 4, by searching the word “Tarot,” you can read a few notes from Mark Ryan about his Wildwood Tarot – still in the planning stages at that point! – as well as some suggestions about which characters would be which cards. Searching issue 7 for “Tarot” will also produce a few paragraphs; additionally, if you search that issue for “Gisburne as the Moon,” it brings up a very short but brilliant passage about why he isn’t – and what card he most definitely is.
Finally, I include a piece of relevant Arthurian pretteh:
Sir Edward Burne-Jones, The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon.
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Notes:
(1) By the show’s own timeline, then, it’s now June 15, 1210.
Everyone in this episode says things that are dumb, so I’m going to pretend they’ve all suffered head injuries and have taken months to recover, which jumps my own timeline ahead a year to June 15, 1205.
(2) Some season 3 scripts are driven by prejudice, and this particular plot is entirely constructed around sexism. So I’m not going to latch onto the relatively simple stupidity of Tuck being surprised, except to recall the extremely capable women – like Jennet, Lilith, and Morgwyn – who have proven formidable foes in the past.
(3) Speaking of that particular legend, I encourage fellow Pagans to check out Gail Duff’s book Seasons of the Witch, which includes a Beltane mummers’ play whose main characters are the Lady of the Greenwood (Marian), the Summer King (Robin Hood), and the Winter King (Guy of Gisborne), with the latter two enacting a ritual fight for the Lady! It’s a lovely idea, to perform pageants around Pagan themes, but I admit to hysterical laughter the first time I saw this rite, as our Gizzy would be far more likely to murder everyone involved with this ritual than to participate in it himself.
(4) A serious criticism I have, jokes aside, is that this episode comes across as almost crude. It’s not allusion to desire that’s troubling; it’s understandable that heterosexual men – like the Merries and these mercenaries – would miss the companionship of women, no matter how noble (or lucrative) their particular cause. But this script has a clumsy, awkward treatment of such references that I dislike. I contrast Will’s fascinated but respectful welcome of Jennet of Elsdon, for instance, with his open slobbering over Isadora, or Marion’s sweet sadness when she thinks Robin’s run off with Lilith next to her histrionic sulking when she thinks that Huntingdon likes Isadora better. Carpenter’s writing conveyed even lustful temptation with a certain finesse, and I miss that subtlety here.
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