RoS: “The Cross of St. Ciricus.”

~~*Previously, on Robin of Sherwood*~~

The next episode begins with the Sheriff’s men, who are currently executing the latest foolproof plan to bring Nottingham’s tax money safely back to the castle: Six guardsmen have tied up the coins in some cloth sacks, put the packs on a horse, and are now riding escort for the be-bundled horse as a public declaration of TOTALLY NOT TRANSPORTING TAX MONEY, THIS HORSE IS JUST..UH….CONDEMNING FOOD, THINGS AND SUPPLIES. The Derp Brigade even has the good sense to travel at a furious trot, fleeing to Nottingham at the pace of a somewhat urgent treadmill, before anybody can notice and rob them.

However, these six passing guardsmen seem ominously outnumbered by seven outlaws, and indeed, the Soldiers of Fortune Stupid are no match for the powers of basic math, flashily demonstrated in a threatening archery montage:

Four Merries fire, three soldiers die, and Tuck absconds with the horse as the three remaining guards draw their swords–

–to continue the battle in slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ow mooooooootion. John is hit, and Nasir disarmed, but Marion shoots the fourth guard, Robin swords the fifth, and Nasir uses his powers of awesome to simply grab the last and hurl him down from his horse, whom Marion shoots when he tries to rise. Out of nowhere, three more riders then arrive, and the Merries now inexplicably retreat from the fray, Robin nodding meaningfully to Will and Much – who are high overhead with their longbows, having shimmied up a tree along the riders’ expected route with near-psychic precision – to take them out.

So Will orders Much to take the guard on the left, while he aims for the right, but Much – because he’s Much – mixes up the directions, and they both shoot the same man. And it seems that they’ve both confused “logical course of action” with “unfathomable plot advancement,” because instead of just reloading and taking out the two remaining men from their superior vantage point, they now jump down from the tree and start running from the pair of mounted soldiers.

As they dash through the trees, taking shortcuts around the road, Will starts telling Much some fragmentary story about a serving wench he once knew and how he lost his britches. Much eagerly presses him for details – ‘PRESSES’ VERBALLY, I MEAN, BECAUSE THIS SCENE DEMONSTRATES THE MANDATORY NOT-GAYS – and then they hide on either side of the road, awaiting the two riders’ approach. Again Much confuses his left and his right, and the duo puts two arrows into the same man. The remaining soldier then realises that he’s at the mercy of idiots with weapons and gallops away with his life.

Will and Much are all TEE HEE HEE, DEAD DUDES, AND ALSO, YARNS ABOUT GIRLS:

So they start back for the Merries’ camp, while continuing to snicker over this trouser-lowering former lady acquaintance of Will’s–

–but then realise that they’ve somehow gotten themselves lost, in the forest where they’ve lived for more or less the last fifteen years. (1) Fortunately, in the course of their confuddled strollings and lustful natterings, they run across an empty camp–

–where a cauldron of food bubbles over an untended cookfire. Because Will mutters through clenched teeth for most of this episode, I can’t actually hear what kind of food it is, but evidently it’s appetizing enough for them to pull two bowls of bubbling, steaming-hot slop from the cauldron–

–and start devouring it, unconcerned about mouth-scalding heat or gluten content or possible theft from the starving needy (given that most folks in Sherwood Forest are there under rather dire circumstances and not just to enjoy a fun picnic). Then some bells chime from a ridge overhead, and when Will looks up to locate the source of the sound, he realises – much to his horror – that the camp chefs have returned:

Frantically Will dashes the bowl from Much’s hands, and they flee. Then the lepers pose – in what will become a thematic element of this episode – and thunder peals, and it seems that this episode involves a religious relic of some kind, namely:

Will and Much flail into a pond and, while screaming about disease and death, strip down and start scrubbing the leprosy off of themselves and each other, which is why Will’s earlier heterosexual story about the barmaid was crucial:

The Merries, unaware of the nearby strife, are currently hanging out in a glade and gloating over their tax triumph, though worried because Will and Much haven’t yet returned. Little John notices that Robin alone refuses to celebrate their successful thievery and is just moping about; because he’s making moon-eyes at Marion the entire time John’s trying to talk to him, John finally nods knowingly and asks an eye-rolling question: “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with love, but in the first two seasons, relationships were incidentally revealed as the plot proceeded; now relationships are the plot, which makes them far less interesting. Anyway, Robin snaps and yells officiously at John, trying to lift his chin to a holier-than-thou level far above John’s head–

–so Little John, hurt, stalks away. Robin then figures that he should probably talk to Marion, instead of lashing out with seething sexual frustration personal relationship issues at his fellows. But as he approaches her, she gazes up at him with polite dread, the sort that everyone exudes when about to be confronted with an unwelcome admission of romantic affection. Poor Marion doesn’t look at all like a woman eagerly anticipating a love-confession–

–and if Robin’d had any sense, he’d have seen her face and kept his feelings to himself. But he forges on ahead and tries awkwardly to broach the subject, so Marion must now deliver one of the soppiest, soap-opera-est speeches this show has ever scripted:

Marion: Why do you feel you have to tell me, when you know I know already? Is it because you’re unsure of how I feel? I wish I knew what to say…but if I loved you the way that you want me to, you’d know. And then there wouldn’t be any need for words, would there? Forgive me…

“There’s nothing to forgive.” (WHY DON’T YOU LIKE MEEEEEE)

She then ends her rambling with the perplexing, “I do love you…Perhaps the past is still too close. Do you understand?” There’s a strange elder sister/younger brother vibe between these two; I honestly don’t sense any chemistry between them. But fortunately, I don’t have to ponder this anymore because the other Merries interrupt: Much and Will have at last found their way back to camp, having shed their clothes completely in an effort to escape the leprosy:

The Merries are quite amused to see their nekkid comrades poking about in the underbrush–

–until they learn that the two have accidentally eaten from lepers’ bowls and now fear being contaminated themselves:

Will graphically describes the horrific suffering and ravages wrought by leprosy and then hysterically shrieks, “That’s us now! Us us us us us us us–“; when Robin cuts him off, he screams, “It’s not death I’m scared of! It’s this! It’s this! I’m a leper! I’m a leper!!” I wish someone would punch him and shut him up, but anyway, Tuck throws them some clothes, Robin declares that they’re all going to bring the tax silver to Croxden Abbey, and Will ends this excruciating scene by asserting, “I’m a leper! I’m a leper! [echoes] [echoes] [echoes]”

Meanwhile, the three lepers continue walking down the road–

–and crows caw madly over them as they proceed, signalling LEPROSY AND DEATH (AND HITCHCOCK). After they pass a nearby pond, the camera turns to focus upon a fearsome gang of medieval scuba bandits, who sinisterly poke their heads up from the water to debate a possible highway robbery:

These historically-accurate ruffians :cough:, discontented by common lung-using villainy, have taken to pond-dwelling in order to more effectively pursue their ill-gotten gains. I surmise that, every two minutes or so, some traveler approaches and sends currents through the water, which signals them to simultaneously surface, breathe, and discuss the potential profitability of the situation before re-submerging themselves. In this case, they agree not to risk stealing from lepers, especially because – as their leader foreshadowingly points out – other pilgrims will journey upon this road, victims who’ll be more robbable and less rotting. The scuba!goons then sink back down, and the scene moves on to Croxden Abbey, where (PRAISE THE LAWD) we meet Abbot Martin and his fashion fabulous model devotees of Saint Ciricus. The monks’ leader begins the service by holding his hands aloft, like some sort of Dark Ages religious referee:

“The cross is up, and God…is…good! He’s goooood!”

Then he speaks in resonant, hypnotic tones, addressing the poor and afflicted and telling them, “You, my children, you are the equal of any man alive!” while exhorting them to join together and uplift themselves. He even demonstrates to them what’s made possible by devout people who come together in a higher cause–

♫ ♫ ♫ “It’s fun to stay at yon Y – M – C – A!” ♩ ♩ ♩ ♩

–while, behind a jail-like rood screen, some monks offer an interpretive dance version of the Mass:

♩ ♩ “If thou’rt holy and thou know’st it, cross thine arms…” ♩ ♩

Using his homily as a political platform, the Abbot speaks seditiously against men of power and even mentions specifically Sheriffs and their kindred kind. But the Abbot isn’t gesturing his jazz hands specifically towards Robert de Rainault, for Croxden, Staffordshire lies 40 miles west of Nottingham and falls within the jurisdiction of the High Sheriff of Staffordshire and Shropshire. However, Martin’s next lines are rather relevant to our Sheriff, as the Abbot yells, “The just man will be an outcast! Men like Robin Hood! Take them to your bosoms! They are your champions! Take them to your bosoms in the name of God!”

So, after Abbot Martin simultaneously extols Group Hugs for Wolfsheads and encourages the devout to get themselves executed for treason – all in one suspiciously specific rant – his monks bring out the holy relic, chanting Domine Magnificat Benedictus as they proceed:

Now swept up in an evangelical fervour, the worshippers rush forward to touch the cross–

–but they’re pushed away from it by the monks, who then continue in a formal procession towards a series of cells where the lepers and other sick are confined. And this entire scene is such a splendid caricature of a stereotypical fundamentalist religious service that I have to believe the parody’s intentional. The shouting Abbot Martin is a man evidently caught up in some grandiose spell, a vision that renders him not altogether sane, and it’s hard to judge whether all of this hysteria is driven by holiness or madness:

Gnosis…or psychosis?

Martin’s dramatic gestures, the monks’ stylized postures, and the luminous golden tableau of cross and candles all create a grand spectacle of emotional and religious passion, a performance to sway both piety and politics. There are enough inconsistencies with the historical abbey to raise questions about this pageantry, too; Croxden was a Cistercian house, marked by distinctive dress and organised by the Rule of Saint Benedict, but these monks wear dark robes instead of the white cassocks of their order and seem to spend most of their time evangelizing, instead of balancing their charitable work with prayer and quiet contemplation. Also, folding the arms over the chest is indeed a gesture of summoning God – just, um, not the particular one they’re aiming for:

“In coven work, the High Priestess and High Priest often assume these positions when invoking the Goddess and God. In solo workings they can be used to identify with the aspects of the Goddess and God within us…”
–Scott Cunningham, from Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner

Anyway, at last the uplifted golden cross dissolves into the simplicity of a raised wooden goblet–

–and Martin’s theatrical polemic fades to a quiet refrain of Herne protect us:

The shift seems a rather pointed condemnation of organised demagoguery, but it also invites the viewer to consider exactly where the line lies between political and religious causes, given the startlingly similar agendas of Croxden’s monks and Sherwood’s outlaws.

So, the Sherwoodian question of the day is how the outlaws will cope with the possible leprefication of Much and Will, and in the course of their discussion, it comes out that the episode’s beginning was motivated by a plan to steal Nottingham’s tax money and bring it to Croxden Abbey (thus distributing it to the poor of Croxden, since apparently everyone in Nottinghamshire is all good now, so they don’t need their coins back or care whether they’re arbitrarily redistributed to Staffordshire, and this is how Marxism gets you). This proves a fine segue into the (episode’s) story of Saint Ciricus and his Cross, so Tuck then relates that Ciricus was a monk who spoke out against King William’s tyranny at the time of the Conquest and was then stoned to death by Norman soldiers outside of (the as-yet-nonexistent) Croxden Abbey. This explains the ongoing anti-Norman propaganda propagated by Croxden and also potentially makes the Cross a politically-motivated relic that performs miracles for outcasts in defiance of the dominant Norman rule or something. Anyway, it’s extremely fortunate that the Cross of Saint Ciricus has a reputation for healing lepers, as Much and Will seem to require that exact assistance, and since they’re headed to Croxden Abbey anyhow, it all works out rather nicely – except that Will continues to be a loudmouthed moping coward about a disease that he has no proof whatsoever of actually having:

There were several canonized men who bore the name of Kyriakos Cyriacus Ciricus, and before I heard the show’s version, I figured the most likely candidate to be a Christian martyr from the persecutions of Emperor Diocletian. That particular Cyriacus renounced his wealth, ministered to slaves, and exorcised demons during his lifetime, this last of which would account for the healing powers of his (fictitious) cross; he’s also the saint to be invoked against deathbed temptation, which explains why the most wretchedly ill people are flocking to his chapel. It’s interesting that, despite eleven different saints by the name Ciricus, Carpenter offers a fictitious twelfth as the patron of Croxden Abbey, which in reality was dedicated to Saint Mary. It makes me wonder whether the monks of Croxden invented, or at least embellished, this Norman-bashing legend – especially because the relic’s reputation draws pilgrims to Croxden in droves, but we never see or hear about this magical cross actually healing anybody.

Back at the Pond of Destiny Villainy, a carriage with a guard escort begins to ford the waters, and a noble lady looks out of the window as they travel:

The scuba!mooks decide that this wealthy woman’s cart is quite a tempting target for an ambush, so they attack, stealing her stuff, killing her guards, and carrying off her maid. Thank goodness that the Merries are on that exact road at that exact time, making them able to instantly confront and overpower the robbers:

The Merries then carry the stunned lady away from her wrecked carriage, and gently, Little John introduces Robin Hood, then himself:

Nasir introduces himself by his full name; to him, the lady says something in Arabic, murmuring sweetly that her father taught it to her in her girlhood. Nasir smiles back and then translates her perhaps-somewhat-foreshadowy words for everyone else: “Adversity proves who are our really messed-up sons that we abused into ruination friends.”

The noblewoman then succumbs to racking gasps and coughs; she is obviously in great pain, but names her condition as an “old enemy” fighting her with renewed fury and explains to the astonished Merries that she endures her chronic illness by treating it as a battleground. This scene drops some rather strong hints about the lady’s identity, when you consider that the script wouldn’t give this many lines to some inconsequential random nobody and also that, among the cast of Robin of Sherwood, there’s only one noble-born principal who embodies this startlingly specific character trait of “bullheaded determination in the face of painful and inevitable defeat.” Anyway, the lady asks after her maid, and the implications of the girl’s abduction are horrific as the Merries simply tell her that the maid is dead. “Where were you headed for?” asks Robin, dangling a preposition for no good reason. “Look at me,” the lady says pitifully, gesturing to her debilitated form. “Croxden,” Robin deduces.

They decide to escort the lady for the rest of her journey, so in the next scene, they’re repairing her carriage and giving the maid and the two guardsmen a Christian burial. You would think that making the acquaintance of this elder woman, who is ACTUALLY facing a horrible painful death and doing so with great fortitude, would hearten Will and inspire him to buck up, but no. While others are paying their respects to MURDERED PEOPLE WHO ARE CURRENTLY BEING BURIED, Will is bemoaning his miserable fate that is surely worse than anyone’s in the entire universe has ever been. He’s infuriated that the lady has the gall to lose gracefully to her “old enemy,” and refuses to similarly accept the possibility of his own decaying demise (except through unceasingly whining about it):

Back on the road, just to remind us that Robin of Sherwood is Fueled By Apples, a little girl idles and has a snack, while peering curiously at some travelers coming her way:

Her mother rushes into the street, frantically grabbing the child and running before the lepers can pass, and this thread goes nowhere except to establish APPLES. The pilgrimage party, meanwhile, is taking a short break en route to Croxden, so the Merries congregate around an evening fire, and the cart rests a short distance away, having been righted and rebuilt in a dazzlingly short time. A sound of anguish issues forth from the carriage, and Marion requests Friar Tuck to attend the lady. “How is she?” asks Robin quietly, and Marion responds, “I think she’s in a lot of pain.” It’s really a shame that Marion possesses no knowledge of the healing arts, which might be useful in easing the lady’s afflictions, but this convenient ignorance relegates Marion to driving the cart while the woman inside moans in misery. Anyway, they’re at rest for the moment, and Tuck climbs into the carriage to offer the lady comfort.

Inside, candles glow beautifully – tapers and holders which I suppose the woman took with her in a rickety moving carriage, to burn for some non-fire-hazardous purpose – but the lady is racked with agony. Her anguish of both body and spirit is profound, as she expresses great fear that she’ll die before they arrive in Croxden and then begs Tuck to hear her final confession:

Tuck tells her to be calm and patient, for they should reach the Abbey the very next day, and also informs her that he – an outlaw who may be excommunicated – is a poor choice of confessor:

The implication of Tuck’s still-enChurched status is rather surprising, because Abbot Hugo de Rainault shakes the excommunication stick at anyone who annoys him; it’s one of the first things he does in the series, threatening to excommunicate both Gisburne and Belleme in a single episode just for “retreating” and “being spooky,” respectively. Meanwhile, Friar Tuck has betrayed Hugo’s brother, contributed to the Church’s loss of Leaford Grange, and participated in Hugo’s kidnapping and ransoming; he regularly hunts Sherwood’s deer, and murders Nottinghamshire soldiers with impunity, and now the friar solemnly explains that he might be made excommunicate? Might? Anyway, I’m not sure why this warning needed to be issued, since I doubt that God would be all TO HELL WITH YOU, LITERALLY, were the lady to receive extreme unction from a priest who got excommunicated after she died. So when the lady pleads again for Tuck to help her, Tuck finally dons his friar hat and chants a brief Latin prayer.

Then the lady wastes no time getting right down to business, having been “the lady” in the script long enough, and begins by telling Tuck, “You must know – I am Margaret of Gisburne, Guy’s mother.” The audience gawks and drinks, and what follows is more of a plot-driving therapy session than a confession, which begins with that shocker which Tuck didn’t actually need to know at all.

Random Unnamed Lady Margaret: I know he [Guy] is your enemy, and I couldn’t– [breaks down into a fit of pitiable, audience-wooing coughing]
Tuck: [reassuringly] Calm yourself. Calm yourself…
(What is Tuck’s full name, anyway? Is he just “Tuck,” or is that a nickname for something even more twee, like “Clarence of Tuckendale”?)
Margaret: My life has been a lie. As a young girl, I fell in love, but my father had already promised me to Edmund of Gisburne. It was a political allegiance.
(Medieval marriages weren’t arranged for love, as the fundamental purpose of marriage was not to satisfy the passions. By modern notions this is sad, but by 12th century standards, it’s exactly what a noblewoman could expect.)
Margaret: I tried to be a good wife to him, but he frightened me. He was cruel, violent! Perhaps if we’d had children…
(TELL ME YOU DID NOT INTERNALISE THIS, WOMEN WATCHING. PLEASE TELL ME THAT AT NO POINT IN YOUR EXISTENCE DID YOU EVER THINK “OH, IF WE JUST MADE SOME BABIES HE WOULDN’T BEAT ME.” PLEASE.)
Margaret: He blamed me bitterly. Our life became insupportable, and finally, he left and went with King Richard to the Holy Land. I dreaded his return! I even – God forgive me! – wished him dead.
(This is the first actual sin she’s confessed.)
Margaret: And finally, one morning, one white December morning, a messenger came, and I knew my evil dream had come true. I couldn’t mourn. I tried, but in my heart it was already spring, and I was free!

Margaret: In April, my love came to me–
(The romantic, unrepentant details of this “desperate final confession” are weird, as though Margaret’s showing off her fascinating past instead of repenting of her sins.)
Margaret: –and we married secretly, hoping that one day his father would accept me.
(Well, that was a poor plan. How exactly would Margaret’s dishonoured widowhood and subsequent clandestine re-marriage have encouraged her lover’s father to accept her? For two prominent nobles to “marry secretly” would have been quite the caper, too; they should have just “shagged secretly” like everybody else.)
Margaret: But our happiness was brief. Fate mocked us! Edmund was alive.

Tuck: Margaret–
Margaret: When he returned, I was already with child! What could I do but throw myself on his mercy and beg his forgiveness? [suddenly smiles at Tuck] You give me strength!
Tuck: No…not me.
Margaret: He was brutal! I feared for the child’s life! But I refused to tell him the one thing he wanted above everything: the name of my love.
(How admirable; I’m sure her son appreciated her stalwart loyalty to the absentee father who indirectly made his life a living hell.)
Margaret: Edmund had to accept the child as his–
(No he didn’t. He could have placed Guy among the servants and kept him ignorant of his parentage. Or murdered him.)
Margaret: –and Guy grew up in an atmosphere of hatred. Edmund was vile to him. I can’t bear to tell you the things he did.
(Nor should she, as this is her confession.)
Margaret: Guy would come running to me, time after time, crying, “Mother, why does he hate me so? [sobs] Why does he hate me?!”
(Wait, she just let her boy sob broken-heartedly for years, without giving him the slightest clue about what was going on? Wow, Margaret. Fail.)
Margaret: And in the end…Edmund told him he was not his son. Guy never came to me again. And his eyes looked at me as they looked at Edmund – cold, remote. Cruel.
(I CANNOT IMAGINE WHY.)
Margaret: That was my gift to him…
Tuck: No, that was Edmund’s ‘gift.’ And the real father? Does he know of the son?
Margaret: He inherited the Earldom shortly after Guy was born–
(Couldn’t have told him at any point during the pregnancy, then?)
Margaret: –and then he married. It was too late to tell him.
Tuck: The Earldom?
(Is a priest supposed to pry further into any confessional tidbit that sounds potentially juicy? Tuck doesn’t need this clarification in order to assign penance and grant absolution; in fact, the most peculiar aspect of this confession is that Tuck didn’t require the names of anybody involved.)
Margaret: Guy’s father…is the Earl of Huntingdon.
(HAHAHAHA WHUT)
Tuck: [shocked] And does Guy know this?
(You’d think that Margaret’s own child would have first dibs on this life-changing revelation, wouldn’t you?)
Margaret: No.
(:facepalm:)
Margaret: It would only cause harm. That’s why I plan to tell only you, and maybe the Earl’s other son, later, in a public chapel amidst a crowd of onlookers. The Earl (2) has an heir.
(That’s her biggest concern?! Consider that Edmund is dead, yet she still keeps her own son ignorant of his parentage, after he spent his whole childhood being tormented for it, just so that David of Huntingdon can keep his fine reputation and his son Robert can claim the Earldom unimpeded. Guy now exists as a propertyless slave to Nottingham Castle – implying that the elder Gisburne left him nothing – and I’m thinking that Guy might indeed be a tad bitter about some of this.)
Tuck: [to himself, wonderingly] Guy’s half-brother!

So, the tl;dr version is this: the not-actually-widowed Lady Margaret of Gisburne was briefly, illicitly wedded to David of Huntingdon, from which was conceived Guy, and all was bliss until Edmund of Gisburne – irksomely alive after all – returned from the Crusades to find his wife with obviously-not-his child; elder!Gisburne accepted them both publicly but, behind closed doors, abused Margaret and Guy with impunity. Margaret, meanwhile, kept the identity of Guy’s father from Guy for his entire life, having chosen to purchase the Earl of Huntingdon’s security at her son’s expense; now, concerned about her own salvation, she’s decided to confess everything to one of Guy’s worst enemies, coated with lots of unnecessary and humiliating personal details, and I HATE ALL OF THESE PEOPLE.

However, I was rather amused by the revelation of Bird!Dad as the “other man” in a torrid bodice-ripping romance, because we’ve seen little of the Earl’s personality except for ROOOOOBEEEEERT I NEED AN EXCUSE TO YELL AT YOU SOME MORE ROOOOOOOBEEEEEEERT!!!eleventy!shrill!!!

Anyway, the sun now sets with some deeply symbolic pretteh–

–and in the morning, the party continues its journey to Croxden. While they walk, Little John actually hounds Tuck about the woman’s identity, with a crassly invasive manner that John’s never displayed before:

Tuck, too, is not impressed and barks firmly, “That’s enough!” to shush John’s pestering. Will, meanwhile, has committed himself firmly to nonsensical assholitude this episode, so he now resolves – unable to stand the sight of the lepers who will surely be visiting Croxden Abbey – to just hang out in a strand of woods until the others have finished their errands at Croxden, because Heaven forbid that a guy with maybe!leprosy should go to a place purported to miraculously heal actual!leprosy. At this point, even Much is like dammit, Will, your pity party is super not-fun:

So while Will whinges and sulks, Margaret and her party reach the Abbey, and the Abbey’s cult master comes forth to meet them. His escorting monks emerge from the chapel and solemnly vogue their welcome–

♫ ♫ “Thou putst thy whole self in, and thou shak’st it all about–” ♫ ♫

–as Martin accepts eight bags of gold “for the poor” from the outlaws, unwittingly revealing that his earlier sermonizing was actually a paid endorsement. He then completely blows Margaret’s cover in greeting “Lady Gisburne” by name, causing the outlaws to be all SAY WHUUUUUUUUT:

But instead of cursing a tremendous missed opportunity – because if the Sheriff’s brother was an acceptable target for kidnapping and ransom, then why not the deputy’s mum? – Little John shakes his head and asks, “How could a kind and gentle woman like that be Gisburne’s mother?” Robin, to his credit, just stares after the lady incredulously, instead of cuffing John upside the head and/or blurting out INDEED, SERF, AS SONS NEVER DIFFER FROM THEIR PARENTS IN ANY WAY; NOW FETCH ME A BEVERAGE, YOU UPPITY SWINE.

The Abbot escorts Lady Gisburne inside the airy, luminous chapel–

–in sad contrast to the cell-confined lepers we saw earlier, who must linger in quarantine until they can touch the cross through tiny windows. Martin advises the lady to take some rest, but she insists on praying before the cross, and the Abbot then replies to her determination quite cruelly, with a growled “pray for your son.”

What on earth does that mean-spirited remark have to do with anything, and how does Martin know that her son isn’t the exact reason Margaret desires private devotions so fervently?? Anyway, Margaret’s all OH MY GOD, WHY IS EVERYONE BLAMING ME JUST BECAUSE I RAISED THE ANTICHRIST?

Well, her reaction isn’t exactly defiance; instead, Margaret takes Martin’s bait and praises – by contrast to her own evil, wretched child – the good, kind, perfect man who rescued her and her entourage. Martin agrees that Robin Hood is indeed an exceptional human being who should be clutched bosomward at every opportunity, because he gave up land, power, and titles to help the people. Margaret, astonished, asks whether Robin was a nobleman; “yes,” Martin replies in confirmation. “Disinherited by his father, the Earl of Huntingdon.”

And just in case we’ve forgotten who’s being discussed, the Roooo-o-o-o-o-o-obin bit from the theme song then chimes in, playing over Margaret as she stares, stricken, realising that the Earl’s son = Robin Hood = Gisburne’s half-brother = plot device. Shaken, she asks to be left alone to pray, and Martin acquiesces by way of LOCKING HER IN WITH THE CROSS AND THEN LEAVING, so I hope that this holy relic has the power to spontaneously generate food and water:

Devotion…or prison?

At last, the three lepers arrive, at least an hour after everyone else, though they briskly walked by the scuba!bandits hours before Margaret crossed that same path, and Margaret’s party was then delayed by ambush, outlaws, and BAWWWWWW. But anyway, a monk escorts the trio to one of the cells and gives them the leper spiel, explaining that they can join in the worship at a safe distance, from within the cell. After the devotee leaves, the camera focuses on the tallest of the three, and the man awaits a dramatic peal of thunder before yanking down his hood and revealing his face:

He tells the other two – Nottingham guardsmen – that by mid-day, they must leave Croxden, before the bell summons the pilgrims to the daily worship. “Yes, Sir Guy,” one obediently replies. “But why has the Sheriff ordered us to steal the holy cross?” Boy, you’d think that they would have covered all of this at some point during the 40-mile walk “to steal the holy cross,” but apparently not, so Gisburne rapidly rasps, “because it provides a pretext for dramatic familial confrontation without the cross, the Abbot will have no power over the people. Now hurry!”

It’s rather sweet that Guy carries out his master’s ridiculously transparent order with such diligence, because I can already imagine Robert over in Nottingham, sipping wine and hugging himself with joy as he envisions the resultant angst from this little apple of discord. The Sheriff has no reason to care what some melodramatic monk is vogueing about in the next county over; he probably just wants the cross to add to his growing collection of stolen superstitious shinies, and is taking advantage of a timely opportunity to further traumatize his deputy by forcing an unexpected maternal encounter.

Anyway, these men – who have spent several days on foot, in the heat, uncomfortably disguised as lepers – now inexplicably pull down their hoods before charging ahead, striding directly to the cross’ location despite having never visited Croxden before. The guardsmen shove aside the praying lady, while Guy makes for the cross; Margaret, realising that bandits have violated the sanctuary, shuts the screen and stands before it, trying to block the thieves’ escape. And since the cross was conveniently kept in a gated shrine, and the men LOWERED THEIR HOODS LIKE MORONS, THUS BLOWING THEIR DISGUISES AT THE ABSOLUTE LAST MINUTE FOR NO REASON before entering the cell, this forces not-leper!crapson Guy and badmom!traumafactory Margaret to see – and recognise – each other simultaneously as Guy goes for the door:

“Guy!” she screams incredulously.

I was so, so hoping that Guy would have the quick-witted irreverence to feign desperate glee and hold the cross aloft in his bandaged hands, crying, “My God…the cross! I’m…I’m CURED!” Then Margaret would have indeed stood aside, and/or fainted, in a paroxysm of MY SON IS–WAS A LEPER?! ALAS, MY POOR PARENTING SKILLS!, leaving him to thieve the thing unimpeded. But he simply orders her to stand aside, and pushes her aside when she refuses to move; we then discover exactly wherefrom Guy inherited his complete lack of tact and sensitivity, as Margaret demands – you know, from her son whose life she ruined and whom she hasn’t even seen in (at least) fifteen years – “Guy, what have you become?!”

Bless my favourite Norman!bot, because what follows is an utterly beautiful reply; I think even the Sheriff would’ve shed a single evil tear upon witnessing it. Righteous fury and beseeching misery now fight for expression in Guy’s features, the question tearing from him words he’s evidently waited decades to say, words that (rightfully) cut Margaret to the quick:

“What you made me!”

Again Lady Margaret screams his name, but he just slams the gate and bitters off with the cross, leaving the peculiarly Pagan-esque altar–

–with the same wheat sheaves and offering horns that adorned Herne’s holy tree–

–in a shambles. Now, the lady was rather gently shoved aside throughout this encounter; the men didn’t beat her up or anything, just moved her out of their way in order to reach the relic. But these unpleasant nudges prove to be her death blow, as she cries for help and then collapses on the floor of Croxden Abbey in a pitiful little heap of wimpling and woe.

Meanwhile, the fleeing guardsmen are completely unsympathetic, one of them even going so far as to remonstrate the deputy on their way out with, “She’ll tell them, Sir Guy; we should have silenced her!” It’s an excellent point, actually, and shows the terrible conflict of love and duty in the knight; Guy apparently chose mother over master, departing quickly and without killing Margaret, though she saw his face and will likely reveal his identity, thus ruining the necessary secrecy of his mission.

Anyway, the bell rings, and Martin begins to gather together the sincere worshippers, while pushing a professional beggar (3) and his apprentice out of Croxden’s gates. En masse, the devotees enter the chapel, where they discover Margaret collapsed on the floor:

Realising that she’s dying at last, Margaret decides to unburden herself on a secular as well as a spiritual level, while breaking the standing record for “number of confessions made within a 24-hour period.” So she wails that her son, disguised as a leper, has stolen the holy cross–

–then begs to see Robin Hood, and drops hint after hint until Robin finally gets it:

“You’re so like your father…and so unlike the son he gave me…
Don’t you understand?”

And Robin reacts like OH MY GOD, RANCH RUFFLES DO HAVE RIDGES:

I’m starting to think that Lady Margaret is actually a diabolical mastermind, and that, under the guise of holiness, she actually came to Nottinghamshire to spit her dying breaths at everyone who had a hand in her wretched life – namely, the Earl of Huntingdon and his family. And I give her bonus points if she contacted the Sheriff all like HEY, DOES MY SON STILL WORK FOR YOU, AND IF SO, COULD I COME NEEDLE HIM FOR A BIT?, and de Rainault was all ACTUALLY, I’VE GOT AN EVEN BETTER IDEA… and she was like THAT IS HORRIFICALLY EVIL AND I LOVE IT. Alas, I’ll never have confirmation of this enjoyable theory because, at this point, Margaret croaks.

Guy, meanwhile, is gorgeously, miserably, determinedly striding through mid-day fog with the cross:

Robin and the other outlaws quickly run back to the forest, where Robin delightedly hugs Will and exclaims to him that both he and Much have been “cured” by the “miracle” of the lepers actually being Gisburne and his men. I have no idea how Robin figured that out, because “Gisburne was in a leper’s guise” does not automatically equal “and he was the EXACT ‘LEPER’ that you both encountered, along a pilgrimage route full of actual ones!” But Will is too relieved and elated to question Robin’s word–

–that is, until his happiness fades in a burst of anger, and he realises that he now non-leprously has some Norman ass to kick:

So Will announces that he’s going to kill Guy, but Robin hurriedly blurts out that he’ll take care of it–

–and this leads to some WOE SECRET BROTHER ANGST as Will accuses Robin of not wanting to harm a fellow nobleman. “We’ll kill him for you!” Will rasps. “Won’t we, lads?” Because after 15 years of not-killing Gisburne for various contrived plot-devised reasons, Will Scarlet is done, and he’s perfectly ready to snap and just murder him now for the sake of sheer joyous vengeance.

Robin realises that he’s outnumbered and finally growls an angry reply of, “Alright!! Do it.” So the others cheerily go forth to slay themselves some pretteh Norman, leaving Robin alone with Tuck and Marion. Tuck obliquely hints to Robin that DUDE, YOU CAN’T JUST MURDER YOUR OWN BLOOD IN COLD BLOOD, but Robin explains that Guy won’t dare go through Sherwood again, now that he knows his scheme exposed; thus, the other Merries won’t actually find him. The three of them, meanwhile, can go forth and locate Guy first, with Robin reasoning that Guy will probably choose water travel and even now might be seeking out a boat to take down the Trent. Tuck is satisfied with this little subterfuge, though Marion is understandably confused:

So Group 1 – consisting of Nasir, John, Much, and Will – runs through Sherwood, and their pursuit isn’t quite as futile as Robin had hoped, for Nasir uses his eerily specific plot-tracking skills to set them after two guardsmen: Guy’s escort, who parted ways with him back in Croxden. The Merries catch up to these two soldiers and start beating them savagely; Nasir kills one, and Will starts insanely slamming the survivor against a tree, screaming WHERE IS HE?!, and threatening viciousness and more viciousness if the man doesn’t reveal Gisburne’s route:

This display of unrestrained temper is excessively brutal, and it even seems to shock the other Merries, who nonetheless refrain from interfering as Will continues with his crazy:

Elsewhere, Gisburne keeps running, aware that he’s being pursued, but still needing the “leper” disguise and not yet able to remove the bell clanging around his neck; this allows Group 2 – Robin, Marion, and Tuck – to easily follow him. Then Not-Leper!Guy approaches a boat and stands there, ominously glaring at the two owners, and suddenly, I do indeed notice a very strong family resemblance between the half-brothers:

The boatmen gape in understandable horror–

–and bolt, so Guy takes their raft, sets off on the water, starts moving as quickly as some lashed-together branches floating atop a completely calm river will allow, and finally throws off his hampering disguise in order to staff unencumbered towards his destination.

Then Robin SWINGS OUT OF A TREE, LIKE THIS IS EFFING CAPTAIN BLOOD OR SOME SHIT, and lands perfectly on the raft. IT IS NOW OFFICIALLY ON, and the two half-brothers – ZOMG DRAAAAAAAAMA – now engage in ferocious performance-art fight montages, complete with frenzied wrist-gripping:

Alas, Tarzan!Robin is the least of Guy’s current problems, because – having compelled an offscreen confession, complete with directions, from the terrified guardsman – Group 1 now converges upon Group 2, where Will sees the raftly fight in progress and shouts GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISBUUUUUUUUUUUUUURNE!!!

Guy looks rightfully alarmed and – realising that The Crazy has caught up to him, and that there’s no hope of escaping down the river with both the artifact and his life intact – he lobs the Cross of Saint Ciricus at Robin and then jumps into the river:

Will leaps right in after Guy and is so adrenaline-pumped with rage that he swims swiftly across the Trent with the guardsman’s stolen sword in one hand. Robin tries to stop Will by holding the relic aloft and shrieking I’VE GOT THE CROOOOOOSS!!!–

–but Will Scarlet is not to be stopped by such foolish considerations as “logic” and “reparations.” So Guy and then Will make it to the far bank, Will still carrying the sword—

–and we’ve got wardrobe malfunctions galore as the men clamber out of the river. The water’s all like heyyyyyy, baby, where you goin’ and grabs Guy’s beige pants, tugging them down to reveal black Speedos, which seems a bad choice to gird loins otherwise clad in a beige medieval karate gi. But Gisburne gamely rights his trousers and then begins struggling up the cliff, and Will follows, jumping onto distant rocks with such force that his robe flies up to reveal a bare bottom (though by the next scene, he too is wearing dark undies of equally accurate historical provenance :cough:). The two men climb higher and higher, and Will shouts Gisburne’s name with sufficient frequency to leave drinking viewers collapsed on the floor, while Guy makes hilarious monkey faces and goads Will onward by shouting insults at him. At last the two reach the top, Guy first.

The other outlaws dash after them and finally reach the bottom of the cliff, where they encounter an unbelievable scene–

–and by “unbelievable,” I mean that I truly cannot believe it: during that incredibly brief scene change, Gisburne has somehow managed to disarm, overpower, bind, and blindfold Will, and now holds a sword to his throat, threatening to shove Scarlet over the cliff’s edge unless Robin, alone, brings the relic to him:

So I think the deleted fight must have gone something like this:

Trauma!Guy + ….?? + MAGIC!!! = Trussed!Will

Now, we all know what good shots the Merries are, so Nasir and John ready the perfect solution to this dilemma:

But Robin stops them and orders the relic handed over. And despite the other Merries’ warnings about the folly of trusting Gisburne, Robin starts climbing the cliff, cross tucked securely under his arm, and we get some villain-hero banter of the stereotypical Hollywood variety, with Guy even yelling I’M GETTING IMPATIENT!! for good measure. “You never give up, do you, Guy?” sighs Robin, rather insultingly using the man’s first name. “NEVAH!” Guy growl!yells, to which I mentally add MUAHAHAHAHAHA! (4)

Robin finally reaches the cliff top and, after pushing Scarlet out of the way, he throws the cross hard at Guy. Now, Guy’s brain already has a big owwie from this whole complicated episode. So Guy didn’t think to insist that Robin should come unarmed, and the hard shove delivered by a flying holy relic knocks the knight off-balance long enough for Robin to draw his sword. The two spar, and Robin, seeing Guy’s face, remembers Lady Gisburne’s words and the secret he now possesses. Suddenly, he sees the vicissitudes of fate embodied as they fight, envisioning himself in Guy’s clothes and Guy wearing his own ring-armoured tunic (which looks dreadful on the man, by the way):

It’s a pointed visual reminder of half-brotherhood WAAAAAngst, and Robin’s gaze becomes introspective for a moment, during which he seems to ask himself whether he might’ve become like Guy, had he faced the….something…that Guy has. (Because the only fact that Robin knows for certain is that Guy is illegitimate. We know all about the tortures – OH THE TORTURES – of Guy’s youth, but Robin doesn’t, so this speculative visionary compassion is kind of strange.)

Anyhow, wrists are once again engaged, now with added BROTHER STRIFE significance–

–and although there’s no table atop this cliff, that’s no reason for blond men not to roll around on top of each other:

Guy smashes Robin’s sword from his hand, and it clatters off of the cliff in a classic “lightsabre reaction” shot, but the disarmed Robin manages to bash Guy in the head and knock him fetchingly out:

Then Robin removes Will’s blindfold, and he sees that Will’s eyes still burn with the rageful desire to murder Guy, because SCARLET:

So Robin drags him off, giving no adequate justification for avoiding a richly-deserved mortal blow to their longtime enemy, who now lies unarmed and unconscious right in front of them:

And Will has no choice but to descend the cliff with Robin, protesting, “This is stupid!” as they climb down:

At that point I had to pause the DVD and sink my head into my arms, to laugh helplessly and spleen-rupturingly for about a minute. Will is ostensibly referring to the inefficiency of having to totter down a hill with his hands still bound, but really, his words comprise the most insightful quote of the entire episode. Finally Robin deems Scarlet calm enough to be trusted and unties him; the outlaws then gather happily at the foot of the cliff–

–and head for home, leaving Guy’s sword and clothes shockingly un-stolen.

And at last, the Posturing Cult of the Style-Conscious Saint Ciricus arm-crosses anew–

–their relic restored to its rightful stylized idolatry place of veneration within the prison-sanctum of Croxden Abbey:

And it’s a fabulous, Vogueingly Ever After ending to an episode that was…actually really weird:

So, in summary, this is what I got out of the story: MUCH AND WILL LIKE GIRLS and also mysterious pots of soup, the latter of which turns out to have been concocted by lepers, and now they fear they’ve “caught” leprosy at a point in history when no concept of contagion existed. Meanwhile, a noblewoman who can afford a caravan for pilgrimage, but not an adequate number of guards to protect her, is attacked by scuba brigands and saved by the Merries. She’s so sick that she insists upon receiving extreme unction from poor!choice Tuck, where she moons a lot over Bird!Earl and doesn’t really confess her sins so much as justify them by blaming everyone else. Then they all reach Croxden, home of the Arm-Crossed Cult of St. Ciricus, and discover that this dying lady is Gizzy’s mom – just in time for Gizzy to reach the abbey in debauched-angel leper!guise and steal its relic on the command of the totally not a sorcerer Sheriff, because it will break the subversive cult and NOT BECAUSE THE THING HAS OCCULT HEALING POWERS, SHUT UP!. Guy escapes with the cross, Margaret dies from ill-shock, Robin tells Will that fake!leprosy was a Guy!trick, and then Ray Winstone’s scrotum chases Robert Addie’s underwear up a hill. After a bland clifftop standoff and some tepid blond-on-blond action, Gisburne suffers his four thousandth concussion since the show began and lies fetchingly unconscious, but now it’s totally okay to drool over him, since he’s really just a sad, miserable man who kills people because he needs hugs. THE END.

The twist about Guy’s parentage, and the confrontation forced between Guy and his mother, are both quite dramatic, and the acting is for the most part superb, but most of this episode’s plot is limply forgettable, and some of it doesn’t make much sense. Carpenter seemed very excited about this storyline, but when I first saw The Cross of St. Ciricus, it felt to me like a ratings grab, as though they designed an entire plot around Robert Addie’s pretteh – on the premise that a man who looks angelic must somehow be redeemable – in order to soften the resident attractive bad-boy’s image and make the show that much more marketable. I was so happy to see a backstory finally given for Gisburne; I just didn’t want it to be this backstory, especially because it shreds the show’s timeline. You see, the mention of Edmund’s return from King Richard’s Crusade specifically dates Guy’s birth to 1192, and this makes the knight three years old at his initial appearance in the show (whose first episode gives a big solid date of 1195 splashed onto the screen). You can find a humorous discussion of this canonical recklessness here, and I’ll cover more of this episode’s nonsense in an addendum to this post, which will offer up some rants that didn’t fit into the review.

Meanwhile, we’ve now had one member of Team Norman written out (:sniffle: Hugo :sniffle:), another subjected to a convenient Freudian excuse for his entire personality (Guy), and that leaves only one villain standing (WHY CAN’T EVERYONE LEEEEAAAAVE ROBERT ALOOOOONE). That will soon change, as The Sheriff of Nottingham faces King John’s wrath, Hubert de Giscard’s smugness, Lewis Collins’ smarminess, and Anthony Horowitz’s writing, and must engage in ruthless ham-to-ham combat, devouring scenery with reckless abandon, in order to regain his position. The plot hits rock-bottom, the actors go insanely over-the-top, and the result is bizarrely compelling, next time on Robin of Sherwood.

For now?

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Fun Stuff:
Apples: A girl eats an apple at 20:30, and there’s a dish of apples on a Croxden Abbey table at 34:40.
Gisburnes: 31.
Quotes: Here.
It’s been a while since I sent you elsewhere for delicious macros, hasn’t it? Here’s a funny bunch, up to and including this episode.
Some beautiful pictures of the actual Croxden Abbey may be found here, minus the vogueing.
And this episode even helps reveal a bit of plagiarism; if you ever pick up the (awful) 1992 Robin Hood-y novel Lady of the Forest, you’ll notice that it’s set in the 12th century and includes an Abbot Martin of Croxden. However, the 12th-century Abbot of Croxden was actually named Thomas of Woodstock, which rather hints that the author simply lifted the name of Carpenter’s fictional character instead of researching (or at least inventing) for herself. :P

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Notes:
(1) Everyone’s in short sleeves and light robes, and it looks muggily scorching outside. I’m timing this one at fall 1210 (show) or fall 1205 (me), not that this will make a damn lick of difference once the episode’s done.

(2) I honestly feel that some of the most delicious potential drama to come out of Margaret’s confession isn’t in the “half-brothers” subplot; it’s in the impact of a second son upon the Earl of Huntingdon. Can you imagine the look on Bird!Dad’s face upon discovering that, not only does he have another child, but that it’s someone he already knows and loathes – the wretched underling of that miserable Sheriff he can’t stand? Bahahaha!

(3) A fun fact is that this professional beggar, whom Abbot Martin drives away, is Martin Shaw (Doyle of The Professionals) in an uncredited role, appearing briefly on the same show whose next episode would feature his partner-in-crime (Lewis Collins/Bodie – Philip Mark in the upcoming The Sheriff of Nottingham).

(4) Alas, Guy’s tenacity here is neither admirable nor intelligent; he actually should give up, because the monks, pilgrims, and outlaws are all fully aware that Guy stole the cross. There’s no chance that Guy’s master can pretend to be uninvolved in this theft, and Gisburne now must return to Nottingham Castle and reveal that he was discovered because he inexplicably threw off his disguise at a crucial moment. Whether or not Guy actually has the cross is not going to mollify the savage beating he’ll get when the Sheriff learns about this, and really, the best Guy can do now is leave the cross behind so that there’s no evidence of the crime.

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