Merlin --- Love in the Time of Dragons

This week on Merlin, Gauis gets a mysterious letter from an old love. The letter awakens memories in him long forgotten and we get a flashback episode  in which we see the beginnings of the purge, Uther's madness and cruelty, and how the choices Gauis had to make to stay in Uther's good graces continue to haunt him to this day. We even get a cameo of Baby Arthur! OK that didn't happen. Instead of fleshing out the mythology and shedding some light on Gauis's mysterious past, "Love in the Time of Dragons" turns into yet another episode about a magical baddie trying to kill a Pendragon, this time it's Uther's turn.

Gauis's old love Alice reappears. Alice is a healer who went on the run during the purge and her most recent patient was a peasant who would have died without her care. The word some how gets back to Uther that a peasant escaped the Grim Reaper and his Royal Pain gets all excited at the prospect that magic is afoot and starts drooling over who he can burn. Gaius decided to investigate, but covers when he realizes who the witch is. He is thrilled to see Alice, but Merlin....come on guess what happens... you can do it....you guessed it! Merlin's magical senses starts tingling and Detective Merlin soon figures out that Alice is up to no good. She's formed an alliance with a manticore who has used his powerful magic to help her save tons of sick people in need. All he wants is for her to help him poison Uther, sounds like a fair price to me. But the catch is that Alice is going to have to frame Gaius and Merlin isn't having that so he must find a way to stop Alice before it's too late.

I'll admit I wasn't excited about an episode that focused on Gauis, but I hoped this episode would at least give us something to ponder. Uther's purge is a big deal. He killed a lot of people and Gauis watched and perhaps even helped. These are issues that Merlin needs to deal with and it being a kid friendly story is no excuse, so is Harry Potter! Also a big thumbs down for Alice escaping. While I didn't want her to die I think her death would have created a rift between Uther and Gauis, and maybe even Merlin and Gauis, and it would have been nice to see where that lead everybody.

Questions/Comments

I am not to fond of Gauis. He is a collaborator and I hate collaborators. Yes, he does his bit here and there, helping Merlin and what not , but so what? Where was all his concern for Merlin when Uther was hunting his dad down like a dog and forcing him to leave him and his mother? I'm actually surprised that Merlin never questions Gauis more. If Arthur has a blind spot for Uther, Merlin has one for Gauis.

I understand that keeping his mouth shut saved his life, but Gauis had another option, in this episode we learn that he could have left with Alice, instead he stayed because he was scared.

So let me get this straight. When the purge went down Gauis knew that Uther had a list of people to slaughter, a list that I'm guessing he showed Gauis, and all Gauis did was erase Alice's name and keep on keeping on? How does he look at the families of the people that Uther killed?

This episode just seemed like one wasted opportunity after another. We learn very little about the past and there is no shakeup in the status quo. This reminds me of the episode where Arthur's Zoombie Uncle reappears to avenge his death at Uther's hads and we learn very little about the the nature of Uther and Ygraine's marriage,  Arthur learns nothing about his mother's true fate, and Uther ends up looking like the freaking hero! Memo to Merlin writers. You have added some brilliant twists to this legend, but if you don't flesh it, or even really get in there and play with it, what's the point?

Most important of all, why did the writers make me go through a whole 45 minutes with Arthur being all up Uther's you know what and no Gwen. And  you thought Morgana was EVIL!