Merlin – Recap & Review – The Mark Of Nimueh

photo: nbc

Merlin
The Mark of Nimueh

Original Air Date: June 28, 2009

Andi – Sr. Reviewer
andi@thetwocents.com

Tonight’s episode has Camelot in a load of trouble when the water supply is poisoned! But I’ll bet you my two cents that Merlin and Gaius and Arthur save the day.

We open on a woman – that girl from the remake of Bionic Woman – and she’s using magic to put some sort of creature in Camelot’s water supply, which is pretty rude if you ask me.

Credits.

A man is lying, unmoving, in the middle of the frickin’ street and nobody seems overly concerned about this, except for Gaius and Merlin (and me), which makes me remember how glad I am not to be living in medieval England. They turn him over and he’s all gross and grey and his eyes have lost their pigment. Gonna go out on a limb here and say it’s not lupus.

Over at Gwen’s, she’s bustling about, making her dad’s lunch and getting him ready for work and they’re doing that annoyingly pleasant thing that cometh just before the doom.

Meanwhile, Merlin and Gaius are trying to handle the increasing number of dead people. Gwen shows up and she gives Merlin a flower and they have a little moment of flirty and cute awkwardness. Then Gwen’s off to Morgana’s chambers where she gives her flowers and they have a little moment of flirty and cute awkwardness… hey wait a minute. Does this show know it’s sending all these sub-t(s)extual messages?

Over at Gaius’s place, he’s shocked and appalled by all the dead people and doesn’t know what the hell is happening! But he suspects magic, like any good secret magician should. Then Arthur shows up and Merlin refers to him as “mate” which is awfully buddy-buddy of him and suggests to me that they’re totally going to make out.

Arthur says that Uther wants to talk to Gaius pronto and the fact that Arthur is delivering this message suggests to me that he just wanted to come over and see Merlin. I mean, come on, I know Prince Arthur isn’t in the habit of delivering messages like a common servant.

Cut to what may or may not be the Royal Dining Hall. Gaius has no answers for the very bitchy king, but admits that he thinks sorcery is behind the mysterious illness and Uther looks like he’s been diagnosed with lymphoma. Okay, Show, we get it, Uther’s intolerant and prejudiced and overreacting to something that isn’t clearly black and white. Thank you. Sigh. I really enjoy this show, but subtlety is something they’ve clearly never heard of. Anyway, Uther demands that Arthur conduct door-to-door searches and find the culprit. Like a good son, he gets right on that.

Merlin and Gaius high-tail it home to clean up their magic paraphernalia and Merlin gets all teenager again like he did last week because Gaius tells him that even though he could probably save everyone with his Mad Magick Skillz, it’s too risky and he’s not allowed to expose himself like that.

Arthur and some guards show up to search Gaius and Merlin’s chambers. Of course, Arthur finds nothing and leaves and Merlin gets his teenager on again and Gaius has to remind him that exposing his magic means getting caught and failing to live up to his Great Big, Possibly Gay Destiny.

More people are dead and Arthur and Uther are at a loss. So, like any concerned and rigid king, Uther imposes a curfew and orders the lower town quarantined because that’s where most of the dead are. Arthur is indignant and pissy about this. Aw, Arthur, your first lesson in making crappy decisions and sacrificing some for all.

Meanwhile, Gaius has figured out that the disease is transmitted through water and sends Merlin to get a sample. Oh, but behold, Gwen’s dad is sick. The doom cometh. She freaks like a banshee straight on over to everyone’s trusty Court Physician, who rushes to the rescue… oh, wait, no he doesn’t. He says, too bad, so sad, Gwen. There’s nothing he can do. Merlin, however, can do something. Something ~*magical*~

So, after curfew, of course (Because why would he do it when he’s allowed to be out?), Merlin sneaks off and leaves some kind of hex bag or something under Daddy Blacksmith’s pillow, presumably to cure him.

Cut to the royal dining hall or whatever that room is. Arthur and Uther argue over how to handle the contaminated water supply and I wonder why no one suggests boiling the water before drinking it to see if that works, but whatever.

Elsewhere, Daddy Blacksmith is all-better and that doesn’t draw attention or anything. Dear Merlin, please take note of the following events because unlike Dumbledore, Gauis really does just want to help you. Listen to him, m’kay?

So, our slightly clueless hero checks in on Gwen as she’s fussing about Morgana’s chambers and she almost calls him out as having cured her dad, but instead they have more flirty and awkward moments. It’s actually really cute.

Elsewhere, Arthur pays a visit to his future in-law and is very suspicious of how the man is suddenly cured. He and his guards search his house and find the magical hex bag thing that Merlin failed to dispose of. Way to go there, magic boy.

And I would like to just take a second to acknowledge that Bradley James is really very cute. Ahem, okay then. So, Arthur puts on his worried and conflicted face and clomps over to Morgana’s room and promptly arrests Gwen, much to everyone’s disbelief and horror. Gaius, rightly, asks Merlin (in that parental voice that makes teenagers scratch their nails down blackboards) what he’s done. Merlin comes up with a myriad of terrible ideas about how to get Gwen off the hook before gathering up his ears and stomping off.

Gwen gets dragged, literally, into court and Uther acts like a big old tyrant, which he totally is, and sentences Gwen to death for poisoning the water in the first place because one suspected witch is clearly the answer and the cure. Everyone is horribly aggrieved, as the soundtrack reminds us, and Uther gets busy at the bar because phew, that was hard business.

Morgana basically tells Uther he’s a loser and Arthur calls him out on his bullcrap, but Uther’s like, “It’s hard for a pimp,” and keeps on drinking.

Merlin and his ears are back at home, drowning their collective sorrows in Gaius’ helpful analogies or something, before heading off to see Gwen, who’s in hack, obviously. She puts on a brave face, shoves her foot in her mouth AGAIN in a way that’s quickly becoming not-cute and asks Merlin to remember her, to which Merlin’s like, screw that! And he storms into the multipurpose chamber (what exactly do the guards do while everyone is always barging in here?) where everyone is discussing the crisis and yells out that it was he, Merlin, who used magic to cure Daddy Blacksmith. Everyone looks at him like he’s lost his little mind (Arthur with a great WTF face) and then hilariously, Arthur tells everyone that Merlin’s got “a great mental disease…he’s in love” (Hee!) with Gwen of course, which gets him out of his confession.

But that wasn’t his objective, so he and Gaius team up for some of that wacky science to try and solve the water problem and free Gwen. They troop all twenty feet to the cellar (did you know castles have cellars?) and wander down to the main water supply. Why they didn’t go there before is beyond me. So they grab a sample and a monster roars at them from the well and they both peace the hell out. Smart men.

Back at the homestead, they diagnose the problem: An Afanc, which is apparently a creature, brought to life from clay by a powerful sorcerer. I looked it up on wiki but it’s not there, so clearly it’s just a made up word. [Thank you, Melissa! I was spelling it wrong. Here’s the info Wiki link – Andi] Anyway, Merlin pays a visit to the Slash Dragon and gets the whole one side of a coin speech again because the dragon just really wants to win the Merlin/Arthur pool. Merlin is aggrieved again because the Dragon is being cryptic and gay, so it’s off to the library for some invigorating research.

Morgana makes herself useful in the fight against the whatever-the-hell-that-is in the water and convinces Arthur to help. They ditch Gaius somewhere and the three of them troop with all the stealth of a semi truck into the cellar. Arthur slays the thing with a fair bit of super secret Mad Magick Skillz from Merlin, naturally.

Nimueh splashes around in her pensieve to express her displeasure.

Next day, Uther’s laughing at the comics or the fanfiction or something when Gaius delivers the good news about everyone’s collective recoveries. But he also brings cryptic news about the sorcerer’s identity and Uther looks less than pleased because he’s not all squeaky clean like he pretends to be. He tells everyone to GTFO and lounges angrily on his throne.

Gwen gets out of jail. Morgana thinks Merlin’s in love with Gwen and omg I am tired of talking about Gwen.

Good-bye and happy discussing. Share your cents, however many you have.