Merlin – Recap & Review – A Remedy To Cure All Ills

photo: nbc

Merlin
A Remedy to Cure All Ills

Original Air Date: July 12, 2009

Andi – Sr. Reviewer
andi@thetwocents.com

The lesson to be learned from this week’s episode of Merlin is that one should never trust creepy doctors in cloaks, or beetles, or random flower deliveries. Also, this episode poses some odd questions about Uther – namely how in the world that man can be fooled by the complete weirdness that is this week’s villain. And why is there so much chemistry between him and Morgana?

We open on what may or may not be the Evil Beetle Training Grounds. It’s difficult to say; I hear they’re very elusive. Some man, who appears to be in charge of the evil beetles, scoops up his best agent and drops him in a lily, which is then delivered to Morgana. The beetle spy waits until the cover of darkness to crawl forth and embed itself in her ear! The soundtrack thinks this is a very big deal and freaks the hell out on us, so you should too.

A man in the courtyard at Camelot is lurking around like a creeper, all swishy cloak and weird movements. We see under his hood and, he’s got a terribly scarred face that we could have done without seeing, frankly, and he looks pretty unfriendly to me.

Two days later, Morgana is in a vegetative state and Uther’s right pissed that Gaius doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. He guesses an inflammation of the brain caused by an unknown infection because no one expects evil beetles! Gaius and Merlin confer and Merlin offers to magick her better, but Gaius shuts him down.

(Okay, okay, I have to take a moment to comment on how these people keep going around talking about forbidden and illegal things in a huge stone castle that I’m sure echoes like crazy, but no one ever overhears them. I know I gripe about things pretty regularly, but I’m usually just poking fun or doing it good-naturedly, but this really gets my goat!)

‘Creepy Guy’ is revealed to be Edwin, a physician who claims to have a cure for all ills. Arthur ain’t got time for pyramid schemes, so he’s all, “Out of my sight, plebe.” Rejected, Edwin heads off to his room at the inn. But Morgana isn’t getting any better so at Arthur’s insistance they ask about this pyramid scheme because at some point recently he’s decided he likes Morgana or something.

So, Creeper Edwin, as he shall now be known, shows up with a bunch of alchemy equipment and his box of evil beetles and demands that he be left alone with the patient. Gaius is suspicious, but Uther’s joined the Creeper Edwin fan club, so they all file out. Once alone, Creeper Edwin gets ready to creepily pull the evil beetle spy from Morgana’s ear, but Gwen shows up. After kicking her meddling ass out, Creeper Edwin removes the evil beetle and rushes downstairs to tell everyone how old, dumb Gaius misdiagnosed her. Uther, naturally, falls for it, like the loser he apparently is.

Gaius, however, is a little skeptical because he thinks he may have treated Creeper Edwin for his facial injuries when he was just a lad, but Creeper Edwin says, “Pssht, no way old dude,” in a completely unconvincing way.

Later on, Merlin stops by Edwin’s chambers, knocks, and then goes right on in even though no one answered because no one ever taught Merlin about personal space. He looks around and fiddles with the equipment until he finds the box of evil beetles. But the beetles are no fools and as soon as he opens the box they all play dead. (Crafty evil beetles.) Except apparently, the beetles cannot resist the need to crawl around when Merlin reads the enchantment on the box. He is sufficiently freaked out and then even more freaked out when Edwin creeps up behind him and calls him out. Edwin then blabs at Merlin about magic not being all bad and then totally comes on to him, which sends poor Merlin running away in some odd mixture of fear and delight. What about Arthur, Merlin? Slut!

I really hate this Edwin fellow; he makes me wildly uncomfortable. I think he may be the creepiest person I’ve ever seen on TV, and it’s not just down to the make-up.

Gaius gets to work on outing Edwin as a bad, bad man while Uther treats him to dinner and gets played like a cheap drum. (Oh, Uther, Giles would never fall for this crap. And what is with this huge Morgana-shaped weakness of yours? Huh? Uther? Explain yourself!) Ah, but Uther has no time to tell me what his damage is because now he’s assigning Edwin to review Gaius’ work, which is very clearly just what Edwin wanted. (Sheesh. No wonder Arthur is considered such a great king – he came after this guy.)

Gaius, having put it all together, stomps over to Edwin’s chambers and calls him out. It turns out, Edwin was the son of two sorcerers whom Uther burned at the stake, and he was badly scarred when he tried to save them. Now Edwin’s in Camelot trying to exact his revenge, and Gaius cannot stop him because Edwin’s holding the big, giant Merlin-is-a-warlock secret over his head. So, Edwin tells the king that Gaius is old and outdated and might be ready for retirement, but Morgana and Arthur think this all ridiculous and stupid. Uther, being the prize that he is, is not inclined to listen.

Then, in an unprecedented event, Gaius visits the Slash Dragon! Gaius, unlike Merlin, is much more wary of the Slash Dragon, having dealt with him many years ago in what does not seem to be a friendly way. The Dragon tells him that Merlin and Arthur are destined to unite Albion and that Uther has to die before they can do this and that it is now up to Gaius whether that time has come. Gaius is very put out.

And then he gets sacked.

Merlin is very annoyed by this, Arthur is uncomfortable about it, and Uther is sad – but still being stupid. Gaius, however, is kind of secretly stoked because it means he doesn’t actually have to make a choice between Merlin and Uther. Apparently, the other lesson of this episode is that Gaius is big coward who makes a habit of turning a blind eye and avoiding hard decisions.

It’s a good thing we have Merlin, then, because he’s all about doing the right thing, which I’m sure he’ll be doing any minute now. But first we have to see Gwen call Gaius out on running away and Edwin change Uther’s prescription to something that paralyzes him. The objective here is to let the evil beetles eat out Uther’s brain slowly, but judging by tonight’s episode, they’re not going to have a very big meal.

Gaius, who is somewhere in the woods having a bit of a camping trip, decides he ain’t no coward after all and rushes back to the castle only to get trapped in a big ring of fire by Edwin. Elsewhere in the castle, Arthur runs up to Merlin in some random corridor and tells him that his father has Morgana’s illness, and to find Edwin, which of course Merlin does right away. Merlin does not take kindly to the taunting and bullying of old former warlocks and lays the smackdown on Edwin and rescues Gaius from a Johnny Cash song…er…I mean that ring of fire.

Long story short, Merlin uses magic to save Uther, Gaius gets his job back and is released from servitude, Arthur mugs adorably in the background of every scene, and everyone rejoices.

Sometimes this show is so uneven and inconsistent. One episode is strong on character development but weak on story and the next will be weak on character development but strong on story, and then the next will be some weird mix of the two. This episode had some great Gaius development, but left Uther looking like a complete idiot. My friend Liz insists that Uther is just that big of an idiot rather than it being a writing problem, but I’m not really in agreement. I think he’s hard and tyrannical and stubborn, but I don’t know that stupid is true. What do you guys think?

Comments only cost two cents and I’m totally running out of these “clever” two cents jokes. Sigh. See you all next week when some hot chick and her dad show up and cause havoc!