#5.02 - speak no evil

[cookiedoughmeagain]

“Inside Haven” featurettes; DVD extras, season 5a

Eric Balfour: “I think that Jennifer is, certainly the first person that we’ve ever seen in the show, that Duke opened his heart to. And so the potential loss of her, it’s almost something he can’t handle.”

Lucas Bryant: “Nathan is feeling Duke’s pain. He knows what it’s like to lose someone you love, and as much as these guys have been enemies forever, they’re also kind of lovers. So he’s trying to be there for his buddy.”

Eric Balfour: “Shooting emotional scenes are challenging. Even more so; the day we shot that particular scene, it was freezing. We couldn’t barely talk. We kept running from the set back into the building that we were next to.

Lucas Bryant: “Nathan knows that Duke may have a tendency to self-destruct.”

Eric Balfour: “Finding a centre, when there’s all this chaos going on around you, and there’s people moving and cameras moving and things happening, you try to find a place that is sort of quiet and focused inside of you, and do the best you can.”

Lucas Bryant: “In real life, if Eric Balfour was dealing with a serious loss? I would give him a hug. A really long hug. 

Balfour, just so you know, if this was real life I would be there for you.”

[panharmonium]

since i am on the cusp of watching the last four episodes of merlin (again, disclaimer: these are episodes i have never seen, and for which i still remain unspoiled, so please help me continue to stay spoiler-free for the next couple of days), i wanted to try to set down a record of where my thoughts are now, because you can only be in a place where you haven’t finished something once - “once a thing is known, it can’t be unknown,” etc - i’ll never be able to come back to this mindset, so i’d like to be able to remember what i was thinking before i knew how it ended.  if nothing else, this will mean that i can come back here and laugh at my wildly off-base suspicions.

this is relevant to absolutely nobody, since everybody else finished this show eight years ago; so under the cut it goes!

so. 

right now i have a feeling that merlin is going to end...badly.  i’ve never been outright spoiled for what happens at the end of this show, but various little hints of feelings i’ve picked up from people just indicate that...it’s not a good time.  it would be nice to be wrong!  but that is just the sense i have gotten.

with that in mind, my current thinking is as follows:

arthur: i think arthur’s doomed.  i used to think it was going to be merlin, but that was last year, and i’ve recalibrated and rewatched since then, and honestly, ‘the disir’ gives me a real bad feeling.  you can’t just ignore all these people being like “THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!  IT WILL NOT COME AGAIN!”  i’m not sure if he’s doomed now, or if they’re gonna have him survive the immediate crisis and then fast-forward to the future so we can watch him die and get shipped off to avalon later, but either way, i think arthur’s in trouble.  

(and, quite frankly, i don’t think merlin’s going to get his good ending, either.  i’m afraid he’s going to end up dead or living as a hermit or trapped in dragoon’s ancient body or something stupid like that.)

(i would LOVE to be wrong, fyi.  i have absolutely no reason to have these suspicions other than the vague sense from others that the ending of this show made people bitterly unhappy.)

i don’t know how there is a way for them to do this that doesn’t feel like a huge waste or something that doesn’t make sense.  the messaging on this show has always been that the time of albion hasn’t actually happened yet, that arthur is going to unite the land and be the greatest king of all time.  the message has never been that he’s already done it.  like - it’s never been presented as “the three years between S4 and S5 were what we consider to be the once and future king’s glorious reign.”  so it just feels...like it would be very weird to remove arthur without that promise ever being fulfilled.  i’m not sure how they can manage that without pulling the rug out from under their audience in an unpleasant/dishonest way.

i also don’t see how this kind of ending would work without breaking the show’s promise to merlin - that one day he will be known for who and what he is, that he and arthur are destined for greatness, that the appearance of a white dragon “BODES WELL” for them and the world they are trying to build.

mordred: i have no idea what’s going to happen with mordred.  i stand by what i said before, that i like him and don’t care if that means i get burned.  i don’t know if they’re planning on having him either a) be revealed as a traitor with his own agenda (one not necessary aligned with morgana’s) or b) be sincerely trying to be a good knight but doing a 180 and turning on arthur due to...idk, frustration about not being accepted, old grudge-holding from that confrontation with merlin when he was a kid, new grudge-holding from merlin constantly trying to get him killed, etc.  

i have always been concerned that merlin’s behavior is going to drive mordred to do something evil, thus accidentally bringing about the events he’s trying to prevent, so that still looms large in my mind.

morgana: ?????  whatever plan she has is going to blow up in her face, it seems, given the substance of merlin’s vision in 5.01 (not that she appears to have a plan at all, this season - she’s been all about the wacky schemes, lately; she has no allies and no army, as far as we know.  (that will change, though, i’m sure, once we get to That Dread Place, though how, i don’t know.)   “the legends speak of an alliance between mordred and morgana” - so maybe mordred ends up sort of helping her after all, and turning on her in the end (though he’s already done that, it seems, so i really don’t know how that makes sense).  

if it were up to me, i’d want morgana to be released, at the end of everything.  not redeemed, exactly - i don’t think she would cozy up in camelot with everybody and let things go back to normal, but i think she could be more than what she is.  i think it would be an appropriate arc, actually, for us to see her losing her allies and her armies, for her to see people drifting away from her methods, like when annis refuses to help her any further in 4.05.  morgana started off as the voice of moral authority on this show, but she’s descended far enough now that she’s driving people away from her cause.

but i still think she deserves a chance.  i think she’s the kind of person who has the capacity to come back from the brink.  i would like to see further exploration of the conflict she obviously feels when mordred appeals to her humanity in 5.09.  i would like to see the conflict she must feel about hurting people she used to love, and i would like to see conflict from them in her direction, as well.  i don’t believe it would be simple for arthur to ever consider killing his sister.  i don’t think gwen would just give up on morgana without a fight.  i do think merlin, for his part, has hardened his heart against her, and that seems appropriate, given their history, but i also think that merlin’s primary motivator in this world is love.  

i think he could learn.  i think he would realize, after some difficulty, that he owes it to her to try to reach her, somehow.  

gwen: it’s hard for me to say what i expect for gwen, because honestly, she hasn’t had much of an arc this season, and therefore we don’t have much to work with.  i’m not sure if TPTB just stopped knowing what to do with her once she became queen, or what, but if i had been putting down my expectations for her in season 5 as a whole, i would have expected to see gwen kind of like - struggling a bit with her huge change in circumstance (from servant to queen, i mean, that’s massive; there would be so many things she’d have to adjust to, and then dealing with other people as well, not all of whom would be thrilled by her upward mobility - eg nobles who are threatened by the idea that common folk feel like they can aspire to the second highest office in the land, or other servants who used to be her friends and would never wish her ill but are now maybe nervous around her - but none of that happened, so i honestly don’t know what the plan is for her.  i would have liked to see gwen showing up a bit more for merlin, i suppose...they were so close, before, and if anyone would have noticed that something was bothering merlin, gwen would have - but there’s just this gap between them now.

gwaine, too.  gwaine and merlin were tight.  and now they’re sort of…i mean, gwaine is there, and he on his end is still invested in merlin, but there’s a weird distancing happening between them.  merlin is too preoccupied with the all-consuming ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die’ to put much of himself into his other relationships.

to be clear, i’m not actually criticizing that as a writing decision.  i do think it’s something merlin would do.  i think it absolutely makes sense for merlin to be shutting down all the “extra” parts of his life, one after another, until the only thing left is the Mission.  his “destiny.”   he can only focus on that one thing.  he only thinks his life is worth something if he can succeed at this one thing.

it makes me very sad, but i do think it’s something that would happen to him.  it strikes me as an appropriate step for his character arc.  because merlin in S5 is kind of disintegrating, and even in S4 he was starting to pull away from other people.  but i would expect this problem to be addressed as season 5 progressed, and i fully do not expect that to happen now. 

i’m honestly not sure the show actually sees it as a problem at all.  i’m not sure...i can never tell if this show understands that merlin feels like all of his relationships are shams, that he feels that everyone who “loves” him would hate him if they knew who he actually was, not just arthur.  he thinks people only care about him because he lies.  he thinks his true self is fundamentally unlovable, in this particular world.  he doesn’t remember what genuine friendship feels like anymore - it’s been such a long time since he experienced it.

i think that’s a problem.  i expected it to be one of the problems we would address in S5.  but i’m not sure we’re actually going there.

gaius: i was REAL concerned about gaius when we started S5.  i was sure he was a goner.  he’d already survived way longer than i expected him to and i was so pleased about that fact; i loved it; i loved how merlin said “camelot needs BOTH of us” and refused to ever leave him behind.  

i’m still kind of um...worried about him, i guess.  i’m not sure where he would fit in a post-finale world.  though that really depends on where the finale leaves us.  

the dragons: don’t even ask me.  are we ever going to get clarification on how kilgharrah allowed aithusa to get swept up by morgana and then trapped in a pit for two years?  nah?  okay then.

i would really, really like merlin to be able to help aithusa.  it doesn’t matter if aithusa is “with” morgana; merlin is still a dragonlord.  he would still feel responsible.  he would still care.  you can tell how upset he is when he sees aithusa in 5.02.  i hope we can get something to this effect - who knows, maybe he and morgana can connect on this one thing.  

wider concerns: the magical community.  i’ve been waiting for merlin to take a stand for them for a long time, but again, i don’t think we’re going there.  i wish we were, but merlin thinks the only way he can help them is by helping arthur, because someone somewhere once told him arthur was the one who could put everything right.

(and again, that’s something that makes me sad.  why does this community have to wait for their oppressor to slowly, maybe come around?  the fact that we, the audience, are fond of arthur doesn’t make it okay for anyone to tell a group of oppressed people to sit around and wait their turn.  they deserve to be free now.  merlin deserves to be free now.  these people have every right to declare themselves free people, unbowed and unshackled - morgana is right about that much, at least.)

wider concerns: the political situation.  is anyone ever going to actually explain what albion looks like?  the show keeps saying “the five kingdoms” when there are DEMONSTRABLY more than five monarchs introduced across various seasons - are there just five extra-prominent kingdoms, like medieval superpowers?  or what?  this wasn’t really a big deal before and you could kind of handwave it away, but if arthur’s supposed to be uniting these places, it becomes a little more relevant.

and of course, merlin: 

i don’t want to write too much about my many many fears for merlin himself here.  i’ve written about them enough elsewhere, and, as gaius says, “i’m not sure my heart can take it.” 

suffice to say, my biggest fear is that merlin won’t get his good ending.  

for years, people have been telling merlin (and us, by extension!) that one day, someday, if he struggles enough, if he suffers enough, if he is very, very patient, and very, very strong, he will finally be known and loved for who he is.  

i am afraid that these people were either mistaken or lying.

people shouldn’t have to earn their happiness in the first place, but by god, if they did, merlin has done enough.  he has been hiding in the shadows all his life, doing nothing but help people and sacrifice himself for others’ sakes, even as he believes that all the people he cares about would hate the person he is inside.  

he deserves a spot in the sun.

[thegeminisage]

alright im about to watch 5.03 of merlin for the 2nd time ever

because if i dont do it now i may NEVER GET ANOTHER CHANCE

but first i wanna get out of the way that i thought merlin convincing arthur to keep the ban on magic in 5.05 because he was trying to thwart ~*~destiny~*~ or whatever is the laziest writing ever, it’s unsatisfying for the audience, it renders the rest of the last season utterly pointless, it’s unfair to merlin and arthur, and the tonal shift of the show from farting trolls in season 2 to full greek tragedy in season 5 was completely unwarranted and i feel TRICKED as a human person because i expected the end to be bittersweet and make me sad, not table-flipping angry, and i do not at all have high hopes for the finale

but i can ignore something having a “bad last five minutes” i did it for life is strange and final fantasy 13-2 i will do it for merlin but honestly 

speaking on 5.03, after it was over the first time i was like “i can never write my fanfic now because nothing i ever do will be as good as that” but i’m really relieved in that way that that was apparently the last good episode of merlin because now i can continue my work in peace and maybe hopefully even actually finish it

okay commence the liveblog:

love that arthur and merlin are down to just jump off their horses whenever random women start screaming in the distance. season 5 could have been so good, they’re so much more grown up and in sync with one another, i absolutely LOVE their #vibe

it was interesting to me also that arthur DEMANDED a fair trial for this woman despite her being accused of sorcery. god, he was SO CLOSE?? that hatred of magic just can’t really take root in him especially with uther gone...arthur may be an asshole in the early seasons, and he may be quick to anger and quick to lash out in that anger, but it’s just not in him to be cruel, especially needlessly

EVEN THIS LADY IS LIKE “u showed kindness and compassion” arthur is a Good Boy deep down he is he IS he didn’t care a bit about that horn she gave him but still politely said it was beautiful

although lmao the way his face changed when she said it was magic...that’s the STUFF

lowkey losing it at athony head in the credits. i was looking to see if he’d be in the s5 ones since he’s dead and didn’t see him in 5.01 or 5.02 so when i DID see him in 5.03 i was like haha no way did they pay to put him in here i guess i just missed him the first couple of times BUT I WAS WRONG

like, in buffy, they spend an entire episode trying to decide whether or not to necromance their mom or whatever and she doesnt actually APPEAR IN THE EP they never SEE her i thought this would be an episode ABOUT uther i didn’t think uther would be IN it

love that from the get-go arthur’s face screams “i am thinking about making a terrible mistake” and merlin’s face is like “he is thinking about making a terrible mistake”

i’m quite proud of merlin in s5 actually. bad writing aside he uses multiple braincells many times per episode. it’s a vast improvement. same energy as clary from shadowhunters right down to getting shafted in his final season

ive said it before and ill say it again gwen looks SOOO GOOOOD as queen

if this is the anniversary of uther’s death then (if you go by 1 season = 1 year) arthur just turned 30...it’s been nine years and change since merlin met him, and by the end of season 5 it will have been an entire decade

in an otherwise increddibly heavy episode arthur panicking and throwing all the apples out of the bowl so he could cover the horn with it is absolutely priceless. season 5 if nothing else has really hammered home for me what a TERRIBLE liar arthur is - merlin got good at it fast out of necessity but arthur can’t hold a poker face to save his LIFE. “leave it.” “why??” “because i’m telling you to and i’m the king of camelot” buddy......

we were ROBBED. if there had ever been a day where arthur came to accept merlin’s magic but still had to help merlin hide it there could have been an entire episode of arthur nearly blowing merlin’s cover because he’s a nervous nelly and at the end he goes “i cant believe you have had to do this 24/7 for YEARS without a single friend to help you” and merlin goes “well now i have you” anyway.

i love also that repeatedly when arthur goes to do something scary by himself he also brings merlin. they LITERALLY are two halves of a whole

“you’re threatening me with a spoon??” i can’t tell you about the unfortunate fanfics i have seen involving The Spoon. i shall also not mention the ones involving The Glove. we will not speak of it

I CANNOT BELIEVE STONEHENGE IS IIN MERLIN. i got so agitated i did not pay one bit of attention to the conversation following its reveal and me and cathy and had to rewind so i could listen properly

my hate-on for stonehenge goes thusly: stonehenge apocalypse, starring misha collins, is @callowyn‘s favorite movie. i have seen it 45 times. i hate it nearly as much as she loves it. it’s an age-old battle

merlin is so intense when he looks for signs in arthur that he DOESN’T totally hate magic...arthur using magic to see his dad again is one of those signs. he’s willing to turn to it in desperation - maybe he’d be willing in less desperate times too

“my father was taken from me before his time” i mean...he was practically in a coma. so like. he wasn’t

love that when arthur mentions merlins dad ONCE he immediately looks like he’s about to cry. mood. i also want to cry every time i think about merlins dad

up until the moment i laid eyes on uther i was SURE they werent actually gonna do it. i came into this thinking it was a FLASHBACK EP

for the record (and believe me i NEVER thought i’d say this) even though i waited and waited for his demise and cheered when he was gona for good...i really missed uther in season 4. at least with uther you know what you’re getting. agravaine (his replacement as “evil guy who keeps us from being able to solve our problems too easily”) was a slimy cowardly CREEP. and in season 5 i WISH things were as simple as “work around uther’s pigheaded unreasonableness”

for a hot second i really thought uther and arthur would have a nice conversation where they reconciled or said something heartwarming. i was worried about an uther redemption arc - this guy is responsible for the genocide of magic users, he doesn’t deserve redemption - but this show said NOT TODAY and they said it QUICK

WE

ARE

SO

BLESSED

i have A LOT of issues with season 5 but JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THIS WAS DADDY ISSUES 2.0 BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD

repressed trauma returns: harder better faster stronger!! that’s the STUFF

was i not just speaking the other day on my fanfic ask meme about how i love emotionally intense stuff? this is IT babey

uther’s such a bad father! he’s with his only child again for the last time in ever and all he does is tear him a new one! this is why arthur’s such a fucked-up human being (morgana too) 

i’m THRILLED we got to revisit this. his eyes get bigger and bigger and he starts fucking stammering and by the time uther’s done calling him weak and a failure he looks ready to CRY. i was HOLLERING. i still couldnt believe uther was even HERE and not only is he HERE he’s a WRECKING BALL

“this CAN’T be the last time i’ll ever see you” oh buddy you’re gonna wish it was

and he looks back, as he leaves. of COURSE he does. just like lot’s wife. so it goes.

you know how at the end of every supernatural episode sam and dean debrief and talk about their feelings in the car? for merlin and arthur it’s almost always done around a campfire at night - sometimes in arthur’s chambers or other places, but usually out here in the wilderness where it’s just the two of them. i’m...really going to miss it, when it’s gone.

“my father doesn’t approve of the way i’ve chosen to rule his kingdom” “you mean YOUR kingdom”

you know i don’t think i really got...like, fundamentally, on a deep level...that merlin fucking HATES uther

i’ve seen him save uther’s miserable life so many fucking times that i thought for merlin it was kind of the way it was with gwen - he feels nothing for him, but he looks after him for arthur’s sake (or as i came to understand later because he’s professor x about the whole thing)

but the way his expression got SO UGLY when arthur revealed that uther just shit-talked him the entire time...holy fuck

between that & some other stuff that happens later it really paints a clearer picture of like...uther’s dead so merlin doesn't have to hold back anymore and he FUCKING HATES HIM?? like obviously he SHOULD bu i just never SAW it before this. merlin LOATHES him. it’s INCREDIBLE to witness when he bore it so silently for so long. maybe even merlin didn’t realize just how much he hated him until now

and not to get too real here but if youve ever been friends with someone who had an abusive/toxic parent or was in an abusive/toxic relationship and you watch them feeling like shit after and they start making excuses for that asshole like “oh yeah he’s right about x” and you just want to find this horrible person and THROTTLE THEM that emotion is like ALL OVER merlin’s face rn. i didn’t actually seriously "”ship”” merlin and arthur until late season 4/early season 5 (i didnt like dislike it i just wasnt actively bothered by a lack of it) and what changed was this vibe. merlin wants to kill uther all over again just because he made arthur feel this way. he’s so fuckijng PROTECTIVE

and he still almost manages to drag a smile out of him via roasting, god bless these 2

ok so i didnt believe this show would actually DO THAT re: putting uther himself in this ep but i was doubly shocked by the fact that he HITCHED A RIDE AND GOT OUT

me shrieking during this entire poltergeist sequence: OH MY GOD OH MY GOD IT’S REALLY HIM?? HOLY FUCK HE IS LITERALLY HAUNTING ARTHUR I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’RE DOING THIS I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’RE GIVING US THIS etc etc etc

actually most of that was probably muffled nonsense because i was yelling with both hands over my mouth

percival’s the realest motherfucker on this whole show. dude survives a murder attempt in which he got an AXE lobbed at him by the fucking GHOST of a power-mad genocidal king and he’s like: yeah idk i guess it fell

there was thunder in the bg for this WHOLE ep and i’m Big into it

absolutely CACKLING at the bit where merlin has to ask arthur if he looked back at uther’s spirit. it’s one of those nice big heavy questions - so heavy, in fact, that arthur can’t answer, can’t even LOOK at merlin, either because he’s ashamed or because he’s bugging out or both. you thought this shit was over? it’s never over! daddy issues are a lifelong ride, pal! arthur’s just get to haunt him literally this time. god it’s so fucking good

can i just say? merlin reads that damning silence reeeal well. and it’s a big, heavy thing to know about arthur - but then again he knows all the big heavy things about arthur

the score for this episode is really good too...very suspenseful and good, adds a lot to the atmosphere, keeps it from getting too slow

there’s a hint of merlin’s absolute HATRED of uther in this conversation again - the way his face tightens when he says “uther would do anything to protect his legacy and that makes him dangerous, who knows what he’s capable of now”

and arthur dismisses him because he can’t hear this but merlin almost refuses to leave - and when he DOES leave, he doesn’t take his eyes off arthur for one fucking second. he stares him down all the way out of the room. i don’t think it’s because he’s angry with arthur, per se - he’s angry with uther, and he knows uther in a way arthur never can or will, as someone ruthless who will kill without warning or remorse. he’s afraid of uther and he’s trying to get arthur to be afraid of uther too before it’s too late and LSDKFJGHSLDFJH

if you’re thinking “thats a lot to interpret from one look” yes it is but i’m right. IT’S A BIG, HEAVY LOOK. NICE AND LOADED. love unpacking all of that

i cant believe this dude tried to KILL GWEN like he really is coming after everything that makes arthur happy. im so glad it was merlin that saved her. i really do think merlin is her best friend

multiple times in this serious arthur fidgets when he’s nervous or thinking, usually with his hands near his mouth. i am endeared to him. my poor boy

“i always knew my father could be cruel but why would he do this to gwen when he knows i love her” BECAUSE HE’S CRUEL

merlin knows. merlin knows his cruelty much better than arthur. boy does he know. i’m dying. it’s fine

love that at this part of the ep we slide seamlessly into the “merlin and arthur are both scared shitless” section which was truly one of my favorite things about the s4 opener. they’re both so fucking jumpy and giving each other shit about being frightened and continuing to be frightened anyway. the DELICIOUS IRONY of arthur finally being scared of uther in the way merlin has been scared of uther for Y E A R S oh my god it’s so GOOD

do also love the entire silent conversation they have when deciding what to do about the door. this is what i mean by their upgraded vibe.l in the early seasons merlin wouldn’t have understood and his lack of understanding would have been played for laughs. now they’re totally in sync

here’s the thing, gaius could have made this magic “able to see uther’s ghost” potion for just arthur and he didn’t. he made it for both of them. everything arthur does merlin does. they’re partners in all things. they’re COMPANIONS. and this is why i finally now Ship It. tragic.

you know this is a kind of weird comparison but late seasons arthur reminds me JUST a bit of gwaine. he complains so much less that he sort of has that same “roll with whatever” vibe to him. pretend to faint so you can steal some guy’s dagger? why not. take this foul potion that may kill us? sure, let’s do it. come what may he’s not really fussed. much more unflappable

until he starts getting spooked again LMFAO 

we do love a good pair of spooked dumbasses. this is charming and entertaining.

leon HAD to know they were lying about poetry. he probably thought they were having.......a tryst,

love also that even in this very dire moment merlin does NOT miss the chance to have some fun at arthur’s expense. that’s true friendship

i got jumpscared three separate times during this ep and one of them was when uther was glaring down merlin and arthur in the hallway after leon left

arthur didn’t jump but he did go hunting after him and to his credit he does not look scared. he looks like a man who is trying to deal with his business and get his shit together

merlin made that FACE again when arthur expressed sadness at hunting his own father because all he ever wanted to DO was make him proud

honestly it’s like since he can’t shit-talk uther he just sings arthur’s praises instead like this here is a guy who is just barely holding his tongue about how fuckin pissed he is. i cant believe it

splitting up was the WORST idea. have they not seen scooby doo??

love that when merlin gets cornered by uther’s ghost and gets scared he yells for arthur and when arthur gets scared because his torch blows out he yells for merlin. you fools, why did you SPLIT UP

uther locks arthur in the room with him, which is already some top tier content, but doubly good? it’s the same room in which arthur nearly ran him through in 2.08. don’t think i didn’t notice. i did notice. i was shrieking into my hands.

seriously this is a pretty calm liveblog but the first time i watched this ep my face was like this the whole time: O O

just kept going “HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK OH MY GOD” over and over. it was greeat

“arthur your fatal flaw is that you put too much trust in other people” do you think arthur, who now has a complex about people betraying him, ever forgot that for one second in his entire life afterward? me neither

speaking of 2.08 arthur dropped some FACTS “your hatred comes from fear” i'm sure they didn’t do it on purpose but #throwbacks

i’m fully experiencing human emotion. “i’m not you, i can’t rule like you did” he’s trying SO HARD to fight his way out of that bullshit

also lmao arthur like “then you’ll have to kill me” and uther like “yeah okay” arthur didn’t KNOW how this man was this could have been SUCH a good awakening

AND NOW IT’S TIME

FOR MY FAVORITE PART OF THIS EPISODE

when i say merlin hates uther. WHEN I SAY MERLIN H A T E S UTHER

HIS LINE HERE. ok. “get away from him, uther. you’ve caused enough harm” he’s furious! he’s GROWLING! 

“you are just a serving boy” “i am much more than that” listen. human words cannot express the emotion that ran through me. when they said “we’re gonna bring back anthony head as uther” i doubted. when they said “he’s gonna be the bad guy and reopen all of arthur’s old wounds” i doubted. when they said “he’s still here LITERALLY haunting arthur who now has to HUNT HIM” I DOUBTED. i didn’t believe they’d do any of it until it was happening on my screen. but ONE LOOK at merlins face made a MOTHERFUCKING BELIEVER out of me. i knew exactly what he was about to do. pretty sure i gasped “NO” in astonishment

AND HE DID THAT

HE👏

DID👏

THAT👏

NOT ONLY. DID I SHRIEK ALOUD. FULL SCREAM. WHEN IT HAPPENED THE FIRST TIME. BUT JUST NOW. WHEN I WATCHED HIM DO IT AGAIN. MORE SCREAMING.

how LONG do you think merlin had ACHED to do that

to show himself to uther for what he was, what he REALLY WAS, someone to be reckoned with instead of someone to be overlookedd, without fear of consequences

i can’t even like

like just imagine the triple rush of 1. satisfaction 2. rage 3. lingering habitual terror

i think at this moment merlin was closer to and more like morgana than he had ever been and maybe ever will be again. because the two of them have so much in common but one thing i didn’t really clock until now is how much they both hate uther

it’s so good. uther is SHOCKED and DISMAYED and this is like merlin’s old fear come back from death too (getting found out by uther) while at the same time being a dream come true (getting to tell uther what he really thinks, who he really is - “i was BORN with it!”) he’s so ANGRY! he is LIVID!)

he’s also really SATISFIED like “even while you were king there was magic at the heart of camelot” GOD how long has he been WAITING for this and not even realized it

and like then uther starts spewing his hateful bullshit and stalking forward with the intent to kill and my guy merlin who should be terrified STANDS HIS MOTHERFUCKING GROUND and says right over him “you’re wrong, you’re wrong” for thirty beautiful seconds merlin really got to be free. i know i will keep comparing things to 2.08 until i die but it’s just like when arthur was almost ready to kill uther in cold blood because for one perfect, brilliant moment he really and truly saw clearly the world as it was. i really love these moments...the strength of their respective convictions is so gratifying

merlin yeeting uther through a door is also gratifying although i have no idea what he hoped to accomplish by following without waking arthur first

i. LOVE. that the camera lingered a little on the spears or whatever after merlin walked by them. nice little foreshadowing moment

THOSE SPEARS GOT AWFULLY CLOSE BUT IM PRETTY SURE UTHER MISSED ON PURPOSE BECAUSE HE WANTED TO TAKE HIS TIME. HIS MISTAKE

okay merlin spent the better part of a lifetime dreading uther’s death sentence and here’s uther stalking down a hallway sword pointed at his chest and certain death is IMMINENT and what does merlin’s face look like?

arthur comes in with the rescue and INSTANTLY his expression changes to?

IT’S BETTER IN MOTION BUT HE LOOKS READY TO CRY

my immediate thought: oh jesus what if uther outs him

i knew he wouldnt bc of spoilers but i would bet a benjamin that that was merlin’s first thought too

tbh. i wish he had.

i kind of wonder if merlin doesn’t wish the same thing. like yes being outed like that is terribly violating and he’s terrified of telling arthur obviously or he would have already but at the same time there would be so much relief once it was finally out. no more secret-keeping. no more burden

i mean, if you go back and watch it, dude’s straight up shaking. he’s trembling all over. he’s losing it. that last teary glance they exchanged.......

uther was two SYLLABLES away from blowing the whole thing

and in a better happier canon where arthur knows and was waiting for merlin to tell him this is like double angst because uther wouldve ben blowing something for them both

i like arthurs followup of realizing that he’ll never be able to please uther (step 1 of breaking away from the cycle of abuse) but for the LIFE OF ME

i will NEVER be able to understand why they segued into this GLOVE THING

i’m not talking about the glove thing

i will say however that by the end of this episode i was so hysterical i had to get up and get water and pace around my kitchen for ten minutes fanning my own face

and that’s it. that’s the second-best episode of merlin and the last good episode there ever was

[whokuu]

Come on, haven't you suffered enough? Every time you see me you look like you're going to cry.

[cookiedoughmeagain]

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Extract from the DVD commentary for episode 5.02 - Speak No Evil, with Shawn Pillar and Lloyd Segan.

Shawn: This was another very cold day. And it’s another scene on the dock and I really tried to make each scene there look different and shoot different parts of the dock.

Lloyd: This is a big emotional moment here.

Shawn: It’s really hard - I’ve got to give the actors credit - it is really hard to be this good, and pull this off. And look how cold Eric is, he’s freezing, and it plays into the uncomfortableness and the emotional craziness of what they’re going through. And I like how the writers go from something dramatic, to the mystery plot, to a little bit of comedy and it gives you a sense of their relationship. And to me that’s, when you get humour and heart in the same scene, that’s what life is. That’s what makes it feel real to me.

More notes on the full DVD commentary here.

[cookiedoughmeagain]

From the DVD commentary for episode 5.02 - Speak No Evil, Shawn Pillar: 

“I love these two actors together. Eric Balfour and Lucas, they are just - I always say this is the real love story in Haven.” 

More notes on the full commentary here.

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Extract from the DVD commentary for episode 5.02 - Speak No Evil, with Shawn Pillar and Lloyd Segan.

Shawn: This is a fantastic actor we flew out from LA and he just blew us away. He is in his mid to late 80s and crushed it so hard. His face is so interesting and we got so into it that we just couldn’t get enough of him. Just shooting his face was so interesting, and he did a really good job.

Shawn: So, the cool thing about this character, and the people of Haven, is their defence mechanism of just changing the subject or lying, and covering up these secrets for all these years, and how lies in families travel through time and are never really dealt with, they just perpetuate. So this is a fun father-daughter scene with an old guy who may or may not be remembering something. Or is he just in denial, is he not wanting to tell the truth.

Lloyd: There’s also some very specific wardrobe here, with the bow tie.

Shawn: We tried to get a lot of texture in there. The layers on Dwight and the layers on him.

Lloyd: Beautiful layers on him and I actually love the layers on her as well.

Shawn: And I do like a close up and on this actor I was just in love with his face and he was doing so much and it’s just a story with so much dialogue here that it has to be compelling and you have to be drawn into it. So I felt like we needed that extra close up. So we did it with him and we did it with the other actors as well.

More notes on the full commentary here.

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven DVD Commentaries - Season Five, Episode Two

5.02 - Speak No Evil. Commentary with Shawn Pillar and Lloyd Segan, Executive Producers

As with 5.01, this was directed by Shawn. The commentary follows straight on from the commentary for 5.01 so the sound quality is still utterly, utterly terrible. Shawn also talks really quickly and gets into some technical director speak which I can’t follow, so this doesn’t have everything. But it does have some interesting stuff :)

SP: So as I said in the previous commentary, each of these is like a two hour movie where we do one story over two episodes. Which really allowed the actors and the writers to go deeper into their story arcs, we didn’t have to reset it for each episode. They really got to play a longer arc which allowed for longer character scenes and just better production values because we were able to prep for 12 days and shoot for 12 days.

[As we see Duke’s landrover parked next to the bronco on the beach] LS: And there’s another of those fabulous helicopter shots. SP: Yep. We CG’d in Eric’s truck. [As Duke sits down next to Nathan by the bronco] This was the last scene of the day that we shot and it was a fun thing to figure out [so that Duke wouldn’t see the bullet wound in Nathan’s shoulder]. LS: He looks so pale and tired SP: He’s actually freezing. It was the last shot of the day so it was very very cold.

[They wonder what the temperature actually was, but veer off into a complicated discussion of the maths behind converting celsius to fahrenheit without ever getting to any figure in either.] SP: This is a good example of a scene that doesn’t look as good on digital as it would have looked on film. This is a scene in this new structure that TW Peacock shot for me under his schedule. He was the director after me. I did one and two, he did the next two. And I gave him this scene because I trusted him, he’s a great director. That’s a CG pencil. I told him how I wanted it shot and he did a great job. And the colour timing we were able to bring that down because it had to match the scene that preceded it, which was a more overcast day so we tried to darken that scene as much as we could and take out some of the contrast. LS: What does TW stand for? SP: I don’t know. I’ve known him for 5 years, I’ve never asked.

[As Duke and Nathan are asking each other if they’re going to be OK] SP: I love these two actors together. Eric Balfour and Lucas, they are just - I always say this is the real love story in Haven. Bromance. LS: Absolutely. Listen, these guys know each other more than anybody else, right? They’re the version of Vince and Dave without being [blood?] brothers.

SP: So this is where we got to see Mara choose her wardrobe. She killed that girl, took her clothes because she liked her jacket. And this is where we really get into what Mara looks like, where it starts to deviate what Audrey looks like. LS: Fabulous performance from Molly Dunsworth. SP: Molly is adorable and beautiful, and I have a think for blue eyes, I like to cast people with blue eyes and as you can see these two [Molly as Vickie and Emily as Mara] have amazing blue eyes. And I liked the idea that Mara just stabbed that girl in the eye, stole her clothes and is now walking off with Molly. That was also a scene that I did not shoot, TW shot that one. I scouted it, told him how I wanted it shot. Out of 151 days of shooting this year I directed 72 days. LS: We should acknowledge our fantastic directors [there are some names here I can’t catch]. Our casting director out of Halifax.

[As Dwight talks to Vince in Dave’s hospital room] SP: There was another scene we shot the same day in this room; we shot an entire day in the hospital room, different scenes, a lot of page count. So the good thing about the new shooting structure is as well as the main characters’ story arcs running over two episodes, you also get to play even the guest stars arcs over two episodes. So you really get to know and care about the guest stars before we kill them. Or before we, put them through the wringer. LS: So we saw Dwight’s phone there and people don’t realise that has to be created. SP: Yeah the props department either has it before so it’s ready on the day or you shoot those close ups to insert later. LS: But they are specifically created for that scene.

[As we see Dave’s dreams rushing through the forest] SP: So this is something I shot later. We used slow motion on a C300 camera. And we sort of separated that out and those visions become important later. But we block shot a lot of that stuff and then we shot some more as we shot more scenes and intercut that with Dave’s dreams as he’s passed out.

[As we see Vickie drawing for Mara] SP: So this was fun to shoot. A lot of directing is knowing how you’re going to cut it together, and how you’re going to get the required shots fast and efficiently. So those drawings were pre-done, we had photos of the location and then they had the drawings ready on set for the day. LS: I think one of the people it’s important to acknowledge is Mr Wood from Stargate who oversees the visual effects [ie the thinny that Mara tries to walk through]. He’s on set and he’s designing these with you. SP: Yes we have a lot of meetings. First we work with the writers to try to keep it on budget. Every episode has a pre-determined budget that I do at the beginning of the season. So the writers try to write to that, what we call A, B or C budgets. The season openers and finales have bigger budgets and other episodes have smaller ones. The writers write to that and then it’s never a complete match so we sort of carry the running totals forward.

[As Duke’s walking up the jetty with the fisherman] SP: I love this shot. I love cranes out in the water. This is an actor that we brought back from an episode I directed in season two I think, Horace who was the boat captain of a different boat that Duke’s father owned at one point. LS: And I think those are the actor’s actual overalls that he’s wearing there. SP: Those are his overalls, he just showed up like that. He’s such an interesting actor. We actually had him take out his teeth. He did the scene once with his teeth in and then we had him take them out because I thought it was more interesting with his teeth out.

[As Nathan is signing out the shotgun] SP: We finally got to shoot the gun locker. We built this gun locker. That’s on stage in the hockey rink with the police station. And we finally got the gun locker in there! LS: And the sets have expanded over the course of the seasons, right? SP: Yeah we keep making the sets bigger and bigger. And this was fun because we got use this set and to see Jayne as Gloria who is just so amazing. Jayne Eastwood is so brilliant and funny. Seeing her freaked out here where she thinks it’s mice. So that’s a partial CG shot [of the aether vibrating around]. LS: Is that on shaky cam? SP: A little bit of hand held shaky cam and then we added on the CG. And all those monitor images we shot [the CCTV where Gloria sees Mara coming into the building]

[As we see Nathan arrive at the morgue] SP: This was a fun shot to shoot, to destroy this whole place, and I really wanted to get this high angle shot of Gloria being pulled out. I really like to mix the humour and the heart and the scary.  So we shot that from a studio crane, shooting down. It’s actually a difficult shot to get as the drawer moves open.

[As Dwight pulls up to Duke at the jetty to take him to the Barrow’s] SP: So this location became a character in the story that we pay off over time as we find out that this is Duke and Jennifer’s spot to meet in a crisis, so they could get in that boat and take off. So everyone is kind of out in their own place, and then other characters come and pull them back into the storyline, which is kind of interesting and thematic. You don’t realise it’s important until later when it comes out and Nathan confronts Duke. LS: Another beautifully framed shot [looking at Duke through the window of Dwight’s truck] SP: Thank you. So I love the conflict between those two characters and whenever Duke and Dwight get to fight is super fun.

SP: So here’s a thing, I love this scene with the Tab, but this is my grandmother in Jugs Ahoy. My grandmother was an actress in the 50s and 60s, and 70s. Sandra Giles. So we re-purposed a photo from Getty Images that we found, and the art department made Jugs Ahoy. I didn’t tell my mom or my grandmother so they were watching the episode they were like; Oh My God! These two actors Richard and John [Vince and Dave] are so funny, they are two of my favourite actors to direct, ever. And the writers write beautiful scenes. Truly these are great characters, switching from comedy to mystery, and the secrets they have between them. It’s just amazing. LS: This is a great example of actors who have depth and the experience and elevate everything that they do. SP: We did a little CG enhancement on these [Dave’s] bruises. John is so good.

SP: So here they [Dwight and Duke] have gone back to the [Barrow] house and we pulled off the door. We spent a lot of time trying to work out how that door would be kicked in and what it would look like.

[As we see Gloria talking to Nathan about the ‘real original’ Audrey Parker and who Mara is] SP: The writers did a great job keeping all the story balls in the air and following the characters and what they’re going through, as they follow the investigation and how the different story lines intertwine, so we get to see not only the mystery unfold but we get to see the interpersonal relationship between the two characters, which is just a really good job. LS: It’s great, it makes the story telling so much more compelling. So, is that a real actor [that Gloria is digging a bullet out of]? SP: That is a real actor, that’s the same actor that got shot in the head by Mara in the [coffee shop] store room. LS: That’s not an easy job, he has to stay so still. SP: So there’s quite a lot going on in this scene and I love when the writers write these multi-layered multi-action scenes, where you see him putting things together and making decisions while you see her doing what she’s doing. It’s fun for a director and it’s fun for the actors to try and pull all that off, where people aren’t necessarily seeing what the other person’s going through.

[As Nathan walks from the morgue to the bronco] SP: So it’s one of the few shots I do like this but I felt the hand held effect here escalates the tension. And when you have good actors like Lucas Bryant, you can pull it off without cuts, which is great. LS: Yeah he can do more with a look than anything else right?

SP: So this is our hospital set with the new nurses station. We’ve always had the hallway but we knew we were going to be playing more stuff in the hospital. And you’re starting to get a sense now that this trouble is getting worse, because Duke’s always there when someone’s getting sewn up. So the idea is that the audience should be starting to figure it out. But making this stuff scarier was my biggest fear that we wouldn’t be able to pull it off, so you really want to make sure that the camera is accentuating and escalating the tension.

[The scene with the Barrow family and Collette’s father] SP: This is a fantastic actor we flew out from LA and he just blew us away. He is in his mid to late 80s and crushed it so hard. His face is so interesting and we got so into it that we just couldn’t get enough of him. Just shooting his face was so interesting, and he did a really good job. So the cool thing about this character, and the people of Haven, is their defence mechanism of just changing the subject or lying, and covering up these secrets for all these years, and how lies in families travel through time and are never really dealt with, they just perpetuate. So this is a fun father-daughter scene with an old guy who may or may not be remembering something. Or is he just in denial, is he not wanting to tell the truth. LS: There’s also some very specific wardrobe here, with the bowtie. SP: We tried to get a lot of texture in there. The layers on Dwight and the layers on him. LS: Beautiful layers on him and I actually love the layers on her as well. SP: I do like a close up and on this actor I was just in love with his face and he was doing so much and it’s just a story with so much dialogue here that it has to be compelling and you have to be drawn into it. So I felt like we needed that extra close up. So we did it with him and we did it with the other actors as well.

SP: So you need to open up some of these scenes and I really wanted to use this hospital corridor for movement coming in and out of the scenes. Which is a fun and difficult thing with our tight budget figuring out how many days we could afford with how many different actors. So a lot of times we’ll clump scenes together based on actor availability and try to keep the budget down for cast. Which is a challenge sometimes with the schedule.

SP: This is an interesting scene where we actually CG’d Jennifer’s face onto a dummy. Because we didn’t have her back, so we found a shot of her in the cave and CG’d it there. LS: And we got her permission to do so. SP: Of course. From a story telling standpoint, it took us all the way through episode one and half way through episode two looking for Jennifer before we finally got to see her there.

LS: So for those people who are really studying production, this episode is an excellent example of how we’re really utilising our standing sets. We were able to intersperse exterior locations with interior sets extensively.

[Where we see the flashback to a season one conversation between Audrey and Nathan in the office] LS: We actually debated about this too because we want to misdirect the audience a little bit, about whether that was a real sequence, whether he was thinking about it or whether it was a vision, all of those kinds of things.

[As Mara phones Nathan to ask him for the aether] SP: I thought Lucas, and Emily, did a wonderful job in this scene and this is the first time we see him stand up to her and we see what he’s going through. I love when actors actually react and give you so much that you can actually take the other side of a phone call and their lines’ off camera so you can see the reactions. I think the cast has gotten so good at just giving so much when they’re not talking and it’s just much more compelling to see their reactions. LS: I also want to point out again Eric Cayla’s beautiful lighting and the diffusion of the light with Nathan here. SP: It’s beautiful.

[As Vince is getting the dashcam footage from the uniformed cop] SP: So this is a good young actor we found, Larry. And it was fun to give him an arc in this episode. And also playing the difference between Vince being the old head of the Guard and the conflict with Dwight. LS: The role of Larry really brought a nice piece of business to that scene. SP: Dwight and Vince sort of have this father-son thing going on. They’re both tall. I always thought in my mind that Vince was Dwight’s dad. They kind of look alike and they have the same build. So this is step two in the Dwight and Vince conflict where he ultimately challenges him for leadership of the Guard. And it’s about is he getting too old, is he too stuck in the past, is his agenda torn too much with his brother, and the conflict between the old guard and the new guard. LS: Yeah this is a big dramatic moment. [They discuss the shots taken from outside the room and how they used these towards the end of the scene just before Nathan comes in, so it’s kind of showing Nathan’s point of view.] SP: So this is Dwight owning it as the Chief and Nathan being more subservient or, he doesn’t care. But this is a big moment and we tried to built it out with looks between them [Dwight and Nathan] LS: Well there’s a lot of choreography in this scene too. And it’s lit once so that you could do that. SP: It was three and half pages of dialogue so it was worth all the additional shots, from the additional angles. For me in these talking scenes you’ve got to have a moving camera, you’ve got to have something going on or the audience is going to get bored, even with the great dialogue. You’re always trying to find the most dramatic, visual way to tell the story. LS: Yes and always to be moving the camera not for the sake of moving it but for the purposes of the story. SP: And you want to also give the actors the freedom to go where they want to go, so that they can make it real. It doesn’t matter how great your shots are if the writing’s not realised by the actors.

[As Nathan finds Duke on the pier] SP: This was another very cold day. And it’s another scene on the dock and I really tried to make each scene there look different and shoot different parts of the dock. LS: This is a big emotional moment here. SP: It’s really hard - I’ve got to give the actors credit - it is really hard to be this good and pull this off. And look how cold Eric is, he’s freezing, and it plays into the uncomfortablness and the emotional craziness of what they’re going through. And I like how the writers go from something dramatic, to the mystery plot, to a little bit of comedy and it gives you a sense of their relationship. And to me that’s, when you get humour and heart in the same scene, that’s what life is. That’s what makes it feel real to me. SP: And this is the first time we see one of the characters on camera get sewn up. And the conflict here is Nathan knows he’s confronting him and he’s going to be the one to do it. And he knows he’s got to get through to him before he gets sewn up and dies. So it’s very heroic of Nathan to come here and confront his friend who’s in denial. And Lucas did a great job acting this scene knowing that his eyes were going to be shut, and then later he had to pretend that his mouth; he coudln’t breathe. So it’s a lot for these actors to play. [Where we see Duke’s flashbacks to his time with Jennifer] SP: So this montage wasn’t scripted this was something we came up with in post and pitched it to Matt and Lloyd and the gang and just said; we don’t have Jennifer in the episode but we need her in the episode, we need to feel her and see that relationship otherwise this sequence isn’t going to work. So we intercut it with [Nathan] choking and really milked it with slow motion. And this song is actually a song that we used in another episode when Duke kills Gloria’s step-son. And we temp’d the cut to that sequence and I couldn’t find another song that worked so well, so after a big survey with Lloyd and the gang and the music supervisors, and they all said, yes of course you can use that song again because it’s emotionally Duke’s point of view. LS: And I think Gabrielle really supported that notion from her perspective bringing an important female point of view to this entire sequence. SP: Well one of the great things about Matt and Gab is having a male and a female perspective, although in some ways Matt’s more female than Gab, and Gab’s more male, but they have that nice balance of humour and heart, and then they just nail the plot and they just keep the mystery going and try to keep all three things going at the same time. So we always knew this was a big, big scene, a big moment. And some of this was engineered because we didn’t have an option on Emma, who played Jennifer. She went off to get married and explore other things, so the writers really crafted this story line and this arc around her availability. LS: And to keep Jennifer’s memory fresh and to understand and make that connection as to why Duke is mourning her loss.

[As Nathan meets Mara in the woods to hand over the aether] SP: This sequence was fun and difficult to shoot. We actually had three cameras this day; we just had so much to shoot we had three cameras. Sometimes having three cameras slows you down. I like to shoot with as many cameras as I can get, to get more in less time. We didn’t have time for make up [for the black aether on her hand], so we just went CG. It’s one of those things if we had to change her hand out it would have cost and extra 10 minutes here, five minutes there.

SP: Poor Nathan! He gets punched in every episode.

SP: So this is one of my favourite Lucas moments here where he handcuffs Mara. There’s no dialogue here, he just has to pull it off. LS: It’s an emotional moment here.

[About the dashcam footage that Vince and Dave watch] SP: So that’s actually doubles we shot; we just got some doubles to look like them. We didn’t want to go all the way back to the lighthouse so we just put up a fence and had some doubles that looked like them walking away so it was like the car POV.

[The opening of the scene with Gloria and Duke on the pier] SP: This is a scene I love, it’s off the crane over the water. We had the crane for the day so every scene gets a crane shot and this is a shot I absolutely love. And this was another scene that was freezing that we shot that same day, Eric had a really busy day this day. And this wind was crazy. This was the last scene we shot of the day, the coldest scene of the day. And Jayne Eastwood’s just so great. The two of them together is just so good. LS: The wind really brings some wonderful texture to this scene. SP: It’s funny, when we were shooting it everyone was saying it was too much wind, but I was telling them it would be fine by the time we cut it together; we just cut out the windiest parts. And you think you can’t hear them because you’re listening on these little headphones, but later when the microphones are there and you’re actually mix it you can hear them pretty well. LS: And in some cases the wind might be a distraction to the eyes, but I think in this instance you’ve managed to cut it in such a way that it adds to the scene. SP:  And again for the transition from film to digital we couldn’t have had better days. LS: All credit to Shawn Pierce here in managing this emotional transition [in terms of the music] SP: And this scene transition here we go from close ups on Duke to Nathan, because the two of them are so connected.

[As Nathan waits for Dwight to come get Mara] LS: And now we have a huge piece of business coming up. SP: These two episodes really set the tone of what’s going to happen in the next two episodes. Emily did a great job with this scene. This is one of these segments we did a couple weeks later, when the actors were available.