If you’ve ever heard the saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” you can imagine what Friday’s episode of ‘Camelot’ was like. I’ve been trying to determine the best way to approach this episode. See, Eva Green doesn’t actually appear in this episode at all; it’s understood that she’s disguised as Igraine. So instead of adding to the confusion what I will do is refer to Morgan as herself. She never changes form back to her latter self, so when I use her name you’ll just need to keep in mind that she’s disguised as Igraine the entire time until further notice.
Alright, now that that’s out of the way, let’s keep moving.
The wrong Igraine (Morgan) makes it back to Camelot and starts causing trouble. She spies on everyone of importance there and sees a moment between Arthur and Guinevere. She also has a few private conversations with Merlin and senses the feelings he has for Igraine. She decides to use both situations to her advantage, but first she’s grasped by the hand by a little orphan boy who wishes to play a game with her.
As she plays a game of knights and castles with the boy, you almost get the sense she has some semblance of a heart. That is, until the scene flashes back and shows the true Igraine chained in a room where she’s being treated like an animal. The nun makes a mistake and gets too close and Igraine tries to strangle her with the chain. Vivian is then told that she’s not to breathe a word of this to anyone, but the young girl doesn’t trust the nun and cannot find Morgan to ask her what she would have her do.
Back to Camelot… Morgan and Merlin have a birthday party for the little orphan boy which brings the two of them closer to each other. That night Morgan’s face starts to bleed and she cries out in pain – it’s becoming harder for her to keep her appearance. The boy hears her and witnesses the face change that happened just for a second, and wishes to tell Merlin. Morgan tries to stop him by grabbing onto his sleeve. Unfortunately the cloth rips and the boy stumbles forward, causing him to fall from the balcony into the courtyard. He dies from a head injury. Morgan leaves him like that until morning, when she pretends to find him with Merlin.
As the boy’s body is prepared for burial, Morgan asks Guinevere about her experience with Arthur and actually gets her to confess that she and Arthur slept together the day of her wedding. Guinevere begs her not to say anything, but seeing as how this is not the true Igraine, of course we know she’ll cause dissent.
Morgan finds Leontas praying in the church and tells him that Guinevere is lucky to have a man with such a big heart to forgive. When Leontas asks what she means, Morgan says “Arthur and Guinevere, of course.” She offers further information upon his pressing, and then pretends to be distressed when he said he never heard of anything. She runs out of the room and leaves Leontas to his own thoughts.
Later she returns to her bedchamber to find Merlin there. He tells her he doesn’t want to be alone, and the two find themselves intertwined on the bed, clothes off. This scene was especially difficult to watch because this was supposed to be Igraine’s intimate moment with Merlin, not Morgan’s. Also, Merlin was unable to detect that this was, in fact, Morgan. Having disguised Uther so he could take Igraine, why was he not able to determine this? Is he rusty in terms of his sorcery skills? Or did it just come down to plain old desire? When he kissed her, it almost seemed as though it was detecting something was amiss but wasn’t able to determine what it was.
Igraine is becoming more and more desperate to leave the castle. She pleads with the guard who refuses to listen until she says the magic words: “I’ll give you anything you want.” What does he want? Not gold, or lands or lordship. He wants to bed a queen. He unfastens her hands, pins her against a pillar, rips up her dress and starts raping her (yes, I know she consented but the look on her face is of absolute disgust so it’s clear she didn’t want it) all while asking, “Who’s your king now?” In obvious pain from the ordeal, she reaches and grabs the guard’s dagger and stabs him several times in the kidney which stops him mid-act. He dies on the floor of the dungeon. Igraine gets to her feet and makes her way to flee the castle. While doing so she encounters Vivian who pretends she didn’t see her. Good girl! Igraine then grabs a cloak and a horse, mounts and escapes back to Camelot.
When she arrives what does she see? But Morgan disguised as herself of course.
And this is how the episode ended. It’s quite possible you could’ve heard my cries of anguish – I wanted to so badly to see what would happen next!
And of course this raises an interesting question. We all know that Starz is not afraid to change the Arthurian legend as they see fit. Seeing as how Merlin bed Morgan, does that mean that Morgan might then carry Merlin’s child instead of Arthur’s? Would Starz go so far as to change that? And if they did, could you imagine the power the child of that union would have?
So many questions remain unanswered. Tune in this Friday at 10 pm on Starz to find out what happens next!
