Robin Hood 3x08 Review: The King is Dead, Long Live the King

[corrielle]

This week's episode was solid.  We had a high-stakes plot, some decently clever trickery on the part of the outlaws, and a continuation of the Gisborne family drama that certainly upset the status quo.


For me, the big question to be answered this week was, "What IS Guy going to do now that he's an outlaw?"

Guy's actions in this episode are those of a man who has lost everything.  He is no longer thinking of the future, no longer scheming for position or desperately trying to protect what he has gained. He has nothing left to try and protect.  He is without position, without friends, and without means, and the only thing that seems to matter to him is getting revenge on the sister and the prince who have "betrayed" him.  I see no reason for him to think that killing Isabella will benefit him politically, and certainly no reason to think that assassinating John is going to help him.  So, it seems to me that he wants them dead for the sheer satisfaction their deaths will bring, and that he isn't really planning to survive them by very long. He surely must know that killing John is going to make him even more of a hunted man than he is already, and I truly believe that he doesn't care.  He sees no future for himself, so why not take out his treacherous sister and Prince John, consequences be damned? Except for the scene at the table with Isabella, everything he says and does in this episode boils down to this.  He demands nothing of his sister or of the Prince in the two scenes where he's trying to kill both of them because there is nothing that he wants from them more than he wants them dead.

I seriously doubt whether the Guy of even a few episodes ago would have been so reckless.  However, he has slowly and systematically had everything that gave his life stability and purpose taken away from him.  He had already lost Marian, which made him none too stable, but he still had Vasey and the hope of eventual power at his side to cling to.  Then, Vasey betrayed him to Prince John, and the myth of Vasey as a sure route to power and stability was shown to be just that - a myth.  Isabella returns, with the promise of some family loyalty (however dysfunctional that may be), only to betray him for Robin soon afterward and leave him alone once more.  John steps in, filling the void of leadership that Vasey left, has Guy kill Vasey with his own hands (which clearly disturbed Guy a great deal),and proceeds to give Guy what he's been wanting all along for a grand total of ten minutes before banishing him and making him an outlaw.  Each event builds on the next until it's no wonder that Guy is lashing out.   
 
This episode also served to highlight the contrast between Guy and Robin.  Throughout the series, the two of them have mirrored one another. Robin is cast in the "true" heroic mold, and Guy is a shadow, his darkness a reflection of Robin's brightness.  I believe on the the creators even said once that Robin is what Guy could have been if things had been different. They come from a similar social class, they loved the same woman, they both look toward a future where things will be "better."  (Robin looking to Richard's return and Guy looking to Vasey's accession to power.) These parallels were only heightened by Guy's becoming an outlaw.  Finding himself in Robin's position but lacking Robin's sense of compassion and justice (which, as much as I complain about Robin, continue to be evident), Guy acts selfishly.  Like Robin, he is a dispossessed noble, but he is a dispossessed noble who cares nothing for the people and everything for revenge. This makes his interaction with Robin in the church really interesting.  In a strange way, they both want the same thing: to stop that coronation and prevent John from walking out of the abbey with that crown on his head - they simply have different ideas about how much Prince John is going to end up bleeding in the process.  Robin's thoughts in that scene are for England - he may have an arrow trained on Prince John, but he never intends to kill him, knowing the chaos it would cause.  Guy's thoughts are for himself, as shown in the question he asks Robin:  "What has England done for me?"  (The answer?  Not very much.  But that completely misses Robin's point about things going badly for lots of people if John dies.) Once again, Robin is put in the position of protecting a tyrant he hates for the sake of national stability, and because he is the "hero," he does it.  

I don't mean to imply that Guy is acting completely without forethought.  Just as John took away Guy's dreams of being Sheriff just as he had finally realized them, I think that Guy was waiting to try to kill John until after he had been crowned, to let him taste success and feel that he was king for a moment before taking it away.  It certainly explains the reason why he didn't take the shot earlier.  John was an easy target as he walked through the crowd, and not being in the church would have made it easier for Guy to get away. (Though again, I don't think he was really expecting to.)  Robin's entrance upset this plan of course, and Guy had to improvise.  I think he was reveling in the irony that that he was about to kill John with the crown of England at his own feet. That is why he revealed himself.  He wanted John to know that irony as well.   

While Guy may act throughout like he has nothing to live for, his interaction with Isabella shows that, at least in the first part of the episode, he is not yet completely devoid of hope for himself. When he first appears in her room, he could have killed her, but he hesitates.  Why?  Others have brought up the obvious parallel with Marian, and I certainly think that's part of it. Also, I think that Isabella challenging him to do it was exactly the right thing to do.  Part of his desire to kill her stems from a desire for control, for power.  Having her basically say, "Go on, do it.  I dare you," puts the power in her court.  She would have been allowing him to do it, and that isn't what he was going for.  Of course, I think that Isabella knew this and was bluffing the whole time.  She simply wanted to get him to hesitate so she could slip in her offer to speak to Prince John for him.  And one last time, Guy believes her.  By the time he's sitting at her table drinking her wine, he's back to talking about "us" and "we" and planning their inter-dependent futures with an ease that is surprising considering how little he trusts her. However, he is still completely unable to apologize to her.  He's willing to work with her, but only on his terms.  And those terms don't include apologizing for the the decision that got him on the road to power in the first place. (I am SO glad that we got this bit of backstory/context, by the way.  Guy sees Isabella's marriage to Thornton as essential to their advancement.  He did it because he thought there was no other way. I'm not saying it was right... I'm saying that's how he sees it, and it makes me feel better than if Guy had had other options.)  That moment, where Isabella demands the apology, made my heart break for her a bit.  I am ready to believe that she would have forgiven him. That she meant what she said about speaking to John for him, and that they could have worked something out together.  However, Guy can't seem to get it through his head how much she needs  to hear him say "I'm sorry," and Isabella has no idea how difficult it is for him to say those two little words, and so the scene plays through to its tragic but inevitable end.  I was quite impressed with Lara in this scene.  You can see the hope on her face, and (feigned?) gentleness with which she treats his wound, and you can see the moment when she makes the decision to drug him.  It was pretty obvious to me that she had two bottles there, one with medicine and one with the drug, and that she was waiting for Guy's answer.  Guy, not knowing he was being tested, failed, and she chose the Valerian. This was a great scene... all of their choices were perfectly in character, but it still hurt me to watch them both destroy what little chance still remained for an alliance between them.

In the end, Guy is given the choice between trying to kill Isabella and trying to kill John, and it seems that he chooses John.  It makes sense.  John took away his public position, while Isabella's betrayal is more personal.  In a terrible, messed up way, this is yet another example of Guy deciding that his power and position are more important than she is.  (Only with the Gisbornes could I make the argument that his not trying to kill her could be read as at all insulting... )



So, speaking of Isabella...

Isabella spends this episode on the edge of either great power or utter failure, and there is a very thin line separating the two. She knows it, and what's more, Prince John knows it.  The first interaction that the two of them have is a glorious conglomeration of thinly veiled innuendo, flattery, and shifting power dynamics. John is very much in charge in the midst of all the chaos, yet another example of his being more sane than one might at first think he is.  He is clearly enjoying Isabella's attention, but he is no fool.  He understands exactly what she's playing at, and he likes watching her squirm.  This, I think, is why he introduces her to Sheridan.  We know that John likes playing his subordinates off of each other.  He did it with Guy and Vasey, and now he's doing it with Sheridan and Isabella, patiently waiting to see who can please him more. (Yes, that sounded bad.  It... probably should, considering the way that his comments about Guy could have been taken.) As with Guy, John knows how to push all of Isabella's buttons.  The knowing look on his face when he tells Sheridan she has traitor's blood... chilling, but fantastic.  He knows she'll fight tooth and nail to erase any association with her brother's treason from his princely mind.

Knowing she is in such a precarious situation, Isabella spends much of the episode not only trying to get her footing with the Prince back, but reaching so far as to suggest herself as a candidate for sheriff.  These far-reaching ambitions might lead one to think that she never intended to help Guy in the first place, that she was going to drug him, apology or no, but I don't think this is the case.  There was too much focus on her demand for an apology and her choice of the drug.  It seems that Isabella truly thought that she and Guy might have stood a chance of rising in power together. However, when he throws her offer of an alliance back in her face, she has no problem trussing Guy up and presenting him to John. And here, we get to see yet another reason that Isabella is a more effective political player than Guy will ever be.  She has a flair for the theatrical that Vasey and John both share - that sensibility that says, "Don't just execute Robin... make him fight to the death over a vat of boiling oil!" Or, "Let me throw myself over the casket of my not-dead brother, weeping copiously." Anyway, I love that Isabella comes to John when he is in a foul mood, thinking that she has exactly what he needs to get him out of it. Then, the dramatic sweeping back of the sheet... only to find that Guy has somehow charmed the servant girl with his fantastic looks overpowered the servant girl while tied up and switched places with her.  (By the way... I find it strange that John immediately assumes that Isabella and Guy are in league with each other when it is so obvious that Guy is trying to kill both of them, but I suppose his royal paranoia knows no bounds.)  

Her scene with Sheridan and Prince John in the dungeon, though, is what really fascinates me about Isabella in this episode. John thinks that the contest has been decided... Thornton has gotten him the crown back (that he touches in entirely inappropriate but hilarious ways...) and Isabella has failed him.  As despicable as Isabella is sometimes, my heart ached for her in this scene.  She has come so far from where she was, and it's obvious from her expression when John "gives" her to Sheridan that she's panicking just a little at the fact that yet another powerful, trusted male "protector" is about to her away to another man for his own gain.   However, Isabella is no scared thirteen year old this time.  She acquiesces momentarily in the dungeon, but has by no means given in. She thinks she can do something to change John's mind, to prove her usefulness. And she does.  She watches for her opportunity, and when Robin and Guy present it to her, she makes her choice. She knows that the saving John is as close to a sure way back into his good graces as she's going to get. Could she have died?  Of course. Putting herself between Guy and John was a calculated risk.  If she "wins," she gets John's trust and his patronage.  If Guy happens to shoot her dead in the process, at least she doesn't have to live tied to another man she doesn't love. So, she uses what she knows about Guy and about Robin to make herself supremely useful to Prince John.  And... it pays off.  She may have a nasty wound in her arm, but Isabella comes out on top.  And she's SHERIFF.  Historical inaccuracy aside, I think I love it just a little.  I can't wait to see what she's like when she's in charge.



Other stuff I liked:

I haven't really touched on the main plot of the episode or the outlaws yet.  In general, I really liked the "John fakes Richard's death" plot.  Sure, the wax-work may have been anachronistic.  But all in all, it was a clever ploy on John's part, quite stealthily executed, and we got to see Toby Stephens camping it up so much it was like... looking into the campy SUN sometimes.  ("Wakey wakey archbishop..." *snerk*)

I actually liked that it was Kate who notices that Richard's head is wax.  It made sense to me.  She comes from a family of artisans, right? Not that pottery-making is exactly like waxwork, but I can see her having an eye for that sort of thing where the others might miss it.

I like the archbishop.  He's obviously a man who feels constrained by traditions and laws and appearances, but he was also more than happy to tell John, "No crown, no coronation."  He seemed to be just waiting for the chance to tweak John's nose. Also, his threats about spilling blood in the house of God were kind of hard core. (Though I fail to understand how it's not ok to skewer someone on your sword or your arrow, but it IS ok to punch someone in the church.)

I had a lot of fun watching the scene where Kate, Allan, and Robin stealing the keys from Sheridan.  It was a really good con, and the three of them worked together fantastically. However...

Stuff that was aggravating: 

Why did Allan, of all people, break character in the tavern?  The first rule of being a con artist, right behind "don't get caught" and possibly before "never run a con with your own money" is "don't talk about the con directly in front of the person you're conning." He knows this.  We've seen him lie under pressure before  The first time we see him, he's making up pregnant wives and hungry children to get out of having his hand cut off.  Allan lies as easily as he breathes, and they're trying to tell me he couldn't whip up a quick, "Hey! Get your hands off my sister"? I call shenanigans.

Allan and Much have taken to bickering over Kate.  This needs to stop.  It was cute when their liking her made them have cute buddy moments.  It is not cute when it makes both of them act like petulant children. (And as much as I like Tuck calling both of them on it, Kate's "focus on the mission" speech was ill-conceived. Tuck can get away with those most of the time.  Robin can... sometimes.  Kate can't.)

It is also not cute when Much and Allan do things to protect her that they would do for any other member of the gang and she gets all huffy over it. For instance, Allan had no way of knowing that she had the situation in hand... he came in at a really inopportune moment and assumed she was in over her head.  Not because she was a girl, but because Sheridan was ten times bigger than she was. And Much... I can't see him leaving any member of the group behind with a knife to his throat.  

Where did that skull come from for their little "scare the guards away from the burning body" ruse? What was with the grave desecration?  It's supposed to be funny and clever when Robin does it, but when the Sheriff was digging up the Abbey's churchyard looking for "relics," we were supposed to be suitably horrified. Massive consistency FAIL, show.

(Also, when Robin asked about getting a cloak, I went, "Holocaust cloak! Princess Bride!  I am the Dread Pirate Roberts!  There will be no survivors!") And then, it happened just that way. I don't know whether to groan at the unoriginality of it or smile at the homage.  I prefer the second. It's the way I went on the "Indiana Jones booby trapped crown" sequence.  I do a lot better when I think they're making references on purpose.

Next week: Thornton! (Younger and much better looking than expected.) Guy, a pretty girl who says something nice to him, and… WHY IS GUY STANDING AT A CHOPPING BLOCK? *flails* And why does he sound so resigned about it?  Oh yeah... and Robin and Isabella flirt/threaten each other some more. Must be Saturday. (Is it? Is it Saturday yet? No? *sigh*)