Review: The Pendragon Cycle Episode 6 – Brett Cooper Finally Makes an Appearance.

Last week, I didn’t review The Pendragon Cycle because it felt like I was beating a dead horse every week. So, I took a break and said that I would return to this series if Brett Cooper made an appearance that lasted longer than 5 seconds or the show ended.

Guess which one came first.

So, we’re back to this series, and since I’m pretty sure that next week is the season finale, look forward to my overall thoughts on the show next Wednesday.

Overall, this episode wasn’t terrible, but it should’ve been Episode 2. The fact that we’re getting Merlin’s backstory now instead of at the beginning of the season is a testament to the abysmal writing skills of the incompetent writers over at Dailywire. After all, this show is called The Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of Merlin. They should’ve gone in chronological order, from Merlin’s early life, his 70 year descent into insanity, and his rise out of that into the wizard who helps Arthur become king. That’s how it should’ve gone.

But instead, we got this flashback episode as an afterthought. Yay.

To start with the pros, the episode by itself was decently paced. It still felt rushed at times, but it wasn’t jumping from place to place as badly as some of the other episodes. The guy playing Merlin actually showed that he has an acting range that goes beyond brooding and angsty, and Brett Cooper did a good job as Ganieda. (I will say, though, that it was weird seeing her kiss Merlin when you know that in real life, during the shooting of The Pendragon Cycle, she was engaged and planning her wedding.)

As for the cons, the only ones I have are 1). when parts of the episode were rushed and 2). the battle scene. Because parts of this episode were rushed, things like why the barbarians are attacking places like Maridunum and elsewhere go largely unexplained. In the larger context of the show, we can guess they want land and riches, but in this episode, we have to wonder why they’re doing anything.

Then there’s the battle scene in of itself where the barbarians are storming Maridunum. In this scene, we see the barbarian hoard coming at the walls of Maridunum with ladders. They charge the wall, set up the ladders, and begin climbing over.

This, of course, raises two questions. First, we see people on the wall who are supposed to be watching, so why didn’t they see the barbarians coming? Are they that useless? Second, once the alarm is raised, why is no one rushing to shoot arrows at the barbarians to keep them from scaling the wall?

From there, it gets worse because even though the barbarians are scaling the wall and there’s barely anyone they need to fight to get through, they – for some reason – decide to try breaking down the door. Once again, the question should be asked: Why is no one shooting at them? Are the people in charge of watching the wall that incompetent?

However, another question should be asked as well: If the barbarians are already having an easy time climbing the wall and have gotten inside, then why don’t they kill the people trying to keep the gates closed and let all their buddies in? At this point, trying to break down the door seems like a waste of time and energy.

Overall, this episode was one of the high points of the show despite its flaws. I just wish that it had come sooner.

Until next time,

M.J.