Merlin, Episode 10: The Queen of Hearts

You know, I’ve got to admit, I would have written this post up, last night, if it hadn’t been for a couple of things.

First off … ?

I was feeling dog tired.

Enough to get a seriously early night.

The other thing … ?

Was something that gets to be a pain if it happens with any kind of regularity.

My Googlemail account got hacked.

From Google’s end, if I’m any judge.

The clue, for me, should have been the fact that I couldn’t upload any photos to the original version of the post.

Well …

That and the fact that, I couldn’t sign onto my own blog, this morning …

Suspicious activity, apparently.

When I did mange to get everything corrected — mostly by resetting the password on the account, itself, and on my copy of Mail.app — Mail.app did its thing, and downloaded all the messages in my Gmail inbox.

Including a lot of ‘Delivery Failed’ type messages.

Ahem!

Somebody was playing Silly Buggers, by the signs of things.

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The problem, as far as I’ve understood it, though … ?

In part is caused by the simple fact that many of us send — or have sent, in my case, very much in the past — chain emails.

And don’t bother to delete other people’s addresses from the body of the message.

It is, I’m told, one of the main ways that the folk who send spam find out about active email addresses they can hijack, to send spam from.

I’ll admit, I’ve already sent a message to one or two relatives I know that are guilty of the same mistake.

Hopefully, it’s got through, ok …

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Now, where was I … … ?

Oh, yeah …

Merlin… !

Actually, I should add, here, that I’m talking about last night’s episode of Merlin, The Queen of Hearts.

Which was …

Hmmmm …

Lets try to some it up, first, shall we … ?

The Queen of Hearts sees Morgana warned — in a nightmare — about the relationship between Arthur and Guinevere: and, on the advice of her sister Morgause, deciding to let Uther know about this.

In a very roundabout way.

Involving a horse …

OK, a horseride, I should say: before anyone gets any funny ideas …

That doesn’t sound any better, does it … ?

At any rate, Morgana sets up a plot to get Guinevere banished, and Arthur following her.

And as a fall back … ?

Leaving Uther convinced that his son and heir has been enchanted.

Leaving Guinevere convinced that’s Morgana’s up to something.

And looking very surprised when the evil sorcerer — who looks suspiciously like Christopher Lee’s version of Saruman the Wise — actually turns up.

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Now, I’ll happily admit, this isn’t the character driven stunner that last week’s episode — Love in the Time Of Dragons — was.

It does have its highlights, though.

For starters, the writers seem to have turned down the need for Katy McGrath to so quite obviously villainous: as written — and played — both they and her are going more for subtle, rather than obvious.

Colin Morgan’s handling of the central character — even down to the incredible amounts of premium ham he laid on for his ‘evil old sorcerer’ routine — was beautifully done.

Stars of the show, this week, I’m thinking … ?

Were Bradley James, Angel Coulby and Anthony Head as — respectively — Prince Arthur, Guinevere and King Uther.

And while Queen of Hearts isn’t one of the stronger episodes of season three, those highlights will make it worth a mention, I think.

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Oh, just as a final note … ?

I’ll leave you with this …