S01E10: The Sacrifice

[kieyra]

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With the future of the Fey hanging in the balance and enemies closing in from all sides, Nimue sets in motion the final pieces of her plan.

Airdate: 07/17/2020

Here you can discuss episode 10 and the rest of the season.

[Chicago Redshirt]

So the main thing that got me through the first season was curiosity. I was probably ready to give up after episode 2 when I realized that the Frank Miller who was involved with the series was THE Frank Miller of Dark Knight Returns, Daredevil, Sin City and 300 fame. 

As much as I love Miller's work, he's not exactly a feminist writer. So I wanted to see how he would handle a woman-centered story.

The answer: mostly disappointingly.

The thing that stands out is Iris. How did she find Merlin, Morgana and Nimue at the end? How did she get the drop on them? How is it possible that after shooting Nimue neither Morgana nor Merlin killed or stopped her? How was she able to get an audience with the Pope and become part of the super-special Trinity Guard when up till now, men were not willing to give her the time of day for just being a red paladin? Sure, she could say "I killed the Wolf-Born Witch," but why would anyone believe her?

Assuming it gets a second season, I will probably give it a shot. But I won't be happy about it.

Assum

[paigow]

Camelot -whenever it starts - is doomed to fail..Arthur and the Fey of The Round Table...Any of them could kill Arthur easily in single combat...

[Sakura12]

This show wasn't the best ever but it's way better than Warrior Nun. I at least finished it and am somewhat interested to see where it goes. 

I also didn't get the Iris storyline, I actually forgot about her for awhile. What proof did she have that she killed Nimue? She didn't have the sword or a body. They just believed some random girl and gave her an audience with the Pope. 

With the weeping monk being Lancelot, does that mean the Red Spear woman is Guinevere? 

[Chicago Redshirt]

4 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

With the weeping monk being Lancelot, does that mean the Red Spear woman is Guinevere? 

They pretty much could shoehorn any live non-Nimue, unrelaqted-to-Arthur woman into becoming her Guinevere if they want to. There is nothing to stop the Red Spear, Pym, any of Cumber's daughters, the African-American fey who rounded out the trip to meet Merlin, Iris or whoever else from ultimately being Guinevere. 

My personal thought (and preference) would be that they don't try to introduce any other name characters from the Arthur legend since they have plenty to do with the ones that have been introduced and the new ones.  

[Sakura12]

If they get a next season, they will probably introduce even more characters from the Legend. Since Katherine Langford will once again be playing the dead girl giving advice beyond the grave. They will need to introduce Arthur's love interest Guinevere. In this universe the Red Spear makes the most sense and we already met her. 

 

[marcee]

I've seen a lot of reviews panning this show, but I gotta say, I really kind of loved it. I didn't care much for Nimue, actually - but I thoroughly enjoyed practically all of the supporting characters. I especially liked any scene with Squirrel. I loved-loved-loved the Pym/Dof almost-romance. And I'm so sorry they killed him off because I really liked to look at him. I enjoyed the Weeping Monk's arc even though I think we all saw that coming from a mile away. Merlin was fantastic. I loved to hate Father Carden and hated Iris desperately. Though I, too, didn't understand how or why anyone believed she killed the Wolf-blood Witch... did she, indeed, pull her out of the water and chop off her head? I'm holding on to the belief that Nimue called to the Hidden to help her survive the double-arrow and drowning. She is her father's daughter, after all. Lots of questions and side eyes from me - but, overally, I really enjoyed it.

[Chicago Redshirt]

3 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

If they get a next season, they will probably introduce even more characters from the Legend. Since Katherine Langford will once again be playing the dead girl giving advice beyond the grave. They will need to introduce Arthur's love interest Guinevere. In this universe the Red Spear makes the most sense and we already met her. 

 

Pretty sure Nimue is still alive. 

How many big-name Arthurian figures are left?

Guinevere, Galahad, Mordred are about all that come to mind. 

[Sakura12]

Since she's the Lady of the Lake I figured that's what she's becoming for S2. Doing another death later would be kind of pointless. 

 

[paigow]

Hard to imagine Red Spear in a love triangle with this version of Lancelot and Arthur...She would kill one and marry the other.

[paigow]

6 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

How many big-name Arthurian figures are left? 

This is like J.J. Abrams verse Arthur...

This Arthur is NOT a Pendragon...so he has no bloodline claim to the throne

Then all bets are off in regard to "canon" supporting characters being introduced...

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, paigow said:

This is like J.J. Abrams verse Arthur...

This Arthur is NOT a Pendragon...so he has no bloodline claim to the throne

Then all bets are off in regard to "canon" supporting characters being introduced...

Considering Uther Pendragon is not a real Pendragon in this, there is no limit to what they can concoct. Arthur could turn out to be a true-blooded Pendragon after all. I would not be surprised if the show would be willing to outdo the biggest face-palmy retcons of characters (which in my opinion are making the Jimmy Olsen that we followed for years in Smallville be the older cousin of future canon Jimmy Olsen, H. James Olsen, or making young Willie Adama bbe the dead older brother of BSG's Admiral Adama.)

Edited July 21, 2020 by Chicago Redshirt

[Quark]

I liked the story, but the acting was rather poor, but I did think that the actors playing Father Carden and the Queen Regent were rather good. The guy playing Arthur was terrible. Katherine Langford had her moments.

My favourite character was probably Squirrel. Rare to find a non-irritating kid on any TV show, but Squirrel was great. I hated Iris.

[paigow]

On 7/22/2020 at 1:39 PM, Quark said:

I liked the story, but the acting was rather poor, but I did think that the actors playing Father Carden

Is there a more venal man than James Delos??? Yes..Father Carden!!! 

[thuganomics85]

Well, that was a season finale for sure!

They certainly seemed to set-up almost everyone to become an alternative version of the main players in the Arthurian legends.  Morgana somehow kills the Widow and becomes the most powerful sorceress now.  Merlin reclaims the sword and gets his powers back (which basically made him like Emperor Palpatine or Thor after Ragnarok, which is kind of cool.)  Arthur is going to lead the Fey to safety and liking continue to build him up as the noble character that will eventually be worthy of the sword.  Squirrel is embracing his real name.  And, the big twist: Emo Monk flips to the side of good and reveals that his real name is (cue drum role) Lancelot!  And, yes, I totally believe that Red Spear is going to end up being this show's version of Guinevere.  It already looked like she and Arthur were giving each other some looks.

And then there is Nimue, who certainly looks dead, but I guess she's going to be the Lady of the Lake going forward, assuming we get another season.  Granted, I'm not sure how much time Katherine Langford would want to keep putting forward here, since I have to imagine she could do better.  But I guess we'll see.

Also looks like Sister Iris is being set-up as the next big baddie, which I can dig.  She's certainly better than Father Carden, with respects to Peter Mullan's talents.

I was confused over what happened to Gawain.  Is he being preserved by those vines, somehow?

Time really seemed to have no meaning in this episode, with the way characters seemed to be able to always show up when needed to and even getting info with a quickness.  I swear, those ravens apparently can put email and text messaging to shame!

For what it's worth, I did think the show got better as it went along.  The scenery was great and I think the acting was generally solid for what it needed to be.  But I still feel like it was a show that seemed to be in tonal battle between being ultra-violent and gritty, but also wanting to be almost like a Y.A. show as well (I swear, the scene of Nimue/Arthur canoodling in bed felt like it was lifted right out of a page from one of those books), and no side really pulled it off.  If it does get renewed, I'll probably still watch since I'm a sucker for fantasy, but this made me actually appreciate some of the other midrange fare, like Carnival Row, which at least tried to be unique on some levels or The Witcher, which at least was more willing to embrace the cheese and camp.  But this was just serviceable at best, and will likely go into the forgettable territory when it is all said and done.

[tennisgurl]

Sure was a season finale, lots of season finale energy! I am guessing that this is how Nimue becomes Lady of the Lake, so this will not be the last we see of her, but I do wonder how much she will interact with the other characters if she does become more of a spirit guide or whatever. Or maybe magic just straight up brings her back to life, I dont know, but I am pretty confident that, if we get another season, that she will be around. Also, the Red Spear shows up to help save the day, Sister Alice is set up to be the next big bad, Morgana becomes the new dark sorceress, Merlin gets his mojo back in a fit of dad rage, and emo monk turns good (because I guess he just now realized that maybe aiding a genocide is bad?) and reveals himself to be freaking Lancelot of all people.

It would be kind of interesting if every season was a different character getting the sword, they kind of take over main character duty, and they always come to a bad end in the season finale. Nimue gets the sword? Shot with arrows and drowned. Merlin gets the sword? Stuck in a tree. Arthur gets the sword? Camelot falls apart thanks to a love triangle. Thats why the show is called Cursed and not Lady of the Lake or something, its about the curse that befalls anyone who uses the sword. 

This show was not particularly good, and I found myself disappointed in a lot of its wasted potential, but I also found myself enjoying it, and I thought it picked up as the season went on. When we got out of the caves more and the supporting cast got more to do, it worked a lot better, to the point that I wish that a lot of them, like the emo knight being Lancelot and Merlin and Nimues relationship with Merlin, which I thought was one of the better relationship based plots (I actually caught a feel when Nimue called Merlin father for the first time right before she fell) had been around for more of the season. I felt like we were finally getting to the good stuff, and then it ended! The scenery was really nice, and I quite liked the opening credits and how they were used within the show itself, and some of the blood and guts were suitably gory, but some of the cgi, especially in the first few episodes were cringy as hell. 

If there is another season, I think the show really needs to figure out what tone its going for. It sometimes feels kind of like a fun adventure, sometimes like a YA chosen one story, sometimes a magical Arthurian fairy tale, sometimes a dark and gritty GoT style more down to earth fantasy, it just felt all over the place. You get tons of images of murdered children and slaughtered villages, and then Arthur and Nimues flirty eyes and giggling flirting, it just gives you whiplash. In general, I wish the show would lighten up a bit. It doesn't have to become a comedy or anything, but its so freaking bleak now, and the show taking itself so seriously can make some of the less great writing stand out even more. Ironically, taking itself so seriously makes the show forgettable, which is never what a show should hope to be, especially when drawing on such famous mythology.  

Edited July 30, 2020 by tennisgurl

[snickers]

Oh where to begin with this show lol

the good:

-the scenery, while the cgi at times was bad I thought the setting looked great

-good finale, pretty decent finale to an otherwise blah season 

 

the bad:

-Katherine Langford: I have not seen her in 13 reasons why, but I’ve seen her in knives out and now this and I think she’s overrated, If she has less screen time in season 2 I won’t be sad 

-Merlin with no magic: while I get the plot line of him Having no magic, I felt it dragged on, and then to have him get it back 3 min before the show ends...but the scene of him getting it back was really good 

 

if they do a season 2 I will watch, but, I hope next season has some better writing! I mean, is this series supposed to be YA? At times I felt like it with the bad acting and that horrid song playing during the nimue/Arthur scene....but this is Frank Miller and some of the more violent scenes were not very YA friendly 

I would rank this below Carnival Row but both shows have their issues-and both shows have the same political message 

[shrewd.buddha]

We finished .. finally. I would have preferred this season to be shorter, actually. And that was because it was so, so serious and such a downer, episode after episode. I would classify this as a type of misery porn. (When I discovered that Frank Miller was involved, it made more sense  - - that guy is not into happy endings or glimmers of hope.) 

The Fae people: Are they just there to be cannon fodder? Do they only have mostly elderly people, women and children whose bodies end up strewn out in the fields after constant raids? Why don't they have any mystical abilities to help them? 

The Weeping Monk: At least the show managed to kill off one villain: Father Carden. .. And Uther's crazy mom got off'ed ..  But trying to redeem the Weeping Monk guy?! No way.  That guy straight up killed hundreds of people, including Nimue's mom (I think) -- and the Fae people who tried to rescue Squirrel Boy.  ("But I never killed children .. I just killed the adults trying to protect them and watched as my fellow Red Paladins slaughtered the children.") I fear that given enough time, this guy might even become one of  Nimue's potential love interests.. Ugh. Please, no..

Percival, Lancelot and the rest: If you re going to just start grabbing character names from the Arthur legend and handing them out at random, why not get creative and use all the copyright free stuff? Next season we could meet a Dracula and a Captain Nemo. 

Edited August 4, 2020 by shrewd.buddha

[kieyra]

2 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

I fear that given enough time, this guy might even become one of  Nimue's potential love interests.. Ugh. Please, no..

I didn't make it through this whole show, but as soon as I saw his face in one of the early episodes, I immediately thought: "Ugh, handsome villain = redemption arc and love interest. Gross."

[iMonrey]

Yeah, so . . . this show happened. It wasn't bad, exactly, it just wasn't very good. It's definitely the genre I like but I think there were some casting problems. I never really grew to care about Nimue or Arthur. The writing didn't really help them either. The story was kind of scattered, so in a way it needed more than 10 episodes to gel. Nothing really got the full attention it needed.

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Arthur is going to lead the Fey to safety and liking continue to build him up as the noble character that will eventually be worthy of the sword. 

Are there any Fey left at this point? It looked like only a handful of them made it into the safety of the cave with Pym, while the rest of them were mostly slaughtered on the beach.

I'm not a big fan of the big battle scenes. It's often hard to tell who is who during them. From what I could gather, both Uther's men and Cumber's men converged on Arthur and the Fey (right?) and then the Raiders showed up to help fight. Or was it just Cumber's men that showed up? I got the impression Uther had double crossed them. 

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But this was just serviceable at best, and will likely go into the forgettable territory when it is all said and done.

That's sort of where I land too. 

I could easily see this as a one-and-done, now that it has set up all the characters to begin the more traditional Arthurian legend. This served as sort of a prequel to that.

Edited August 13, 2020 by iMonrey

[rove4]

Just got finished watching this show and it was slightly better at the end than it was at the start.  I have zero interest in the Nimue/Arthur romance because 1) I see no sexual chemistry there, and 2) we all know who he really ends up with. I always fast-forwarded past all their flirty banter scenes. Not to mention that this version of Arthur is on the bland side. I kept getting annoyed that he was going around resolving all the behind-the-scenes issues when this is supposed to be Nimue's show.  I would've preferred it if Arthur was treated like Batman in the Arrowverse...out there somewhere but never actually seen.  I think this would've worked better if this show allowed the audience to meet the rest of the Arthurian tale characters and get to know them as people completely outside of Arthur's impending influence.  Let me meet and get to appreciate Gawain on his own merit rather than being almost immediately turned off because the two engage in a pissing contest over who Nimue. 

Characters I liked: Squirrel/Percival, Merlin, Pym, the Widow (before getting killed by Sister Igraine, which...how?)

Super annoyed that Sister Alice lived. I mean, c'mon.  Merlin should've fried her.  And I agree with others that it makes no sense that the anti-women church would just accept her word that she killed the Wolf Witch.

Not sure I'll check out season two, should they get one, unless I'm bored and there's nothing else to watch. 

[Hawk]

I just binged this show, loved it and found out it isn't getting a second season WTF???