"Tell me Merlin, do you know how to walk on your knees?"

I was bored. And I just finished watching season 2 of Merlin.

(WARNING: MERLIN SPOILERS!)

Merlin/Arthur

Hunith: You have to go, Merlin. You belong at Arthur's side. I've seen how much he needs you, how much you need him. You're like two sides of the same coin.

I wouldn't say Merlin is the gayest thing I've ever seen on TV because, let's face it, there's always gonna be Smallville.

And speaking of, if you've never watched Merlin you could say that it's kinda like Smallville in a lot of ways, except it's set in some vague "Arthurian legend timeline" and with secret magic instead of secret superhero-powers. And instead of the young versions of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor we have the young versions of Merlin and Prince Arthur, before they become Merlin the great sorcerer and King Arthur of that famous table. But there's the same homoerotic subtext. Except Merlin doesn't give mouth-to-mouth to Arthur in the first episode.

So the whole focus of the show is on the fact that Merlin has this Big Secret about being a sorcerer and on when oh when he will "come out" to Arthur about it and what will happen then. Judging by how many times Merlin has performed magic in front of Arthur - in the second season he has graduated to doing it while both Arthur and his magic-hating father, the king, are in the same room - we must sadly conclude that Arthur will never ever ever figure out that Merlin is a sorcerer on his own, and also that he's not very bright. Of course, in Arthur's defense he might suspect another reason why Merlin is acting so strange around him and why he keeps finding him in Arthur's bedroom in the middle of the night. You know, kinda like that scene in Enchanted, where the chipmunk does a charade for the prince to tell him the princess is in danger and the vain prince keeps thinking the charade is about how fabulous he is.
Merlin: *performs charade to inform Arthur that he's a sorcerer*
Arthur: You...feel that you would DIE without me here?
Merlin: Gaaah!

The others

Merlin and Arthur aren't the only characters in the show. There's also Uther Pendragon, Arthur's magic-hating father (or, as I like to call him; OmgGiles!). And we also have Guinevere and Morgana, the two female leads. Sadly their stories never get very interesting. If you wanna watch some female characters, I'd suggest you put on 30 Rock instead.

And then there's my favourite character of the show:

He's a dragon. His name is "The Great Dragon". He probably named himself. He's wonderfully sarcastic and a little bit evil. Having had to watch all of his kind be wiped out by OmgGiles! and then chained inside a cave as some sort of sick trophy where his only visitor is a teenage boy-sorcerer who mostly comes down to whine about his own, privilieged, cave-free existance, the great dragon seems to spend his time plotting OmgGiles!'s untimely demise, acting superior to Merlin, pretending to hide in the cave whenever Merlin comes down to see him just so he can make a dramatic entrance, and being the biggest Merlin/Arthur shipper in the whole world.

Great Dragon: Without you, Arthur will never suceed. Without you, there will be no Albion.
Merlin: No. No, you've got this wrong.
Great Dragon: There is no right or wrong, only what is, and what isn't.
Merlin: But I'm serious! If anyone wants to go killl him, they can go ahead. In fact, I'll give them a hand.
Great Dragon: None of us can choose our destiny, Merlin. And none of us can escape it.
Merlin: No. No way. No. No, there must be another Arthur, because this one's an idiot.
Great Dragon: Prehaps it's your destiny to change that.

(Great Dragon: He he he. Like puppets on a string!)

Season 2

Unfortunately, I thought season 2 was a big fat let-down.

Naturally what everyone's waiting for to happen is Merlin revealing to Arthur what he really is, and what Arthur's reaction will be. I'm sure the writers are gonna draw it out into infinity but personally I think the show will benefit from Arthur finding out, because it's all just becoming a bit repetitious and is no longer moving their relationship forward. While I don't really mind that season 2 is all about the Gwen/Arthur moments (she will after all one day be his queen), I don't like how it seems to have completely taken the place of the Merlin/Arthur realtionship of season 1. This is after all still supposed to be a show about how Merlin and Arthur end up being friends and how this friendship will one day bring magic and glory back to Camelot, after Arthur is finally king. In season 2 their relationship just seem to come to a halt. Arthur, who has previously proven that he will go to great lengths for Merlin despite the fact that Merlin is just a servant and Arthur is the crown prince - defying his own father, risking his own life - is suddenly back to being the uncaring bully he was in the first episode and seems happy to abuse Merlin any chance he gets, while Merlin seems equally happy to just take it.

There is also the fact that, as far as I can tell, Arthur has no other friends except for Merlin. And why he decided to get so close to his servant but not to anyone else, is something I hoped would be explained as the show progressed. But, no. No such luck.

I think what it is is lazy writing. Sloppy, even. It's obviously much easier to just focus the writing on the male/female romantic moments - since it has been done a thousand times in a thousand TV-shows and my cat could probably write those kind of scenes by now - and just leave the rest unsaid and for the audience to figure out for themselves.

Sigh.

But on a positive note, at least Arthur got sex-spelled again this season!