Merlin Season 4 held its own magic

Colin Morgan as Merlin.

Its officially been a little more than two weeks since Merlin reached its season finale. Last week we counted down the top 5 episodes of Merlin, and today we take a look at the season overall.

In usual Merlin fashion, the season opened strong with the two parter episode The Darkest Hour which was intense and gave the audience a sense where things stand in the Merlin universe. The teaser for the episode itself had people on edge and excited to see what kind of new Merlin season they were expecting to see. This episode quickly set up that Morgana was just down right evil, and had an evil minion named Agravaine. It also hinted at the Gwen and Arthur storyline as well as the Merlin and Arthur storyline.

Arthur saving Merlin.

In a way, this season developed the relationships this season. For those fans who were fans of the Arthur/Gwen relationship, they were treated this season as Arthur and Gwen became closer than ever before. This eventually lead to their marriage in the season finale of Merlin. As for Merlin and Arthur, their friendship became even more profound as Arthur slowly began to realize that Merlin is an important ally. You can see this progress over the season, but more proficiently in A Servant of Two Masters. Your heart broke a bit when you saw Arthur refusing to give up on Merlin and the relief on his face when he found Merlin alive. But the key moment for this relationship was in the finale when Arthur only admits that Merlin is the person he knows he can trust, and this causes Arthur to come back for Merlin after Merlin sent him away.

Morgana capturing Camelot.

This season who also saw some character development from now Merlin's best villain Morgana. In all of my reviews I kept commenting on how great of development of Morgana's villainous side, and how she truly has become the enemy of Camelot she always was meant to be. At the beginning of the season, Morgana had become more powerful, but was still a bit unsure of herself as she helped her crippled sister. After unleashing the undead upon the world (which was stopped thanks to Lancelot), Morgana began to find her stride and embraced her hatred for the kingdom of Camelot and her wish to become Queen. She even achieved small victories in getting Gwen banished from Camelot and eventually capturing Camelot. Unlike her previous capture of Camelot, Morgana did it this time without an army of immortals and without care for the citizens. Morgana in sense just wanted to be queen and didn't care about anything else. I also love how the writers remembered the fact that Morgana is a swords woman herself and can handle combat without the use of magic.

Arthur becomes king.

More of the legend is leaking into the storyline now. Last season they set up Morgana to be the villain, and the stepping stone for the Arthur/Gwen relationship, and introduced the knights of the round table. This season took a big step and made Arthur king in A Wicked Day. This was a big game changer and we said goodbye to Uther (and Anthony Head). Although it did leave some room for the series to play out and see how to get Arthur to accept magic. Although, in A Herald of a New Age, Arthur granted the druids safety and a peaceful existence in his kingdom. And as I mentioned above, Arthur and Gwen get married.

As great as this season was, there are some areas where it fell through. Like the typical he can't possibly betray me ideology between Arthur and Argavaine. The same thing happened in Season 3 where Merlin knew this person was up to no good, but couldn't say anything. Not to mention this person was a high ranking, trusted person of the court. I really hope that Merlin doesn't keep using this plot point over and over. The episodes I thought were not that strong were Aithusa, His Father's Son, and A Herald of A New Age. I really want to put The Secret Sharer in that list, but something is telling me not to, so for now its in the middle.

Overall, Season 4 of Merlin was great and was worth waiting for. Which makes waiting for Season 5 even more harder. In season 5, I want to see the idea of magic in Camelot be played with and Merlin revealing his. After that is the next obvious step. For the last four season, Merlin has gotten away with no one (except all the people who knew that are dead) finding out about his magic. I can also see Gwen and Arthur having some married issues since all tv shows tend to do that. Not to mention that Gwen has to get used to being Queen. From what I have heard about season 5, is that a year has passed and everyone is in different situations that was different from before.  Long Live Merlin!

This is it though for Merlin Mondays. Merlin Mondays will start again next year. For now, I leave you with a Merlin music video.