He is played by a strenuously hooded Gustaf Skarsgård (yes, brother of him, son of the other one and Karl Strand in season two of Westworld) as more or less a drunken vagrant, with only enough magic left in him to call down the occasional blood rain. We are following Merlin in a separate story strand. “Do you suppose,” wonders Nimue later, when she has taken up with a young knight on the road, called Arthur (who is very taken with this sword – like, really, really rates it, you know?), “she meant the magician Merlin? The one from the stories?” “I doubt that,” replies Arthur (Devon Terrell, possibly cast entirely on his preternatural ability to keep a straight face). Nimue’s dying mother hands her an ancient sword with instructions to take it to a man called Merlin. They pillage Nimue’s village and elaborately execute its denizens. King Uther Pendragon’s bad boys, the Red Paladin, turn up, led by Peter Mullan (who must have wanted out of the house). Axes are taken to necks, taverns are brawled in, CGI wolves endanger our heroine Anyway, they don’t like Nimue, that’s for sure, and she is all set up for her traumatic 20s. Plus, a defining feature of non-prestige fantasy fiction is that there are more layers and factions than anyone with a day job can easily master. The glens in which much of the early action takes place are too misty to make much out. Or maybe they are human and only one element of the villagers is fae? I am not quite clear on this point, nor on who or what the Hidden are. Witches are different from faery folk, I guess. In this version of her story, she has survived a traumatic childhood – everything from demonic-bear attacks, glowing scars and cautious surveillance by those who believe she is the Chosen One through to orchestrated bullying by others who reckon she is a witch because she successfully called on the Hidden to save her during her ursine bebotherment. She is a child of the fae who will – if the script doesn’t kill her first – grow up to be the Lady of the Lake, the enchantress with cameo-to-main roles throughout the Matter of Britain. This is the expensively made, atrociously written, chaotic, borderline-barmy tale – adapted from a 2019 book by Tom Wheeler and Frank Miller – of Nimue (13 Reasons Why’s Katherine Langford). Netflix abrades us, in more ways than one, with Cursed. King Arthur, in short, is conspicuous by his absence, and pale imitations appearing on our screens in 10-part dramas just rub salt into the wound. No hill or mountain has rumbled and split to reveal a sixth-century warrior-king dusting off his mail and tunic, ready to knock some heads together. And yet somehow, the Isle of Avalon has not yet called and told us to expect a visitor. Well, I don’t know what you’d call this – you’ll have to picture me gesturing at … everything – but I feel pretty bloody hour-of-needy right now. In Britain’s hour of need, he’s supposed to be nailed on for a messianic return and some top-notch practical saviour-aid all round. Because the big thing about Arthur is he’s supposed to come back. I feel, slightly, that anything put before us based in or around Arthurian times is faintly but surely trolling us.
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