Early Release: SHKK 21 (Patreon)

If you had asked me, I would have said Merlin "gets good" sometime in season 3. Not that the show is bad for seasons 1 and 2, but I had a memory of sometime in 3 becoming hooked and realizing that this show wasn't just FUN but it was also GOOD and had the potential to be GREAT. It's why we're podcasting about it, after all. So imagine my surprise when we watch this episode (S02E08 - Sins of the Father) and realize that it actually starts becoming great right in the middle of season 2. Crazy that we're getting episodes of this quality after TROLL WIFE. I love a lot of things about this episode, but something that strikes me now that I'm typing this that I didn't mention when we were recording is just how quintessentially MERLIN the whole thing is: 

Mysterious magic users? ✅
Uther keeping secrets and being mad? ✅
Finding cool secret castles in the wilderness? ✅
Merlin secretly using magic? ✅
Gaius barely doing anything? ✅

There's more obviously but the show just really nails everything it's trying to do in this episode, and boy I can't wait to watch more. Sure am glad I have a podcast to do about it.