Arthur dances with disaster in a solid new episode of The Winter King

In the seventh episode of The Winter King, romance is in the air whether Arthur wants it or not. I’m happy to say that after hating on this show pretty much since the beginning, this episode worked for me. Let’s get into the what and the why.

First up, I’ll note that “Episode 7” takes place more or less in one location: Powys, where Arthur has come to marry Ceinwyn, the daughter of King Gorfydd, in an attempt to cement an alliance between Powys and Arthur’s home kingdom of Dumnonia. We never cut away to check in on what Merlin or Nimue or Morgan is up to. This episode has time to sit with the characters and build the drama.

This week, the drama revolves around the fact that Arthur has to marry Ceinwyn but has fallen in love with her handmaiden Guinevere. If you know anything about the Arthurian legend, you know that Arthur and Guinevere become an item, so things don’t look good for poor Ceinwyn.

“Poor Ceinwyn” is something you’ll probably say a few times as you watch the episode. She’s a sweet young girl excited that she’ll get to marry someone as handsome and kind as Arthur; being a king’s daughter, that was far from a foregone conclusion. In another world she would have had to marry her brutal cousin Gundleus, the guy who raided Derfel’s village as a kid and killed a freaking baby a few episodes back. No wonder she feels relieved.

So we don’t want to see her hurt, but it’s obvious that she’s going to be, because Arthur has eyes only for Guinevere. She’s attracted to him too, although she resists it more than he does. This is a selfish choice on Arthur’s part — he’s risking a political alliance that could unite the tribes of Britain against the dangerous Saxon threat, the goal he’s supposedly been working toward for years — but the episode isn’t too hard on him. If there’s anything that can overwhelm the best laid plans of mice and men, it’s true love.

Review: The Winter King, Episode 207

All of this comes to a head in a Jane Austen style-dance scene, by which a mean a scene where the characters’ true feelings are revealed during a ritualized dance. As everyone moves about the floor, Arthur and Guinevere’s affection for each other becomes obvious to anyone bothering to watch, including Ceinwyn. We see the realization watch over her face in real time, but she can’t do anything about it without disrupting the ritual.

It’s good stuff, although the dance moves seem a little stiff and the room a bit small. As happened with Episode 6, I was reminded of a scene from House of the Dragon. That show’s Jane Austun-style dance scene clearly had a lot more money behind it, but I’m not going to hold that against The Winter King. It’s not their fault that MGM+ doesn’t have HBO money. The emotion is what counts and the emotion is there.

After the dance, Guinevere comforts a crestfallen Ceinwyn, who breaks our hearts by suggesting an arrangement where she will marry Arthur but allow Guinevere, who has been like a sister to her since childhood, to become Arthur’s mistress, even though what she really wants is for Arthur to like her as she likes him. Again I say: poor Ceinwyn.

But she’s not broken by the experience, later telling Arthur forthrightly that while she’s hurt, he didn’t break her heart. She warns Arthur that her father will try and kill him and Guinevere once he learns what happened, and advises him to flee with his men and his new love post-haste, which he does. In the space of a couple of episodes, Ceinwyn has emerged as an interesting character.

As I write this, I’m realizing that Ceinwyn may have been the best thing about the episode. Arthur and Guinevere are more important to the story, but we all know what happens there, so I was in less suspense; of course these two get together, that’s how the myth goes.

The episode ends with Arthur and Guinevere getting a quickie marriage near a picturesque lake, while back in Powys King Gorfydd rages against the injustice done to his family. This can only end in disaster, which is great for TV.

Verdict

I’ve gotten down on the show in the past for spotlighting Arthur when Derfel is the main character in Bernard Cornwell’s books, but here there was enough for Arthur to do that it made sense we focus on him. Derfel is still around; Gundleus finds out that Derfel survived even after Gundleus threw him in a death pit years ago. Afraid that this gives Derfel some kind of magical power over his life (I always like when these pagan convictions influence the plot in concrete ways, since that happens all the time in Cornwell’s books), Gundleus tries to finish the job but fails once again. He’s becoming more and more of a problem for our heroes.

This may be the best-written episode of The Winter King yet. The show is still limited by its low budget and stylistic choices — I swear to god, if they keep blurring the edges of shots for no reason I’m going to have a brain hemorrhage — but at least there were no go-nowhere subplots or acts of dramatic self-sabotage. I’ll take it.

The Winter Bullet Points

• King Gorfydd catches on that Arthur has the hots for Guinevere before Ceinwyn does, but he doesn’t mind; he has no problem with the idea that Arthur will fool around on his daughter. But he is very mad that Arthur spurns his daughter’s hand in marriage.
• King Gorfydd seems like a complex guy. He dotes on his daughter Ceinwyn, but is okay with her being in a loveless marriage so long as he advances his own position. He also seems to have some kind of thing going with Guinevere, although the exact nature of their relationship is left obscured.
• In the books, Guinevere is a daughter of a lord, just not the one Arthur is supposed to marry. On the show, she’s a handmaiden without any lineage worth mentioning. I imagine this was done to give her romance with Arthur more of a Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers sort of vibe. It’s a needless change.

Episode Grade: B

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