The Winter King finishes stronger than it began, but is it strong enough?

The Winter King has wrapped up its first season on MGM+. Will it get another?

Obviously we don’t know, but up top I’ll admit I’m ambivalent about the idea. I am a big fan of The Warlord Chronicles, the books by Bernard Cornwell on which this show is based. I always expected the producers to change things about the books for TV, but some of those changes have really cheesed me off. This version of Cornwell’s story is a good deal less dramatic than the books, and has made some bizarre, off-putting choices regarding the characters.

On the other hand, things have improved in the back half of this first season, which adapts (almost) all of the first book in Cornwell’s trilogy. But is that enough to save The Winter King from cancellation?

Arthur and Guinevere play Diplomacy

Let’s talk through the finale and see if we can’t figure that out. “Episode 10” divides its attention between two storylines. In one branch, Arthur goes to meet the Saxon leader Aelle, who is on the verge of entering into an alliance with the treacherous British king Gorfydd. Arthur’s plan is to offer Aelle a steady supply of Dumnonian tin in exchange for Aelle holding off on attacking Britain for the next six months or so; Arthur actually measures time in “moons,” but I’m not entirely sure how that translates in 2023. The plan almost feels like it’s going to work…until Aelle points out that without land and plunder his people likely won’t survive the winter. Off with everyone’s head!

Guinevere, who decided to come with Arthur at the last minute, jumps in to sweeten the deal: they will also give Aelle information about a British fort he can take, which appeases him. So Arthur and company buy they time they need, but at the cost of British lives. There’s nothing to be done but swear vengeance for the British lives about to be lost because of a deal that they made. Ruling, as Guinevere points out, is hard.

I enjoyed this part of the episode, more or less. Craig Parkinson plays Aelle as an antagonist but not as a villain; he’s invading Britain, sure, but he’s not painted as some sort of mustache-twirling mastermind. He wants land and food for his people, and if he has to take it from the British, he will. Cornwell’s antagonists often have this sort of fine shading and I’m glad the show is doing right by them.

With that resolved, Arthur rushes off to the Isle of the Dead to retrieve Derfel and Nimue, who are in a pickle of a while different flavor…

The Isle of the Dead is actually a peninsula

Once again, this section of the episode mostly hits the mark, although I am going to fly my annoying book-reader flag for a minute. In both the books and the show, the Isle of the Dead is an all-purpose holding area for the mentally ill, plus any other people the rest of society deems undesirable. But in the book, people wander around in the open air penned in by guards and their own senses of superstition; to go to this isle is to die, so to return to Britain proper is metaphysically impossible.

In the book, Derfel finds Nimue resting in a cave, exhausted and hungry. The two of them make their way back to the mainland, where Derfel’s men are holding the guards are spearpoint, allowing safe passage. The Winter King TV show Hollywood-s all of this up. Now everyone on the isle is walled up in a cave system from which there is no escape. Morlock-like under-zombies straight out of H.G. Wells The Time Machine stalk the tunnels, and Arthur must personally save the day by shoving his magic sword Excalibur into a wall, which somehow loosens the mortar and drives the under-zombies away as sunlight hits their eyes for the first time in who knows how long.

This is all fun enough in the moment, but it relies a lot on TV-style coincidence and happenstance; like, sure, of course Arthur would just happen to be on the other side of the wall that Derfel and Nimue were both trying to knock down from inside the cave system. Of course his sword is literally magic, not just symbolically powerful. Of course Arthur has to tell everyone on the Isle of the Dead that they’re free now, because that’s a good guy thing to do. None of this is surprising, exactly — as a rule, screen adaptations of books tend to dumb them down — but I don’t have to like it. I don’t understand why studios can’t take an amazing book and just adapt the amazingness.

But it’s not that bad. At least Merlin didn’t use any Jedi mind tricks this time. And they get the important part right: we feel the connection between Derfel and Nimue, and how bad he really does want to save her. Actors Stuart Campbell and Ellie James have done solid work building these characters this season, and their chemistry is believable and warm.

Verdict

The ending of the season leaves a little to be desired; there’s not as much punch as you’d expect from a finale. That’s because “Episode 10” stops short of actually adapting the end of Cornwell’s The Winter King book. The final stretch of that novel is dedicated to resolving the tension between Dumnonia and Powys, where Gundleus and Gorfydd are currently scheming. But I guess the show is leaving that for the start of season 2.

…if season 2 happens, that is. I think the front half of season 1 is quite a bit weaker than the back half, which doesn’t bode well; I fear that people may have dropped off before things picked up. If the show does continue, I hope it keeps improving on itself. It should keep adapting the book as accurately as is reasonably possible; the show is at its weakest when it strays from the source material, in part because all it can think to add is eye-roll-worthy, coincidence-driven action scenes. It should bring in the Merlin from the books, who is more like a chaotic trickster god than the bland mentor figure we have here. And it needs to stop having shots where the backgrounds are blurred out for no reason. I swear, if I never see that again it’ll be too soon.

The Winter Bullet Points

• Speaking of Merlin, we see him only for a brief moment at the end of the episode, spelunking in a cave looking for the Treasures of Britain. As always, this episode is better for his absence. Merlin is by far my biggest disappointment with the show. I was so looking forward to seeing the wildly fun character from the book, and we didn’t get him at all.
• Sansum gives Morgan a Bible to read, and she seems to take to it. This foreshadows her long-term arc from the books. Also, FYI: in the books, Sansum is illiterate, but I’ve picked enough nits already.

Episode Grade: C+

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