Richard's Online Journal
Merlin: Series 2 Transcript
The new series of Merlin started tonight, but don’t worry if you missed it. Here’s a full transcript of the first episode: “The Curse of Cornelius Sigan”.
In a land of myth and a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young boy. Actually, more a young man. By the standards of the time, practically middle-aged. Whatever.
INT: ARTHUR’S CHAMBERS
ARTHUR: Merlin! Get in here! Oh, what are you wearing?
MERLIN: Richard Armitage’s hair, sire. I heard it brings good luck.
ARTHUR: Not really, Merlin, Robin Hood got cancelled.
MERLIN: You mean we didn’t?
ARTHUR: Incredibly enough, no. Remind me, where were we last time we met? Did I find out you’re a powerful sorcerer yet?
MERLIN: Uh, no. I almost told you about seventeen times, but never had the balls.
ARTHUR: Great. Am I any better as a human being or still just an arrogant bully who occasionally acts nice, like an abusive husband? Is my father any closer to not being a paranoid psycho? Did we accomplish one genuine thing during last year’s adventures?
MERLIN: Not really. We almost did, but then I reversed it.
ARTHUR: Splendid. To business! Go and see what all the noise is downstairs. My father’s digging for buried treasure and I don’t see why keeping our kingdom financially solvent should intrude on my nap time. I’m going to be the best king ever.
INT: THE SECRET TOMB IN THE BASEMENT
WORKER: Cor blimey, strike a light. Looks like a big old tomb full of gold. I knew King Uther had a reason for making us dig up large bits of the palace for no apparent reason. Hey, what’s that? A big glowing heart that catches my eye like it’s the Arkenstone or something. I’ve always wanted one of those. It’ll look great on the fireplace in my hovel.
WORKER 2: Watch it, anything that obvious is always booby trapped. Big rolling rock balls. Snakes. Poison darts shooting out of the walls and stuff.
WORKER: Bah, only in incredibly clichéd fanta-
WORKER 2: Well, at least it wasn’t snakes…
INT: THE SECRET TOMB IN THE BASEMENT, NEXT DAY
GAIUS: Our dead friend here was shot by a ridiculously impractical poison dart, probably triggered by pushing this pressure pad here. Like this…
MERLIN: Wait! Even I know that’s- oh, hell. EYE MAGIC TO THE RESCUE!
GAIUS: Merlin, you just saved my life. I’m so happy, I’m not even going to berate you for it for once- Oh, Sire! Hello! No magic going on down here, not at all.
UTHER: My goodness, what a lot of treasure. I especially like this mysterious glowing blue heart, which draws my eye like the Arkenstone in Smaug’s lair and is definitely not a lure to any greedy bastards in the area.
MERLIN: Psst. Shouldn’t we stop our king and his only heir running round the booby trapped tomb that’s already killed one interloper?
ARTHUR: Moron.
MERLIN: What did I do now?
ARTHUR: Nothing. Check your watch, it’s Insult Merlin O’Clock.
MERLIN: No! No it’s not! There’s still a minute to go, look!
ARTHUR: Really? Oh. I do apologise.
UTHER: If I might interject. Gaius! Begin your preparations. Start researching this… tomb. Find out everything you can about it, then burn your notes because I won’t listen anyway. Arthur! You will be in charge of guarding the-
ARTHUR: Wanker.
UTHER: What?!
MERLIN: That was to me, sire.
UTHER: Quite. Quite… Continue as you were, unless you’re magic, in which case die.
INT: THE RISING SUN PUB
MACKENSIE CROOK: …and so I said, look, you cast me in that bloody Demons rubbish, you owe me a cameo. I’ve been in proper films, you know.
STOOGE: Uh-huh. Yeah. Anyway, about the tomb. See, it’s full of gold, only it’s locked down. Arthur’s giving it his full attention by going hunting tomorrow and not thinking about it and stuff. When Fort Knox exists, this tomb is what they’ll compare it to. It’s got a gate and everything. A metal one. That’s top-level security, I’m telling you.
MACKENSIE CROOK: How fascinating. So, if I wanted to get in…
STOOGE: You’ll need a key. Thing is, only the Prince has access to it.
MACKENSIE CROOK: Only the Prince?
STOOGE: Yeah. Only the Prince.
INT: THE TOMB
GAIUS: Dum de dum, here I am, a frail old man with the key, totally unattended for some reason. Good job nobody’s around to seize this opportunity. Dum de dee…
EXT: CAMELOT
MACKENSIE CROOK: Prince Arthur? Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Mackensie Crook. I play slimy characters for a living.
ARTHUR: Perfect! I shall make you my most trusted servant.
MERLIN: What about me, sire?
ARTHUR: Oh, of course. Where are my manners. Merlin?
MERLIN: Sire?
ARTHUR: You smell. Go muck out my horses.
INT: THRONEROOM
GAIUS: Sire, I have investigated the tomb. It is the burial place of Cornelius Sigan, the most powerful mage who ever lived. We must seal it up and not risk letting the inevitable curse kill us like the last seventeen curses that almost killed us due to your pig-headed refusal to accept fundamental truths of our reality.
UTHER: Gaius, you more than anyone have been my ally in the war against sorcery. You more than anyone should know better than to suggest the magic I seek to exterminate actually exists and might affect our lives on a regular basis.
GAIUS: Yes, sire.
UTHER: You agree with me?
GAIUS: Assuredly not sire. But I see you are no better written this series, so arguing with you is merely a waste of valuable screen time. If you will excuse me, I have a wall to bash my head into until one of the two breaks into its component atoms. My money is on the wall, but I am old. I live to be surprised.
INT: MORGANNA’S CHAMBERS
MORGANNA: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
GWEN: What is it, my lady?
MORGANNA: I had a nightmare! I was still in Merlin! And you were there, and… oh.
GWEN: Ssssh, it’s alright, my lady, it was just more unnecessary foreshadowing. Go back to sleep. Maybe you’ll have that dream where you end up an evil sorceress, crushing the world in your new steel and leather bustier.
MORGANNA: I do like that dream. Gwen… if it ever happens…
GWEN: There will be talcum powder waiting, mi’lady. Trust me.
MORGANNA: I don’t know what I’d do without you, Gwen. You will be last to die.
INT: STABLES
MERLIN: Stupid Arthur, making me clean the stables like the servant I am. Stupid feudal system. Stupid everyone treating me like an idiot just because I spend my days actively acting like an idiot so they don’t suspect I’m the most powerful wizard ever and everything. Sigh. Good thing there’s only hay on the ground or this would be really messy. In this whole place, there’s only one pile of poo, and- Oooh. Whoa… So… so sleepy… Zzzzz. Zzzz. Morganna in leather. Zzz…
ARTHUR: Merlin! MERLIN! Wake up!
MERLIN: Whu… what happened?
ARTHUR: You fell in the poo, Merlin. The poo! One pile of squishy brown horse poo in a whole pristine stable, and you fall right over and go to sleep on it? This is a new low, even for this show. I mean you. You.
MERLIN: It was Mackensie Crook! He must have invented knock-out gas while I was mucking out the stables so he could steal my job! Do you really think I’d fall asleep on a lump of poo? Please! You must believe my insane sounding story!
ARTHUR: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
MERLIN: Arthur! Please! This poo joke is tearing us apart!
MACKENSIE CROOK: Doesn’t he look tired?
ARTHUR: Yes. You shall take the night off. Mackensie Crook shall look after me.
MERLIN: What? His surname is Crook! He plays bad people! Are you a divvy or something?
ARTHUR: A… what did you call me?
MACKENSIE CROOK: He called you a divvy, sire. And in real life, I’m probably a very nice guy, you know.
MERLIN: Oh. Great. Play to the lawyers. Sire!
ARTHUR: Nobody calls me a divvy, Merlin. Go home, clean yourself up, and for God’s sake, learn some proper insults. Has my constant abuse of you taught you nothing?
INT: MERLIN’S BEDROOM
GAIUS: You’re covered in… oh. Merlin, what happened? This time, I mean.
MERLIN: I just realised, the longer I keep playing the fool, the more likely it is Arthur will decide he can’t trust me when I finally reveal myself, instead wondering what else I hid from him. He’ll look back at all the little details and his suspicious mind will crack. When I advise him, if he still lets me hang around, he’ll think of me not as his friend, but of days like this, as I languished as his idiot servant. Covered in poo. I can’t help wonder, Gaius, is it not time we ended this embarrassing excuse for a storyline and developed our plot before we get canned?
GAIUS: Sorry, I was laughing at the word ‘poo’. Did you say something?
MERLIN: Never mind. How goes the evil tomb subplot?
GAIUS: I translated an inscription. It read “He who breaks my heart completes my work.”
MERLIN: Wait. He translated a modern idiom into a dead language?
GAIUS: It happens more often than you’d think.
MERLIN: So… presumably that means that whoever picks up the giant blue heart that draws the eye like the Arkenstone despite the fantastic riches elsewhere in the tomb will free the ancient sorcerer. Makes you wonder why he rigged it with traps to shoot anyone who got close with deadly poison darts.
GAIUS: My script says that it doesn’t.
MERLIN: But you’d think he’d want someone to get to it, to release his spirit and let him wreak his unholy vengeance on the world and everything. For that matter, why tell people? Why not just let it be a surprise for the first one to touch it?
GAIUS: That does it, go to your room! Honestly, kids today…
INT: ARTHUR’S ROOM
ARTHUR: That will be all, Mackensie Crook. Have the decency to wait until I’m asleep or nude before raiding my belongings for the key you’re after.
MACKENSIE CROOK: Too late, sire. Sleep well.
ARTHUR: Zzzzzzzzzzz
INT: THE TOMB
MACKENSIE CROOK: Oh, damn it. I just realised, as a thief, I’d probably know how to pick locks and the real threat would be the guard on the gate. The guard that’s not actually posted here because Arthur is a moron. We’re twenty minutes into the episode and damn near every scene of it just got rendered entirely pointless. On the plus side: gold! Yippee! I’m rich! Rich! Rich! Nothing can go wrong now!
GHOSTLY VOICES: Pssst. Should have brought a bigger bag.
MACKENSIE CROOK: What? Quiet! I’m going to make the usual mistake and ignore the endless riches all around me that I could actually go out and fence in some other kingdom in favour of the obviously booby-trapped, utterly unsellable magic jewel embedded in the- oh, crap, it’s taking over my body! I’m- I’m-
SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: Really, really stupid. Verily.
INT: MERLIN’S BEDROOM
MERLIN: Gasp! My plot sense is tingling!
INT: THE TOMB
ARTHUR: I knew I should have put a guard on that gate. Merlin! Find a reason why this is all your fault, march yourself to the stocks and have yourself flogged.
MERLIN: Um-
ARTHUR: Oh, forget it. Ring the bell we sound to close the stable doors after the horses have bolted. I’ll be in my room, blaming everyone but me.
GAIUS: Merlin, whoever did this got more than they bargained for.
MERLIN: I don’t know how they could have gotten in. The gate’s not damaged. The only way to get in would be with the key, and not for instance, a lockpick. Or magic, like every other person we meet has access to.
GAIUS: Curious. I wonder if Mackensie Crook has any ideas…
MERLIN: That’s it! The one person who could have done this must have done it! Arthur!
ARTHUR: Oh, don’t be such a cynic. Mackensie Crook, throw this servant out on his arse. Both buttocks, please.
SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: Gladly, nay, ironically, my lord.
MERLIN: That does it. Merlin punch!
ARTHUR: Oh, and now they’re fighting. Merlin, you fight like a girl. And not a girl who knows how to fight, like most of the girls I know actually do. The other kind of girl. The non-fighting kind. Probably has pigtails and plays hopscotch. That’s you. In your pink dress. Having tea parties with your imaginary friends…
MERLIN: Sire! How stupid are you?
ARTHUR: …in the cells. Guards!
EXT: CAMELOT
SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: I am… returned. I AM…RETURNED! I AM MAKING A COMPLETE MOCKERY OUT OF GETTING MERLIN ARRESTED IN THE LAST SCENE! ATTACK, MY UNIMPRESSIVE SPECIAL EFFECTS! FLAP ABOUT A LITTLE, MY EVIL GARGOYLES! ATTACK! ATTACK! LATER I WILL UNLEASH SOME OF THE MAGIC I’M FAMOUS FOR HAVING, MAYBE! FOR NOW, LET MINOR PROPERTY DAMAGE BE THE HARBINGER OF THEIR DOOOOOM!
ARTHUR: Yay! Monsters!
UTHER: What is happening?
GAIUS: It’s the scene where I say ‘I told you so, sire’. And I did! With gusto!
UTHER: This cannot be Sigan! It must be some other stupid thing I’ve done! I do twelve of them a week! Ask the druids! See if they know I took a piss on Stonehenge last week!
GAIUS: Sire, they do, but I fear this is not about your herpes!
UTHER: My what?
GAIUS: First things first, sire! This is Sigan’s revenge! You cannot kill a dead man! You can only damage his career by casting him in Demons. Believe me, sire, I know!
UTHER: You make a good point. Let’s go kill some monsters.
INT: MERLIN’S CELL
MERLIN: Today, I’m going to cast spells with a vocal component. TOSS BREACH! Ooh, explosive. Note to self, never use that spell again, it looks like it could be useful. Gaius! Thank goodness I found you in time! What can we do!?
GAIUS: You cannot fight Sigan, Merlin. He is much too powerful. You will be destroyed.
MERLIN: Just once, can’t you build me up? Fine. I’m utterly defenseless except for the five million spells I can only ever use when it doesn’t matter! What do I do?
GAIUS: There is only one old enough with the power to-
MERLIN: No… Oh no…
GAIUS: What?
MERLIN: No, please! It was the one actual bit of plot development we did last season!
GAIUS: I know, Merlin, I know. It looked like things were going to change, even give this series a darker edge, but desperate times call for desperate plot twists and believe me, it is the only way. You must press the reset button on your relationship with the dragon under the castle. Make the kissy face if you must.
MERLIN: But I had this whole speech! I swore he’d never see daylight, that I’d never speak to him again! He even did a next-season hook by calling out to Morganna, as if ushering her down the path of darkness and actually having a character instead of just a bizarre accent. You can’t make me undo all that! Please! Gaius! We’re not Voyager!
GAIUS: Merlin…
MERLIN: I know. Sigh. I have no choice. Or free will. Or backbone.
INT: THE DRAGON’S CAVE
MERLIN: Hello? Hello! I need your help!
DRAGON: You told me I would not see you again.
MERLIN: Yeah. I had faith in my writers.
DRAGON: You did? You have more to learn than I thought, young warlock.
MERLIN: I’m not here for myself, I’m here for Arthur!
DRAGON: Yes, yes. This is my ‘smug’ face, incidentally. Go ahead.
MERLIN: You have to help! You’re not evil! Forget what I said last time we met when I said I’d leave you locked up in a cave for the rest of eternity because you were evil and/or saved my life in a way I didn’t like very much! Give me what I need to know to defeat Mackensie Crook without drawing on my own resources of competence or developing in any way as a character who will one day be able to stand alone!
DRAGON: Ah, you wish a deus ex machina? Indeed. So does the road of life loop round into the cul de sac of Saturday evening television. Very well! To defeat Sigan, you must drop your pants in the town square at-
MERLIN: I’m not falling for that again!
DRAGON: Oh, you’re no fun any more. You will need a spell more powerful than any you have used before. But you must give me something in return. A promise. That I may continue being a supporting character in your show, no matter what plot developments you may imagine we have later in this series.
MERLIN: What about promising to free you?
DRAGON: Oh, yes. That too, please.
MERLIN: Grr. You strike a perfectly reasonable bargain. Go on then.
DRAGON: Very well. I grant you this spell. It is the most mighty magic in all the kingdom. Don’t waste it trying to get chicks or I’ll flame your balls off.
EXT: CAMELOT
MERLIN: There’s five minutes of the show to go. Time to-
ARTHUR’S KNIGHT: Arthur!
ARTHUR: Having a line won’t save you, Sir Expendable! Retreat!
MERLIN: Oh no! Arthur’s locked in combat with an indestructable gargoyle. And now one’s attacking- MIND BLAST! Oh. These things go down in one hit? Wish I’d known that a few scenes ago. That was embarassingly easy.
SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: What? You’re a sorcerer? Why are you protecting this arrogant little shit of a prince? He treats you like a common slave!
MERLIN: That’s not true! He’s nice to some of his slaves!
SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: Oh, good grief. I was going to do a tired old ‘join me and we’ll rule the universe’, but now I’m just too depressed. Let’s just cut to the fight.
MERLIN: You do realise I have deus ex machina on my side?
SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: You have- No! Not deus ex machina!
INT: CAMELOT
UTHER: Did anyone just hear a script banging against a wall? Fifty pages, I’ll wager.
GAIUS: Probably just thunder, sire. ‘Tis a common sound around here.
EXT: CAMELOT
MERLIN: Well, that was easy. I’m so glad I have a dragon that solves all my problems for me. I should buy him a cake when I get over myself and STOP HATING HIM.
INT: THRONE ROOM
UTHER: These terrible events. We must learn our lesson from this, Gaius.
GAIUS: Oh, yes? That we must be vigilant against these evil sorcerers, for otherwise magic will destroy us all, especially if we actively go out and kick it in the metaphorical nut-sack for no good reason? That lesson, sire? Again?
UTHER: No, that I must start trusting your wisdom on the grounds that you are never wrong, and realise that every time I ignore you, my whole kingdom ends up on the brink of apocalypse. We must stop trying to fight magic head on and learn to harness it, to live peacefully, and understand that while we may have had problems in the past, good sense must ultimately prevail.
GAIUS: R… really, sire? This is the happiest day of-
UTHER: No, not really. Magic. Grr. Find five women with hook noses and have them burned at the stake. If they’re witches, all the better.
GAIUS: Yes. Yes, sire.
INT: MERLIN’S QUARTERS
GAIUS: …so basically, we’re back to where we were at the start of last series. Have some diced carrots. It is what all true heroes strive for.
MERLIN: Thanks. You know, at this point, killing Uther would be a pretty good idea-
GAIUS: Impossible, my boy. The writers have spoken. Equilibrium must be maintained. You must continue living like a dog, always on the cusp of revelation. Uther must remain in charge, no matter how much he dribbles. As for me, I must take our king his scrofula medicine and retire to my bed of bitter, impotent tears.
MERLIN: I thought he had herpes?
GAIUS: Our king has a very large bladder and no shortage of enemies.
ARTHUR: Merlin! There you are. I haven’t forgotten how you called me a divvy. But I do have to admit, you were right about Mackensie Crook. I formally re-hire you back to the medieval world’s very own Spacely Sprockets – my royal quarters.
MERLIN: Oh. Glee.
ARTHUR: Don’t give me that! You’ve got armour to polish, toilets to scrub and food to prepare… not in that order please. Then you’ll be castrating my horse, washing my ermine, and later, acting as official Royal Footstool at the ball my father is holding to cover up the fact that we have no idea what happened to the evil sorcerer who almost destroyed us today. Oh, and Merlin? See that clock on the wall?
MERLIN: Sigh. “Merlin, you’re a cretin.”
ARTHUR: Ah, the sweet, sweet smell of status quo.