Robin Hood: I See Him

And so it begins, a new Robin Hood show arriving with very little fanfare, virtually no promotion (I counted a teaser, trailer and a couple of interviews with the cast), on a streaming service that no one’s heard of. Still, it did have one very good poster (below), in which Robin holds the bow and Marian pulls the bowstring, which is hopefully an indicator of teamwork and equity in the episodes ahead.

Is there any point in getting invested, or will this be another one-and-done with an unresolved cliff-hanger finish?

As was widely promoted, this take on the legends returns to the Norman/Saxon conflict that was popularized by Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, the novel which also solidified the tradition of setting the tale during the Third Crusade (I guess two warring royal brothers is too good a historical setup to ignore).

Yet the opening scrawl took me a little by surprise, as it places this during the reign of Henry II, which helps explain why Connie Nielson was cast as Queen Eleanor – not just because she’s gorgeous, but because she’s deliberately meant to be a younger version of the character.

Pushing the time period back a little might be an attempt to justify the tension between Saxons and Normans (which was waaaaay over by the time Richard the Lionheart took the throne) but then again, the Saxons are depicted here as goddess-worshipping, salt-of-the-earth cottagecore pagans that commune with the forest and make decisions by listening to their hearts. Let’s just go with it.

The premise on a broad scope is that the Normans are confiscating lands and estates and granting them to Norman lords, gradually consolidating their hold over the land. The more personal conflict is the one each Saxon must make: whether to fight back and risk death, or acquiesce to Norman rule for the sake of their families. Among them is Hugh of Locksley, whose claims to his ancestral home is refused, but who grudgingly takes the opportunity to become one of the king’s foresters by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Sean Bean, in a role that somehow feels inevitable. At some point, we were always going to see him as the Sheriff of Nottingham).

And hey, it’s Tom Mison! I haven’t seen him since the Sleepy Hollow days and that bad Four Weddings and a Funeral show. He was the character who died to provide the funeral. The man who has taken over his house is Steven Waddington, which is funny because this is that actor’s very specific genre. He’s played Ivanhoe, Richard the Lionheart (twice) and a Grandmaster of the Templars during the Third Crusade. Now he’s the Earl of Huntington and the father of Maid Marian.

And it looks as though he’ll be the real villain of this story, not the Sheriff, who at this early stage seems to be more interested in maintaining peace, understanding his adversaries, and doing what he deems best for the crown. I’m here for it. Another nice touch is that he’s a doting father to his daughter Priscilla, whilst Huntington is an abusive one to Marian. (Slight aside, but I wonder what this show would have looked like if Marian had been the Sheriff’s daughter).

As such, Hugh of Locksley is torn between making the most of what he’s got, or fighting for what he’s lost. His wife Joan (Anastasia Griffith – who looked so familiar, turns out she was Princess Abigail in Once Upon a Time) gets the thankless role of repeatedly telling her husband that his first responsibility is to her and her son, something that no wronged man wants to hear, dammit!

Hugh’s story arc – which is far more pronounced than Robin’s in this first episode, and which predictably ends in his execution to motivate the real main character – unfortunately doesn’t really come about from any significant actions that he takes during the course of the episode (or at least nothing that feeds strongly into the “do nothing or fight for your rights” theme).

The flashpoint is when poachers are caught during a hunt that involves both Saxons and Normans (basically, the entire cast at this point). To protect the men from getting their hands cut off in punishment, Hugh insists on a Norman trial – but this only makes the men angry as they know that’ll end in a hanging. Dudes, would you have rather lost your hands? That’s gratitude for you.

Hugh’s attempt at mercy comes back to bite him in the ass when he’s thrown into a cell alongside them. The jailors take the poachers aside and inform one of them that they’re free to go if he kills Hugh, which of course goes terribly wrong when a guard is accidentally stabbed in the skirmish, and Hugh is left holding the knife. Then that annoying thing happens when a character can only say: “I’m innocent!” over and over again instead of clearly and concisely explaining what actually happened.

Oh, and why was Hugh arrested in the first place? Thankfully not because Marian sneaked out of her house to attend a Saxon wedding, but because one of Hugh’s friends ends up being a turncoat, telling the Sheriff and Huntington that he lets poachers off the hook. Curse your sudden but inexplicable betrayal!

I think I would have liked Hugh to have been more of a participant in the lead-up to his own death, though I suppose his wife spends the entire episode telling him not to get angry and lose his temper, only for his outburst in front of the Sheriff to be the catalyst for the noose going over his head. Sometimes wives nag you for good reasons, guys.

So like I said, it’s really Tom Mison’s episode, starting with him telling Robin a story, and ending with his death. Robin spends most of this pilot falling in love with Marian – they meet as children on the edges of Locksley, and he proves through his knowledge of a secret door in the banquet hall that her father stole the estate from Robin’s family.

They meet again as young adults, and it’s essentially love at first sight. I’ve seen some complaints that it all happens too quickly, but why waste time with a slow burn? We know it’s going to happen, so let’s get to it! The second time they cross paths is on the hunt, then Robin comes to visit her at Locksley, then Marian ventures into Sherwood and ends up attending a Saxon wedding.

So that’s four meetings in all, twice at Locksley, and twice in Sherwood. Already the show has established each one’s affinity with the natural world (Marian catches frogs and loves marigolds, Robin has been raised on stories of the trees and their spiritual importance) and the pair of them are clearly much freer and happier in the forest.

Our final main character of note is an original one written especially for this show: Priscilla, the Sheriff’s daughter.

Now, throughout the legends of Robin Hood, Marian is the singular consistent feminine presence (unless you count Clorinda the Shepherdess, which you shouldn’t, because that figure predated Marian and is essentially just another name for her anyway). And that’s a shame because women need other women, and any adaptation is free to add as many fresh characters as they like.

Sometimes Marian will get a nursemaid or handmaiden, and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine often pops up if the adaptation is set during the Third Crusade. Occasionally one of the Merry Men will get an onscreen wife or sister (usually Little John) and naturally there are any number of distressed damsels, tavern wenches or evil nuns.

But none have ever truly stuck in the way that the likes of Friar Tuck (who appears quite late in the ballads, as indicated by the term “friar,” which wasn’t even around by the time of King Richard) and the Saracen figure (who was first introduced in Robin of Sherwood in the 1980s) have stuck.

So I was intrigued by the fact that a daughter of the Sheriff of Nottingham would be present here, albeit a little leery. All of the promotional material seemed to cast her as the conniving hussy who sleeps around with her father’s men, and sure enough, her very first scene as an adult involves her having rough sex up against the castle walls.

And you know what that means! The show wastes no time in throwing Marian and Priscilla into the roles of Madonna and Whore, with the former characterized as sweetness and light, and the latter as the promiscuous tart (actual dialogue with her lover: “you’re dangerous…” “yes, I am.”)

I was dreading this, as very recently I wrote a whole other post on the way female characters are constantly positioned as foils to one another, usually so that one can be unfavourably compared to the other. If Marian is the good girl, then Priscilla must be the bad.

And yet, perhaps there’s some hope. It turns out the Sheriff is surprisingly modern in his parenting style – telling Priscilla that she must stay and learn while he’s dealing with petitioners, and later describing her as his “heir.” She also got rather more interesting towards the end of the episode, when she seemingly has a prophetic dream that spurs her to advise her father not to execute Hugh of Locksley, for fear of far-reaching consequences.

Is she a Cassandra in the making? Hopefully it’s that aspect of her, rather than her “I have sex and am therefore evil” side that gets the attention going forward. Just once I’d like to see a period drama in which the horny female character is the heroine, and the villain is an absolute prude.

In the midst of all this, the man himself, Robin Hood, comes across as a little bland. It’s hard not to compare this cast to the version of this story that looms large in my head – the BBC’s Robin Hood – especially since the characterization of the main cast is strikingly different here.

Jonas Armstrong’s Robin was charismatic and a natural leader; a Jack-the-Lad type with deep convictions. Jack Patten’s Robin is still a work-in progress; just beginning to figure out who he is and what he wants. He’s also quite introverted, and I had to laugh a little when Marian says to him: “you don’t say much, do you?” since this exact same line was spoken by Isabella in the BBC’s Robin Hood, though in that case it was said to Little John.

In comparison to Lucy Griffiths’s outspoken Marian, who was the epitome of early-noughties girl power, Lauren McQueen is quiet and demure; a free spirit but also very prim and proper. She too is at the very start of her story, and already it’s one of alternate viewpoints and shifting alliances.

Miscellaneous Observations:

This thing had opening credits, holy shit! Granted, they’re not very good ones, but outside of Game of Thrones and assorted spin-offs, I don’t think I’ve seen them in a while.

I smiled at this shot, as it was straight out of the BBC’s version:

Ah, that takes me back. But then this happened, a shot they never would have been able to afford:

There’s plenty of mysticism woven throughout this, which hardly ever comes up in Robin Hood stories (the only ones that come to mind are Robin of Sherwood, and the PC game Conquests of the Longbow, which featured wood sprites and Marian as a forest priestess). It’s a little strange to see it here, especially as naked fairies and badly-rendered CGI stags aren’t exactly awe-inspiring, but we’ll see how this plays out.

I do like that there’s an ornate sort of fairy tale quality to how this looks, with the show opting to avoid any grimdark aesthetics and fill the screen with rich greens instead. When the characters are in a forest, you can tell the actors are actually in a forest. It reminds me a bit of how Ever After looked, which also went for realism, but with colour and vibrancy.

The corrupt priest is present and accounted for. Yes, it’s a cliché that the forest-dwelling pagans are more compassionate and generous to their fellow man than members of the clergy, but bad priests/bishops/monks/nuns are a fairly integral part of the oldest Robin Hood ballads. At one point I think this guy says: “Christ follows the Normans here,” – er, not really, but I promised not to get caught up in historical accuracy. That way lies madness.

Robin is actually called “Robert,” and nicknamed “Rob” throughout this episode (which has precedence in Robin of Sherwood, when Michael Praed’s Robin was killed and Jason Connery’s Robert took his place). It remains to be seen how he’s going to end up being called Robin.

I wonder if the secret door/room that Robin tells Marian about as a child will come into play again later. It seems too useful to be ignored.

That Robin has two living parents at the start of the show is pretty rare; to have a mother, especially. I can only think of one other adaptation that includes her off the top of my head, and it’s the little-seen Wolfshead that was released in the seventies. I also liked that Robin and Marian meet as children – I don’t know why, but it always feels like these two characters should have known each other from a very early age.

One interesting bit of dialogue from Marian was her remark that she hates the hunt, presumably because she either hates violence or loves animals. Most other Marians I can think of would love hunting, as they’d see it as a chance to go riding in the forest and let her hair down and eke out some freedom for herself. This is a gentler Marian than most, and they’re definitely not going for “tomboy” in her characterization.

On the subject of dialogue, it can get a little rough at times – that aforementioned: “You’re dangerous”/“yes, I am,” nonsense, and stuff like: “in my culture it’s rude to stare”/“in mine, it’s rude not to,” though kudos for the father/son archery bonding session not ending with Hugh advising Robin to aim with his heart. I braced myself when he pointed at his son’s heart, but then he went on to discuss posture, breathing and listening. Dodged a bullet, there!

Will Scarlet (or at least Gamwell – a name which is associated with this character) turns up in the capacity of Robin’s cousin. He gets the role of the lovelorn beau who starts a fight at a wedding because he tries it on with the bride, his former love. Again, I like that these two are childhood companions/relatives, as that’s the role Will often takes in various stories. Will’s father, the brother of Robin’s mother, also looks like he’ll be a fairly important supporting character.

One of the poachers appeared to be called “Lurch” (unless I misheard) and the other was played by Ryan Gage, who is most recognizable as playing King Louis in the BBC’s recent-ish Musketeers series, and the guy who inexplicably ended up being the final boss in the Hobbit trilogy. Man, those films were dire.

So, the show has already ticked the “poachers get caught” box (it happens in every Robin Hood story) so what other famous incidences will they cover? The archery competition? Helping Allan-a-Dale rescue his love? The quarterstaff bridge fight with Little John? Crossing the river with Friar Tuck?

***

To sum up, I liked it. As a veteran of the BBC’s Robin Hood, the anachronisms and slight cheesiness don’t bother me, and more than anything this reminded me of Robin of Sherwood, especially with that strand of mysticism I mentioned. Hopefully it won’t be too pronounced, as I much prefer the human dramas and inner conflicts.

So far it would seem that a major theme will be what the right thing to do is when it comes to a specific type of oppression: that of colonization and assimilation. The Saxons are the persecuted class, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Normans are here to stay. Should Robin therefore attempt to integrate himself among them (as his relationship with Marian seems to imply) or go to war against them?

His mother very much embodied the “accept it and try to get along” perspective, and she encouraged Robin’s relationship with Marian, no doubt seeing it as a way to integrate two cultures. But his father has now fallen foul of Norman (in)justice, having tried to help his people in the role of a king’s forester and been hanged for his troubles.

From Robin’s point of view, his family tried to play by the rules, and got shafted anyway.  

At this early stage, it all seems like an attempt to do the whole “colonization is bad” thing, but with white people across the board. There’s more talk of politics than I expected, and though it’s all rather surface level at this stage (and will probably remain so), I’m glad it’s there.

I appreciated that they took their time setting up the situation and exploring the characters, and hopefully they’ll lean into an Andor-like exploration of whether or not a cause or principle is more important than a person’s life, along with the true cost of fighting back (with the caveat being that the Empire isn’t going to be destroyed this time around; the Saxons have to eventually make peace with the Normans).

Whatever happens, I have to take umbridge with those reviews that are complaining it’s yet another Robin Hood adaptation, as such things are not quite as common as you might think. The last mainstream film was in 2018, and the last television show was in 2009 (I’m not counting stuff like Sherwood or Robyn Hood).

So, off we go. I have so much on my plate right now, but everything is going on hold for Robin Hood.