Robin Hood 1x09 "A Thing or Two About Loyalty"

I'm excited for this one because it's a very Much-centric episode with an absolutely adorable ship in it! I still ship Robin/Much and I always will, but Much/Eve is completely adorable and I really wanted him to find her again at the end of the show. Besides, I have no issue shipping contradictory things because I ship Robin/Marian too. Alright, time to get started! To Lord Much!

Thoughts While Watching:

• The sheriff looks hilariously bored out of his mind at this demonstration.
• I always find it so funny when the sheriff uses a guard as a stepping stool.
• I love how giddy he is! And he has some major crazy eyes going on.
• Oh, Lambert, Lambert, Lambert...poor, stupid, little Lambert...what did you think was going to happen? Why did you agree to make it for the sheriff in the first place? Have you never met him before? Never even heard of him? You can't just make an unstoppable weapon of mass destruction like that, show him that you know how to make it, and just refuse to make anymore of it for him unless he promises not use it as a weapon. Did you really think he was just going to use that on the mines? His promises mean nothing and everyone that's ever encountered him before would know exactly what he planned to do with it. You put two and two together too late, my friend.
• Although I suppose that guy who knew how to make the armor in season two was allowed to walk away...hmm...
• How did that explode? Nobody shot it with a flaming arrow and it wasn't thrown into a fire. 
• Love Robin and John almost getting blown to bits.
• Maybe Guy didn't lie. Maybe he wasn't going to use it as a weapon, but the sheriff would. Nah, Guy's probably just a piece of shit friend.
• So now the plot is in place. Guy wants the ledger with the recipe for making "black powder" also known as "Greek Fire" which is an explosive, Lambert has it hidden away and refuses to give it up, and the sheriff is planning to torture him until he has it. 
• Here we have an adorable, funny scene with the gang:
• Allan: You could take out a whole town, couldn't ya? 'Hello villagers! What, you can't pay your taxes?' BOOM 'You're out!' (I love you, Allan!)
• John: It's not funny! It punched me to the ground. (I love his accent and the way he says the word ground.)
• Will: What was that?
• Robin: Greek Fire. When we were in the Holy Land, we heard tales of boats being destroyed, some without a trace. (I wonder how historically accurate this is...)
• Djaq: Typical. Our alchemists have been experimenting with it for years, and it's called Greek? Never Saracen, Greek! (Love the way she says the word typical, not sure why. Actually, her whole sentence here, her tone sounds more feminine than it did before. Maybe she's feeling like she can be herself more around them now.)
• Allan: It's amazing.
• Will: No, it's not. It's evil. It doesn't require any courage or strength or wit to use it.
• My thoughts: The vastly different reactions from Allan and Will are interesting. They're both right in their own ways. Will is spot on with his assessment that this is a dangerous weapon that would allow someone to cause massive damage without any fighting skills at all. However, Allan is rightfully fascinated by it and the interesting part about that is so is Djaq. My ship!
• Poor Much. He decides to do the brave thing and volunteers to allow himself to get captured so he can release Lambert and the rest of these assholes all laugh at him! You guys are lucky you're fictional and behind a screen or I'd be throwing punches right about now!
• "Arrest me!" Omg, Much...how can anyone not love you?
• For someone so obsessed with loyalty, Guy sure doesn't show much. He thinks he is, by not full blown torturing him right out of the gate, but this isn't loyalty.
• There's plenty to know. Weren't you just trying to figure out if there was a spy a couple episodes ago?
• Allan, stop being mean to Much!
• OMG! The facial expressions! "I dub you Earl of Bonchurch." Much and Guy both look like the sheriff has lost his mind. Much is probably wondering if he died and went to heaven, what with the feast and the lordship being granted to him, and Guy is wondering if this is hell, with the project being taken away from him and a peasant being granted part of what I assume are his lands (since they were Robin's to give to Much, wouldn't they be Guy's now?).
• Lord Much! This plan is so strange but I love it.
• Guy absolutely hates this haha
• Guy sounds like such a toddler when he's talking to Marian. "I am angry because the Greek Fire was my project and the sheriff took it away from me!" Wahh, he stole my toy! It was mine! If you're actually upset about your friend, just admit it. It's not weakness to show you have some ability to feel human emotions. And if not, well...stop whining then.
• Her plan here isn't a bad one. Sure, it doesn't work, but it was a clever idea.
• Allan's face when he sees Much! haha "All bets are off."
• Oh, so this is Bonchurch. Eve's braid thing is so much less annoying than Kate's. Much has a type though. Blonde hair with an ugly braid. 
• The kindest thing that Robin could have done at this point was kill Lambert quickly with the smallest amount of pain possible.
• LMAO The sheriff now has guards stationed in the damn privy. That poor guy. Can you imagine being given that job?
• It's a bit rude that Marian only bothered with Much long enough to give him the letter for Robin. 
• Hahaha omg Much's face! Whenever she said, "Come upstairs" in that flirty tone of voice, his eyes almost popped out of his damn head.
• Djaq is so excited! Aww, it's so cute.
• Much deserves all the relaxing baths in the world. He's so happy.
• I love Robin teasing Much! I love when their friendship has cute moments like this. But aww, poor Much. He took Robin's words at face value when he said that the sheriff made a mistake making Much a noble.
• Why does Robin insist upon being an ass to Marian about Guy all the time? He knows she didn't really consent to this marriage. He was right there when her life was threatened.
• I agree with Robin. They have no right to decide what should or shouldn't exist as knowledge. I know he claims later on to go back on this stance, but I think it's pretty obvious he doesn't or else he would've never allowed Djaq to take it out of the fire.
• UGH, NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT GLORY!
• I hate these scenes of the sheriff painting his toenails. So gross!
• He's so openly manipulative and there's so much, like...borderline sexual harassment going on here.
• I'm actually surprised the sheriff killed him as quickly as he did. I would've thought he'd torture him more.
• Poor Marian. It was a good plan, just not good enough.
• Omg, poor Much! This horse comparison is so awful. But I LOVE when the sheriff loses his mind and starts jumping around and neighing. 
• Djaq's face when she's reading the ledger is so full of quiet amazement, like she's absolutely enthralled by this. It's clear that she loves knowledge for knowledge's sake. She's obviously very well educated and eager to learn more at any opportunity. What I find interesting here is that Will has such a black and white way of looking at the world. He doesn't see how any good can come out of this knowledge existing in the world and he doesn't seem to care at all that she does. Love them both, but this is one of many reasons why I don't think they'd actually make a good match. One sees the world in shades of gray, knows that life and morality are complicated and is far more understanding of that when people fail to live up to expectations, and wants to soak up all the knowledge she can like a sponge and the other sees the world in absolutes, black and white, good vs. evil, right vs. wrong. This will come up again in how they view Allan's betrayal in season two. I know opposites attract, but I think when it comes to something like this, it's a fundamental difference that will eventually lead to the realization that they are incompatible. I personally agree more with Djaq in how she views the world, but I can respect Will's outlook too. He's obviously driven by a very keen sense of justice and a desire to protect the people at all costs and I get that. I just don't think they'd make the best match.
• Will: This is not science. This is murder. (very black and white view of things)
• Djaq: Think of this as progress. Other scientists could do much better things with Greek Fire. (Pay attention to the look on her face as she says this. This matters to her and he just doesn't care. He thinks his way of viewing things is the right way and that's that.)
• Allan replies to Djaq with, "Yeah! You could blow up the entire castle with that stuff!" OMG...THE FORESHADOWING. But look at how he may not fully understand all of Djaq's reasons for why the ledger is so important to her, but he has her back anyway.
• Upon finding out Lambert is dead and wanted his work to be protected, Djaq wants to do exactly that. She wants to protect his life's work and study the ledger so everything he worked so hard for that can be used for good doesn't get completely destroyed. She looks so excited and passionate about it too. Will immediately jumps in to argue against her point and the way he says "Robin..." makes it sound like he's saying, "Come on, Robin, you know I'm right." He really can't see her point of view. It's not that he sees it and disagrees with it, he just plain doesn't seem to see it at all.
• God, she looks so sad when she hands the ledger to Robin.
• Don't get me wrong, I don't think that people have to agree on everything to be compatible. If it were only the Greek Fire, I wouldn't think it's a big deal. But I think this disagreement is evidence of a much larger divide. It's not that they see this one issue differently, it's that the way they view the world is different. Like I said, one sees shades of gray and one sees everything in black and white. 
• Aww!!! Much and Eve are both so cute! I LOVE that Much decided to throw a big party and invite everyone, it's such a Much thing to do. I LOVE how close Eve seems to be with her mother. And you can tell that Eve is actually starting to fall for him for real whenever she says, "and you made that happen." That's the start of some real feelings developing!
• Knowing what we actually know about Eve, knowing that she works for the sheriff, knowing that later on she seems resigned, though very unhappy, to getting in the bath just because Much asked her to, really makes this rather sad. When she says that she makes sure her mother never wants for anything, you just know she's done some things she hated to take care of her family. She's not just a spy for the sheriff, I can almost guarantee that either on her own as a side job or at the sheriff's bidding she has slept with men for money and didn't want to have to do it.
• Aww, her smile when Much says they are friends now!!!
• Okay, I get that Marian is only looking out for him. She's being extra harsh about it, but she doesn't want to see Much, who does tend to be naive, fall for this girl only to be taken advantage of and putting everyone's lives at risk in the process. But geez, Marian, harsh much? "If she's working for the sheriff, she deserves no less." You, of all people, should know that things are more complicated than that. Wasn't Rowan ready to kill you for your association to Guy a few episodes ago? Haven't you seen that some of the guards, like Joe, don't actually agree with the sheriff and are driven to doing evil acts out of a sense of desperation? Are you really ready and willing to let this poor girl be tortured for giving the sheriff false information? Is this how you justify what happened to Guy's sergeant to yourself? That because he was working for Guy he deserved it so it's okay that you let him die for your actions? If that's how you view it, then why so much concern for Lambert? He was working for the sheriff and Guy too before he decided to back out at the last minute. Like, damn. Eve doesn't deserve this. 
• I get this song stuck in my head all the time too, just like the lullaby Alice was singing in the second episode.
• This is the scene I was talking about above. She's clearly developed feelings for Much at this point and I think she wants to be able to form a real friendship with him at the very least. She definitely views him as a good person, which is why her reaction is so heartbreaking when he says, "You could have a bath." Obviously, he means exactly what he says. He wants her to treat herself just like she's treating him and soak in a relaxing bath. But Eve has obviously dealt with her fair share of men who act like absolute pigs. The look on her face is like she was living in a dream world where some men actually give a damn about other people and care about treating the peasants with respect and making sure they're taken care of and reality just smacked her right in the face when she thinks Much is asking her to take off her clothes and get in the bathtub with him to provide sexual services just because she's his servant and he can force her to do so. She looks so incredibly disappointed, at him for letting her down, at her situation in general, and at herself for letting herself fall for his act. 
• Except obviously Much is not a pig that would take advantage of women, thank God! The look of horror on his face when he realizes that she's taking off her clothes in front of him and the way his voice kind of shakes when he clarifies what he meant is proof to me that he's not as naive as he looks. He obviously realizes what she was about to do and he also seems to instinctively know that it would not have been truly willing or consensual if she did. 
• "When I was in the Holy Land, I would find myself craving something. I thought it was hunger and it was hunger most of the time. But now and then, when I would feel it, it would not be in the stomach but in the heart." I LOVE that line. 
• "You could stay here with me." OMG MY SHIP! 
• Thank God Much doesn't go along with Marian's plan.
• "You know that I am all that stands between you and the sheriff." Yeah, no way in hell that he isn't intentionally coercing her into this marriage. He knows what he's doing. That's a threat.
• I LOVE the way Eve completely switches gears around the sheriff. This act she's pulling is incredible. She must act this way around him all the time and it's impressive because we've already seen how much she's not really like this.
• AWWWW omg they are so freakin cute and adorable!
• Why couldn't she just go with you now? I mean, I guess she needed to be with her mother, but omg whyyyy????
• Aw, the kiss!!! Much gets kissed!!!
• "Perhaps before..." AWWW
• "I did not do this for Robin Hood. I did it for you." YES!!!
• That look on his face! He's so sad. My heart is breaking for him. I love Much so much!
• "Inconceivable." hahaha I can't handle this word even when it's used in it's correct context. I just can't.
• Why would the sheriff assume that Eve is in on it? Why wouldn't he just assume that she was tricked too? Though I suppose that wouldn't be enough to save her even if he did.
• So was Robin actually trying to kill Guy here?
• Love that acting from Richard Armitage! Love the way Guy gets thrown. It's fantastic. 
• "Life is a cruel mistress, Gisborne. Clean up your mess." I don't know why, but that's one of my favorite lines from the sheriff.
• Allan's disappointing me here by offering to burn the ledger for Robin. Djaq looks sooo disappointed and distraught in this scene too.
• "This is not about one man's wish." Robin repeating Will's words from earlier. I'm disappointed at Will too.
• God, she's so upset when it gets thrown in.
• OMG Much! I love him so much.
• The boys are so cute here. Absolutely adorable! John yelling to throw him in the fire, omg! "All hail, Lord Much! Let's burn him!"
• Okay, so that ending...let's discuss. Djaq sneakily steals the ledger back from out of the fire and Robin sees her do it. This is played up in such a way that you would really think we'd get more of a pay off from it but it takes over an entire season for it to come up again and at that point we barely get anything. All we get is the knowledge that Djaq did study the ledger, made her own black powder, and carries a small amount of it on her, just in case. She'll use it in the first part of the season two finale, Robin will yell out one line about how he said to destroy it (and never confesses that he knew she had it all along), and she just shrugs and says she disobeyed him without a care in the world, and he says that he's glad she did and asks if she has more. I really wonder if there was originally supposed to be more to this than that. It seems like we're supposed to be suspicious of Djaq after this episode. Since I've already seen this all before and I know she doesn't do anything bad with it, obviously I'm not suspicious of her, so let's take what we know about this to analyze it. I don't think that Robin ever really wanted to burn the ledger. He said earlier that he didn't want to destroy it, that they had no right to decide what should or shouldn't exist as knowledge, and I think he meant every word. I don't think he ever changed his mind. So why did he agree to burn it? Was it just not that important to him and not worth the fight? He was getting a lot of push-back from Will and Marian. Maybe he figured that getting rid of it would shut them up. Did the rest of the gang change their minds after seeing it in action? Allan was obviously on board with it initially and we never really saw any opinion out of John and Much (well, John did kind of have a negative reaction to it initially because it was used against him but he also stopped Will from burning it), but Allan appears to at least have changed his mind enough at the end that he's willing to help burn it for Robin. Maybe Robin felt ganged up on and like he had to burn it to keep the peace in the gang? But Robin knew that Djaq wanted to keep it so at least one other person agreed with him. So my next question is, was Robin planning on pulling it back out himself? I think it's possible, but unlikely. He wouldn't have had a good opportunity to do so because he was too busy teasing Much. Did he suspect that Djaq would try to save it? Could that perhaps be part of the motivation behind creating a good distraction for the rest of the gang? Did he want her to do this? I mean, he did agree with her. Maybe that was his plan? Is it possible, knowing how deeply she disagreed with his decision here, that he might have intentionally set up a test to see whether or not she would follow his orders when they go against her own beliefs? Did the fact that she disobeyed him and hid it from him have an impact on how much he trusts her later on? It seems to me that as the show goes on the people he trusts the most in the gang are Much and Will. Much is like his other half and the person he's known the longest so that makes sense, but he's also shown his trust in Will several times, including using him as the decoy when he figures out that there's a traitor in the gang and trusting him to take care of Marian when Prince John's men are coming to destroy Nottingham. This is odd considering Will abandoned them and stole the goods Marian took from Guy in the series one finale right along with Allan. Why did he trust Will so much more than Allan when they both did that together? Will also lied to him and nearly got everyone in Nottingham killed when he was acting out of grief in the episode where Dan dies. Other than this incident, Djaq seems to show much more loyalty, trustworthiness, and obedience than anyone else in the gang besides Much. She shows more than Will, as I've explained with these examples, John just tends to knock Robin out when he disagrees with him or, in one episode of season two, just blatantly disregards Robin's orders and does what he likes, and Allan obviously turns traitor. So why is Will the one he always turns to when he needs someone he trusts? I'm going off on a tangent here now, I know, but I suppose the decoy thing in "Ducking and Diving" required him to beat up the person and he might not have been comfortable punching a woman even if he did view Djaq as an equal and the decision of who to leave in town in "Walkabout" may have been the same reason. Whoever he left in town would likely not make it back out so leaving Djaq there would have been putting her life in great risk and maybe he was just more willing to do that to a man than a woman. I know they say that she's one of the lads and appear to view her as an equal most of the time, but I think some of these chivalrous ideas are just too ingrained into them. I really do think they treat her a little bit differently because she's a woman, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. So I guess that there's not really enough evidence either way to determine whether or not this incident had any impact on how much he trusts her, but I'd be interested to see whether or not anyone has any other ideas about this. My last question is, did the writers intend to actually go somewhere with this when they originally put this in? If so, what was their plan? Was Djaq originally a possibility for the traitor storyline? Because if so, thank God they changed their mind with that. Allan was the perfect choice, but beyond that, can you imagine the implications of making the only woman, person of color, and Muslim in the gang a traitor? Jesus. Maybe they were going to have her just disobey him in a smaller way than that storyline, like a one off thing, and this was supposed to be foreshadowing for it? I don't know. It's interesting to think about though because I can't imagine that that one brief scene in the season two finale is all they originally planned for this. 

Final Thoughts:

This was such a fun episode! I LOVE Much/Eve so much! I ship it so hard! I really wish she would've come back. I wish that she would have either joined the gang now or that at some point, maybe in season three, she would've come back. Think of the possibilities. We could've had Eve in season three instead of Kate! Or even if they still included Kate, we could've had Much/Eve instead of the absolute monstrosity that was the Much/Kate/Allan/Robin/Isabella love pentagon. I hated that storyline. It was a hot mess. I find it extremely hard to believe that three different people in the gang had a crush on Kate. Why would they? Why would anyone? Nothing against Joanne Froggatt, this isn't about Kate's looks, it's about her personality. Much/Eve would've been so much better! And then we wouldn't have had to deal with the awfulness that was Robin betraying Much by starting a relationship with Kate (whom he obviously didn't even care about) when he knew how Much felt. Poor Much. Season three was rough on him. He had to watch two people he had a crush on start a relationship together without him (yeah, I said what I said, Much obviously had a crush on Robin). I just love Eve and Much/Eve so much and we could've had it all! And poor Much. This is the only chance he'll ever have to be a lord or earl or whatever. This is the closest he'll ever get to having Bonchurch. My poor baby. He wanted it so badly! He would've made a great noble. He proved that this episode. He genuinely cared about his people and doing the right thing. Oh, well. At least he got it for a couple of days. But I've literally never fallen this hard for a ship that lasted only one episode. I fell in love with them as much as they fell in love with each other and my heart just absolutely crumbled. Great job to both of the actors and the writers for making me feel this passionate about them!

Side Note: I know that the term "bisexual" didn't exist in medieval times so they couldn't have actually said the word, but I kind of wish they would have canonically made it clear that Much was bisexual because (in my opinion) he obviously was and he would've been a great example of positive representation. I know that Sam Troughton said that he viewed Much as asexual, but I don't know how accurate that is. He might not have been a very sexual person, but he definitely felt romantic attraction and I think it's pretty clear he felt it for Robin, Eve, and Kate. I've always assumed it was obvious to everyone that Much has feelings for Robin, but apparently some people in the fandom disagree and honestly believe that he was straight and thought that the obvious jealousy he showed was a sign of him just being a possessive friend, which is really surprising to me. I thought it was clear that he loved Robin as more than a friend, but I guess we all have different interpretations. Regardless, being bi myself, I appreciated having Much for representation as a teenager even if it wasn't officially canon and even if some others disagree with my interpretation of the character.