i) haha just to get this out of the way the MINE from the Robin of Scargill ep is connected to a TUNNEL from the CASTLE to the FOREST
ii) useless of jizbum’s “character” is STILL on the morph — now (as well as remaining a haplessly clownish minion who pieface has actual confused feelings for underneath the fake feelings) he is the CAUSE OF THE ENTIRE WAR (or at least the lack of a peace)
iii) which i guess underlines the HIGH CONCEPT of this odd odd series as it has emerged — the highest possible stakes (moral, political, historical) in a context of the lowest possible competence (the merrymen have proved “victorious” almost every ep but really only by dint of each time committing one fewer catastrophically naive blunders) (i do actually like this “learning curve” aspect of the project, even if it cuts against my growing complaint — that it has taken a LUDICROUSLY LONG TIME to reach even the current level of denouement and full-on plot-strand-linkage)
iv) which is viz that robin, a hardened but disenchanted product of the war in the holy land, has discovered that the claque back home have been fomenting the war’s continuance — for example by assassination — against the wishes of the True King (= Richard); ie the stakes are significantly raised bcz by LAYING BARE THIS PLOT, a peace treaty can be signed and the war ended and the True King returned, and Merrie Englande returned to its proper happy (er feudalnormanyoke) state; but in all of christendom and indeed paynimdom ONLY TINY EMO can in fact LAY BARE THIS PLOT (=end the war…) and from here on in (i assume) the immediate emotional-tactical needs of the merrymen (viz this week the rescue of Dr Tomboy Saracen) will conflict plotwise with the chance to LAY BARE THIS PLOT (=end the war…)
v) at every turn he is elegantly constrained — despite the ruthlessness the war has injected into him, and moreover despite the casually lethal murderishness of that hoho so-komikal stage villein villain the Rubbiff — to achieve every win, little or big, by purity of peaceful means (ie amusing cunning rather than any level of violence beyond the comfy punch).