ROBIN HOOD 2.8 - "Get Carter"

Writer: Richard Standeven
Director: Roger Goldby

Cast: Jonas Armstrong (Robin), Lucy Griffiths (Marian), Keith Allen (Sheriff), Richard Armitage (Guy Of Gisbourne), Sam Troughton (Much), Gordon Kennedy (Little John), Harry Lloyd (Will Scarlett), Joe Armstrong (Allan-a-Dale), Anjali Jay (Djak) & Joseph Kennedy (Carter)

The Sheriff recruits a deadly assassin to kill Robin, and Marian becomes a loose canon in Robin's gang...

The most memorable thing about Get Carter is a sudden wave of thinly veiled double entendres from the Sheriff (Keith Allen) -- beginning with a fnar-fnar "why don't you ever kiss my ring?" comment to Guy (Richard Armitage), who he later teases with the threat of kisses, before Nottingham's vilest is kicked in the balls by Robin (Jonas Armstrong). A gay-bashing subtext on a family show? Surely not!

But away from the episode's weird dalliance with homosexuality in the Middle Ages (in pure dirty panto-style, obviously), episode 8 finds the Sheriff recruiting Carter (Joseph Kennedy), a handsome blonde assassin fresh from the Crusades, to kill Robin Hood and retrieve the stolen Great Pact Of Nottingham...

Meanwhile, Robin is having problems trying to merge Marian (ravishing Lucy Griffiths) into his team, as her single-minded fighting style doesn't click with their team-work ethic. Indeed, she proves herself quite a liability when she drags the outnumbered and unprepared gang into a fight in Clun Village Fortunately, Carter promptly arrives to upstage everyone with his superior fighting skills, saves their skins, endears himself to Robin, and tricks his way back to the outlaws' camp...

Much (Sam Troughton) has his suspicions about this curiously-familiar stranger, and he's later proved right when Carter effortlessly captures the gang and reveals himself as the vengeful brother of Thomas -- a heroic soldier who died in the Crusades, supposedly because of Robin's actions...

Elsewhere, Guy orders Allan (Joe Armstrong) to find the runaway Marian, forcing Allan to pretend she's joined a convent and forge a letter to Guy from the Mother Superior.

Get Carter is quite possibly the best episode of the season, mainly because its plot is less convoluted than usual, and it builds on the season's past events very well -- continuing the Sheriff's Great Pact subplot and involving a belated return to the series' Crusades back-story...

In Carter, the script creates a character who should have become Allan's replacement, manages to make limp Robin feel like a formidable opponent for once, and contains a handful of emotional scenes that are surprisingly effective: Little John consoling a grieving Marian, Robin persuading Carter he's not to blame for his brother's death, and Much bemoaning his low-standing in the gang hierarchy...

The action sequences are better staged than usual, with even occasional Asterix-style comedic clangs slotting in well to the choreography. The overall production is clearly more expansive and immersive this year, too -- and there are some wonderful castle sequences running along the battlements.

As always, there are some irritations: like Carter's incessant sword-swinging and further reliance on Djak's magical Turkish medicine to get the storyline out of a dead-end, but nothing too distracting. In streamlining the script to simple A and B plots, beefing up the character moments, and ensuring the episode continues some ongoing subplots, Get Carter becomes nothing less than enjoyable and occasionally rather thrilling.

The turnaround in quality is actually quite startling when you compare season 2 to the dawdling, repetitive, slog of season 1. The unfortunate casting decisions in key roles, anachronisms, and a general family-too-friendly atmosphere, will always be its undoing -- but, given its ingredients, Robin Hood is finally cooking up a Saturday evening treat!


23 November 2007
BBC1, 7.15 pm