Summary
Robin Hood focuses primarily on romance in Episode 7, as several characters find new beaus to fret over, though there is a late heist to keep things on-brand.
When you think of Robin Hood, you think of arrows and bags of gold and tights. I do, anyway. What I don’t tend to think much about is tangled love affairs like something out of a young-adult drama, but that seems to be a primary concern in the MGM+ adaptation. The titular outlaw, Maid Marian, and Priscilla all have new paramours in Episode 7, or at least something resembling one, and if it weren’t for a late action scene depicting another heist, this time of a local Norman ruler, it’d be easy to confuse this show with one that didn’t have anything to do with our typical understanding of Robin Hood whatsoever.
Marian’s confused in “Thieves With A Purpose”, since after the previous episode made it blindingly obvious, she has finally figured out that Robert is Robin Hood, and is thus responsible not just for all the chaos unfolding in Nottingham but also, more problematically, her brother’s death. Rob doesn’t do a very good job of defending himself, pointing out that Aronne’s death was an accident but failing to mention that it wasn’t even him that took his life, but he’s on the back foot when Marian starts listing all the other “accidents” that he’s responsible for. After a while, the claims that you didn’t mean it don’t hold much water, although I’d argue that defrauding a bishop of a few quid isn’t quite as heinous as hanging a man for a crime he didn’t commit, which is how we got here in the first place.
Nevertheless, Marian doesn’t want to see Rob anymore. Putting aside the fact that Eleanor isn’t inclined to let her wallow in her grief – having intuited, one supposes, that she now has an opportunity to use Rob to her own ends without having to uphold her end of the bargain and dismiss Marian from her service – Marian immediately meets someone who can take her mind off the breakup: Prince John. Introduced saving her from some unsavoury types and being all charming and princely, John immediately takes a shine to Marian, and vice versa, even if his sudden, unannounced arrival in England is a bit politically contentious.
The only thing that might put the kibosh on John courting Marian is Eleanor, who is politically shrewd enough to have realised that John has ulterior motives for being at court. Sensing the immediate closeness developing between him and Marian, who is quickly promoted to chambermaid, putting her closer to the Queen, Eleanor tasks Marian with continuing to indulge in advances so that she can figure out his real play. Eleanor, lest we forget, wants to install Prince Richard on the throne, a more even-keel and – vitally – malleable potential leader, apparently since as far back as their childhoods. John knows this and also knows that, as per the usual rules of succession, he’s next in line. But through Marian, Eleanor can hopefully determine the path he’s taking and cut him off on the way.
This means that Marian has to “pretend” to become close to John, meaning it isn’t obvious whether her feelings are genuine or not, perhaps even to her. It’s similarly unclear whether John knows what she’s up to or if his feelings are real; he catches her snooping in his office, which reveals he has been meeting with the Archbishop of Lille to curry favour with the religious institutions in France and England, but he seems to buy her excuse. Since Eleanor has made it pretty clear that he has some darker tendencies lurking just beneath the surface, there’s enough ambiguity in this whole dynamic to make it quite compelling.
Away from the royal court, things in the Midlands are becoming pretty untenable. The Sheriff, having now figured out Robin Hood’s true identity and resigned himself to the fact that the outlaw’s fight is personal, is attempting to devise new ways of apprehending him but continues to be stymied, in part because the Earl of Huntingdon, still smarting from the death of his son and the Sheriff’s inability to get a handle on the circumstances that led to it, is attempting to lead a minor mutiny against him. This is put down with a few right hooks from the Sheriff, but that doesn’t change the essential point that he is losing control – not just of the Midlands, but of his own household as well.
Speaking of which, everything involving Priscilla remains a clear lowlight of Robin Hood Episode 7. It isn’t that Lydia Peckham is no good in the role – she’s playing it precisely as well as she needs to, if not slightly better – but that the role itself doesn’t extend beyond her seducing every man she meets. Her latest conquest is William Marshal, and “Thieves With A Purpose” tries to take the same angle as it does with Marian and John, creating ambiguity around the authenticity of the union. But given this is just the latest in an increasingly long list of Priscilla’s suitors, it’s much harder to buy into. Either way, though, it should get her into the political arena that she so clearly covets, so hopefully the few remaining episodes will give her something to do with her clothes on.
A late standout sequence in this episode finds Robin Hood and his rapidly expanding group of Merry Men raid the castle of Lord Warwick, a cartoonishly awful Norman lord who spends all his time forcing himself on Saxon women while simultaneously decrying their humanity. Rob’s gang needs the money that liberating Lord Warwick of his substantial assets will give them, and he’s also still working Eleanor’s agenda to further destabilise the region in the hope of securing Marian’s freedom, even if, at this point, she may not want it. Little John certainly doesn’t think so, but he’s just happy to take the gold either way.
You’d think things are going well for Rob. At the end of the episode, he, like Marian, even finds a new romantic avenue, finally giving in to Ralph’s – sorry, Rosemary’s – extremely obvious overtures. But the Sheriff makes the smart move of responding to the attack on Lord Warwick by rounding up the local Saxon leaders and arresting them, including Robin’s uncle Gamewell, promising to keep them captive until Robin surrenders himself. That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing he’ll let pass by unnoticed.
