‘Robin Hood’ Ending Explained – Sweaty Sean Bean Is Indestructible

Let’s just get the obvious thing out of the way – Sean Bean survives! Yes, remarkably, a character played by Sean Bean makes it out of the ending of Robin Hood unscathed. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given that he’s playing the Sheriff of Nottingham, but Bean’s commitment to meme deaths is unrivalled. As it turns out in Episode 10, though, a protracted string of fun action sequences rather ominously titled “One Enemy Falls, Another Rises”, Rob has more pressing matters to contend with than the Sheriff.

In case you’ve forgotten the stakes of this finale, here’s a brief primer. In the penultimate episode, Henry II dispatched his pet nutcase knight, Guy of Gisbourne, to solve the Robin Hood problem by butchering as many innocent Saxons as he could find in the hopes of drawing the outlaw into the open, which was not just a threat on Rob’s life but also the Sheriff’s tenuous position as figurehead of the Midlands. Marian had officially switched sides to join the Merry Men, and Priscilla was jilted by her latest lover, leaving her bitter and, as we’ll see, with child. All of this and a little more define the events of the final episode, which is, as expected, largely a setup for Season 2.

Battle Plans

Since the back half of “One Enemy Falls, Another Rises” is basically one long action sequence, that means the front half is dedicated to planning the upcoming shenanigans on both sides of the aisle. With the Sheriff having learned the location of the outlaws’ secret forest base, he, the Earl of Huntingdon, and Guy of Gisbourne all gather to plan their attack. Guy’s plan is to basically flush the Saxons into a dead-end canyon, but it’s predicated on the assumption that they’re all basically idiots, which they’ve proven again and again that they’re not.

The Sheriff isn’t on board with the plan, then, but keeps quiet about that to work out some schemes of his own. Meanwhile, Rob has intuited pretty much the exact approach that Guy is going to take and develops a cunning counter plan, which is to leave the cave early and hide in the woods, allowing the knights to approach. While they’re distracted preparing their ambush, Robin and the Merry Men will take Nottingham, which will have been left relatively unguarded. From there, they’ll sneak back out of the city and into the forest, where they have the advantage. It’s a plan less about trying to defeat the Sheriff’s men entirely and more about hitting them where it hurts to prove a point.

There are some logistical concerns to consider, though, and to help smooth those over, Marian returns to her father – much to Rob’s chagrin – to trick him into revealing the exact itinerary of the attack. She pretends to have been temporarily relieved of her palace duties to mend her familial relationships, and uncovers that more military units will be travelling from Leicester to reinforce Nottingham in the event of a counterattack. She manages to get this information to Rob via Milange, but she also gets herself caught and captured in the process, adding a couple of new wrinkles to the existing plan.

Improvisation

Rob and the outlaws now have an additional objective – to sabotage the bridge between Nottingham and Leicester to prevent the reinforcements from arriving (not to mention eventually liberating Marian from the Locksley estate, but one thing at a time). Luckily, with the information Marian provided, they’re able to sneak out of the cave, move through the forest, and set up shop in Nottingham itself without a great deal of fuss.

Predictably, complications begin to emerge. The most significant one is the bridge demolition, which is ultimately successful but costs the lives of both Isabel and Gamewell in the process, the latter with a heroic self-sacrifice a bit reminiscent of that one Uruk-hai in The Two Towers who suicide-bombs Helm’s Deep.

Guy and the Sheriff rush back, but their forces are divided, fighting outlaws at the edge of the forest and Rob and his men in the city itself. As they begin to push through, Rob and his Merry Men beat a retreat, meaning the plan was more or less successful. They did, though, have some help that they didn’t even know about.

The Sheriff’s Plan

That help takes the form of the Sheriff of Nottingham himself. As we could intuit, he was working against Guy of Gisbourne the whole time, since if Guy was successful, it was highly likely that he would have become the next Sheriff of Nottingham. The current Sheriff couldn’t allow that, so he seized the first opportunity he could by luring Guy and his knights off the beaten path on the promise of a shortcut, and killing them all alongside his most trusted man.

This is obviously part of a larger scheme with Queen Eleanor – who is in this episode, albeit barely – to consolidate power in both the Midlands and England at large. Eleanor’s long-term objective is, as we know, to kill the king and install her preferred son on the throne, and this has obviously become the Sheriff’s shared mission too. In the aftermath of the battle, the Sheriff even says outright to the Bishop of Hereford that King Henry cannot leave England alive.

More Pressing Concerns

You’d think that the ending of Robin Hood would revolve around the second direct confrontation between Rob and the Sheriff, but Episode 10 delivers a bit of a fake-out in this regard. Rob and the Sheriff do indeed square off, but Rob has more pressing concerns. This constitutes character growth, since he’s no longer so blinded by revenge that he can’t see what’s really important to him, which is rescuing Marian.

So, Rob leaves the Sheriff screaming after him in the mist and races to the Locksley estate, where the Earl is planning to kill Marian for her betrayal. Luckily, she had managed to sway her remaining brother, Aleppo, to her cause, and he was willing to help her escape, which buys her a bit of time. But she hears Rob arrive and begin fighting with her father, so she refuses to leave without helping.

Together, Rob and Marian manage to kill the Earl of Huntingdon, though Rob prevents Marian from delivering a brutal killing blow, presumably to spare her the guilt. He dies anyway, finally taking him off the table. This is good, since he annoyed me all season.

Some Loose Ends

With the battle won but the war still ongoing, the Merry Men disband to hide in plain sight among their communities. They’re simply biding their time, though, quietly plotting until the next fight is upon them. Rob also decides to give their hoarded gold away to the needy. It only took until the finale, but Robin Hood is finally giving to the poor, not just stealing from the rich.

Marian, meanwhile, returns to court and secures both clemency for Rob and her own freedom from Eleanor, who is surprisingly true to her word for a monarch. She does, however, have another agenda, and pitches a plan to Marian that we aren’t made privy to. Marian does share this with Rob, but doesn’t give him the details either, so that potential alliance will be a matter for Season 2. In the meantime, Marian and Rob are going to enjoy themselves. Poor Ralph!

This only leaves us with Priscilla. Earlier, she had returned to Nottingham to reveal to the Sheriff that she was pregnant by William Marshal and had been abandoned by him, since he had gone to entreat with the Pope. The Sheriff is furious about this and sends her off to a convent to reflect on her actions. From there, she tries to escape with the help of the Bishop of Hereford, but is betrayed once again. In desperation, she pens a letter, the contents of which we aren’t made privy to but can assume to include details about Robin Hood, Marian, and the Queen, and has it secretly sent, presumably to the king. There was no way Priscilla was going to be content being a nun.