katikat | Merlin spoilers 312-313!

We received several possible spoilers for the last episodes of Season 3 the first week of October, but have held off posting them because we figured it was just speculation based off the Pierrefonds set pictures from September. After watching The Crystal Cave, we think there might be some validity to these bits and feel a little more comfortable posting them.

Like with the relationship bits, we’re going to classify these as rumors to play it safe. Legitimate or not, at the very least these should make for good discussion topics.

*One of the landmarks of the third series will be retrieving Excalibur and Arthur weilding it.

*Camelot will be kept in the medieval equivalent of a police state by a tyrannical Queen Morgana.

*Arthur and those loyal to him will band together to try and win Camelot back. They will have help from someone high up in the new court who becomes troubled with the queen’s tyranny.

*Gwen will be rewarded for her duty to Camelot in a big way.

*The last few episodes of the third series reshape the show for series four and series five. There’s changes coming and two departures from the main cast are planned. One of the departures will be permanent. The second will likely be back a few times during the rest of the show's run.

*The role of King Cenred will be portrayed by Tom Ellis. Cenred's costume is said to resemble a cross between Ares from Hercules/Xena and Sir Guy from BBC's 2006 "Robin Hood".

*According to BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat, Excalibur will be featured in Episode 12 and/or 13. Scenes for one, if not both of these episodes, were filmed in Puzzlewood during August 2010. One of the scenes features Arthur, Sir Leon, Gwen, Elyan, Gaius, Merlin and someone else running from something. It looks like the someone else might be Gwaine. Link

Does that mean that Arthur, Merlin and possibly Gwen will be on the run from the evil queen Morgana? Which means that Arthur should finally learn about Merlin's powers, probably next season, right? And the two departures will be Uther and Gaius, I guess, huh? This sounds quite intriguing!