Proffering a reward of twenty pounds yields not a word. So the leather clad Black Bombshell, Guy of Gisbourne, cuts to the chase, "Loosen your tongues or lose your tongues." For every hour that passes without a word about Robin's whereabouts someone will lose a tongue. First up: a peasant with a sense of humor and unfortunate timing. The soldiers yank him from the ranks of trembling peasants, the camera zeros on a painful looking pair of large black shears and cue the blood-curdling scream.
Thus the second episode "Sheriff Got Your Tongue?" opens on a grimly frightening note. While Robin's peasants are being horribly tormented by his nemesis Robin finds himself and his less-than-merry men tied to trees while the forest outlaws rummage through their meager possessions. So far they've taken Alan's shirt (nice pecs, Alan), Much's pants and Robin's dignity. Much tries to reason with the outlaws based on the old "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" ploy, but only manages to provoke them into mockery and Alan into annoyance.
Robin bears the incident with noble disdain, refusing to show fear even when a particularly unpleasant looking miscreant sticks a knife under his jaw. He even goes so far as to accuse the outlaws of being purposeless and disorganized. They determine he's a nobleman by his smell, claiming he reeks of the lavender he bathed in at least twenty-four hours previously, but after an afternoon of fighting the Sheriff's men, fleeing on horseback and lying about in the forest I find it hard to believe he smells of anything but sweat and leaf mold. However without the lavender bit Roy, one of the outlaws, would be deprived of his favorite nomenclature for Robin, "lavender boy". Not an undesirable outcome considering the comment is only vaguely amusing the first time and much less so the second and third.
Things are looking pretty dire for Robin and his mates until we recall that young Will Scarlett broke camp in search of kindling before the outlaws arrived. We find that he is hiding in the forest within eye shot of Robin and is perfectly willing to step in at any time and free them with his axe. Robin puts him off however with a barely discernible shake of his head. He has another plan, one that includes letting the outlaws take off with the horses, leaving Alan shirtless and Much in his small clothes.
Once the outlaws have gone Robin easily slips out of his bonds and Will steps up to free Alan and Much. Much can't understand why Robin didn't fight if he could have freed himself at any time, but Robin declares that there's a lesson to be taught here. He digs out his bow and arrow (apparently having the foresight to bury them in a leaf pile before hand), tosses his mates a couple of big sticks and proposes that they seek a little payback.
Before you can say "Much is trouser free" Robin and the gang have the outlaws tied-up and half-dressed while Much and Robin both give them an earful about what it means to be an Englishmen and how scum like them weren't worth dying for in the Holy Land. The outlaws aren't cowed, they have, we must assume, survived worse than a scolding by now. However when Robin orders them to dance while he takes target practice on their moving feet they're suddenly more inclined to see his point of view. Even so it's a bit early for rejoicing, before long more outlaws show up and Robin and his friends are once again in a bit of a pickle. They find themselves outnumbered and on the receiving end of Little John's mercy, which is thin.
Little John, a great bear of a man and the leader of the outlaws, determines that the Robin in his view is the nobleman Robin of Locksley wanted by the Sheriff. Without further ado he knocks Robin unconscious and prepares him for transport to Locksley to collect the reward being offered.
Meanwhile at the tongue severing festival an hour has passed and it's time for another demonstration of the Black Bombshell's ruthlessness. After the peasants refuse to be swayed by his reassurance that he is their master now and they need not worry about reprisals from Robin he demands another tongue be taken.
The sheriff takes advantage of the intermission to induce his captive audience into some cooperation with a little civics lesson. Robin, he claims, has learned to hate England in his long absence. Instead of lauding him for his service to crown and country the sheriff intimates that Robin's role in the military has prejudiced his opinions against the rule of law and rightful order. He isn't a hero, striking a blow for freedom, he's a dissenter, a menace to good English tax-payers everywhere. Sound familiar? Eerily familiar I should say. The sheriff's attempt to classify any dissenter as a traitor is copied today on a daily basis by pro-war politicians and their proponents. Even if it means turning on a war hero.
This time a pretty young woman is yanked from the crowd. Soldiers brutally restrain her, forcing open her jaw, and the shears come up snip, snip, snipping in her direction just as Little John shows up with his prisoner.
Hiding in plain view of the spectacle John finds himself confronting the image of his estranged wife, Alice, about to lose her tongue. Will, who had been living in the village of Locksley along with Alice, knows her as a widow who thinks her husband John is dead. John doesn't know what to do but Robin does. Robin persuades him that he can save Alice if he's released and given his bow. Little John has his doubts, of course, but we do not. True to his word Robin takes his bow and sends an arrow flying in the direction of the soldier holding the shears in his hand. One shot knocks the shears out of his hand and into the air, the next arrow splices them into two useless pieces.
The Sheriff sits up and takes notice. Now things are getting interesting. Robin is there somewhere and he demands his minions to find him. No need, Robin has already decided, in the interest of tongue saving expediency to give himself up, to Much's absolute horror. Much pleads with Robin not to go because the Sheriff will hang him, but with a meaningful look in the outlaws' direction Robin declares he'd rather be hanged than live out his days pretending that he's dead.
Robin strides out into the open, bow slung over his shoulders to openly mock the Sheriff's efforts to track him down. "If I tell you where I am; can I collect the twenty pounds?" The Sheriff is thrilled, Gisbourne smug. Gisbourne tells Robin he is soon to be made Earl of Huntington and lord of the manor and that his services are no longer required. The peasants might argue that point, but they don't. Gisbourne tells Robin to put down his weapon, but before he does Robin can't resist snapping the empty bowstring in the direction of Gisbourne's face causing him to flinch. Then he laughs delightedly at the other man's fear.
In fact, it seems that Robin enjoys being arrested. The entire time he's being chained and dragged off to Nottingham he's wearing a mocking grin, even when he's cuffed sharply by a soldier and brought to his knees behind Gisbourne's horse. Robin fearlessly rebukes the sheriff for playing a cruel game, and the sheriff thinks he's got this lad all sewn up. He's going to die tomorrow and now the peasants have no one to protect them. I'll give that boy points for bravado, Robin's braving it out for all he's worth while poor beleaguered Much is about to keel over from concern.
Back in the forest Much and Will relay the story of Robin's bravery to the rest of the outlaws. Mostly they're interested in the lack of the twenty pound reward. Although the tongue cutting incident inspires some gallows humor. Despite his best intent Much cannot convince the others, not even Alan and Will, that they owe it to Robin to make a rescue attempt. Disgusted with the lot of them and desperately afraid for his beloved friend Much leaves on foot for Nottingham determined to rescue Robin alone.
Little John, meanwhile, is more concerned about his wife Alice and asks Will where he can find her so that she can be brought to live in the forest with him. Puzzled Will replies that Alice can't live in the forest and then a look of understanding dawns on his face as he realizes that there's something about Alice Little John doesn't know.
Robin is brought in chains behind Gisbourne's horse into Nottingham castle courtyard where he sees Marion standing on some stairs. She sees him as well and looks even less thrilled this time than she was the last. She stomps down the stairs in a hurry to rush past him and if he's looking for a kind word he looks in vain. Marion hisses "Fool!" at him as she moves past and Robin is left wondering if she's right.
In the dungeon the jailer takes petty revenge on Robin for the last time he visited and knocks him onto his knees before tossing him, still grinning, into a stark jail cell with iron bars.
After hearing Will out Little John decides to pay a visit to Locksley after dark and hides in some shrubbery until he sees a small boy with a decided limp coming his way. The child asks him who he is and John replies that he's a friend of the child's mother. The child tells John that his name is John Little and that he's named after his father who was a big man and a hero. John's grief and guilt are nearly palpable as he listens to the child's innocent tale of woe, his mother is exhausted, and they've been starving, but things are going to be better now that Robin has returned from the Holy Land. He took part in the feast Robin threw for his peasants and had enough to eat for the first time he can remember. Young John asks his father if he'd like to come in but Little John declines and melts back into the forest as his wife Alice rounds the corner looking for her son.
Much sneaks into Knighton Hall and asks Edward and Marion for their help in freeing Robin. As is becoming usual Edward has nothing in the way of help to offer. He tells Much that Robin didn't heed his warning and has brought this fate down upon himself. As for Marion, she's completely disgusted that Robin has been caught already, and even more appalled than Edward that he didn't take her advice to let his peasants die. (Nice friends you've got there, Robin. Returning to the Holy Land should be looking better and better.) Much defends his friend, telling them that he's a hero who gave himself up to save the tongues of his helpless peasants from the sheriff's wrath. He hates the sheriff and if Marion and Edward aren't Robin's friends anymore he hates them too.
Edward and Marion both suffer a twinge of guilt, but neither one of them are particularly forthcoming about ways to help Much save Robin. Much leaves in a huff but not before he makes sure that Marion knows that Robin dreamt of her in the Holy Land.
The sheriff pays a late night visit to the dungeon because Robin intrigues him. Why is it, he wants to know, that Robin, a renowned marksman, could have easily killed him earlier that day and didn't? Why did he give himself up?
Robin doesn't know how to explain love and sacrifice to a sociopath. He simply shrugs and claims that the sheriff would never understand. But the sheriff does think he understands. He taunts Robin with the knowledge that he knows he is a killer, that he's killed countless men in the Holy Land. He thinks that Robin wants to be a martyr, he's tired of bloodshed and thinks to make himself a hero in the eyes of the peasants. Because Robin is due to hang in the morning he tells the sheriff that he is utterly indifferent to his opinions and that he is free to think what he likes. The sheriff likes to think that he's the devil's advocate, so he offers Robin temptation. He opens the door to his cell and tells him that he is free to go, so long as he understands that his beloved peasants will pay for his escape. Well, there's a no brainer. Robin sits down, utterly unmoved by temptation. He would rather die. Really.
Although Robin does ponder out loud why Englishmen travel two thousand miles to fight evil when the real cancer is at home. It is worth wondering about.
The sheriff doesn't get it, but he likes it because it means he gets to attend a hanging in the morning. The jailer doesn't get it either. Which is entirely Robin's point. Neither one of them is him, he is a better man than they are and he takes out his tempered frustration by doing pull-ups on the grate of his prison cell.Little John returns to outlaw camp in time to hear Will arguing with the other outlaws about what will happen to the hearts and hopes of the Locksley peasants if Robin dies. None of them are swayed to act by Will's vehement argument but they all stand up and take notice when Little John, who has decided Robin isn't such a bad sort after all, declares "We go to Nottingham!"
The Black Bombshell drops in on Marion to invite her to a play date in his new sandbox at Locksley. She's unsure, but he's so pleased to have seized Robin's estates from beneath his aristocratic eyebrows he rambles on. His father would be proud, Gisbourne thinks, to know that there are lands held once again in the Gisbourne name. Gisbourne knows his landless state has been the butt of jokes by his own men before, but those days are over now. Marion claims to be very glad for him, but she wonders if changing Locksley's name will really make a difference. Gisbourne thinks so. After all, when a woman marries she changes her name and that does make a difference. He sidles up to Marion insinuatingly, a snake in the hen house. Clearly he has ambitions that have moved on from Robin's lands and title to Robin's old girlfriend.
Marion cautions Gisbourne not to get ahead of himself. Robin will have his day in court and of course will contest the acquisition of his lands. Then Gisbourne drops the real bomb, there won't be a trial. Robin swings from the gibbet come dawn. Marion insists there must be a trial, it's the law. But Gisbourne retorts that England is a country at war. Robin, as an outlaw, has automatically been classified as an enemy combatant and is therefore not entitled to a trial. Guilty by reason of dissent. It's a sad day in a free country when a citizen loses his civil liberties over a disagreement with his own government. Aren't we all glad that can't happen nowadays?
Hapless Much has tried to scale the castle walls with a too short ladder and been set upon by a large barking dog. Trapped at the top of the ladder to nowhere he's fallen asleep just as a glimpse of dawn can be seen on the horizon. Alan and Will arrive just in time with the outlaws to aid in Robin's rescue and when the ladder is perched on top of John's shoulders it's just high enough to scale the walls.
Marion, dressed in salvation white, also pays Robin a visit in the dungeon. She implicates the jailer by dangling the potential for some torture in front of him and persuades him to give her an audience with Robin in the chamber of horrors.
Robin is tossed into the chamber and Marion asks, "Where is it?"
Robin, most thoroughly fed up with being manhandled by nitwits and verbally abused by Marion confronts her angrily, "Where is what?"
She wants to know where Robin hid the ring her father gave him before he knew the wickedness in his heart.
Totally befuddled Robin replies "What ring?"
The jailer is only too happy to produce an instrument of torture with which to stir Robin's recollections, but Marion dissuades him. She doesn't want him to hear the location of the ring in case he is tempted himself to steal it. With more flout than authority she convinces the dim-witted jailer to leave her alone with Robin where she wastes no time whatsoever in repeating the fact that he's a fool.
He's tired, irritated, and about to die, but for all that exhibits some patience when he reminds her that she's said that already.
Marion exhibits shock at the fact that he actually listened to her. Too bad he wasn't listening when she told him that confronting the sheriff wouldn't work. Robin explains that he was listening to her he just didn't agree with her. He was trying to do the right thing. Sparing no sarcasm she tells him that sacrifice will make his death romantic. She's thoroughly fed up with men and their quests for glory.
Indignant Robin defends his choices on the basis of principle, which she discounts as empty rhetoric. Principle is about making a difference and dead men can't make a difference. He was so caught up in his notions of principle that he followed his king into battle and look where it's gotten him. Worse yet, look where it's gotten his poor villagers, at the mercy of the sheriff and Gisbourne all this time. If he really cared about people at home as much as he claims he does he would have stayed at home to begin with and not gone traipsing off to war...
In a rare flash of male intuition Robin picks up on the fact that there's a double message in Marion's diatribe. He asks her with a suddenly perceptive gaze, "What is this about?"
Well, you doofus, it's about you leaving her to hunt for glory in the Holy Land. But she wouldn't admit that if you turned the thumb screws on her. Robin reaches up to tenderly touch her cheek and is rewarded with a resounding swat. She will not be placated so easily. However, she is prepared to save his life. She's brought him a weapon, and better yet, has bribed a man at the east gate to let him out without being seen. She'll scream and draw the jailer, Robin can attack him and escape. It sounds like a plan to me, but Robin's not convinced.
If he escapes the sheriff wins and he'll take it out again on Robin's peasants. Somehow he has to turn the tables on this catastrophe so that he comes out on top. He claims to have a plan of his own, but Marion is skeptical. Just then the door bursts open to admit the jailer on the brunt of a stick weilded by Much. The jailer drops to the ground revealing the rest of the gang behind him, brandishing their weapons as Much declares, "This is a rescue!"
Robin thanks the outlaws for their assistance but begs for five minutes of time to take care of some business. The outlaws plainly think he's insane, and Much, having just risked everything to save him is utterly devastated by the idea of losing him again. He begs Robin not to chance it, claiming that Robin's death will be his own, he will die from grief without him. Robin doesn't take Much's loyalty for granted after all, because he replies, "And that's why I love you."
But he won't be dissuaded from his revenge on the sheriff. He sneaks into the castle with Roy, steals a soldiers costume and surprises the sheriff in his pajamas. The sheriff is annoyed, but it must be said, not entirely surprised. He's come to the conclusion that Robin is a foe worthy of his evil machinations. Robin tells him that it's true he's lost his taste for bloodshed but he's still capable of killing and if the sheriff torments the peasants again in an attempt to get to him he will kill him. He backs that claim up with a bevy of arrows that land in the headrest of the sheriff's chair, narrowly missing his head on every angle.
Unlike Gisbourne, who flinches at even the prospect of one of Robin's arrows flying through his head, Sheriff Fazy is unfazed, he claims that Robin's actions belie his words. He behaves as though he actually wants Robin to kill him, or at the very least to hurt him...just a little. There is an unmistakable sexual overtone in the sheriff's taunts. He feeds on the power play between them as they wrestle for control of the situation. One moment he wants to be dominated, he tells Robin he won't play nice, he refuses, so go ahead and punish him. Then he accuses Robin of being fearful of authority and afraid of being controlled by him.
There is a dark element of truth to all of the Sheriff's pointed barbs, but at the end of the play-by-play, he really has missed the point. Robin is a skilled fighter, a soldier who kills on principle, but his lethal edge is tempered by reasonableness, justice and compassion. Things the sheriff understands but is incapable of experiencing. Fazy realizes that Robin is a real challenge, he's gotten so used to doing whatever he likes and successfully opposing every foe that Robin excites him. His nostrils veritably quiver with anticipation at the scent of new prey.
In the background, Roy dressed as a soldier rises from the floor sword in hand, giving the sheriff reason to believe that he's about to be rescued. But in a nano-second Robin turns on Roy and nails him straight in the heart with an arrow. He turns back to the sheriff confident that he's proved his point. He doesn't like to kill, but he will if he has to.
Keeping that threat in mind the sheriff allows himself to be marched at arrow point to the tower window where Robin forces him to apologize for his bad behavior. Robin sneaks away while the sheriff is humbly admitting his mistakes and before the sheriff notices he has gone he's vanished.
Roy who had planned this attack with Robin and prepared for it by padding his chain mail gets up off the floor, a little shaky and with the end of the arrow still protruding from this chest. The guards battle the outlaws in the courtyard and find that they've met their match. Will takes out two for one with nothing more than his axe. Alan demonstrates that he knows how to fight with a sword, even gentle hearted Much demonstrates that his sword and shield aren't just for looks and Little John helps Robin fly down from the tower on a spectacular makeshift pulley made by a length of rope and Robin's unstrung bow.
Just as the portcullis drops and they've made their escape Robin catches Marion observing them admiringly from a battlement and winks at her jauntily. He's the man, and he knows it. Moreover, she can eat her words with a side of crow, because not only did he get the best of the sheriff in this escapade, thus proving himself less foolish than she claims, he did it all without her help. So there.
Later the outlaws turn over a new leaf by surreptitiously visiting the families they've had to leave behind and gifting them with money and food. This episode started out with Robin intending to teach a lesson to those who would undermine him. And what has been learned? The outlaws have learned the pleasures to be had in doing for others, and are recovering their self-respect and worth as human beings. He is well on his way to becoming the prince of thieves.
Moreover, he's taught the sheriff that he's a foe to be reckoned with and not someone who can be easily manipulated. In doing so he's ensured some measure of protection for his peasants because the sheriff is convinced now that Robin is a man of his word and won't hesitate to kill him if he's pushed to do so.
Robin has learned a lesson as well. He's learned the reasoning behind Marion's hedgehog impersonation. She feels that he abandoned her when he claimed to care about her, and that finding glory in the Holy Land was more important to him than fulfilling his responsibilities at home. She has felt deserted by him all these years and resents the fact that he left her and his village unprotected to the extent that they have all fallen completely under the mercy of the mad, unscrupulous sheriff and the mercenary Guy of Gisborne.
She no longer entirely trusts him, and she most certainly has not forgiven him, but what he thought was indifference on her part has turned out to be hurt and anger instead. And despite all that she is still willing to risk everything to save his life.
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