Cursed
The Past – Nimue
Episode 2 of Cursed begins with a flashback to the past as Nimue awakens and is called to the woods by Pym’s voice. Following her ghostly, echoing words, she heads to a cave and steps inside. As she turns and faces the entrance, a monstrous bear lumbers over her. Growling and snarling, it slashes her back and forces Lenore to wake up and telepathically communicate with Nimue. “Use The Hidden!” She pleads as Nimue channels her power and defeats the bear. In the aftermath of this fight, Lenore brings her to the temple where the High Priests deliberate over the best way to deal with her Fey powers. After the incident with the bear, the other children refuse to play with Nimue and it causes her to feel rejected and alone. Despite trying to run away, her Father arrives and takes her home. Unfortunately these powers manifest in the worst possible way some time later as a group of kids taunt her in the woods. As the tree branches turn to tendrils and look to ensnare one of them, Nimue regains control long enough for the kids to get away.
Merlin
Merlin awakens to pounding on his door as Uther demands answers over the blood rain. Refusing to stand for this insolence any longer, Uther breaks the door open but finds himself exasperated when Merlin flees. Our wizard races to the village where he looks upon the dead body of Lenore. Resting her atop the stone table, he heads out and starts kicking down the giant wooden crucifixes in frustration. As he does, a strange shadowy spirit arrives and warns him that the Sword of Power is back. It turns out this sword is what took Merlin’s powers originally but with the sword trying to find its way back, he prepares for the next stage of his plan.
Father Carden
Nimue goes looking for Squirrel at the very same cave we saw during her flashbacks. Unfortunately, one of the Red Paladin monks finds her and chases the girl into the woods. Just like before, Nimue uses her powers to ensnare the robed man in tree branches and flees. Father Carden and The Weeping Monk arrive in the wake of what’s happened and look upon the knight who happens to be strung up by his hands and feet but still alive. With Nimue on the run, they turn their attention to capturing the fey, with our Weeping Monk heading off alone to track her down. This brings him back to the temple where he finds Squirrel and takes him captive. As they rest for the night, one of the surviving village-folk, Josse, arrives with a number of soldiers to save the young boy. Unfortunately things quickly go awry when the Monk slaughters everyone without batting an eye. Letting Squirrel go, he tasks the boy with warning everyone that he’s coming.
Present – Nimue
In the wake of the forest incident, Nimue heads to the river and washes the blood off her hands and sword. She scrambles back to Hawksbridge but is forced into feigning a tooth-ache to get past the Red Monk at the front gate. Unfortunately this also results in her tooth being ripped out. Once she arrives inside, she hears the Town Crier informing everyone about the “Wolf-Blood Witch.” Despite finding Arthur inside she also finds Bors, the gruff knight with the dice in the previous episode. As he confronts her over the magic, she slices his hand off with the sword. Arthur grabs Nimue and flees the town realizing that Bors and the Red Paladins will both be after them now. Arthur comes up with an idea and decides to take her somewhere safe with friends. In the morning, Arthur takes the sword for himself and rides out on his horse, telling his friends that he’ll be gone up to a week, which is where the episode ends.
The Review Write-Up
The constant jumps between characters is a nice touch but with the continuing hand-drawn elements from the first episode, it does become a little tedious constantly seeing this play out. It also doesn’t help that these come at the expense of establishing shots for each area. While this sounds minor, it actually makes it difficult to get a sense of the size, scope and layout of the land as we constantly jump back and forth. The flashbacks for Nimue are a nice touch though and The Gray Wolf is certainly one of the more interesting components of this drama, despite the questionable manner in which he let Squirrel go. Still, this episode certainly raises the stakes and with Arthur now in possession of the Sword of Power, all eyes now turn to the upcoming episodes to find out what will happen next.
