I'm split on this episode. Like, I agree with you a lot, and I'm also fucking happy about huge chunks of it.

But the ending is rather terrible and I think it's weird because even though Arthur and Merlin fail in the legends too, they were a lot closer. I mean, Arthur hasn't actually done anything yet as king? They're not really close to any sort of golden age or uniting anything at all. So it feels like the story ended fairly prematurely and I can't for the life of me understand why we wasted 3 episodes on evil!Gwen this season.