Post by Dennis of Ravenscar on May 23, 2014 17:29:48 GMT
Robin of Sherwood: Series 2, Episode 7
The Greatest Enemy
Original Transmission Date: 17th April 1985
Written by Richard Carpenter
Story
Nasir is away from the others, talking with two Saracens. Will is watching them from the trees as they ride off together. He goes back to the camp and reports to the others. They are curious as to what Nasir is up to, but they trust him not to betray them.
The Sheriff is having his beard shaved off and he is not in a good mood. When a messenger from the King is announced causing him to move his head and cut his throat, he threatens to flay the barber alive.
The visitor is Hubert de Giscard, Herald to the King, and he has news for the Sheriff’s ears only: the King wants him to put an end to Robin Hood immediately. He has become a symbol of resistance to the authority and governance of King John. Unless the Sheriff kills him within one month he will be stripped of his office and be sent to fight the King’s enemies in Normandy. As de Giscard leaves, he wishes the Sheriff, “Good hunting.”
Robin and Marion are walking through Sherwood, talking about Tuck’s cooking, when Robin hears Herne calling him. He sends Marion back to camp and walks up to Herne, who is currently a man. He immediately says:
Herne: “Who is the greatest enemy? Always near you, sometimes at your shoulder?”
Robin: “I’ve known he was there.”
Herne: “You must face him. Listen, each man travels along one path, and at the end of it, if he has the courage he will meet himself and find his power.”
Robin: “Will you be there?”
Herne: “No, but we cannot be parted. Another riddle for you. Go now.”
The Sheriff is explaining his plans to hunt the outlaws like deer to his knights. Gisburne has brought Edward of Wickham and his son Matthew to the castle and left guards at the village so no one can leave. The Sheriff threatens Wickham with the same fate as Loxley. He says he will destroy the village, sell the men as soldiers and let the rest go begging.
Edward: “This is shameful!”
Sheriff: “Yes, it is, isn’t it? Monstrous! And you’re to blame.”
He then says that he will let Edward and Matthew live if Edward does exactly what he says. He tells Matthew to take a message to Robin Hood.
The outlaws, minus Nasir, are making their way to Wickham, even though Matthew looked frightened when he gave them the message. When they arrive at the village, which is filled with the Sheriff and his men hidden in the huts, Edward is sent out to greet them but they can tell something isn’t right. Scarlet spots a soldier and shouts, “Ambush!”
The soldiers hidden in the woods are ordered to shot at the outlaws. They miss, but a crossbow bolt nearly hits the Sheriff, “Who the hell do they think they are shooting at!”
The outlaws effectively fight many of the soldiers while an old couple escape the village. Robin, Marion, Tuck and Much manage to get away, while it takes about ten soldiers to get John down. Scarlet is then surrounded by knights with shields and is unable to fight his way past them. When it is safe, the Sheriff comes out of the hut he has been hiding in. He leaves Gisburne to guard the captives and sets off to hunt Robin and the others with hounds, as we see them running frantically through the woods.
Gisburne questions John and Will about the whereabouts of Nasir, to which Scarlet says, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Nasir is currently sitting with the two Saracens around a fire in the woods. They suddenly attack him; he gets a knife in one of them, then fights the other, who uses two swords. He kills him, then the wounded man attacks again. Nasir has him at his mercy and the man tears his shirt open to show a mark tattooed on his chest. Nasir speaks in Arabic then says, “One death is enough.”
He leaves the man and rides off. The man follows on horseback though, so Nasir turns and shoots him. “It is finished.”
Robin and the others can hear the hounds following and even though they’re already tired they have to keep going. Tuck can’t make it any further however, so they get him up into a tree. Unfortunately, as the hounds and soldiers follow the scent of the others, Tuck’s shoe falls off his foot and he is seen and captured.
Robin, Marion and Much run along a stream. The hounds lose the scent but the Sheriff orders them to follow both banks until they find it again.
Nasir is riding along when the old couple from Wickham stop him and tell him what has happened. He goes to the village and makes his way carefully through it, killing guards as silently as possible. Then he is seen and has to fight openly. He is doing well and gets to the hut where his friends are being held, but guards have knives against their throats and he has no choice but to give in.
Marion asks Robin why they don’t stand and fight their pursuers. He says that there are too many of them, and that they know where the outlaws are. They have to get out of the forest.
Captive in the hut, Scarlet questions Nasir.
Will: “Who were those men you went off with?”
Nasir: “Hashishiyun... in your tongue, assassin.”
Will: “Killers.”
Nasir: “They kill, yes, but like us, for their belief.”
Will: “What did they want with you?”
Nasir: “I am one of them. Now I have washed my hands of them.”
Will: “And they let you?”
Nasir: “They had no choice.”
Robin, Marion and Much run out into the open and get onto a rocky outcropping. As the soldiers move towards them they shoot at them, and the Sheriff says, “Damn the man. He could always outshoot us with those cursed longbows.”
The Sheriff orders two of the knights to charge them and Robin and Marion pick them off. He then sends soldiers around the side of the hill, and again they are picked off with arrows.
Marion: “What will he do now?”
Robin: “We’re out of range of his crossbows and we’ve shown him he can’t outflank us quickly. Now it’s a matter of time.”
Marion: “Are we going to die?”
Robin: “Everyone dies.”
Marion: “That’s not what I said.”
Robin: “I know. It’s not over yet.”
The Sheriff sends one of the knights with some soldiers down the valley to get behind Robin. When he sees this, Robin tells Much that he is to escape with Marion while Robin covers them. He promises Much that he will be with him later. He then tells him to watch the soldiers and sing out if any of them move, while he goes to speak to Marion.
Robin: “I’m going to ask you to do something you won’t want to do, but it’s the only way...”
Marion: “I’m not leaving you if that’s what you’re going to say. No! I am staying here. Here.”
Robin: “I thought you had more courage.”
Marion: “Courage!”
Robin: “To stay alive. Dying’s easy.”
She then breaks down and cries.
Robin: “You see, I’m asking you to live because it’s meant to be.”
Marion: “Nothing’s meant to be.”
Robin: “It is, it is and one day you’ll know it.”
Marion: “Oh let me stay with you, please.”
Robin: “There are so many things I want to say to you, but time’s caught me up and now I’ll never say them. Except that I loved you from the moment I saw you and every moment since.”
Marion: “Don’t make me go.”
Robin: “Do you want them to win?”
Marion: “I don’t care about them.”
Robin: “You must. For the sake of everything we’ve meant to each other, you must care, because that way you’ll keep alive all we’ve believed in, and I can’t die then, can I? Mmm? I’m right, aren’t I?”
Robin tells her that she and Much have to go, because the Sheriff has sent men around the back to cut them off. She asks him to hold her and they embrace and kiss.
The Sheriff asks for two volunteers then pushes a couple of men forward, and Much calls out. Marion and Robin shoot them, then Robin gives her Albion and tells them to go. They run off, Marion shouting, “I love you!” as she leaves. The Sheriff pushes forward more men, but Robin shoots them all, so he then falls back. “How many arrows does the man have?”
Answering the question, Robin puts his last arrow to his bow, causing all the soldiers to edge back nervously. He shoots high into the air without looking and faces his enemy with a smile. As the knight and soldiers come up behind him he breaks his longbow across his knee and the Sheriff orders them to shoot at point blank range. The Sheriff cries, “At last!” and all the soldiers rush forward.
Much and Marion are sitting in the forest. He is remembering the adventures they had and expecting Robin to come back so they can rescue the others. Marion tells him that Robin is dead. Much is convinced he is alive, because he promised, but then she points out that he gave her Albion, and why would he do that if he expected to live? Much realises that she is right and breaks down and cries while they hold each other.
The Sheriff arrives back at Wickham and Gisburne assumes that Robin has got away because he hasn’t brought the body back with him. The Sheriff explains that it wouldn’t make any difference if he showed the body to the people of Nottingham, they’d still say it was a trick.
Gisburne goes in to the captives and tells them that Robin is dead. They say nothing and Nasir spits at him as he leaves. They think he is lying, but Will points out that he didn’t say anything about Marion and Much, so it probably is the truth. John starts to cry, and Nasir says goodbye in his own language.
A hooded man walks by the edge of a lake. We see the reflection of Herne on the opposite bank.
Herne: “I am Herne the Hunter and you are a leaf driven by the wind.”
We hear Robin’s voice mixed with that of another man: “Herne is a spirit, and you?”
Herne: “I am a man.” On the shore we see Herne as a man.
Hooded Man: “Yes, a man.”
Herne: “Answer me this then. What brought you here?”
Hooded Man: “I don’t know. There was a voice.” We see the hooded man’s reflection.
Herne: “And what did this voice say to you? Tell me.”
Hooded Man: “It said, ‘Nothing’s forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten.’”
Herne: “So, he is free.”
Hooded Man: “Nobody’s free. What does it mean?”
Herne: “The Hooded Man shall come to the forest there to meet with Herne the Hunter, to be his son and do his bidding. String the bow.”
Hooded Man: “Why?”
Herne: “To give it purpose. And you also must have purpose, and prove yourself.”
The hooded man takes the bow from Herne and strings it.
In Wickham the Sheriff and his knights are eating and getting drunk. Gisburne is not happy.
Sheriff: “Why are you so on edge? Do you think the girl and the half-wit are going to attack?”
Gisburne: “The outlaws have many sympathisers.”
Sheriff: “Sympathisers don’t do anything but sympathise, Gisburne.”
A sword cuts a hole in the wall of the hut where the outlaws are captive, and they excitedly assume that it is Robin. An arrow pokes through the hole and Scarlet gets the guard’s attention so he can be shot. The hooded man breaks into the hut and releases all the captives except Edward (whose family would be killed if he escaped).
The Sheriff is preparing to leave as the prisoners escape out of the back of the hut. The hooded man covers them, shooting Gisburne in the arm. The Sheriff orders his men to attack, but they are frozen, seeing the man they saw killed earlier come back to life. He walks away into the trees.
The escaped outlaws find Marion and Much, and when they see her standing there with Albion, they realise what has happened.
Back in Nottingham Castle the Sheriff and Gisburne are trying to work out who the man was. They don’t know, but they know who the men thought he was.
Sheriff: “And just as I’d begun to believe it was all over. How stupid of me. It’s not over. It’ll never be over.”
The outlaws fire flaming arrows over the lake, each remembering their time with Robin. Behind them, the hooded man fires the last arrow and they all turn to look at him.
Comments
The first thing that springs to mind in regard to this episode is the question of what or who the greatest enemy is. Herne refers to him as a person: “Who is the greatest enemy?”, so we might conclude that he is talking about the Sheriff, and certainly it is the Sheriff’s organised and concerted effort to capture the outlaws that leads to Robin’s death, but that doesn’t seem mystical enough for Herne. Then again, often fear is referred to as our enemy, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”, that prevents us from achieving things. Fear, particularly fear of death, could stop Robin from doing what he must to help the people he comes across, except that Robin has never been betrayed by this fear before, so that also seems unlikely. I think that the enemy that Herne is referring to is death. Death is often portrayed as a person, so could fit here, and although in a spiritual sense one might not expect Herne to see death as an end, it is certainly an enemy to what Robin can achieve. Robin Hood, as the King recognises, has become much more that just one wolfshead, he has become a symbol of resistance. If he dies his legend will live on, but without him the other outlaws will not continue, and so the help that he brought to the oppressed people will stop.
Another question this episode raises is: why does the Sheriff’s attack work so well? And why do Robin, Marion and Much leave the forest, which has always been their place of safety? The answer is that the Sheriff (or any other of Robin’s enemies) has never been this well organised before. He enlists a large number of men to assist in the capture, and has various contingency plans. The ambush in the village is effective due to the number of soldiers there, but the Sheriff allows for the fact that some of the outlaws may get away. By using the techniques of a hunt he is able to wear down the remaining outlaws and make it impossible to find refuge. With the use of dogs to scent them out, they cannot hide, and they can’t keep running for ever. It is to the outlaws’ credit that they do so comparatively well against the Sheriff.
Best moments
I think I have quoted all the best lines already, but this episode is full of good moments.
The scene where Robin says goodbye to Marion is quite wonderful; it also stands apart from most other emotionally charged farewell scenes on film or television in that it is done when they are not in immediate danger, which always has me screaming at the characters to get on with it! Robin gives himself time to say what he needs to, which makes it all the more beautiful.
The final silhouette of Robin firing his last arrow into the sky is a perfect visual moment that takes your breath away.
This episode is full of good fight sequences: the ambush in Wickham is terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. It’s impressive to see the number of men it takes to bring down Little John and to stop Scarlet. Nasir gets two good fights, showing off his skills of swordsmanship and archery against the two assassins and his assassin’s skills when he quietly works his way through the soldiers in Wickham. And we get to see the power of the longbow when Robin and Marion pick off the Sheriff’s men from their vantage point. They might not be able to defeat them, but they really make them scared.
Review
For obvious reasons, this is one of the most memorable episodes of Robin of Sherwood, indeed of any television series. Many fans count it as one of their favourite episodes, and almost an equal number list it as their least favourite, not due to the quality of the episode, but simply because they can’t bear to watch Robin die.
Robin’s death may have been a situation that was forced upon Richard Carpenter when Michael Praed decided to leave the series, but it can’t be denied that he used the opportunity brilliantly. He turns in a most affecting tragedy that rarely fails to leave one moved. I even had a lump in my throat when I was typing up this review!
So, what makes this episode so good? Killing off the major character automatically gives you a powerful impact, but it takes more than that to make such an effective and moving episode. Most tragedies rely on a fair amount of build-up; It has to be sign-posted some way in advance so the audience starts to feel the dreadful inevitability of it. Hopes are raised only to be dashed almost immediately. With The Greatest Enemy I’m not sure this is the case. We start the episode with a slight red herring in the form of Nasir’s mysterious rendezvous with the two Saracens. While this side plot is interesting and adds a lot to what we know about Nasir, it doesn’t have any serious impact on the main plot, except that we are given a false hope that Nasir may be able to rescue the others. We then see Robin led into a situation that is similar to many he and the other outlaws have been in before. They are always getting attacked or ambushed. They always end up in an almost impossibly difficult situation where one or more of the outlaws’ lives are at risk and it takes a near miracle for them to be rescued. That is why this tragedy works, because we can’t really believe that Robin would fail, and we keep waiting for the reprieve, until we realise that it isn’t going to come. This is emphasised in the episode in two ways. Firstly, Herne warns Robin of what is to come when he tells him that the greatest enemy is at his shoulder. By warning Robin, Herne does two things. He allows Robin to do his best to save his companions and he allows Robin to do his best to help the legend live on. Robin faces his death with such courage that, as one man with one arrow left, he still manages to strike fear into the hearts of his many pursuers. Even the men that killed him, that watched him die, believe that he has returned when the hooded man rescues the captive outlaws.
The second way in which the tragedy is emphasised is in the hopes of the other outlaws. Only Marion really understands that Robin will die, but Much’s simple faith that Robin will pull through and then his realisation of the truth (and the lie that Robin told him) tears at the viewer’s heart. The other outlaws, captive in Wickham, are feeling pretty desperate themselves, and the news of Robin’s death that Gisburne brings them is devastating. So, it is all the more painful when they believe their rescuer to be Robin, and we have to watch them find out about his death again, just when they thought everything was all right.
The performance of all the actors in this episode is wonderful, especially Michael Praed. When he is on the outcropping with Marion and Much he shows the conflict going on within Robin. He knows he is going to die, and he has accepted it, but he has to get Much and Marion to leave. He talks in such a casual way to hide his feelings and to try and keep control. He has to lie to Much to get him to leave, which he knows will hurt him eventually. He is flippant to Marion (“Everyone dies”) and he says things to her that he may not believe to make her go. He manages to keep control to do what he has to, and he still manages to tell her that he loves her in the most wonderful way. Contrasted with his control is Marion’s breakdown when she realises what is to happen. Her desire to die with him is wonderfully portrayed by Judi Trott, and it’s easy to want him to let her stay. The performances of the remaining outlaws are equally affecting, and none of them are afraid to let their feelings show. I also enjoy the Sheriff’s actions in this episode. His obvious cowardice or cautiousness (call it what you will) when he keeps out of the way of all the fighting in Wickham, and pushes hapless soldiers forward to be killed by Robin and Marion, is rather funny, and a good counterpoint to all the sadness. It’s interesting that he doesn’t take the same pleasure out of this well organised and effective hunt as he does out of a well-executed scam, such as getting the dowry from Mildred in Alan a Dale. I suspect that this is because he is not a hunting or military man at heart. He much prefers the subtle acquisition of money, and I think that he would rather deal with Robin Hood as a wolfshead than as a martyr. Also, this has all been forced on him by the King, and it is probably costing him a lot of money and favours to get all those additional men and knights, which must pain him rather.
The Greatest Enemy is a beautifully put together episode that is painful to watch, but for all the right reasons; because we care so much for all these characters, their pain really matters to us, and Robin’s nobility at the end is uplifting at the same time as it is heartbreaking. And at the end of the episode, we are at least given the comfort of seeing the outlaws honour the man that brought them together in the first place. If you are one of those people who never watches this episode because you can’t bear to, watch it now, because Robin’s goodbye to Marion is the most perfect expression of love, and his final actions the most perfect expression of bravery and hope that you could ever hope to see.
Cast in order of appearance
Nasir...Mark Ryan
Arabs...Steve Dent and Mark Lewis
Will Scarlet...Ray Winstone
Little John...Clive Mantle
Friar Tuck...Phil Rose
Much...Peter Llewellyn Williams
Sheriff of Nottingham...Nickolas Grace
Guy of Gisburne...Robert Addie
Hubert de Giscard...Robert Daws
Marion...Judi Trott
Robin Hood...Michael Praed
Herne the Hunter...John Abineri
Edward...Jeremy Bulloch
Matthew...Robbie Bulloch
Executive Producer...Patrick Dromgoole
Assistant Producer...Esta Charkham
Producer...Paul Knight
Director...Robert Young
Episode Guide written by Lucy of Ravenscar
First appeared in Nothing's Forgotten newsletter issue 11, December 1999
But glad when the "new" Robin turns up "It will never be over!" Ha ha! 
