The legendary outlaw returns in MGM+\u2019s new Robin Hood series, where rebellion brews beneath Norman rule. Episode one, \u201cI See Him,\u201d reimagines the hero\u2019s origins with fresh faces, familiar tensions\u2014and an unexpected frog.<\/p>\n
By Richard Utz<\/p>\n
The narratives surrounding the legendary Robin Hood should already have ended when the late medieval ballad \u201cThe Death of Robin Hood<\/a>\u201d told the story of how Robin\u2019s cousin, the Prioress of Kirklees Priory, betrays and kills him by bleeding him to death. And the popular hero\u2019s epic degeneration is about to be portrayed again in a forthcoming movie, The Death of Robin Hood<\/a> (directed by Michael Sarnoski, and scheduled to be released in 2026), in which Hugh Jackman, of X-Men and Wolverine fame, \u201cgrapples with his past life of crime and murder while in the hands of a mysterious woman after being badly injured\u201d (says Internet Movie Database<\/a>). This could become a real downer, similar to the final scene of Tankred Dorst\u2019s play, Merlin, oder das w\u00fcste Land (1981), in which Arthur and Lancelot, after the collapse of the Round Table, reflect back as old men on the failure of their utopian project and their lives.<\/p>\n However, the die-hard Robin Hood fans among us will always believe that any claims of his death have been greatly exaggerated. It is in this spirit that I watched the first episode (\u201cI See Him\u201d) of the new action-adventure television series Robin Hood<\/a>, produced by Lionsgate Television for MGM+, and featuring Jack Patten (Rob) and Lauren McQueen (Marian), together with the notorious Sean Bean (think Ned Stark in the first episodes of Game of Thrones) as Sheriff of Nottingham and Steven Waddington (think Ivanhoe in the 1997 Ivanhoe TV series) as Earl of Huntingdon.<\/p>\n The framework of the narrative is the oppressive Norman rule in 12th-century England under Henry II, during which Saxons are forced to pay heavy taxes, convert to Christianity, and all hunting privileges are reserved for the king. Some Saxons resist the injustice brought upon them by the Norman settler-colonialists by living as outlaws, protected by the vast forests.<\/p>\n The story centers on Robert (Rob), the son of the proud Saxon Hugh of Locksley, a forester who hopes to reclaim his ancestral land. Hugh petitions the Norman Sheriff of Nottingham, but his efforts are rejected, and he is instead pressed into service as a royal forester, deepening his resentment of the Normans. We see him in his younger years in a flashback, as he inculcates his son with the story of the legendary Wild Aedric, who \u201cdidn\u2019t believe England had been conquered, even when a Norman king came and stole the English crown. He rebelled. And he retreated into the woods and became an outlaw. For many summers, Aedric defied the king\u2019s soldiers, and he and his men feasted on the king\u2019s deer.\u201d Aedric, so Hugh tells his son, wed Godda, the wild huntress fairy, who \u201cturned him into a magnificent stag\u201d and eternal \u201cprotector of the forest\u201d who watches over the allegedly indigenous Saxons.<\/p>\n Robert grows up a skilled archer (several scenes offer a nod to the most English of weapons, the longbow) and forms a friendship with Marian, the kind-hearted daughter of the bellicose Norman Earl of Huntingdon. Tensions between the Saxons and Normans continue to rise, and Hugh\u2019s attempts to navigate the political landscape end in disaster. Huntingdon\u2019s men bribe a Saxon prisoner to attack Hugh. One of the guards is accidentally killed during the scuffle, and the soldiers accuse Hugh of the murder. He is arrested, brought before the Sheriff, found guilty of treason, and sentenced to be hanged.<\/p>\n Rob rushes from the Greenwood to Nottingham to save his father. Powerless, he watches as his father is led to the gallows. Before his execution, Hugh prays for Robert\u2019s protection and for his son to become a weapon for his people\u2019s deliverance from what medieval chronicler Orderic Vitalis<\/a> called the Norman \u201cyoke\u201d (referred to as \u201cNorman rule\u201d in the episode\u2019s prologue). The episode ends with Robert witnessing his father\u2019s public hanging, an event that marks the end of his former life and motivates his transformation into the legendary Robin Hood. In its dramatic setting, the scene is reminiscent of the desperation Arya Stark feels as she watches her father\u2019s execution in Game of Thrones. And so, as the brief description of this first episode in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) summarizes: \u201cA Saxon forester\u2019s son loses everything. A legend is born in blood. The fight for England\u2019s soul begins.\u201d<\/p>\n As always with historical fictions, reviewers<\/a> find fault with anachronisms, for this series specifically the advent and spread of Christianity (\u201cPortraying Saxons under Henry II as pagans is a blatant historical insult and ignorance.\u201d \u201cA dash of historical accuracy with a lot of creative license and a pinch of druidic mysticism.\u201d). As for the acting, costume design, scenery, and screenwriting, viewers seem to disagree wildly, arguing on the one hand that \u201cLauren McQueen shines as Marian, bringing warmth and quiet strength that make her scenes among the most engaging in the series so far. The actor playing Rob shows flashes of real emotion \u2013 especially in the rain \u2013 though his range still feels limited in quieter or more reflective moments\u201d; and on the other hand: \u201cMGM+ had all the ingredients for a definitive Robin Hood\u2026 Sean Bean, historical gravitas, and one of literature\u2019s greatest legends. Instead, they\u2019re desperately trying to be Game of Thrones, throwing in gratuitous violence and unnecessary sex scenes while burying the actual goldmine they\u2019re sitting on.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no doubt that any medievalist post-Game of Thrones TV series will take some cues from the most widely successful series ever produced. And the presence of Sean Bean should be a warning to all audiences of such inter-series connectivity. The directors and producers immediately immerse their viewers in a bloody skirmish between the (indigenous?) Saxon resistance fighters, led by the legendary Wild Aedric, leaving no doubt that the fans of grimdark medievalism<\/a> will feel at home in this new series.<\/p>\n The historical tension between Saxons and Normans, even if anachronistic, provides a great motivator for this series\u2019 actions. That historical conflict was one of Rudyard Kipling\u2019s favorite yarns, expressed so well in his \u201cNorman and Saxon<\/a>,\u201d a poem written specifically to demonstrate how the fusion of both these medieval traditions was necessary to create and shape the Great Britain the poet so cherished. If only the Normans in Robin Hood had heeded the warning the Norman baron gives to his son in Kipling\u2019s poem:<\/p>\n The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite. The full value of the storyline will still take some time to unfold throughout the remaining nine episodes of this first season. For now, what we have here is a quite original and entertaining retelling of the Robin Hood narrative, especially with Robin\u2019s loss of land and title connected to post-1066 Norman England.<\/p>\n And the Norman vs. Saxon tension also enables some of the humorous aspects of this first episode: For reasons yet unclear, Rob\u2019s mother Joan (played by Anastasia Griffith) teaches her son French. This is gloriously funny when the Saxon family break into real French, but all the (real) Norman French characters, who certainly would have spoken varieties of Norman French, converse in English.<\/p>\n More importantly, when Marian and Rob meet for the first time as kids, Marian\u2019s support animal is a sizable green frog. Luckily for the frog, Marian was not aware of the \u201cFrog Prince\u201d fairy tale. She only catches the animals in the meadows and then releases them in the Huntingdon moat.<\/p>\n Years later, when Marian and Rob encounter each other again, another frog appears on scene to help Marian (and perhaps some viewers) to remember their first encounter as children. And when they later speak with one another and he demonstrates he recognizes her, too, he calls her \u201cthe frog girl\u201d and uses French to impress her with his education; similar to how William Wallace uses Latin and French in Braveheart to impress Isabella of France. From Rob\u2019s (twenty-first-century) Saxon perspective, the Norman French Earl\u2019s daughter is very much a \u201cfrog girl,\u201d especially when one considers the habit of many English speakers who refer to the French as \u201cfrogs.\u201d<\/p>\n However, while \u201cfrog\u201d is on record (by the Oxford English Dictionary) as an insult for men and women since the fourteenth century and was used since the seventeenth as an insult for the Jesuits and the Dutch, as an anti-French insult it is only recorded since the French Revolution. Of course, the screenwriters may have been influenced by the story of the French King Clovis\u2019 decision to replace three frogs on his heraldic sign with three lilies (fleurs-de-lis), as part of his conversion to Christianity. According to that story<\/a>, calling the French \u201cfrogs\u201d could have begun in the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n All this said, the appearance of a frog in the first episode of the 2025 Robin Hood TV series should be recorded as an authentic inaugural use of an amphibian in the long tradition of Robin Hood narratives. In addition to \u201cRobin Hood and the Monk,\u201d \u201cRobin Hood and the Potter,\u201d \u201cRobyn Hod and the Shryff of Notyngham,\u201d and \u201cRobin Hood and the Golden Arrow,\u201d we now also have \u201cRobin Hood and the Frog.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow \u2013 with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, \u2018This isn\u2019t fair dealing,\u2019 my son, leave the Saxon alone.<\/p>\n