Sherwood S1 E4

## Plot

The episode starts with Robin using the gauntlet to create a small device. After the short theme, the scene changes to the Upper City as we are finally introduced to her father, Thomas Loxley, voiced by Darrill Rosen, as he demonstrates the latest Drobo to Sheriff Nottingham and Gisbourne. Yeah, he's working for them willingly, but only because, for a brilliant scientist, he's stupid enough to believe that things aren't dire in Sherwood and that Nottingham isn't evil. Gisbourne seems far more interested in Tom's field of work than being head of security, since that position always leads to his father berating and yelling at him, and casually manipulating and abusing him. The targeting system has been completely rewritten, its facial recognition tracking is unparalleled, and its firepower is impressive. The Sheriff wants to use it to stop the insurgency, but Thomas reminds him that this is a defense system, and he won't stand for Nottingham using it for his aggressive raids into Sherwood. The Sheriff tells him that those are defensive raids, but Thomas doesn't seem to believe him, since that's not how raiding even works or what it means. Definition of raid: A sudden attack on an enemy by troops, aircraft, or other armed forces in warfare. Nottingham tells Thomas that the rebels threaten their very existence, and when he asks him how he'd secure the city, he just says that security is Gisbourne's domain, not his. He demands that the Sheriff give him his word that he won't use the technology on civilians, or he'll shut the project down, and Nottingham agrees. He's obviously going to go back on his word though, since his latest plan involves using the advanced Drobo to catch Robin when she enters the annual Sherwood Showdown. He tells Gisbourne that she's going to enter because this year, he's offering the winner residency in the Upper City for life, and everything she wants is here, like her father. It turns out that the two have known each other since they went to university together. He tells everyone in Sherwood about the competition and the prize. Rose can't believe that they're falling for it, considering it's coming from someone they all hate, but Gripper points out that she blindly trusted the Sheriff's lies not too long ago. You'd think he'd get over his animosity at her after what they all went through in the last episode, but then there's this random last dig at her, and nothing else for the rest of the series. It's really weird. On the sub, the others, especially Iniko, tell Robin that entering the competition is a terrible idea. Sure, if she won, she'd have access to everything, but the Sheriff wants *to kill her*. She'd be caught before she even got close. However, she shows them the device she was working on earlier. It's an identity scrambler to hide her true face. And her alias is Marian Johns, which is close enough to Maid Marian for me to consider the two the same character. Also, Johns, as in Prince John? Iniko doesn't want her to go alone, but she only has one scrambler. It's clear that he's worried about her because he likes her, but he tries to hide it by saying that if something happens to her, they'd have to do her work for her. She promises him that she'll come back. Her first opponent is Otto the Destroyer. None of the hits still feel like they have an impact. I don't know if it's a problem with the sound design, the sound mixing, the animation, or something else entirely. Iniko can't bear to watch, so he decides to go raiding in the Upper City. Gisbourne tells his father that there's still no sign of Robin yet, and he tells him to go back out and keep looking for her. She faces a tough female salt miner in the finals that manages to get a lot of good hits in, and cause her identity scrambler to malfunction briefly, so the Sheriff knows who she really is. I mean, you could've just looked for the gauntlet that's always attached to her hand. Sure, it's basically just a clingy MacGuffin to get her out of normally impossible situations, but still. Iniko hides when he hears someone coming. It's Gisbourne and Thomas, who are arguing about using the new Drobo. Gisbourne tells him that King Richard appointed his father as his surrogate, and Thomas is therefore compelled to do his bidding, whether he likes it or not, and his father's bidding is his bidding. When Gisbourne uses his last name, Iniko realizes who Thomas really is. The Sheriff manually controls the new Drobo to fight Robin himself. She doesn't do very well. Her identity scrambler falls off, and she loses her staff. I get that it's being manually controlled, but can't you just get behind it and deactivate it like you did in the previous episode? Then again, there was a reason she had Iniko and Rose distract it while she did that. The others want to help her, but they'd never get close enough. The Sheriff orders the Drobo to finish her off, but because her identity scrambler fell off, it doesn't recognize her as its target, and enters standby mode. The Sheriff yells at Gisbourne to fix the problem himself. Thomas can't find out about Robin. Why not? He finds out about her in the next episode, and the Sheriff doesn't seem bothered when the two finally meet face to face in episode 8. Anyway, Robin hacks into the Drobo and makes its new target the Sheriff. She escapes with her wing suit and lands near Iniko. She tells him that the new Drobo's coding was so good that it could've only been written by her dad, and assumes that the Sheriff forced him to build it. How did you come to that conclusion? You've literally never met your father before and know nothing about him, besides his name and what he looks like. Sure, maybe her mom or Tui told her at one point that he was a scientist, or she figured it out after using his security clearance in the first episode, but still, anyone could've worked on that robot. Robin wants to go back up there and save him. Iniko tells her the truth about her father, but she refuses to believe him. Anya and Tyler's voice acting is really good here, and even the animation is a bit better. I'm pretty sure they made everyone's hair short so they would have to animate it moving as little as possible, but in this scene, the wind makes her and Iniko's hair blow, which makes them look a bit more realistic and less like perfect plastic toy dolls. Their eyes and the lighting are also good, but they've been like that since day one, at least in my opinion. The score is pretty good too. I'm sure they'll be great by the time I get to the end of this.