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“I suppose these are the lives we have chosen. Always different directions.”
“And yours is the better direction?”
- Marian and Robin
We begin with Roy (one of John’s gang who is now running with Robin) being pursued through Sherwood Forest by Gisborne and his men. It’s not looking good until we spot Robin and the rest of the crew hidden amongst the trees. They’ve set a trip wire to knock the soldiers off their horses, and it words quite well. They manage to steal the horses and evade capture as Gisborne looks on rather irritably. They get a short distance away, and Roy is all excited that his plan worked. Robin even says he can keep one of the horses they took. Much isn’t too pleased (Roy was clapping everyone but him on the back). Robin is telling Much to not be so easily hurt when they hear crying. It turns out they’ve found a baby. Will picks it up and determines by how cold the boy is that he’s been long abandoned. Allan tries to make him stop crying by holding him upside down, but Robin quickly takes the baby and manages to quiet him. Robin would make a good dad. He looks good with a baby on his arm. He quiets he baby, and things seem to be going well until he realizes the horses’ hooves have been marked, and Gisborne and his men have found them. Another fight ensues, in which Robin quite handily fends off numerous soldiers still while keeping the baby safe. Unfortunately, Gisborne knocks Roy unconscious, and they ride off with him back to Nottingham.
Robin and the gang get back to tell Little John of what happened. Robin apologizes that Roy got captured. Much says in a rather deadpan voice “it’s a baby” and shows John the baby. Really, Much? Are you sure it’s not a monkey? John says they’re going to Nottingham. After all, Roy is his friend. At Nottingham Castle, Marian is voicing her concerns that the Sheriff is keeping quarantine in place in Clun because he plans to “cleanse” it later. He promptly says he has other things to do, and we find him entering the dungeons where Gisborne is being the crap out of Roy. Roy just keeps giving his name rank and serial number basically (he fights for Robin Hood and King Richard). We get a brief scene where a servant girl (Annie) is bringing Roy some food and runs into Gisborne. She acts like they know each other and asks if ‘he’ cried but Gisborne just walks away. She give Roy his food and tries to say that Gisborne has a softer side and that if she had station, he would marry her since she is the mother of his child. It clicks in Roy’s head that the baby they found was the servant girl’s baby boy (even though Gisborne told her he had arranged to take the child to a wealthy family).
Back in the forest, Robin and the gang is trying to find the best way in to the castle to rescue Roy. Will points out the new dungeon door was put in by Robert of York and Mr. York can’t make a hinge worth a damn. Will’s pretty confident he could get through the hinges. So they’ve got a making of a plan. Unfortunately for them, they don’t really get the chance to rescue Roy. The Sheriff makes him an offer of sorts; kill Robin or see his own mother killed. So they let Roy go, and all seems well with the gang until Much fears they’ve been tricked the same way as before with the horses. Turns out they weren’t, though Roy takes Robin aside and it looks like he’s reaching for the dagger the Sheriff gave him. Instead, he tells a half-truth about the baby. His name is Seth. He says he met the baby’s father in the dungeon for stealing bread and the mother left the child to die. He suggests that they (he and Robin) should go to Knighton to return the child. This is, of course, false. Gisborne no doubt left the child to die. He’s too obsessed with status to allow an illegitimate child born to a servant girl to survive.
Marian rides in to Clun to deliver food and supplies to the villagers, obviously against the Sheriff’s orders. She’s stopped by soldiers and is having trouble getting by when Roy and Robin show up. They handle the guards easily enough and are shooting food into the village on arrows. Robin thinks it’s a grand and fun way of delivering the food until he’s hit in the arm with an arrow. Time for them to scatter. Robin takes off with the baby and narrowly avoids being caught, only to be found by Roy a short time later, wielding the Sheriff’s dagger. They’re joined by Marian, and they head back into the village with the rest of the food. Marian tends to Robin’s wound, and she learns (as do we) that Robin was wounded in a Saracen attack on the King and was sent home to heal (the stitches had gotten infected). He tries to foist the baby off on Marian when Much and the others show up (the horse had ridden back without him), but she says that taking the child to its mother was Robin’s decision, not hers. She rides off back to Knighton Hall where Gisborne is waiting. They take her to Nottingham, and the Sheriff says he needs to punish her for her outspokenness. So he chops off her hair in punishment in front of a gathered crowd in the square.
Meanwhile, back in Clun, Robin is fretfully dreaming of the attack on the King that ultimately sent Robin back to England, and when he wakes, Roy is on top of him trying to stab him. Things get pretty crazy for a bit as John flips out and punches Roy, saying angrily that he was like John’s son. Robin takes enough time to calm down and asks Roy what’s going on. Roy admits in between sobs that they’ve got his mother and they’ll kill her at dawn if he doesn’t kill Robin first. He also explains about the baby’s real parents. So they head off to Nottingham to try and recue Roy’s mother as well as Seth’s mother. They get into the castle easily enough. Will manages to break the dungeon door down, and Allan goes and finds Annie.
Too bad things go horribly wrong. The gang is ambushed by Gisborne, the Sheriff and some soldiers in the dungeon. They’re led out to the square to watch Roy’s mother hang when Annie appears and holds a knife the Gisborne’s throat. She’s having a good old shouting rant about him abandoning their baby to die, and then everything just goes to hell. Lots of fighting ensues (they really do have great fight sequences and music). In the end, Roy sacrifices himself so the others (including his mother and Annie) can escape. I really wonder where Seth was at this point. Anyway, back at the camp, they’re having a little funeral for Roy, and they then go to meet Marian. She’s arranged for Annie to serve a kind woman where she and her baby will be safe. Robin notices Marian’s hair, but she brushes it off. I have to say the shorter hair makes her look a bit more mature. We end with Annie opening the gift the gang gave her; a little Saracen bow and quiver of arrows.
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