THE FUTURE KING

King Arthur, but make it feel like a classic CW teen pleaser.

After the events of The Other Merlin (2021), canonical Camelot is largely restored, albeit ahistorically: Lancelot is a squire on his way to knighthood (but sadly separated from crush Percival); Emmett Merlin is at court as (apprentice) wizard (and twin Emry is at court as herself, not pretending to be her brother); and Arthur and Guinevere are engaged. But that’s where the canon screams to a halt. Guin and Arthur don’t want to get married—also, she’s pregnant from a brief affair with Emmett; Emry and Arthur are still in love but kept apart by politics and the king, and Emry has some weird new magic that might be bad news. Meanwhile, in the B plot, Morgana is stumbling around Anwen, the magical realm where a delicate power balance keeps both the Merlin patriarch and evil sorceress Bellicent in a deep sleep. Less bawdy and much more earnest than the first, this second series entry has a plot that mostly revolves around relationships. In classic midseries fashion, much of the action sets up exciting threads to be resolved in a future volume. The myriad romances at play include two reasonably significant gay male couples and a peripheral Sapphic romance. While the point-of-view characters are presumed White, several secondary characters (including Gawain, Percival, and Pernelle) are described as brown-skinned.

Satisfying.