Pendragon Cycle: The Last True Bard

When Merlin talks about the “Summer Kingdom” his tone and imagery are not so different than Ronald Reagan’s vision of a “shining city on a hill.” However, to realize such lofty ambitions, the men of Britain must fight—and many will likely fall in battle. However, if they submit to the Saxons now, all their dreams of independent dignity will surely die. They are not quite ready, but the battle must be joined anyway in “The Last True Bard,” the first season finale of creator Jeremy Boreing’s Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of Merlin (based on Stephen R. Lawhead’s novels) which premieres today on Daily Wire+.

Even though Merlin returns from the North with King Custennin’s reinforcements, King Aureliius’s army is still badly outnumbered. However, desperate times call for desperate battle strategies. Uther and Custennin devise a high-risk plan that could work, but the battle chief would feel more confident if Merlin led their armies—even though a resulting victory would likely elevate him to the throne of Britain’s new High King, rather than his brother, Aurelius. However, this is exactly the kind of temptation Merlin has struggled to resist.

There will be no avoiding the bloodshed in “The Last True Bard,” so fittingly, the final episode is helmed by action movie specialist Jesse V. Johnson. Things will truly get Medieval.  Yet, the highlight might be Merlin’s inspirational song, which is too haunting to compare to a pre-game pep talk. It is hard to describe, but it might be the best staged scene of the first season.

The finale also drops a small but significant revelation that completely changes viewers’ understanding of many previous scenes—yet it makes perfect sense in the context of the show. The season closer also faithfully reflects the spiritual dimensions of Lawhead’s novels by emphasizing not all conflicts are physical in nature. Tantalizingly, it also leaves viewers wanting more with a massively Arthurian tease for the next anticipated season.

Pendragon Cycle: Ganieda

This will be a tough episode for Merlin, but it helps explain how he became the magical man viewers now know. It also formally introduces us to the woman whose visions he often sees, even though we could easily guess her general significance. This will be her episode, as viewers should deduce from the title, “Ganieda,” the sixth installment of creator Jeremy Boreing’s Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of Merlin (based on Stephen R. Lawhead’s novels) which premieres today on Daily Wire+.

This is indeed the flashback story of when Merlin met Ganieda. Over the course of their courtship, Merlin became her people’s protector and heir apparent. Indeed, when Merlin foils a sneak attack on the castle-keep, her father, King Custennin’s gratitude moves him to appoint the Christian druid his successor. However, we also learn why Custennin is understandably less than thrilled to see Merlin in the previous episode.

Although there are magical and mystical elements throughout the series, episode six might be the most “fantasy”-like yet. It also might feature the most brutal hack-and-slash action thus far. Some viewers might be surprised to find Merlin in the thick of it—perhaps because years of Dungeons & Dragons has conditioned us to expect vastly different roles and weaponry for wizards versus warriors. However, Merlin reaches a point where he will wield anything with a sharp edge or a pointy end with lethal intent. Consequently, the action makes a strong impression, worthy of some of the series’ bigger budgeted grimdark competitors.

Pendragon Cycle: The Price of Failure

Previously, he was portrayed by Gabriel Byrne, Eric Bana, and Eddie Marsan. If you know your Arthurian legend, you know Uther Pendragon has an important role to play. In fact, there wouldn’t be an Arthur without him, but the Pendragon Cycle hasn’t reached that point yet. For now, he has plenty of fighting to do. Frankly, his brother, [contested] High King Aurelius has trouble convincing him not to fight in “The Price of Failure,” the fifth episode of Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of Merlin, based on Stephen R. Lawhead’s novels, which premieres today on Daily Wire+.

It is one thing to recruit an army. Keeping it together is even more challenging (as George Washington would later learn). Unlike Washington, Uther expects blind obedience from the temporarily subordinate kings. Aurelius is willing to be more diplomatic, but Uther just cannot help himself. He is genuinely spoiling for a fight.

Aurelius needs a wise counselor like Merlin, but the Christian mystic is trying to recruit Custennin, the King of the North, but it is not going well, for very personal reasons. Thanks in large part to his brother’s arrogance, Aurelius must fend off a very Medieval challenge from King Gorlas, man to man, to maintain his crown.

So far, creator Jeremy Boreing and the co-writers (Josiah Nelson for “Price of Failure”) have largely structured the series into two-episode mini-arcs, so it is not surprising this installment has little sense of resolution. However, it culminates with a thoroughly satisfying hacking-and-slashing duel. Perhaps more than previous episodes, this chapter really gives viewers a taste for the realities of Dark Ages combat.

The Pendragon Cycle: Episodes 3 & 4

According to some versions, Merlin lived his life in reverse, starting at the point of his death (from the rest of the world’s perspective) and aging backwards. Obviously, that would be hard to convey on film. However, Merlin has a feast of flashbacks in the third and fourth episodes of creator Jeremy Boreing’s The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of Merlin, which are now streaming on Daily Wire+.

Frankly, episode three, “A Fatherless Child,” directed by action-specialist Jesse V. Johnson, represents a major flashforward from the previous episodes, which ended with Merlin’s birth. Since then, many decades have passed, but Merlin still looks like a young man. He comes from good stock, considering his mother, Charis, does not look a day older herself. However, she is Atlantean. Like Merlin, she is also Christian. Merlin has just emerged from what he might describe, as a Christian, his wilderness period, both spiritually and literally. Now that he is back, he finds post-Roman Britain has become a complete dog’s dinner, desperately in need of his help.

Merlin is too late to help Vortigern, the self-proclaimed High King of Britain, even if he thought he was worthy, which he doesn’t. However, Merlin convinces him to make some late amends. Ironically, Merlin identifies Aurelius, the man who deposes Vortigern, as a much better candidate. The potential King possesses greater virtue and he wields the sword. However, his brother Uther distrusts Merlin, which leads to scuffles with the Christian wizard’s companion and sworn protector, Pelleas.

If Britain will have any hope of resisting the Saxon invaders, all the minor petty kings must swear allegiance to Aurelius, but that will be easier said than done in “The King of Maridunum,” directed by Ryan Whitaker. Of course, Merlin has a talent for convincing people, but Uther’s undiplomatic directness and lack of anger management threaten to undermine his efforts. Meanwhile, Aurelius develops an alliance with Charis that might endanger the Atlanteans’ position.

While these two episodes do not stand alone as easily as the first two, they will keep bingeing viewers hooked, while faithfully respecting the spirit of Lawhead's novels. They also feature more identifiably Arthurian characters, obviously starting with Merlin, but also including Uther and Pelleas. Plus, Morgain has grown downright sinister, while remaining as vampy as ever. Indeed, Morgan le Fay is having a pop culture moment, prominently appearing in Pendragon Cycle, while also serving as the main villainess in the limited time travel superhero series, 1776, wherein she has magically intervened to quash the American Revolution (it is the best title Marvel started publishing in 2025).

The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of Merlin, on Daily Wire+

If King Arthur wasn’t Christian, why was the quest for the Holy Grail so important to him? The truth is, we’ve become so accustomed to the revisionist King Arthur, we’ve lost sight of what his legend really meant for centuries. He was a defender of the Christian faith against pagan savages. Stephen R. Lawhead’s Arthurian cycle re-centered the Once and Future King in a Christian context. Of course, that is precisely the reason his novels became popular. Showrunner-co-director Jeremy Boreing adapts the first two Pendragon novels, Taliesin and Merlin, in the new seven-episode series, The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of Merlin, which premieres today on Daily Wire+.

Like any good epic, Pendragon Cycle starts with the origins of the origins. In this case, the supposedly cursed Elphin rescues a foundling from the salmon weir. Recognized as a child of destiny by the druid seer, Taliesin becomes Elphin’s redemption. Yet, as the grand tragedy requires, even the grown Taliesin’s remarkable powers of song cannot save his people from the pagan hordes.

No Arthur yet. Even Merlin remains one generation away. Eventually, he will be played by Tom Sharp, but we only see him fleetingly in a brief flashforward during the two episodes provided for review. However, Merlin’s parents are impressive—and their romance will be quite a story.

Merlin’s father will be Taliesin, who both curses and saves his people when he declines a Faustian offer from one of the nasty “Old Ones.” His mother will be Charis, a princess of Atlantis, who performs for the island city-state’s patron deity in the gladiatorial arena. She too rejects the enslavement demanded by her supposed demigod. Of course, we know what happens to Atlantis.

Consequently, Taliesin and Charis meet in Roman (for now) Briton, which is steadily falling to the barbarians. Elphin’s people have already been displaced, so they seek sanctuary on lands currently controlled by Charis’s father, Avallach, the exiled King of Atlantis. There is great friction between Elphin and Avallach. Sparks also fly between Taliesin and Charis, but it is a whole different dynamic. However, that does not sit well with Charis’s jealous sister, Morgain, who already dabbles in dangerous necromancy.

Indeed, Morgain is the most recognizably Arthurian character at this point, but she should be more than enough to keep Round Table fans hooked. Frankly, Rose Reid and Emree Franklin are terrific as the Atlantean sisters. Seriously, Boreing’s adaptation of Lawhead faithfully retains the Christian themes, but it is not prudish. Frankly, there is more heat going on here than in The Winter King the gritty Arthurian retelling based on Bernard Cornwell’s books. Taliesin’s Faustian temptation scene is also executed with the intensity of a quality horror film.

Reid and Franklin deserve to be breakout stars for their work in Pendragon. Yet, James Arden still holds his own appearing opposite them, singing and fighting with conviction, as Taliesin. The principal casting is truly first-rate, while the supporting players deliver suitably colorful, professional-grade-plus performances. Duran Fulton Brown is a particularly notable standout, portraying Elphin over a span of several decades.

Mr. Birchum, on Daily Wire+

As a junior high shop teacher, Mr. Birchum’s classroom concerns are binary in nature. His students are either wearing their safety glasses or they aren’t. Their power tools are either on or off. His students’ “lived experiences” and “their own truths” do no make any difference. Unfortunately, that is the kind of thinking his school’s new J.E.D.I. (justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion) officer wants to stamp out. However, the cranky wood-worker will not be quietly cancelled out of his job in the debut episode of Adam Carolla’s new animated series, Mr. Birchum, which premieres tomorrow on Daily Wire+.

It is the first day of school, but Birchum and his best buddy workmate, driver’s ed teacher Mr. Gage, are already dreading the stupidity of their students and the school’s bureaucracy—even before they meet Karponzi, the new J.E.D.I. officer. Since Birchum’s unwoke rep proceeds him, Karponzi is already gunning for him and the lazy, feather-nesting Principal Bortles is not about to object.

Mr. Birchum is a character Carolla developed early in his radio career, whom he resurrected to serve as a zeitgeisty critic of the decaying American educational system. There is a little bit of Archie “Silent Majority” Bunker in him and even more of Tim Allen’s Home Improvement persona. However, Mr. Birchum is more right than wrong and he is smarter than 99% of the people around him.

He is also really funny. Yes, this is a Daily Wire+ series executive produced by Ben Shapiro, but it is important to remember Carolla paid his dues touring comedy clubs for years, before he became a leading free speech advocate and critic of “safe spaces.” Carolla and writers Mark Hoffmeier, Byron Kavanagh, and Mike Lynch score plenty of points against Karponzi’s rigid extremism. However, some of the funniest gags come from traditional workplace and family sitcom situations.

The show’s pointed perspective just gives them more bite, as when Birchum’s sympatico, woodworking-crazy stepdaughter Jeanie stages a protest against her realtor mother’s desecration of a mahogany fireplace. The writers even gently mock Birchum’s rightwing persona, when he grudgingly admits the teachers’ union he despises probably saves his bacon.

Nevertheless, some of the series satire is worthy of South Park, which was obviously a source of inspiration. Arguably, J.E.D.I. is the funniest, most ruthlessly cutting acronym since Team America’s Film Actors Guild.