Sir Valiant's got a magic secret weapon: a shield from which the poisonous serpents can come to life & attack. Merlin finds out & tells Arthur. Arthur accuses Valiant of cheating, but the only 'worthy' witness' died & a servant's word's useless against a knight. Arthur's furious to be humiliated & fires Merlin. He prepares for his match with Valiant, expecting to die. After enigmatic encouragement from the Great Dragon, Merlin decides against giving up & resorts to a magic book Gaius gave him. The dark sorceress Nimueh casts a spell on a dragon egg which she throws into the castle's water supply. The next day, people start dying of a plague that turns their skin white with dark blue veins. Uther orders Arthur to search all Camelot for the sorcerer he believes to have caused the epidemic; only a magic trick saves Merlin from having his book found. When Gwen's father exhibits symptoms, Merlin disregards Gaius' warning by curing him. However, when Arthur reports the recovery, Uther believes Gwen to be the sorceress & sentences her to death. With some prompting from Morgana, Arthur goes with Merlin to hunt down an afanc. While Camelot prepares to celebrate peace with Mercia's visiting ruler Bayard, Nimueh forges a poisoned chalice & replaces it with 1 due to be given to Arthur. The disguised sorceress then warns Merlin, blaming Bayard. Uther makes Merlin test the goblet by drinking from it & Merlin collapses. Gaius diagnoses a fatal poison; the only cure's from a flower that grows only in certain caves but the perilous journey to it may take too long. Arthur bravely rides out, although Uther forbids him to 'risk a king' for a pawn. Nimueh plays the damsel in distress & local guide to make sure Arthur's exposed to horrible monsters but even on his deathbed, Merlin conjures magical aid.


When Arthur brings the flower Uther jails his disobedient heir & refuses to've it brought to Gaius. Gwen's ingenuity solves that problem but they still've to deal with Bayard. Merlin would've been killed by a griffin if it hadn't been for Lancelot, who attacks it & gets them away safely. Learning Lancelot's dream's to become a knight, Merlin brings him to court & magically forges proof of nobility so that he can apply. Lancelot passes hazing & close combat tests against Arthur but's found out as commoner & jailed. When the griffin attacks Camelot & also the royal castle the knights' arms prove unable to harm the monster. Arthur frees Lancelot who confronts it. Merlin uses magic to help him triumph where all the other knights'd failed. Uther & Arthur disagree over whether Lancelot can serve as a knight, & Lancelot leaves Camelot. Morgana falls ill with an unidentified brain disease that Gaius' unable to cure. A mysterious healer, Edwin, proves that his 'remedy to cure all ills' seemingly helps her but removes the cursed black beetle that caused the illness. Uther retires Gaius & instates Edwin as the new court physician. Gaius secretly gets court archivist Geoffrey to give him access to the sealed records of Uther's purge of magic, proving Edwin's parents're executed as sorcerers. Edwin threatens to expose Merlin if Gaius tells Uther, leaving Gaius with an impossible choice. After consulting with the Great Dragon Gaius decides to step down & leave Camelot. Edwin uses another beetle to condemn Uther to an agonizing death. Gaius returns at the last minute but it takes Merlin to save the day. Sometime later, Arthur rescues the elderly Aulfric & his pretty daughter Sophia from bandits & they're welcomed to Camelot. Arthur quickly falls in love with her & they plan to elope. Morgana's very alarmed as she's a recurring dream in which Sophia drowns Arthur. She confides in Gaius & Merlin, who realize that the dreams're prophetic & that she might've magic. Merlin follows Aulfric to a lake, where he discovers that father & daughter're Sidhes, former immortals who've lost their immortality & must kill Arthur to regain it. Sometime later, when a druid's caught by the king's guards his son sends out a telepathic call for help. Merlin responds & hides the boy, Mordred, in Morgana's chambers. She forms a close bond with him & risks her life attempting to smuggle him out of Camelot. When this fails Arthur joins in the plot to help him escape. Merlin must decide whether or not to help when the Great Dragon hints at dark prophecies about Mordred. Sometime later the Black Knight arrives to interrupt Arthur's coming-of-age celebrations & throws down the gauntlet to any knight who'll fight him, he kills them all & Gaius discovers that he's Uther's dead brother-in-law, summoned from the grave by the witch Nimueh. He's seeking revenge for the death of his sister. Merlin learns from the Great Dragon that only a special sword, burnished with the Dragon's fiery breath, can kill the knight. The Dragon warns Merlin that only Arthur can wield it. Arthur's next to fight the Black Knight but Uther takes Excalibur & faces the knight himself, slaying him in the end. Now that the sword's been wielded by someone other than Arthur, it's capable of being used for evil; to prevent that the Great Dragon instructs Merlin to hide it far from the reach of mortal men. Sometime later, hearing that his village's being threatened by a warlord & his gang, Merlin travels home with Gwen & Morgana to help. Arthur joins them & does his best to drill the peaceful villagers into a fighting force, but Merlin's friend William dismisses him as an egotist. Gwen calls Arthur out on his insensitivity to the villagers' humble ways & also fights for the women's right to fight but when it comes to the fight the villagers' still inexperienced & Merlin risks exposing himself as a sorcerer to drive off the invaders. During the battle, he conjures up a storm to drive off the invaders which Arthur sees. During the ensuing battle, William saves Arthur's life & takes the blame for the magic storm. Arthur pardons William on his death bed. Sometime later, despite Merlin's protests, Arthur kills a unicorn while out hunting & presents Uther with its horn. Father & son ignore Gaius' warning that it's bad luck to kill a unicorn, soon the crops wither & the well water turns to sand. The mystic Anhora, guardian of the unicorns, arrives in Camelot to tell Arthur that his stupidity's cursed the land & that he alone can lift that curse. He faces a # of tests, 1st in Camelot & then in the Labyrinth of Gedref. Merlin follows him despite being told to stay behind. In the end, Arthur saves the day with a demonstration of selflessness, ultimately restoring the welfare of Camelot & the unicorn itself. Later Gwen's father Tom's approached by Tauren, who possesses the alchemist's stone & wants Tom's help in turning base metal into gold which he intends to use to overthrow the king. The palace guards raid the smithy & Tauren escapes while Tom's caught & sentenced to death. Morgana gives him the key to the cells but Tom's killed trying to escape. Having spent time in the cells following an argument with Uther Morgana retrieves the alchemist's stone & delivers it to Tauren. She joins Tauren's plot to assassinate Uther, unaware that Merlin's listening in. On the pretext of visiting her father's grave, Morgana leads Uther into Tauren's trap. Merlin must decide whether Uther's life's worth saving. However, in the end, it's Morgana who's a change of heart & saves Uther. Later on, a huge monster's on the loose near Camelot. Morgana's a nightmare of Arthur's death, but he ignores her warning &'s bitten by the Questing Beast before Merlin slays it. The Great Dragon tells Merlin that to save Arthur he must travel to the Isle of the Blessed where he meets Nimueh. She gives him the antidote but warns him another life must be sacrificed to save Arthur's. He gives the antidote to Arthur & the prince recovers but Merlin's mother arrives in Camelot with a terrible illness. He prepares to return to the Isle of the Blessed however Gaius gets there 1st. As he sacrifices himself he faces the greatest test so far of his emotions & his magic powers in a showdown with Nimueh. Sometime later, digging beneath the castle uncovers a tomb full of wealth & the waiting soul of a dead sorcerer, would-be thief ingratiates himself with Arthur & usurps Merlin's position to get access to the key that'll allow him to rob the tomb but he gets more than he bargained for &'s possessed by the dead sorcerer. Merlin's forced to go to the Great Dragon for help to defeat the powerful sorcerer but the price's a promise of freedom. Prince Arthur learns his knights're deliberately letting him win at jousting practice because of his royal status & so believes that he'll only be able to prove himself in a jousting tournament if his opponents do not know his real identity. While he goes undercover to compete as an unknown knight, an assassin arrives in Camelot to murder the prince. Morgana begins to suspect she's magic & Merlin wants to help despite Gaius' warning not to get involved. Merlin helps her to reach out to the Druids but Uther declares she's been abducted & sends Arthur with a party of knights to kill them & rescue her. Later a gang of criminals abduct her & Guinevere intending to force King Uther to ransom his ward. When Morgana escapes her abductor attempts to pass off Gwen as the king's ward. While imprisoned she discovers Lancelot working for the kidnappers. As Arthur & Merlin attempt to rescue her, she & Lancelot also make a bid for freedom. Later, a lone survivor of an attack on a nobleman's household & her odd servant obtain refuge with an old friend, Uther, but she isn't what she appears & Merlin must somehow stop the King from marrying a troll. Even when he successfully unmasks the troll for what she is, her enchantment continues to hold her new husband, in love. It'll take Arthur's death to break the spell & sometime later a harmless bit of magic by Merlin brings the wrath of Uther's witchfinder down on Camelot. The witchfinder accuses Merlin of being a sorcerer but Gaius takes the fall to protect him. With Gaius due to be burned alive at the stake, Merlin must find out how the witchfinder fabricated the "evidence", expose him & save Gaius. Later, Arthur faces a challenge from a mysterious knight who turns out to be a woman. He's forced to face Morgause in a battle to the death. She defeats him but spares his life in exchange for a promise to meet her & further tempts him with the knowledge that she knew his mother. What he discovers when Morgause uses her sorcery to allow him to speak with his dead mother sends him back to Camelot intent on killing his father, Merlin rescues a young cursed Druid girl & hides her. He begins to fall in love with her. At the same time, mysterious murders start to occur in Camelot & later 5 kings gather in Camelot to sign a peace treaty, but 1 of them intends to sabotage the peace. King Alined's jester uses magic to enchant Prince Arthur to fall in love with the beautiful Lady Vivian to incite a war between her possessive father & Camelot. After finding them in a compromising situation Olaf challenges Arthur to a duel. Merlin finds that the spell's cure's a true love's kiss & must convince Gwen to do it. Sometime later an unscrupulous rebel, Alvar, uses Mordred to contact Morgana & convince her to steal a valuable crystal which he believes'll aid in his quest to overthrow Uther. Arthur's able to retrieve the crystal but not before Merlin's been tempted to use it & sees a vision of the future which terrifies him. After that happens they return to Camelot & a stranger comes looking for Morgana where their only known as the Red Knight due to the strange color, red, of their armor. The reason for them looking for her the Lady because she's the other's soulmate & in Druid lore when soulmates connect they need each other to live which means their souls help each other & if they never find each other they'll die.


It's the next morning after returning to Camelot, Morgana wakes up in a cold sweat that causes Gwen to become worried for her & so the maid goes to Gaius with her concerns; Gaius goes to the ward's room to check on her & when he gets there he becomes worried himself. After he examines her he goes to see the Camelot historian Geoffrey to tell him what he's noticed. Once the other man hears everything he relays to Gaius that the symptoms point to soulmate withdrawal. Later both men go to their King to tell him about it which he refers to as 'Druid nonsense' & he dismisses them afterward. When they leave he tells Arthur to watch her just in case her Druid soulmate comes for her & Arthur does as told even though he doesn't agree because he thinks the idea of a soulmate's very romantic even if he won't admit it aloud. That night he posts himself outside her chambers so no one'll get to her. The next morning he wakes to the thrashing of her in her chambers & goes in to stop her from continuing. After he's successful she incoherently cries & mumbles on about needing them. He asks who them's but she doesn't answer but just repeatedly says she needs them over & over again all the while rocking her body back & forth; a few days later the same thing happens but this time it happens in front of the whole Court. Once that happens Uther tries to calm her down to no avail. She says she needs them, this time she sounds very desperate so much so that Uther also tries to get the name out of her even though he's against it all & no sooner does he ask for Gaius' help once more & said 'them' appears; no sooner does she see them she goes rushing toward them & they pick her up to then places her on a outer-court antechamber bench where they sit down; Morgana sits on the other's lap thus facing them & rubs her face on their armor where the neck meets the shoulders & while this happens both Pendragons show up to see what's going on; when the Red Knight sees them they put Morgana on the bench they greet the King & Prince.

Uther asks them to remove their helmet but they refuse & instead take a piece of paper out with their name on it. After that she takes Morgana to her chambers where she asks Gwen to look after the other until the Red Knight returns then the Red Knight goes to Gaius to get an elixir that'll get rid of her Kryptonite poisoning & once that's done she returns again where she falls asleep in Morgana's arms & during that time the Ward doesn't've any horrible visions during it. Meanwhile, back with the Hawk family, Carter gets kidnapped. A few hours later the NCPD & GCPD create a joint taskforce to find him; this team's led by Detectives Maggie Sawyer & James Gordon. Meanwhile, dear reader, we'll get back to the Lady & her knight in, red, shining armor.