[Editor’s Note: The following interview contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of MGM+’s Robin Hood]For the final two months, MGM+ has saved audiences on tenterhooks with its recent tackle probably the most iconic people heroes in historical past, and tonight, Robin Hood wrapped up its critically acclaimed freshman season with an explosive finale. As we previewed within the lead-up to the episode, the slow-burning battle between Rob (Jack Patton), the Sheriff of Nottingham (Sean Bean), and the Earl of Huntingdon (Steven Waddington) lastly got here to a head — which had devastating penalties for each side of the trigger.
Forward of the Season 1 finale, we caught up with collection co-creators John Glenn and Jonathan English, who additionally penned the episode, to unpack the surprising demises of Huntingdon and Man of Gisborne (Davor Tomic); Marian’s function in her father’s dying; and the almost-love triangle between Rob, Marian (Lauren McQueen), and Ralph (Erica Ford). Whereas Robin Hood has but to obtain an official Season 2 renewal, Glenn and English additionally previewed plotlines from the potential Season 2, together with how Priscilla (Lydia Peckham) will navigate life on the convent, following her surprising being pregnant; what’s going to occur to the outlaws, now that they’ve briefly disbanded; and what’s subsequent for Rob and Marian.
Will ‘Robin Hood’ Season 2 Embody a Time Bounce?
“What it additionally permits the characters to do is to have particular person progress exterior of the group.”
COLLIDER: The best way Season 1 ends is that it begins to ascertain a brand new established order for the outlaws. They’re being dispersed and mendacity low and ready for the subsequent time they’ll act. How integral was that to establishing a possible Season 2? As a result of now you’ve gotten a brand new taking part in discipline, a brand new manner for all of those characters to be established. How would possibly we see that perform?
JOHN GLENN: One of many objectives was all the time to inform our personal model of the story. So, on the finish of this primary piece of narrative, act one among a collection, if you’ll, the factor we needed to keep away from was the outlaws going additional into the forest, and they will go to the Nice Oak, or construct some type of new neighborhood. What we might by no means actually seen earlier than was the outlaws dispersing and transferring again into abnormal lives to cover in plain sight, or into a bigger metropolis to remain hidden from the authorities. So, it is distinctive within the sense that we’ve not seen it earlier than. What it additionally permits the characters to do is to have particular person progress exterior of the group after we come again to satisfy them once more in Season 2, which supplies Jonathan and me so much to do with the characters.
JONATHAN ENGLISH: I feel it is also completely about permitting them to return to being people reasonably than only a mass of outlaws. It permits them to return to being themselves as particular person characters, after which to satisfy them as these particular person characters in Season 2 reasonably than as a gaggle.
Do you assume, in Season 2, we’d see a few of that progress on display? Or would it not be a time soar the place we get to see how they’ve established and adjusted, after which re-meet these characters at a brand new stage of their life?
GLENN: Each. Positively each. We’ve, for probably the most half, designed Season 2, and it begins in that manner after we meet them as people in Season 2, and in some respects, in numerous lives. There’s progress that is already happening between the seasons, the time, after all, however then there is a better progress within the storylines, the characters, particular person tales via Season 2. So, it is a season we’re actually enthusiastic about.
‘Robin Hood’ Kills Off One of many Legend’s Most Properly-Recognized Characters
“We would have liked a extremely nice enemy, foe, antagonist to amp up the stakes.”
I am very enthusiastic about it, too. You talked about approaching Robin Hood from a recent perspective, and one of many character deaths that stunned me probably the most was Man of Gisborne, as a result of he’s such a outstanding determine in a variety of different diversifications. How early on did you determine that he was going to be one of many first, most outstanding deaths within the present?
ENGLISH: We simply needed to have a brand new character coming in late within the season who had some notoriety, and Man of Gisborne, in all the variations of Robin Hood, all the time is a infamous character. He was one of many final well-known names within the canvas of Robin Hood. We talked about whether or not we must always maintain that title again for one more season, however ultimately, it was thrilling to deliver him in and to make use of this character as a risk, and as an actual problem to Robin and the outlaws, and the sheriff, to upset, to usurp the sheriff in a manner that I feel would have been more durable to do if it was with a personality that we weren’t conversant in.
It someway appeared extra plausible that this character with this well-known title may usurp the sheriff, and Sean Bean. So, it was about that. We would have liked a extremely nice enemy, foe, antagonist to amp up the stakes for the tip of the season, which I feel he does. I imply, Steve Waddington’s character, Huntingdon, supplies that each one the best way, however I feel the inclusion of Man of Gisborne simply amps up the stakes slightly bit additional as we go into the finale.
Because you introduced up Huntingdon, I do wish to speak about his dying.
ENGLISH: Let’s speak about Huntingdon’s dying.
Sure, let’s speak about that dying! Marian will get to be an energetic participant in her father’s dying, even when we get that flip there, of Rob preserving her from being the ultimate blow. How essential is that to the place issues would possibly go along with Marian? As a result of I might think about her psychological state going ahead. She performed an element in her father’s dying. She’s additionally now free from the burden of that. What are a few of these dynamics that you just’re most enthusiastic about taking part in together with her? As a result of I like what you’ve got performed with Marian on this adaptation.
GLENN: One of the vital issues that we needed to perform within the very starting was that we did not wish to inform the story of the usual Sheriff of Nottingham, who’s simply obsessed for no cause. You do not even perceive why he is actually all that crazed about Robin Hood, aside from he ought to be, as a result of that is what the legend says. However with Marian, too, it’s equally vital to create a Marian that you have by no means actually seen earlier than, a Marian together with her personal storyline, however a plausible storyline for the time interval. So, following via with that notion from the start, from the pilot onward, it felt crucial that she was part of that ultimate second.
The most important a part of it’s not even that she is part of killing her father, which is emotionally enormous, but it surely’s that she decided, simply as Rob did, that they’d die collectively reasonably than dwell aside. As a result of by all accounts, Huntingdon is a formidable foe who simply may have killed [them]…
He simply wouldn’t go down!
GLENN: Yeah. “This man received’t die.” So, I feel that, in an odd manner, it was inevitable. If we have been to really do the character of Marian justice, it was inevitable that she be there.
ENGLISH: We needed that dying to only be so uncooked, not simply in its physicality, however in its emotion. The thought of infanticide and killing a daughter, killing a baby, and a baby killing a father, that is simply such an unsightly, uncooked, difficult factor to do, and for actors to even play and make it really feel actual. The truth that they performed it so effectively and with such unbelievable rawness and depth… Steve is such an unbelievable actor, actually.
He’s so good.
GLENN: So good.
ENGLISH: His demise, he managed to make it cinematic, as effectively, and considerably poetic.
How ‘Robin Hood’ Makes use of Ralph to Subvert Marian’s Storyline
“There’s nice energy in female nature.”
Rob and Marian are the core love story of Robin Hood, however you’ve got additionally launched a personality who brings within the facet of unrequited love. That clearly provides a variety of angst and battle and extra room for storytelling. How did you arrive at that surprising, not-quite love triangle with Ralph?
GLENN: With Ralph, what’s attention-grabbing about that storyline is that the love triangle is actually extra in service of the character of Ralph than something. It is actually about her progress and her evolution as a personality who’s in hiding, and discovering and opening up and unlocking her femininity. There’s nice energy in female nature, so we get to see this distinctive effervescent up of this highly effective nature inside this younger lady, and it is a gorgeous story. I do not wish to converse for Jonathan, however I feel I can right here. One in all our favourite tales is Ralph’s.
ENGLISH: We love the character. We love Erica [Ford], the actress, who performs Ralph. I feel it labored. It was a type of facets of the present that labored even higher. The transition to movie, the transition to the performances from the web page, was realized in a manner that was much more satisfying and fulfilling than John and I anticipated or hoped it might be. A whole lot of that has to do with Erica.
GLENN: Indisputably.
ENGLISH: And simply her explicit nature as an actress and as a younger lady. And, after all, she and Jack work rather well collectively. However Erica was actually an amazing shock and inhabited the early model of Ralph, but in addition carried out the later model of Ralph, struggling together with her femininity and her id, and all of that.
With out it being too apparent, it is a direct reverse to the storyline of Marian. Really, you’ll count on it to be Ralph who’s within the mud, coated in blood, gripping a dagger, killing her father on the finish. However really, it is Marian’s journey that does that, and it is Ralph’s journey to, sure, certain, she’s within the battle preventing and killing umpteen troopers within the finale, however really her true journey within the story is to the purpose of getting some type of unrequited love with Rob.
What Will Occur to Priscilla in ‘Robin Hood’ Season 2?
“She has a implausible storyline in Season 2.”
Ralph’s positively one of many characters that I am most excited to see the place her story is in Season 2, particularly after going to London. That ought to be attention-grabbing. My final query for you is about Priscilla. She is totally my favourite character of the collection. I like how her character arc has taken her. She’s a personality who has been capable of maneuver her manner via life by mastering her femininity. Now, she’s caught within the nunnery, the place you possibly can’t actually use your femininity as a weapon. What are you able to preview about her new scenario in Season 2?
GLENN: Properly, you are hitting on the precise cause that Jonathan and I, as writers and storytellers, put her within the place that you just discover her in on the finish of the season, as a result of it locks down this weapon that she’s realized to wield via her life. In an odd manner, it smothers her femininity. In case you monitor the feminine characters within the present, they’re all sort of brilliantly female, we expect, in a really plausible manner, and it’s honoring that. All of those girls, in numerous methods, are being honored in that sense.
In all probability the best cause that you just like that character a lot is Lydia [Peckham]. Lydia embodied Priscilla in a manner that nobody else did. Jonathan and I, actually, like with all of the actors, the second we noticed her, it was like, “That is Priscilla.” It was by no means even a query. I feel the place she goes in Season 2 is implausible. She has a implausible storyline in Season 2 that we really feel the viewers goes to like.
Keep tuned at Collider for additional updates, and stream Robin Hood Season 1 now on MGM+.
- Launch Date
-
November 2, 2025
- Community
-
MGM+
- Administrators
-
Jonathan English
