YMMV / Once Upon a Time S5 E7 "Nimue"

• Complete Monster: Vortigan is a masked warlord searching for the Holy Grail to gain immortality and magic power. To find it, Vortigan has massacred multiple villages, burning them to the ground and killing everyone there. Learning of Merlin and Nimue's plans to turn the Grail into a sword, Vortigan hopes to steal it for power. Taking Nimue hostage, Vortigan seemingly kills her, laughing at Merlin's grief, before trying to kill Merlin with the sword. Despite his short screentime, the consequences of Vortigan's evil would lead to the creation of the first Dark One and would haunt the Enchanted Forrest well into the present day.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Unsurprisingly Nimue had this effect on some fans - given that her entire family was murdered and she watched her village destroyed. Her motivations for killing Vortigan were sympathetic, but she was still outright given a choice between the man she loved and her own revenge - and she chose the latter.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Nimue proved very popular with fans as soon as the episode aired, with many proclaiming that her and Merlin were one of the best love stories the show had done. The fact that she was also stunningly beautiful probably didn't hurt either.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: The explanation for Merlin's Race Lift is that he was from a time and place (somewhere in the Arabic world, it appears) that dark-skinned people were prevalent. His backstory also includes finding the Holy Grail, he quite clearly asks permission from God before drinking (which may or may not play into why he was considered worthy), he creates from the Grail one of the greatest forces for goodness known, he is tempted to leave his path by the love of a woman, he is the counterpart to the greatest force of darkness in the world and is the only one who can defeat/destroy it, and the fact he is the one who can save Emma and had been guiding Arthur to be a good king who can bring down the darkness makes him very much a savior figure. It's not hard at all to interpret him as a black Jesus—which is both true to Jesus's origins and even fits the Christian underpinnings of Arthurian canon.
• The Un-Twist: Most fans had figured out that Nimue would turn out to be the first Dark One a few minutes into the episode. Not that this makes the exact reasons for it any less heartbreaking.