A heat wave hits Nottinghamshire and, when Prince John blocks all the local wells, the outlaws are forced to take desperate measures to save those at risk. Robin and Isabella's secret relationship is uncovered and Gisborne is ordered to dispose of them. Isabella proposes a life away from Nottinghamshire, prompting Robin to make a difficult choice about his future.
Tropes
- Aesop Amnesia: A particularly disappointing one in this episode. For the first time since the season premiere Robin is displaying pangs of grief over the death of Marian. This leads to Robin breaking up with Isabella, basing it on a) his duty to the King and England, b) his acknowledgement that he's never going to get the chance to have a normal life, c) the danger that Isabella is in if she's known to be in league with Robin, and d) the fact that he still misses Marian too much. The episode ends with him looking wistfully at a happy family, knowing that it's a future he can never have...only for him to hook up with Kate two episodes later.
- To make matters worse, Robin's other Aesop throughout the show is that he needs to treat Much with more respect. Making a move on Kate, the girl that he knows Much has a crush on, is probably the cruelest thing he's ever done to his best friend.
- Another occurs later in the episode: Robin stops Isabella from killing Guy due to his belief that Vengeance Feels Empty, but later has no qualms about threatening to kill Guy himself and then making quite a serious attempt at it when they come face-to-face in the dungeons.
- All for Nothing: Technically the outlaws’ trek through the countryside to the River Trent was completely pointless. They get there to discover the river has dried up, only for Robin to unblock the spring over in the A Plot. But his actions also refill the wells in Locksley village, so they would have gotten water more quickly and easily had they just stayed where they were. This also would have prevented yet another Kate kidnapping, as she’s seized on the way to the river.
- Always Save the Girl: Oddly averted when the outlaws realize that Kate has been captured. Usually an incident like this results in them dropping everything to go after her, but this time they don't let it interrupt their trek to the River Trent. Much tries to justify it by saying: "if I'd just seen them take her I would have gone back," but this doesn't make a lot of sense, not least because it's obvious the guards would have taken her to the castle.
- Artistic License – Engineering
- According to this episode, you can dry up the Trent River by sealing a spring that flows through a cellar in a castle. For the record, the Trent is the third longest river in England and at least 100 yards wide, but sure, a pile of stones in a dungeon will definitely prevent it from flowing.
- Attempted Rape: Though not explicitly stated, Prince John makes it pretty clear what his intentions are towards an imprisoned Kate: “Why should Hood have all the fun? Why don’t you go down and relax in the dungeons? I’ll pop down later for a little chat.”
- Blatant Lies: “There’s no need to be scared, as long as you tell the truth.” So says Prince John, right before he kills the man who honestly tells him where they got the barrel of water.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: This episode featured Kate as the blonde, Isabella as the brunette, and One-Shot Character Ellie as the redhead.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Guy has Robin and Isabella trapped in the Drowning Pit. Instead of shooting them dead while they’re sitting ducks, he walks off and leaves them to their fate. Naturally, they escape. To make matters worse, he goes ahead and tells Prince John that they’re dead, which inevitably results in him getting yelled at when it becomes apparent that they’re not.
- Chained Heat: Guy manages to sneak up on Robin and Isabella and shackle them together. For a while the two of them ping-pong between flirting and bickering until a blacksmith manages to remove the handcuffs.
- Character Shilling: As in Sins of the Fathers, Kate is ludicrously overpraised for achieving a very basic task. On informing the outlaws she knows where Prince John has been hiding the water supplies, she’s given a literal round of applause and pats on the back. Then the scene cuts to where the water is being hoarded... and it’s in a conspicuously guarded building with the doors wide open, clearly displaying its contents. So the most Kate has achieved here is to notice a building.
- The same scene also establishes that Kate is the godmother of Ellie’s baby, a fact that has no bearing on the plot and which seemingly only exists to assure viewers that she’s also adored by the Locksley peasants.
- Competing with a Corpse: Isabella quickly realizes that this is what's really happening when Robin gives her his Married to the Job break-up speech, declaring: "No, I'm not her."
- Dating Catwoman: What Robin is doing with Isabella, much to the consternation of Tuck, Kate and the other outlaws.
- Derailing Love Interests: Although she's demonstrated a certain degree of self-preservation, Isabella has up until this episode been characterized as a rational, self-aware and largely compassionate woman, who has displayed genuine empathy towards those suffering under the Sheriff and Prince John’s rule. However, the moment Robin tells her that he can’t be in a relationship with her any more, she undergoes an immediate and jarring personality transplant. Suddenly she’s a wild and deranged Woman Scorned, a brand new characterization that will carry her through to the end of the series.
- Differing Priorities Breakup: Isabella wants to run away from Nottingham and start a family, while Robin knows he cannot leave his people to suffer under the tyranny of Prince John.
- Disproportionate Retribution: On realizing that the Locksley villagers have been given a barrel of his own water, Prince John has one of them drowned in its contents.
- Distressed Damsel: Kate is captured by castle guards and locked in the dungeons for the gratification of Prince John, though there is a slight attempt at making her a Damsel out of Distress when the keys to the cell are conveniently dropped close enough for her to reach.
- Dowsing Device: Tuck tries his hand at this with a forked stick while he and the other outlaws are heading for the River Trent.
- Drowning Pit: An overflow chamber for the River Trent that Prince John has blocked up to cut off the water supply becomes this when Robin and Isabella enter it to restart the water flow and Gisborne has it blocked off.
- Erotic Eating: Isabella eating strawberries. "Mmmm...juicy..."
- Even Evil Has Standards: Guy is initially somewhat perturbed at the idea of killing his own sister, though he’s come around to the prospect by the end of the episode.
- Exposition Cut: Isabella wants to speak to Robin, and sends a message to him via Kate. Rather than show the two women interacting onscreen, the episode simply cuts to Kate reluctantly delivering her half of the message to Robin at Locksley.
- Geographic Flexibility: This episode would have you believe the Trent River was a six-foot wide ditch instead of the incredibly wide and long river it is in real life.
- Green-Eyed Monster: All over the place. Prince John is clearly jealous of the love and loyalty that Robin receives from the commonfolk. Robin admits to Much that he's envious of Ellie and Jack's happiness together. Prince John correctly deduces that Kate is jealous of Isabella and mocks her over it.
- Hopeless War: For a moment, Robin grapples with this possibility, wondering out loud if anything the outlaws do really counts for anything in the end. By the end of the episode, he's gained a second wind.
- Idiot Ball: Robin picks the worst possible time to give Isabella the It's Not You, It's Me speech. At least wait until you’re out of the castle that’s teeming with enemy soldiers?
- Robin feeds Isabella strawberries right outside Locksley Manor, where they're immediately spotted by Prince John — though in this case the dialogue suggests that the scene was meant to take place at nighttime and they just forgot to put in the color filter.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Robin tries a variation of this on Isabella when she tries to stab Guy while he’s unconscious, telling her that once she takes that step she can never go back.
- Implausible Deniability: Guy refuses to believe that Isabella is working with Robin until the proof of their relationship is right in front of his eyes.
- In Name Only: Played for Laughs. Guy complains that Prince John hasn’t officially made him Sheriff yet, and John retorts: "You’re as good as Sheriff already. The only thing you don’t have is the title and the power." Beat. "And the castle."
- It's All About Me: Robin is feeling morose over whether or not he and the outlaws are really making any difference in the lives of the people. In the face of Robin's malaise, what is Kate's response? “Well thank goodness for me then.”
- Jealous Romantic Witness: A variation in that Guy has no romantic interest in his sister, but the scene is staged exactly the way you’d expect from this trope, with Guy witnessing a romantic embrace between Robin and Isabella from afar – and since she’s a Marian proxy for both men, this trope is very much at play.
- Leitmotif: After a long absence, Marian’s theme is heard three times throughout this episode, always when Robin is clearly thinking of her.
- The Load: Kate, as usual. This time she gets captured by Nottingham’s guards without anyone noticing and imprisoned in the dungeons, where her presence slows down Robin and Isabella’s escape at a critical moment.
- Locked Up and Left Behind: Though it doesn't occur on-screen, this is what happens to Kate as the other outlaws make their escape into the forest.
- Lured into a Trap: Prince John tells Isabella his plans concerning the water supply for the sole purpose of having Guy follow her to see if she relays the information to Robin, which she dutifully does.
- Married to the Job: Robin combines this with It's Not You, It's My Enemies in his break-up speech to Isabella. She quickly realizes it has more to do with The Lost Lenore than anything else.
- Master of the Mixed Message: Robin is all over the place in regards to Isabella this episode, going from suspecting her of treachery to fantasizing with her about what their kids might be like; accusing her of "making me believe we had a future together!" to giving her the It's Not You, It's My Enemies speech at the worst possible moment. And by the end of the episode he's giving Kate a smile and a wink — granted, given his Oblivious to Love behavior in the next two episodes this is probably just him acknowledging their shared experience in the dungeon, but it comes across as deliberate Ship Tease and Kate clearly takes it as validation of her own romantic interest in him.
- MacGuffin: Water, of all things. Specifically, the water flow of the River Trent which has been cut off and hoarded by Prince John in order to exert his power and increase the villagers’ reliance on him.
- Mêlée à Trois: Guy, Robin and Isabella swordfight each other in Sherwood Forest while the latter two are handcuffed together. Later in the Nottingham dungeons Guy, Robin, Isabella and Prince John battle each other – first Robin versus Isabella and Guy versus John, then Isabella versus Guy and Robin versus John. When Isabella and John leap into the Drowning Pit to escape, Robin and Guy briefly fight each other.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Robin refusal to run away with Isabella, essentially leaving her high-and-dry after she's cut ties with her brother and Prince John for his sake, is what leads to her decision to play all three men against each other and make a bid to attain her own power.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Little John mutters "what have we done?" after Prince John drowns a villager and lays a penny-a-gallon charge on anyone who needs water from his own stockpile.
- "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Ellie and Jack have called their baby Robin, out of admiration for Robin Hood.
- Neutral Female: Due to the fact that she’s locked behind bars, Kate can only watch the four-way fight between Guy, Robin, Isabella and Prince John. By the time she’s grabbed the keys and freed herself, the fight is all but over.
- New Neighbours as the Plot Demands: We’ve never seen Jack or Ellie before, but they’re clearly well-known to Robin – enough so that they’ve named their baby after him.
- Nominal Importance: Prince John has a Locksley villager drowned in a barrel of water to demonstrate how ruthless he can be, but the guy is never given a name or personality. The end of the episode sees everyone merrily celebrating the return of the water to the wells, without so much as a mention of the community member who was so brutally murdered that afternoon.
- One-Shot Character: We’ve never seen Ellie before this episode, and we’ll never see her again afterwards.
- Out of Focus: The original outlaws (Much, Allan and Little John) are practically non-entities here.
- The Promise: Isabella tells her unconscious brother that: “one day you will pay [for what you did to me].” She’ll keep this promise.
- Rule of Three: It takes three tries for Robin to shoot a rope made out of Isabella’s dress through the ring at the grate at the top of the Drowning Pit.
- Ship Tease: Having broken up with Isabella, the show makes it clear that Robin's attention will now be turning to Kate.
- Slouch of Villainy: Again, Prince John slouches in a chair with one leg hooked over the arm-rest.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Prince John arrives in Locksley village with six armed men. There are five outlaws. Those aren’t bad odds, but the five of them just stand there and watch as Prince John kills a man.
- Something We Forgot: The outlaws are well clear of the main road before realizing that Kate is not with them.
- Take Off Your Clothes: Robin instructs Isabella to take off her dress whilst they're floating in a water tank. He combines it with his arrow to make a rope.
- Torture Cellar: Prince John takes Isabella down into the dungeons, and she reacts nervously to the sounds of a man screaming in pain.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: While Robin and Isabella handle the A Plot (trying to unplug the underwater spring that feeds the countryside’s wells) the other outlaws in the B Plot trudge to the River Trent in the hopes they can find clean drinking water there.
- Vengeance Feels Empty: Once Guy is convinced of Robin and Isabella’s imminent death in the Drowning Pit, he goes to Prince John and demands the position of Sheriff, as promised. Prince John obliges, but Guy’s reaction is subdued and clearly not giving him the satisfaction he thought he’d feel.
- Woman Scorned: On hearing Robin's It's Not You, It's My Enemies speech after she's beseeched him to escape with her and start afresh somewhere, Isabella abruptly reverts into a furious Woman Scorned and attacks him.
