Amazon MGM+ wanted more ‘personal’ and ‘believable’ Merry Men in Robin Hood episode 4, but you won’t see the biggest change coming

Warning: spoilers for Robin Hood episode 4 ahead.

Four episodes into new Amazon MGM+ series Robin Hood and we're getting a good sense of how the urban legend we all know and love is being turned into something new.

In fact, it's as if we don't know anything about him at all. We're re-introduced to Robin Hood as Rob (Jack Patten), a humble guy who wants to go right by his way of life while avenging his father's death. Viewers get a brand-new backstory and family life for the man in tights... who actually doesn't wear tights at all here.

Alongside his will-they-won't-they romance with Marian (Lauren McQueen), which has just got all the more complicated now she's been shipped off to London to serve Eleanor of Aquitaine (Connie Nielsen), Rob needs to find his own tribe.

Luckily for him, he's crossed paths with the Merry Men while keeping a low profile in Sherwood Forest. Unlike the Disney movie, books or any other adaptations, we're being drip-fed these alliances.

As the season continues, we learn that one of the gang, Ralph (Erica Miller), is actually a woman hiding in plain sight. It's a twist I absolutely love, but for creators Jonathan English and John Glenn, the move perfectly slots into the big picture.

Robin Hood creators wanted to 'play with identity' with gender-swapped Merry Men

"We wanted to play with identity," English tells me. People's identity, characters' identity. Not just in terms of the original mythology of the story with those famous characters, but with all the characters. You know, we wanted people. We wanted to present characters in a more believable, human and personal way than they typically are in what you expect from a Robin Hood story."

Glenn adds: "I think it was always the plan to introduce them slowly. It's part of the origin story with that we're telling is, how he met Friar Tuck and Little John, you know. So if they were just all together, or you met them all in the first episode, it just wouldn't be as interesting."

For me, both of these elements are what really makes the overall series stand out from what we've seen before. Not every episode works for me, but Glenn and English's uprooting of the entire story teaches us more about not only Robin Hood, but the version of ourselves reflected in him.

Miller is easily my favorite of the Merry Men, and I'd argue that she's the most important of the bunch to Rob's continuing story. Why? That won't be overtly clear for another few episodes, but let's just say that the pair will get to know each other much more intimately.

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