[Editor’s Note: The following interview contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of MGM+’s Robin Hood]For the last two months, MGM+ has kept audiences on tenterhooks with its fresh take on one of the most iconic folk heroes in history, and tonight, Robin Hood wrapped up its critically acclaimed freshman season with an explosive finale. As we previewed in the lead-up to the episode, the slow-burning conflict between Rob (Jack Patton), the Sheriff of Nottingham (Sean Bean), and the Earl of Huntingdon (Steven Waddington) finally came to a head — which had devastating consequences for both sides of the cause.
Ahead of the Season 1 finale, we caught up with series co-creators John Glenn and Jonathan English, who also penned the episode, to unpack the shocking demises of Huntingdon and Guy of Gisborne (Davor Tomic); Marian’s role in her father’s death; and the almost-love triangle between Rob, Marian (Lauren McQueen), and Ralph (Erica Ford). While Robin Hood has yet to receive an official Season 2 renewal, Glenn and English also previewed plotlines from the potential Season 2, including how Priscilla (Lydia Peckham) will navigate life at the convent, following her unexpected pregnancy; what will happen to the outlaws, now that they have temporarily disbanded; and what’s next for Rob and Marian.
Will ‘Robin Hood’ Season 2 Include a Time Jump?
“What it also allows the characters to do is to have individual growth outside of the group.”
COLLIDER: The way Season 1 ends is that it starts to establish a new status quo for the outlaws. They’re being dispersed and lying low and waiting for the next time they can act. How integral was that to establishing a potential Season 2? Because now you have a new playing field, a new way for all of these characters to be established. How might we see that function?
JOHN GLENN: One of the goals was always to tell our own version of the story. So, at the end of this first piece of narrative, act one of a series, if you will, the thing we wanted to avoid was the outlaws going further into the forest, and they’re going to go to the Great Oak, or build some sort of new community. What we’d never really seen before was the outlaws dispersing and moving back into ordinary lives to hide in plain sight, or into a larger city to stay hidden from the authorities. So, it’s unique in the sense that we haven’t seen it before. What it also allows the characters to do is to have individual growth outside of the group when we come back to meet them again in Season 2, which provides Jonathan and me a lot to do with the characters.
JONATHAN ENGLISH: I think it’s also absolutely about allowing them to return to being individuals rather than just a mass of outlaws. It allows them to go back to being themselves as individual characters, and then to meet them as those individual characters in Season 2 rather than as a group.
Do you think, in Season 2, we would see some of that growth on screen? Or would it be a time jump where we get to see how they’ve established and changed, and then re-meet these characters at a new stage in their life?
GLENN: Both. Definitely both. We’ve, for the most part, designed Season 2, and it begins in that way when we meet them as individuals in Season 2, and in some respects, in different lives. There’s growth that’s already taking place between the seasons, the time, of course, but then there’s a greater growth in the storylines, the characters, individual stories through Season 2. So, it’s a season we’re really excited about.
‘Robin Hood’ Kills Off One of the Legend’s Most Well-Known Characters
“We needed a really great enemy, foe, antagonist to amp up the stakes.”
I’m very excited about it, too. You talked about approaching Robin Hood from a fresh perspective, and one of the character deaths that surprised me the most was Guy of Gisborne, because he is such a prominent figure in a lot of other adaptations. How early on did you decide that he was going to be one of the first, most prominent deaths in the show?
ENGLISH: We just wanted to have a new character coming in late in the season who had some notoriety, and Guy of Gisborne, in all of the variations of Robin Hood, always is a notorious character. He was one of the last well-known names in the canvas of Robin Hood. We talked about whether we should hold that name back for another season, but in the end, it was exciting to bring him in and to use this character as a threat, and as a real challenge to Robin and the outlaws, and the sheriff, to upset, to usurp the sheriff in a way that I think would have been harder to do if it was with a character that we weren’t familiar with.
It somehow seemed more believable that this character with this famous name could usurp the sheriff, and Sean Bean. So, it was about that. We needed a really great enemy, foe, antagonist to amp up the stakes for the end of the season, which I think he does. I mean, Steve Waddington’s character, Huntingdon, provides that all the way, but I think the inclusion of Guy of Gisborne just amps up the stakes a little bit further as we go into the finale.
Since you brought up Huntingdon, I do want to talk about his death.
ENGLISH: Let’s talk about Huntingdon’s death.
Yes, let’s talk about that death! Marian gets to be an active participant in her father’s death, even if we get that turn there, of Rob keeping her from being the final blow. How crucial is that to where things might go with Marian? Because I would imagine her mental state going forward. She played a part in her father’s death. She’s also now free from the burden of that. What are some of those dynamics that you’re most excited about playing with her? Because I love what you’ve done with Marian in this adaptation.
GLENN: One of the most important things that we wanted to accomplish in the very beginning was that we didn’t want to tell the story of the standard Sheriff of Nottingham, who’s just obsessed for no reason. You don’t even understand why he’s really all that crazed about Robin Hood, other than he should be, because that’s what the legend says. But with Marian, too, it’s equally important to create a Marian that you’ve never really seen before, a Marian with her own storyline, but a believable storyline for the time period. So, following through with that notion from the beginning, from the pilot onward, it felt imperative that she was a part of that final moment.
The biggest part of it’s not even that she is a part of killing her father, which is emotionally huge, but it’s that she made a decision, just as Rob did, that they would die together rather than live apart. Because by all accounts, Huntingdon is a formidable foe who easily could have killed [them]…
He just would not go down!
GLENN: Yeah. “This guy won’t die.” So, I think that, in a strange way, it was inevitable. If we were to truly do the character of Marian justice, it was inevitable that she be there.
ENGLISH: We wanted that death to just be so raw, not just in its physicality, but in its emotion. The idea of infanticide and killing a daughter, killing a child, and a child killing a father, that’s just such an ugly, raw, challenging thing to do, and for actors to even play and make it feel real. The fact that they played it so well and with such incredible rawness and intensity… Steve is such an incredible actor, literally.
He’s so good.
GLENN: So good.
ENGLISH: His demise, he managed to make it cinematic, as well, and somewhat poetic.
How ‘Robin Hood’ Uses Ralph to Subvert Marian’s Storyline
“There’s great power in feminine nature.”
Rob and Marian are the core love story of Robin Hood, but you’ve also introduced a character who brings in the aspect of unrequited love. That obviously adds a lot of angst and conflict and additional room for storytelling. How did you arrive at that unexpected, not-quite love triangle with Ralph?
GLENN: With Ralph, what’s interesting about that storyline is that the love triangle is really more in service of the character of Ralph than anything. It’s really about her growth and her evolution as a character who is in hiding, and finding and opening up and unlocking her femininity. There’s great power in feminine nature, so we get to see this unique bubbling up of this powerful nature inside of this young woman, and it’s a beautiful story. I don’t want to speak for Jonathan, but I think I can here. One of our favorite stories is Ralph’s.
ENGLISH: We love the character. We love Erica [Ford], the actress, who plays Ralph. I think it worked. It was one of those aspects of the show that worked even better. The transition to film, the transition to the performances from the page, was realized in a way that was even more satisfying and enjoyable than John and I anticipated or hoped it would be. A lot of that has to do with Erica.
GLENN: Without a doubt.
ENGLISH: And just her particular nature as an actress and as a young woman. And, of course, she and Jack work really well together. But Erica was really a great surprise and inhabited the early version of Ralph, but also performed the later version of Ralph, struggling with her femininity and her identity, and all of that.
Without it being too obvious, it’s a direct reverse to the storyline of Marian. Actually, you would expect it to be Ralph who’s in the mud, covered in blood, gripping a dagger, killing her father at the end. But actually, it’s Marian’s journey that does that, and it’s Ralph’s journey to, yes, sure, she’s in the battle fighting and killing umpteen soldiers in the finale, but actually her true journey in the story is to the point of having some sort of unrequited love with Rob.
What Will Happen to Priscilla in ‘Robin Hood’ Season 2?
“She has a fantastic storyline in Season 2.”
Ralph’s definitely one of the characters that I’m most excited to see where her story is in Season 2, especially after going to London. That should be interesting. My last question for you is about Priscilla. She is absolutely my favorite character of the series. I love how her character arc has taken her. She’s a character who has been able to maneuver her way through life by mastering her femininity. Now, she’s stuck in the nunnery, where you can’t really use your femininity as a weapon. What can you preview about her new situation in Season 2?
GLENN: Well, you’re hitting on the exact reason that Jonathan and I, as writers and storytellers, put her in the place that you find her in at the end of the season, because it locks down this weapon that she’s learned to wield through her life. In a strange way, it smothers her femininity. If you track the female characters in the show, they’re all kind of brilliantly feminine, we think, in a very believable way, and it’s honoring that. All of these women, in different ways, are being honored in that sense.
Probably the greatest reason that you like that character so much is Lydia [Peckham]. Lydia embodied Priscilla in a way that no one else did. Jonathan and I, honestly, like with all the actors, the moment we saw her, it was like, “That’s Priscilla.” It was never even a question. I think where she goes in Season 2 is fantastic. She has a fantastic storyline in Season 2 that we feel the audience is going to love.
Stay tuned at Collider for further updates, and stream Robin Hood Season 1 now on MGM+.
- Release Date
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November 2, 2025
- Network
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MGM+
- Directors
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Jonathan English
