Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Librarians: The Next Chapter Season 2, Episode 6.Fans of Merlin love the BBC series for its novel reimagining of Arthurian lore, which crafts the tale of a young Merlin (Colin Morgan) and Arthur (Bradley James) as they lean into their destined roles in Camelot. If you’re looking for something that strays from typical depictions of the legendary figure like the BBC series, there’s another modern fantasy series you ought to give a try — The Librarians: The Next Chapter. This season on the TNT drama, fan-favorite Lord of the Rings and Lost star Dominic Monaghan offers a subversive performance as the revived wizard, now alive and kicking in the 21st century. He may not be a Hobbit, but it’s certainly a creatively engaging take.
Dominic Monaghan Plays Merlin on ‘The Librarians: The Next Chapter’
This season of The Next Chapter picks up where last year left off, with Merlin now out and about in Europe after being freed from his imprisonment, slowly acclimating himself to this brave new world. Although stripped of much of his magical power, Merlin still retains an expert knowledge of the craft, though Monaghan plays the character almost as an addict trying to avoid slipping back into his old ways. Of course, true to form, he is unable to resist being in the presence of magic, routinely finding himself in its crosshairs. A bit quirkier than many other depictions of the wizard, Monaghan’s take on Merlin is more of a potential foil to the team of magic-collecting Librarians who hope to protect the world from its corruptive power.
Collider Exclusive · Middle-earth Quiz Which Lord of the Rings Race Do You Belong To? Hobbit · Elf · Dwarf · Man · Orc
Middle-earth is home to many peoples — the courageous, the ancient, the stubborn, the ambitious, and the wretched. Ten questions will determine which race truly claims your soul. The answer may surprise you. Or it may confirm what you already suspected.
🌿Hobbit
🌟Elf
⚒️Dwarf
⚔️Man
💀Orc
01
What does your ideal day look like? How we rest reveals as much as how we fight.
02
How do you feel about the passing of time? Our relationship with mortality shapes everything we value.
03
Danger is approaching. Your first instinct is to: Fight, flight, or something in between — it’s more revealing than you’d think.
04
You stumble upon a great treasure. What do you feel? What we desire — and what we do about it — is the true test.
05
How important is community and belonging to you? No race of Middle-earth is truly alone — but some prefer it that way.
06
How ambitious are you, honestly? Ambition is neither virtue nor vice — it depends entirely on what you want.
07
Where do you feel most at home in the natural world? Middle-earth is vast — and every race has its place within it.
08
What kind of strength do you most respect? Every race defines strength differently — and they’re all at least a little right.
09
What do you want to leave behind when you’re gone? Legacy is the story we tell ourselves about why any of this matters.
10
Be honest — what do you actually want most out of life? The truest question always comes last.
Middle-earth Has Spoken You Belong To…
The race that claimed the most of your answers is your true kin. If two tied, both are shown — you walk between worlds.
◆ A TIE — YOU WALK BETWEEN TWO RACES ◆
🌿
Your Race
The Hobbits
You are, at your core, a creature of comfort, community, and quiet joy — and there is nothing small about that. Hobbits are proof that heroism does not require ambition, that the bravest heart can beat inside the most unassuming chest. You value good food, warm hearths, close friends, and a world that stays largely untroubled by dark lords and quests. When adventure does find you — and it will — you rise to it not because you sought it, but because the people you love needed you to. That is not ordinary. That is the rarest kind of courage in all of Middle-earth.
🌟
Your Race
The Elves
Ancient, graceful, and carrying a weight of memory most mortals cannot fathom, you are one of the Elves. You see the world in its fullness — its beauty, its impermanence, the unbearable ache of watching everything you love eventually fade. You pursue perfection not from pride, but because excellence is how you honour the time you have been given. Others may see you as remote or melancholy. They are not wrong, exactly. But they mistake depth for distance. You feel everything — which is precisely why you have learned to carry it so quietly.
⚒️
Your Race
The Dwarves
Stubborn, proud, fiercely loyal, and possessed of a work ethic that would exhaust most other races before breakfast — you are Dwarf-kind through and through. You do not ask for approval and you do not offer it cheaply. Your loyalty, once given, is given for life. Your grudges last longer. You love deeply and defend ferociously, and the things you build — with your hands, with your sweat, with generations of accumulated craft — are made to last. Not for glory. Because anything worth doing is worth doing properly, and you have never once done anything by half measures.
⚔️
Your Race
The Race of Men
Mortal, ambitious, flawed, and magnificent — you belong to the most complicated race in Middle-earth, and that complexity is your greatest strength. Men are capable of cowardice and extraordinary bravery, of cruelty and breathtaking sacrifice, sometimes within the same breath. You feel the urgency of your finite years, and it drives you. You want to matter. You want to leave something behind. You fall, and you rise, and the rising is what defines you. Tolkien called mortality the Gift of Men — not a curse, but a fire that burns bright precisely because it does not burn forever. That fire is you.
💀
Your Race
The Orcs
Brutal, survivalist, and contemptuous of anything that can’t defend itself — you answered with the instincts of an Orc, and there is a certain savage honesty in that. You do not dress up your desires in polite language or pretend you want things you don’t. You want power, survival, and to never be at the bottom of any hierarchy ever again. Orcs are not evil by nature — they were made from something that was once good, and broken into this shape by forces they did not choose. What remains is fierce, territorial, and deeply aware that the world is not kind. You’ve made your peace with that. The question is what you do with it.
In this interpretation, the immortal Elaine Astolat (Caroline Loncq) reveals that it was Merlin all along who was responsible for the fall of Camelot, and though he has returned to seemingly live a life free of magic, we can see that the potential power has once more begun to take hold of him. From the moment we meet him in the Season 2 premiere, “And the Burning Heart,” he appears to be a friend to the likewise time-displaced Vikram Chamberlain (Callum McGowan). Yet, his absence over the last several episodes — and his sudden and deceptive return in “And Descartes’ Dilemma” — reveals that he has some complicated (and seemingly villainous) plans of his own. After the former wizard gets another taste of magic that drives him a bit batty, he uses his silver tongue to try to convince Vikram to become the next Arthur, the heir to the throne of Camelot.
Unlike the Merlin character, this version of the legendary wizard seeks to mold Vikram to his will. Monaghan’s take on the character is energetic, whimsical, and a far cry from the usual “elderly wizard” we see in most depictions. This doesn’t exactly come as a surprise when we consider his most famous fantasy adventure was as Merry in The Lord of the Rings, but it’s that youthful energy that makes this iteration stand out against the “wise, old mentor” usually on display. It also fits the usual upbeat style of The Librarians, a family-friendly fantasy franchise that has never been known to take itself too seriously.
Monaghan’s Merlin Is a Bit More Complex (and Villainous) Than Usual Interpretations — Even If He is a Bit Wackier
While there’s no doubt that Merlin is an interesting character in just about any rendition (aside from Colin Morgan’s Merlin portrayal, Nicol Williamson from Excalibur always comes to mind as among the most thorough), there’s something riveting about watching a character like this be reinvented in the modern world. Although Dominic Monaghan would likely not be anyone’s first choice for Merlin, he was an inspired one. The offbeat nature of his portrayal combines the star’s typical comedic undertones with a strange moral complexity, making him a bit unpredictable. Even if you know Arthurian legend quite well, there’s no telling what this version of Merlin might do next.
The Librarians: The Next Chapter has done plenty of interesting work re-examining and subverting old “fairy stories” this season. Between turning Peter Pan into a shifty antagonist or re-imagining Hansel and Gretel as cannibalistic witches themselves, the show has made some interesting strides in updating traditional material in creatively engaging ways (not unlike the previous Librarian adventures, or even what fan-favorites like Supernatural or Grimm have done in the past). The same has been true of Merlin, even if we wish we had more of him. That said, it’s clear that his arc has been designed as something a bit more extensive than a simple one-and-done adventure, and we have no doubt that Monaghan will continue to deliver throughout Season 2.
The Librarians: The Next Chapter airs Sundays and Mondays on TNT.
