Legend of the Seeker: Identity

The one with the jerk who got off way too easily...

This is not the episode in which Legend of the Seeker Grows the Beard (that comes next time with a certain leather-clad dominatrix) but it does grow a little bit of stubble.

Finally the gang reaches Calabra, after taking a short detour into Very Special Episode territory to learn that using magic to solve one’s problems is bad. This episode builds on that theme, teaching us that using magic to avoid your responsibilities is also bad, by utilizing another favourite staple of the fantasy genre: the Body Swap.

It’s done with an interesting twist: despite the fact that Richard and guest-star Gryff are mildly envious of each other’s lives (Richard likes the idea of settling down with a family, Gryff wants to have world-saving adventures) the switch between them is done by a third party with no knowledge of this: the witch Shota, who has had a premonition that Richard will die at Calabra, and so thinks that exchanging the two men is a way of circumventing such a fate...

Yes, this episode is our introduction to Shota, as played by kiwi actress Danielle Cormack (she’s well known here in New Zealand, but readers of this blog will probably know her best as Ephiny in Xena Warrior Princess). It’s a good intro for her: establishing that she’s essentially on the Seeker’s side (or at least, against Darken Rahl) but not hesitant about using morally dubious tactics to help him.

That is, if you care about Gryff at all, which you shouldn’t. This guy sucks. He’s the privileged son of an undercover member of the Resistance who is essentially selling resources to the D’harans and funnelling the profits back into the cause. In what is admittedly a fairly interesting gender-flip, Gryff isn’t too happy about his upcoming arranged marriage to a girl he barely knows, a match designed to benefit the bride’s fortunes and the groom’s influence.

Doing her best impression of the hag from The Princess Bride, Shota tries to warn Richard about not going to Calabra (which we learn is a city that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption), but when he doesn’t heed her, she comes up with the idea to swap Richard’s form with Gryff’s, so that the latter can die in Richard’s place.

And since Gryff has had the deception explained to him and choses to play along with it (despite Richard’s protestations), not to mention knowing full-well what’s at stake (a chance for Kahlan to confess a general that can get Richard close to Darken Rahl) and making moves on Kahlan while he’s in Richard’s form, it’s really, really difficult to summon up any concern for him. 

And he gets away scot-free! By the time the situation is resolved, Richard and Kahlan aren’t even mad at him – instead he’s given the “aw shucks, boys will be boys” treatment AND a chance to start things over with his young bride AND no consequences whatsoever for sabotaging the mission. Even Kahlan is all ho-hum about the fact she divulged her most intimate secret to him under false pretenses.

You don't deserve her!

I mean, I guess he’s just a guest star so the writers didn’t see any point in going too hard on him, but yeesh – talk about a Karma Houdini.

Meanwhile, Richard is full-on forced to get married to Gryff’s fiancée Bronwyn, played by another familiar kiwi face, Anna Hutchison (best known for her work on Spartacus) who does a lot with very little. She’s obviously as reluctant to get married as Gryff was, and just in case the subtext wasn’t clear enough, this marriage ceremony involves the bride and groom literally being handcuffed to one another.

But along with tracking things through the forest, Richard is good at reading and understanding people, so even though Bronwyn doesn’t believe him when he says he’s actually the Seeker, he’s able to convince her that at the very least, going along with his escape plan is going to get her what she wants: a way out of the marriage.

Bridget Regan is so amazing that she manages to have chemistry with the guy pretending to be Richard, and we get the last bit of Confessor lore when she... well, confesses that her powers make it impossible for herself and Richard to be together. And it’s a pretty ridiculous reason all things considered: because Kahlan’s powers are so contingent on discipline and control, having sex with anyone would automatically confess them, thus rendering them her willing slave. I mean, yikes. That’s QUITE the reason why two people can’t consummate their relationship. Usually writers just go for class differences.

Given that Kahlan is essentially part of a religious sect, I wonder if perhaps this whole “don’t have sex” requirement would have worked better if it had simply been a vow of chastity, or fear of the possibility that her powers might go haywire if she loses control, but at least this whole Can’t Have Sex, Ever trope is eventually used for more than just an engineered reason to provide Richard and Kahlan with UST. Stay tuned...

(Shout out to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Pushing Daisies for contriving equally ludicrous reasons for why their main pairings can never have sex – the former involves a vampire that will revert to pure evil if he experiences happiness, and the latter centres on a man who can bring the dead back to life with a touch, but can never lay a finger on them again).

Inevitably the mission goes to hell in a handbasket, though Shota’s spell lasts just long enough to save Richard from dying at General Demmin Nass’s hands. He was the guy that Kahlan was meant to confess in order to learn of Darken Rahl’s location, but they do end up getting away with a document that reveals what the D’harans were searching for in the ruins of Calabra: one of three boxes known as the Boxes of Orden, that grant their possessor incredible power. So let the MacGuffin hunt begin!

Miscellaneous Observations:

I liked Bronwyn’s gold wedding dress. Ditto the outside façade of Gryff’s house, what with the yellow stones and purple flowers. Despite everything, there’s surprisingly little in this show that’s recycled from Xena Warrior Princess, giving the Midlands its own distinct aesthetic.

This episode establishes the plot-handy existence of a much broader Resistance movement made up of all sorts of people doing their bit to defeat the D’haran Empire. Across the rest of the season we’ll see more spies and informants of this underground network.

A quick glance at IMBD tells me that the actor playing Demmin Nass (another Shortland Street alumnus) turns up in two more episodes after this one. Sadly, the guy playing Morcant does not, though he’s an early example of a D’haran soldier that’s not totally evil. That is, he’s a bad guy, but not one without reason or agency. There’s an important character written in a similar vein who turns up much later...

Early on, Gryff mentions Kieron, the last Seeker before Richard, who lived a thousand years ago, and he too will pop up in a later episode. But the truth is that the mythos behind the Legend of the Seeker is so vague that we never really get an understanding of who these guys are, how the line of them came about, why they’re chosen or what they’re specifically meant to do. I’m pretty sure this is the first indication there’s actually been more of them than just Richard.

It concludes with Shota revealing herself to the gang, and announcing another prophecy: that Richard will be betrayed by “the one in white”. She points to Kahlan as she says this, but I honestly have no memory of how this development pans out. Which is weird, because she makes it sound like such a big deal...

Not a great episode, but not a bad one, its main contribution is introducing us to Shota and the Boxes of Orden, both of which will have important roles to play in the season to come. We also learn what’s been holding Kahlan back when it comes to her feelings for Richard, we get an understanding of how the Resistance and Darken Rahl’s generals work, and coming up next is an episode that really raises the bar...