Legend of the Seeker: Confession

The one with the whodunnit...

With this, we’re about to move into a rather stale stretch of episodes, all of which are largely forgettable filler. In all honesty, I had absolutely no memory of this particular episode when I started watching it, and now, in the midst of doing this write-up, I’m still struggling to recall what actually happened.

It’s essentially a murder-mystery, with an added world-specific wrinkle in the usual procedural, in that one of the characters has the ability to compel other people to tell the truth. Perhaps it’s a bit of a cheat that having established that absolutely no one can resist the thrall of confession, the show now decides to introduce an exception to Kahlan’s abilities, but a part of me wonders if the writers wanted to lay the groundwork in this regard, just in case another scenario came along in which they would have to write around her otherwise infallible power in drawing out the truth of any given situation.

In any case, the story starts when Kahlan receives a message from a pair of Resistance fighters, who are concerned about a spate of deaths involving other members of the Resistance in their community. That they live in a seemingly small village in the countryside instead of a larger city is a little baffling, as this puts them so far away from the nodes of power that you have to wonder what they actually do in their capacity as rebels on a daily basis, and why they’re such big targets for a potential serial killer.

There’s a nice bit of continuity in regards to Kahlan being motivated to help them in repayment for how they gave her shelter just before this whole story started, while she was trying to get to Zed’s house with the Book of Counted Shadows, but a couple of people who just run a safe house probably shouldn’t be on the top of anyone’s hit list.

In any case, Kahlan is reunited with Nella, a woman with a dead husband and a giant fringe. They quickly ferret out a suspect that Kahlan can tell is lying, and after briefly weighing up the options, she chooses to confess him, thereby gaining an admission that he is indeed the guilty party who killed Nella’s husband. He’s duly hanged, but at this point we’re only eight minutes into the episode, and all this is way too easy.

Sure enough, seconds after the execution (like literally, they’re still taking the body away), a witness rocks up and insists that the dead man robbed him the morning before, at the same time he was meant to have been killing Nella’s husband. Kahlan naturally doesn’t want to believe it, but unfortunately his story is backed up by the fact the suspect’s sister is wearing the bracelet that was stolen from the witness the previous morning.

Bad guy to your left.

Richard tumbles to the idea that magic is involved, which is the obvious solution, so let’s just skip to the denouement: the only other viable suspect in this whole drama is the law enforcer that’s been accompanying them around this whole time, who is revealed to have been using a magical orb that transplants memories from one mind to another, and who tries to frame Nella as a Woman Scorned before Kahlan notices some tell-tale scratches on his neck.

The day is saved after the inevitable sequence in which Richard runs through the crowd in slow motion, leaps onto the scaffolding and cuts the rope just as the hangman’s lever is pulled and Nella begins to fall. The bad guy is confessed and admits all, but the wrap-up is given short-shrift considering his motivation is weak, they have to leave the village quickly due to the fact he’s summoned the D’Harans, and we don’t actually see anyone face on-screen justice. Even odder, the magical orb is left in their possession at the end of the episode, but I don’t recall it ever being used again, despite its potential usefulness.

It’s not a bad episode, just a rather superfluous one. And if you were wondering where Zed was during all this, he was busy in the B-plot, traveling back to his estranged brother’s house to fetch a key that opens an ancient tomb where they plan to hide the Box of Orden. There’s not much reason to care.  

Miscellaneous Observations:

The most interesting aspect of the episode is once again the subject of Kahlan’s power and its terrible consequences. How she confesses the murder suspect is shot to look like something out of a horror film, what with the slow-motion and the lighting and the off-screen screaming of the dude in question, and once again Richard takes the humanist approach: weighing up three dead people and Kahlan’s awareness that the suspect is lying, against the fact that she’s about to take away the free will of a potentially innocent man. Is that a greater crime than murder? How much is mental and bodily autonomy actually worth?

I do wonder though if they chose to make the wrongly-executed man a highwayman just to alleviate that Kahlan did a bit? It’s not like he was a totally upstanding citizen.

Bridget Regan gets some good character moments throughout, in which she’s clearly completed disconcerted by the fact her powers aren’t working, and if memory serves, she’ll reference this experience in later episodes, no longer feeling fallible in her abilities. I like that she scrambles to prove herself right in the aftermath of the witness coming forward – it rings true that she would try to prove her lack of culpability like this.

And even if you take into account the magical mojo going on this episode, Kahlan slips up in other ways: had Nella been the guilty party, then she surely would have known she was lying from her first interview with her, and neither does she pick up on any deception from the lawman until it’s almost too late. Perhaps she has to be directly questioning someone in order to sense if they’re telling the truth or not.

Continuity wise, we’re reminded that the gang are looking for a secure hiding place for the Box of Orden, and we’ll visit the crypt that Zed mentions next week. And like I said, Nella and her husband are quite elegantly woven into the story, being the couple that sheltered Kahlan just prior to her arrival in Westland.

Watching this made me realize that the production values are so much higher than those on Xena Warrior Princess, in such a short amount of time after that show ended. Technology really does develop in leaps and bounds.

Kahlan is back to feeling woozy after confessing people, but she’s not full-on fainting anymore.

So, not a particularly exciting episode, and aside from the Box of Orden stuff, not an important one either. Hang in there, at the end of all this we’re getting Bloodline.