Legend of the Seeker: Home

The one with the clip show...

Yes, we’re twelve episodes into the first season and they’re already hitting us with a Clip Show. Okay, so clip show episodes aren’t always bad – often they’re a necessary evil in order to keep the budget under control, and if the writers play their cards right, they can choose thematically relevant clips in order to better highlight characterization or upcoming events.

This... is not one of those clip shows, though they do try to justify it with a tried-and-true framework: The Lotus Eater Machine. This is when a hero finds themselves in an alternate reality, where everything is peaceful and happy, and they can go about their lives without any of the trauma that their day-to-day existence usually requires. Only when things are too good to be true, it’s because they usually are: the truth is they’re being manipulated by a villain: either to distract them, torment them, or (in this case) extract information.

In this case, Darken Rahl has taken advantage of the alignment of a constellation to cast an elaborate spell that puts Richard in a reality where none of his adventures with Zed and Kahlan ever happened. He wakes up to discover himself back in Hartland, where his father is still alive and his brother Michael is not being an asshole, who claim that he fell off a cliff and has been unconscious for two days. Using the voices and faces of his loved ones, Rahl tries to learn the location of the Box of Orden.

You have to admire choices this show has made in depicting Rahl: outside his appearance in the premiere, he has appeared exactly twice this season, first as a guest at a child’s birthday party, and now as impersonating a pretty young woman who tries to seductively coax the location of the Box of Orden from Richard. It’s seriously funny to watch a coquettish Anna and recall it’s actually Rahl the whole time.

The clips chosen to fill in the runtime aren’t particularly well-chosen: they’re mostly from the premiere so that Richard can establish what he thinks has been happening to the alt!reality version of his father, Michael, Zed and Anna, but also stuff on Renn, Gryff and Denna. I suppose Denna turns up again later, but what was the point of the other two? Renn would have been justified if Rahl had gone looking for him, but he’s never seen or mentioned again.

They finally get to the point when we’re privy to some new flashback clips of Richard hiding the third Box in the wake of Puppeteer, only for the spell to be broken with a montage of Richard and Kahlan’s greatest hits, an Anguished Declaration of Love, and tears falling from the real world into his dreamscape. Is it horribly cheesy? Yes, but I love it dammit.

Miscellaneous Observations:

I’ve just realized that the ordering of these episodes is very strange: given that the crypt of the former Seeker was mentioned in the last episode, it should have been followed by the next episode, Revenant (where they actually visit said crypt). Likewise, this episode should have directly preceded Hartland in which Richard returns to Westland and Anna is properly introduced.

As ever, this show is better than expected with its female characters. Anna is great – or at least she will be once we meet her for real – and I like that although Kahlan is a bit taken aback at the realization she’s not necessarily Richard’s first love, she mercifully doesn’t transform into a Clingy Jealous Girl. The BBC’s Robin Hood (which is currently having something of a resurgence on Tumblr at the moment) wasn’t able to do the same only a year later.

Apparently Richard’s amazing hiding place for the precious Box of Orden was... a shallow hole in a forest.

I checked and the wizard that helps Rahl cast the spell (and who provides helpful exposition throughout) turns up in the next episode as well, which is nice. I really think shows like this would do well to sort out a range of minions that their Big Bad can call upon for help in various areas of expertise.

There’s not much to say really: this was a clip show episode. Our heroes now have the third Box of Orden and a key to the ancient crypt at Tavol’Rang, which is their next stop in the upcoming episode. We’ve been given a sneak peek of Anna Brighton, and a reminder of Michael, both of whom will return again in Hartland. And we got a pretty awkward declaration of love from Kahlan to Richard, which she had to say right in front of Zed. Let’s just keep heading towards the good stuff...