The one with Confessors galore...
Let’s be honest here, as charming as Richard is as the show’s protagonist, the most interesting character of the show is – by a country mile – Kahlan. By extension, the concepts of the Confessors and the Mord Sith are also fascinating: that these two sects comprise two sides of the same coin, that they’re made up entirely of women who wield complex and dangerous power, and that they live by the rules of a fascinating subculture that strictly controls their behaviour and belief systems. Who cares about a Seeker and his magic sword when there’s a Confessor in town?
And in this case, town is full of Confessors.
This episode also revolves around one of pop-culture’s favourite ethical quandaries: would you kill Hitler as an infant? Merlin utilized this question too, what with its use of Mordred in his first appearance as a child, and is explored here as well with the reveal that any male child born of a Confessor will inevitably become evil in his adulthood, due to the inability to control his power. The writing unfortunately doesn’t bother with a reason for this phenomenon: if it’s drawn down gender lines, then what exactly is the biological difference between girls and boys that makes the latter so susceptible to that level of corruption? Testosterone?
It’s certainly a very dubious premise, but one that you’ll just have to roll with. For the truth is that the episode isn’t really interested in the question of the boy for his own sake, but for the purpose of setting up future episodes: specifically Richard’s reaction to the Box of Orden, and the character of Nicolas Rahl in the finale (but we’ll get to him in good time – oh ho-ho). That the baby never gets a name and is eventually killed offscreen before the end of the season says it all.
But the question still provides the thrust of the plot, after Kahlan learns from a confessed man called Finn that her sister Dennee is still alive (last seen dying artfully in the premiere), and being held in a D’Haran prison. From there we get the truly blessed sight of Bridget Regan dressed as a Mord Sith in order to break Dennee out, and in doing so realize that she’s heavily pregnant. But once the child is born and is revealed to be a boy, it becomes a battle between Richard, who wants to keep the child safe, and Serena, the Mother Confessor, who wants to immediately kill him.
There’s a lot of story covered in this episode, though in the long term it’s perhaps most important for establishing that the Confessors are now a dying breed. Prior to this, you were given the sense that there were still plenty of them out there, going about their business in various villages and towns, but by the end of this episode, we’re down to five in all the world – and by the end of this season, only one.
It’s a shame in a way, as the whole concept of a Confessor is fascinating, and this is really the only episode in which we get to see a number of them work together (at least as far as I know – maybe there’s a resurgence of them in season two). The plan here is for all of them to hide on a magically protected island called Valeria (why is there always a place called Valeria in these types of fantasies?) only for the younger Confessors to realize that their place is in the world, doing what they can. (Again, this ends badly for them – offscreen).
The problem of the baby is resolved when Finn can’t bring himself to drown the baby (presumably due to the will of Dennee) and Serena goes crazy-bananas, taking the child against the wishes of the other Confessors. There is a bit of a “oh shit” moment when she successfully confesses Zed, thereby turning all his power upon the others, but the implications of how horrifying this is are quickly quelled when the battle is essentially fought by three confessed men: Zed kills Demmin Ness, and Finn stabs Serena from behind, thereby freeing Zed from her control.
There’s a really nice beach funeral for Serena, and Kahlan is made the new Mother Confessor – a title that means absolutely nothing since she’s soon to be the only one left, but at least Bridget Regan gets some gorgeous shots of herself against the setting sun. She and Richard watch Dennee sail off into the sunset, wondering if they’ve done the right thing – which again, will come to absolutely nothing, at least not in regards to this particular male Confessor.
Miscellaneous Observations:
Whether Dennee was still alive and with child isn't exactly a question that audiences were asking, and the whole relationship between herself and Kahlan is a bit underserved. These two apparently shared a traumatic childhood together, and yet Dennee barely figures into the storyline in any meaningful way.
There was some nice continuity at work throughout the episode: not only the fact that the fugitive Confessors are being guided by a night-wisp (like the one Kahlan had in the premiere) but that they realize Dennee is still alive due to the fact that Finn refers to her as his “mistress” and is clearly still confessed. Since the spell of confession departs when a Confessor dies, it proves that she’s still out there somewhere. It’s an elegant way of incorporating world-building into the plot, and that Dennee is being kept alive due to her pregnancy is also folded into the overarching story later on, what with Rahl’s obsession with the idea of a Confessor child.
They even mention taking the baby to Thandor before discounting the possibility.
Serena was played by Louise Wallace, a New Zealand news presenter, actress and gameshow host, who is perhaps best known in this country for pissing people off. Every now and then she ends up on a reality show, and... you know that quote: “If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, you're the asshole”? Let’s just say she meets a LOT of assholes, so that she plays something of a religious zealot who eventually gets fried by magical lightning probably brightened the day of a lot of people.
Which is kind of a shame, because there was an interesting character there. She had a warm history with Zed, she saved the lives of the other Confessors, and – based on what happens in the finale – she was right about male Confessors. Sadly, we’ll never know what Dennee’s baby would have grown into, but between Nicolas Rahl and the decimation of the other Confessors, at least Serena can rest in the knowledge that she was right.
Among the Confessors is a girl called Alana, whose hand was taken as a trophy by D’Harans. Zed manages to magically grow it back for her, which is another example of his baffling power set. I feel sure that the ability to regrow limbs could have come in handy long before now, and yet I don’t think it’s been mentioned before – or since – this episode. I was also about to complain about where on earth Kahlan got that Mord Sith uniform, but there’s a line from Richard asking Zed to do: “a little magic tailoring”, which again – surely could have been used before this specific moment.
For the record, the actress playing Alana does a good job, with haunted eyes and a palpable sense of fear, which makes sense given what the D'Harans did to her hand. It’s a shame this is the last we see of her.
This is Renato Bartolomei’s third and final appearance as Demmin Nass, and though he didn’t make much of an impact (I had to check IMDB just to confirm how many episodes he was in) it’s a shame he went so early. If this season needed something, it was a Dragon figure working on behalf of Darken Rahl that could have provided a more immediate threat to our protagonists.
I noticed that Kahlan is only faintly fatigued when she confesses the D’Haran prison guard – by this point she’s either growing in strength, or the writers have realized that her fainting every time she utilizes her power set is going to slow the stories down.
Of course Richard knows how to turn and deliver a baby. He is the perfect man.
Amidst all this moral debate over whether or not to kill a child, there’s a baffling lack of interest in the fate of Finn: the man that Dennee confessed and had a child with. Apparently he was originally an assassin sent to kill her, but we’re now looking at a man with no free will, that’s been forced to father a child on a woman he was planning to murder, and who is essentially a slave to Dennee’s will. And Dennee is... okay with this? Everyone is okay with this?? Why would you want to be with a man who only loves you because of a spell?
Very cool shot when the Confessors step out from behind the trees.
It’s a good episode in a lot of ways, with a tried-and-true moral debate, plenty of interesting guest stars, and the sight of Kahlan as a Mord Sith. The major problem was that it’s all a bit of a Bait and Switch. Watching this episode for the first time, you’d think that it was all going somewhere: that we would return to the potential threat of Dennee and her child, that there’s a lingering possibility that he’ll grow up to be bad news. Instead, the whole thing is set up for a completely different storyline – one centering on Kahlan – that itself only lasts for a single episode. A fantastic episode, but a singular one.
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