Legend of the Seeker: Hartland

The one with the return-trip home...

Time to dive back into this show! I’m desperate to get to the season finale, which is genuinely one of my favourite episodes of anything, ever – but we gotta get through the mid-season slog first. Okay, I’m exaggerating – these episodes aren’t actually that bad, relatively speaking, and this one involves the time-honoured fantasy tradition of Can’t Go Home Again, in which the hero does in fact go home, only to find that either he or it has been irrevocably changed.

It's very much a chance for the hero to deal with unfinished business, and so we get guest appearances from three previous characters: Jay Laga’aia as Richard’s best friend Chase (what happened to you Jay? You were pretty renowned in New Zealand for a while there), David de Lautour as Michael, Richard’s not-brother who turned on him the first chance he got, and Jessica Chapnik Kahn as Anna, Richard’s ex-girlfriend, which we’ve only seen before as an illusion controlled by Darken Rahl.

That’s a good trio for Richard to interact with in this episode, which is all about saying goodbye to home after a Scouring of the Shire-esque story when he discovers the D’Harans have taken over Hartland. Actually, this episode is jam-packed full of tropes, from Chase Playing Possum in order to turn the tables on the D’Haran quad that’s pursuing him, to Anna setting herself up as a Mata Hari to gain intel from the D’Haran commanding officer, to the entire set-up that the D’Harans have got going in Hartland: have a monster under their control attack the village, and then make a show of defeating it themselves. This one is literally called a Monster Protection Racket.

Once again Richard choses to forego the bigger picture in favour of protecting his own village, so they Dress as the Enemy in the defeated D’Haran’s armour and make for the border (Kahlan pulls a Dirty Harriet and dresses as a sex worker, which I suppose was inevitable at some point since it’s such an easy way to get your female lead scantily clad, but at least the script makes it her idea).

Ah, the boundary. I’ve totally forgotten what this thing is or what it’s supposed to do, only that it’s a large green magic-looking wall that separates... the magic lands from non-magic lands? And the monsters are swarming through it, somehow? Whatever, our heroes pass through and discover that things in Hartland... are actually pretty rosy. D’Harans have set themselves up as protectors of the village, and Michael is leading daily prayers in honour of Lord Rahl. Before their eyes, a monster attacks and is shot down by D’Haran soldiers, to much applause from the intended audience. Oh, and Richard spots Anna, much to Kahlan’s noted interest.

Michael is unfortunately not a particularly interesting character, even though he could have been. It’s like they’re going for a pragmatist with a dash of cowardice who throws in with the D’Harans because it’s not only easy, but also sensible. When he eventually finds out what’s really going on with the D’Harans, Kahlan is right in asking: “you didn’t know, or you didn’t WANT to know?” But they go too hard with Michael’s dislike and mistrust of Richard, which only serves to make him look like a douche. What if they were actual brothers who loved each other, each genuinely thinking they were doing the right thing, instead of a guy motivated by equal parts ambition and guilt?

The show actually does better with the Viceroy, our first example of a D’Haran character that actually exhibits a sense of honour and nobility (not that it helps him). Anna has him wrapped around her little finger, so I can’t credit him with too much intelligence, and we learn that she’s doing it in order to find out what’s happened to her missing brother.

Richard has always had great taste in women, because Anna promptly spikes the Viceroy’s drink and makes a copy of the key in his pocket so that she can go through his safe in search of more answers, and from here they realize that any dissenting voices in the village are sent off to be killed by the monsters in the forest. Throwing together a plan, they decide that Anna will distract the Viceroy while Michael stands in front of everyone and tells them the truth about the D’Harans.

Naturally is all goes wrong and Anna gets damselled, but we’ll give it a pass since she’s done pretty well so far. And Kahlan helps rescue her and clean her up afterwards. Then she tries to shoot the Viceroy with a crossbow!

But Michael comes through for everyone in the end: causing a distraction for an ambush, saving Richard’s life, and then dying heroically. It’s a pity that they actually went through with killing him – he wasn’t evil, and since Richard never returns to Hartland anyway, it really made no difference whether he lived or died. And, like Kahlan’s sister, he isn’t given much thought after the fact. I mean, these are just the people that our heroes grew up with, no big deal!

The Viceroy is confessed by Kahlan and they get a lead on Chase’s family, who were nowhere to be found in Hartland. The archway between Hartland and the Midlands is destroyed, and they use the Viceroy to send Darken Rahl a message through his journey book: that the Seeker has been killed. I predict that deception won’t last more than one episode.

Miscellaneous Observations:

Every episode is allowed to have one insane coincidence, and this one involves Chase miraculously happening upon Richard and Kahlan after escaping a labour camp.

Hey, it’s that tree from Xena Warrior Princess!

For all of the concern about Anna’s brother, nobody ever bothers to mention him by name. And was the guy we saw getting eaten by the winged monsters meant to be him? Man, it sucks that they just missed him.

It’s a shame we didn’t get more interaction between Kahlan and Michael, as the latter genuinely seemed to believe that Kahlan had put his brother under a spell. That in fact was the story which spread across Hartland, and nobody gets much of a chance to contest it.

I honestly didn’t keep track of what those winged monsters were called (gars?) or how the bloodflies that the D’Harans released onto their victims actually worked, but I DO recall it all being established in the first two episodes of the show, so – good continuity, all.

Richard and Kahlan have reached the teasing/flirting part of their relationship, and it’s adorable. Even better is that when Kahlan learns about Anna, she doesn’t go obnoxiously jealous (*side-eyes BBC’s Robin Hood*) but instead genuinely likes her supposed rival (“I admire her spirit”) and puts out gentle feelers regarding how Richard still feels about her. And naturally, he shuts that down pretty quickly: “My heart belongs to someone else.” ADULTS.

Anna is great too, and she reminds me of a girl I went to school with: a free spirit with a distinctive fashion sense. Neither does she show a hint of jealousy towards Kahlan, in fact it’s made clear that she ended the burgeoning relationship with Richard well before he became the Seeker, and at the end says: “other people need you” while looking at Kahlan. It’s a damn shame this is the last we see of her, but at least she gets a hot mind-controlled D’Haran out of the bargain.

I also love that she has no qualms about manipulating the Viceroy, even though he was given some degree of sympathy and a genuine regard for Anna. But screw it, he was sending innocent people to their deaths! No second chances for you murderer!

I liked the dialogue between the Viceroy and his guard: that they’re controlling Hartland with an elaborate deception because the D’Haran forces are stretched thin and it’s important that they win “hearts and minds”. That’s a nice wrinkle in the usual military spread of an Empiric force. Likewise, that the D’Harans deliberately kept the archway through the border open in anticipation of the Seeker returning to his homeland was surprisingly clever.

Kahlan’s hair looked great. I don’t know where she’s getting the shampoo and curling irons, but does anyone care? It looked GREAT.

On the other hand, I could not find any decent screencaps for this episode.