Legend of the Seeker: Bloodlines

The one in which Richard finds his mother and it’s completely meaningless...

I said way back when I reviewed Brennidon that this show’s weakest plot-points are the ones that have to do with the typical “foster child Chosen One” cliché that you find so often in fantasy. It really wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference if we had known from the get-go exactly who Richard’s biological family was, because the complete lack of narrative importance affixed to his mother (demonstrated via Richard’s muted reaction to finding her) only drives home how superfluous it is.

Oh, and remember how Zed revealed to Kahlan that he was Richard’s maternal grandfather? It’s okay if you forgot, because again – it really doesn’t matter. Richard accepts it with a shrug, and it has no further bearing on his character or the plot going forward.

Frankly, it’s all quite bizarre, especially in a genre in which hidden parentage and secret lineages are SUCH a big deal. I might have been tempted to say it was refreshing for Legend of the Seeker to not treat any of this as all that important, but the fact that Richard is meeting his mother for the first time SHOULD have been important... and it just isn’t.

Even Jennsen, the only relevant addition to Richard’s family tree, didn’t strictly need to be his sister for any of this to work.

Almost as if they know that none of this lands, the writers bring back Denna, their most interesting and popular guest-star, in order to liven things up exponentially.

Zed is back and we return to the overarching “find the Boxes of Orden” plot, in which our favourite wizard has hidden the third box on an open plain and cast a variety of magic spells over it, so that when Darken Rahl’s forces arrive (having discovered the place via that tracer cloud) they all catch fire and burn to death.

Neat, especially when the squadron’s commander sees two of his men get burnt alive, and rather than fall back and come up with a Plan B, just sends the others marching in to their inevitable deaths. (At this point you might be wondering why Zed put it in such an obvious place, guarded only by layers of magic, but the point is to let Rahl know where it is, thereby drawing him out to fetch it. As you may have expected, this dubious ploy backfires).

Realizing that his men are complete idiots, Rahl recruits Denna to fetch the box for him. Denna, who is not having a great time of it after failing to properly “train” the Seeker and being brought back to life in the wake of his fatal stabbing, has clearly been tortured since we last saw her.

We get a pretty clear portrait of her relationship with Rahl when he kisses her while pressing the agiel to her chin (that’s it in a nutshell!) and tells her that in order to retrieve the box she needs the help of “the person I fear most in all the world” who is “far more fearsome than [the Seeker].”

One immediate Answer Cut later and we’re looking at a cute preteen girl milking a goat, who is about to have a really shit day. She hears screams coming from her house and finds Denna and some D’Haran soldiers torturing her mother and demanding her help. Denna addresses her by the hilariously anachronistic name of Jennsen (not to be confused with her friends Bailey, Madison or Kayleigh, though it’s apparently faithful to the books) but once you’re over that hurdle, Denna delivers the truly chilling line: “I really hope you won’t make me kill your mother.”

Man, this show was exploring the nuances of abuse and victim blaming years before Tumblr caught on.

Denna takes Jennsen to the meadow where the latter effortlessly points to the box lying on the grass, totally exposed to her eyes alone. Turns out that she’s what is called “pristinely ungifted” – someone upon whom magic has no effect whatsoever, and Denna quickly picks up the fact that Jennsen’s mother has been keeping this from her, adding another weapon to her arsenal.

Zed added a security measure to the box, which means that as soon as Jennsen hands it over a flare goes up, alerting our heroes to its location. Once they catch up, they quickly ascertain that Jennsen is ungifted when they watch her grab the agiel from Denna’s hands to stop her from torturing her mother further. In the ambush that follows, Denna manages to get away with Jennsen’s mother as a hostage, leaving the box and Jennsen behind – though not before Zed locks eyes with the woman he calls “Tarralyn”, the two clearly recognizing each other.

Turns out Jennsen wasn’t left completely in the dark, as once Richard introduces himself as the Seeker, Jennsen reveals that she’s his sister, and that the woman who was taken is his mother too. Now it’s Zed’s turn to step forward and introduce himself as the siblings’ grandfather, which... falls kinda flat all things considered. Why was this kept a secret again? Zed says it’s because: “I was afraid that one day you might have to choose between the mission and family”, which is HILARIOUS because Richard is constantly prioritizing strangers he met three minutes ago over the mission. I don’t think knowing you were his gramps would have made much difference, Zed.  

In any case, a D’Haran messenger rides back to tell them the terms: bring Denna the third Box of Orden or Tarralyn dies. Guess which one Richard choses. Go on, guess! Zed tries to stop him with magic, but Jennsen’s un-gift protects Richard and the two newfound siblings run off to save their mother.

There is a cute little bonding moment between them, and then Richard comes up with what might be the best plan of the entire season: he offers to give Denna the third box, thereby letting her off the hook with Rahl, if she gives them the information they need to steal the other two boxes from Rahl’s palace. Given that they have an ungifted individual among them, it’s assured that any and all magical barriers protecting the boxes will be meaningless obstacles to Jennsen.

Seeing no other choice, Denna agrees – though she’s not going to commit without some collateral. Sensing the vibe between Richard and Tarralyn, she promptly kills the latter, giving Richard and company a limited amount of time to fetch the other two boxes, telling them she's withholding the breath of life until she has possession of the third box. Our scrambling heroes take countermeasures: they privately decide that after getting hands on all three boxes, they’ll use its power to force Denna to revive Tarralyn.

The heist itself is somewhat lacklustre: obviously Jennsen can just walk through the palace unhindered, and then the episode makes the bizarre decision to set-up a commercial break cliff-hanger before completely undercutting it (Rahl senses something is wrong and visits the chamber, leaving Jennsen hiding in an alcove – but when we get back Jennsen is successfully returning to Richard without any explanation as to how she escaped with the boxes). For some idiotic reason, Richard and Jennsen return to Zed and Kahlan with the boxes, instead of splitting up with one each and leaving Zed to complete the deal, which makes them easy pickings for an ambush when Denna shows up. Heists have to be watertight, people!

But with some slight of hand, Richard combines the boxes and immediately has control over everyone. Forced to obey his command, Denna performs the kiss of life on Tarralyn... but it’s too late. She lied, knowing all along that Tarralyn would never last the night – though what’s interesting is that the power Richard has over her renders Denna genuinely distraught.

Richard seems weirdly zen about the whole thing, and it soon becomes clear why: the power of Orden has gone straight to his head and he calmly commands Kahlan to kill Denna slowly. It’s a genuinely chilling moment when Kahlan hesitates for a moment, then says: “if that is your wish, my lord” and proceeds to beat the shit out of a tearful Denna to the sounds of evil electric guitars. Zed protests, so Richard has the remaining D’Harans fight each other to the death, clearly on his way to megalomania. It didn’t take much!

In another anti-climax, Jennsen sees what’s happening and dives to separate the boxes... surely they could have done something more suspenseful with this, especially since she actually stops to remind Richard that his magical commands won’t work on her. Maybe if there had been more of a physical struggle between her and Richard? Whatever, she breaks the hold the boxes have over her brother, and they send Denna away despite her pleas that they spare her from Rahl’s punishment and kill her.

This was a deeply lopsided episode, which was simply full of too much plot. The identity of Richard’s mother has been teased earlier in the season, but it’s revealed with little fanfare and hardly any narrative weight at all. Zed only gets a brief second to look in his daughter’s eyes, and Richard never gets the chance to interact with Tarralyn at all – the closest they get is Richard pretending to be indifferent to her wellbeing when he’s haggling with Denna over the campfire. What a strange way to stage a family reunion.

That she dies permanently at the end of the episode is a genuine loss for our heroes, especially since they usually come out triumphant after forty-five minutes, and though the Boxes of Orden raised the stakes to a level that even Richard couldn’t ignore, any sobering sense of loss is pretty much blown away by Richard being surprisingly chipper by the close of the episode. He says: “I never even got to talk to my mother” in the same tone you might use for: “oh dear, I forgot to fill up the car today” and as far as I know – Tarralyn is never mentioned again.

Miscellaneous Observations:

A little bit of world-building to start us off, in which Rahl explains that the meadow in which Zed has hidden the Box of Orden was the site of an ancient wizard battle, explaining why the grass remains so green in whatever season. It did look remarkably verdant, though I question why Zed didn’t just take a couple more minutes to bury the box.

Kahlan and Richard are introduced by having a sparring session, and it’s SO CUTE. Again, the thing that’s so great about these two as a couple is that it’s not all doom and angst – the two of them like as well as love each other, and they have fun together.

Shouldn’t Denna have been able to walk into the meadow without coming to harm, given that the Mord Sith can deflect any magic? I suppose the D’Harans didn’t realize Zed had made it invisible, and so thought they needed a pristinely ungifted individual to find it. Then Denna just pushes Jennsen into the meadow for the theatricality of it. Maybe? Honestly, I don’t recall that particular aspect of the Mord Sith’s power-set ever coming up again, so perhaps were weren’t meant to remember it.

Denna was once again a fantastic guest-star, demonstrating that what makes her terrifying isn’t just her brutality or her agiel, but her ability to manipulate. She effortlessly reads Jennsen, turns the responsibility for Tarralyn’s safety onto her, twists Zed’s actions by pointing out the carnage his spell had wrought, and uses the secret of Jennsen’s abilities to pit mother and daughter against each other. Damn she’s good.

There is some Narm to be found in the fact that those leather catsuits aren’t exactly easy to manoeuvre in. Every time Denna had to move her head, she ended up doing so with her whole body. The audible creaking of the leather didn’t help.

Brooke Williams as Jennsen was good too – perhaps she overplayed the cutesy-pie routine just a little, but the concept of being pristinely ungifted was pretty cool, both in its pros (being unharmed by dangerous magic) and cons (she cannot wield magical weapons in her own defense, or benefit from magical healing) She actually had me fooled for a second there when she pretends Denna’s manipulations have got to her, feints anger at her mother, and tries to throw the box away. Not sure what the plan was through – she can’t throw it very far and Denna immediately regains control of the situation by turning her agiel on Tarralyn.

That’s the mother from The Chronicles of Narnia, right? I looked it up, yes it is.

On being bombarded with no less than three new family members, Richard turns to the sister he’s just met and asks her: “who’s our father?” Jennsen has no idea, and I’m not sure why he doesn’t direct the question at Zed. I suppose that’s a question for another day, though if it’s as irrelevant as all this, I’m not looking forward to it.

Richard manages a pretty good bluff when he tries to make Denna believe that he’s willing to let Tarralyn die. She banks on his unwillingness to let an innocent person die, but according to him, he’s not so soft-hearted anymore: “not since I met you.” She doesn’t fall for it, but it was a strong attempt regardless.

So Jennsen is off to live with the Resistance, protecting two of the boxes while Zed hangs onto the third. And despite things closing with Rahl making a pledge that the people will suffer until the Wizard, the Seeker and the Mother Confessor are brought to the palace, we’re back to comedic filler in the very next episode.