Legend of the Seeker: Dark

I’m back! No, I hadn’t forgotten about this show, I’ve just been swamped with other stuff – but in saying that, these reviews will probably go on hiatus for a while, as I really want to get to the third and final season of His Dark Materials.

But let’s have a quick catch-up first. When we last saw our heroes, they’d been forced to part ways, with Richard accompanying several Sisters of the Light (essentially kung fu nuns with magical powers and ninja-stars) to the Palace of the Prophets in the Old World (no context is given for either of these things, save that they’re shot through a gold filter to differentiate them from the New World) while Zed, Kahlan and Cara go in search of a replacement Seeker.

The head sister is called Verna, who has apparently been searching for Richard for the last twenty-four years (so if nothing else, we know they’re really bad at finding things) and has the solution to his debilitating headaches: to get the proper training that will allow him to balance out the potent magic of both his bloodlines. Richard wants to get there, learn what he has to, and leave again ASAP, though it’s obvious that Verna has other plans...

They finally arrive at the Palace of the Prophets, where we’re treated to a whole lot of Catholic convent-coded images: hymns, prayer books, veils, women calling each other “sister” – but somewhat hysterically, all of the “nuns” are dressed in scarlet red, and most of them are young and hot. Among them is Jolene Blalock, who between playing T'Pol in Star Trek and Medea in Hallmark’s Jason and the Argonauts, was the It Girl for about fifteen minutes back in the early noughts.

In what can’t be a particularly good omen, one of the nuns drops down dead just moments after Richard is introduced to Annalina Aldurren, the Prelate. Played by Elizabeth Hawthorne, another familiar kiwi actress (maybe best recognized by international audiences as Mrs. Macready in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, though she also did her dues on Hercules and Xena) the Prelate is eager to sweep the whole thing under the rug.

She decrees that poor Sister Brenna’s heart gave out and that she died peacefully, which the audience knows is a blatant lie, since yikes:

Our consummate tracker now reveals a hitherto unknown in-depth knowledge of herblore and poisons, recognizing that what killed Brenna was a rare vine called creeping elder, which he deduces by the rash on her hand. As another sister addressed as Ulicia requests that Brenna’s corpse be cremated with her hymn-book, the Prelate hurries to tell Richard that she fears Brenna killed herself, the result of a crisis of faith after having faced the cruelty of the world while undergoing a service mission. Since suicide is considered a sin, the Prelate has therefore decided to blame the death on her weak heart, so that she might undergo the proper funeral rites.

Clearly something is rotten in the Palace of the Prophets.  

Verna tries to usher Richard to his quarters, only to be waylaid on the way by yet another sister, this one called Philomena. She’s a gregarious character, who for some reason warmly welcomes Verna back to the palace, even though Verna has been gone for twenty-four years, and Philomena doesn’t look much older than that. How does she even know this woman?

(You could say with the power of hindsight that Philomena was just providing a distraction, since Nicci – the sister played by Jolene Blalock – takes this opportunity to pass Richard a cryptic message, but then how does Verna know enough about Philomena to make a snarky comment behind her back?)

It doesn’t matter, as the whole point of the interaction was for Nicci to invite Richard to an inclandestine meeting by moonlight in the middle of a large hall with plenty of pillars for any eavesdroppers to hide behind. Nicci reveals herself to tell Richard that he’s living in the palace under false pretences; that Verna and the Prelate have neglected to tell him that every day he spends inside their walls amounts to ten days in the outside world. This is definitely a dick move, and she goes on to tell him that the reason they withheld this information from him is because the Prelate wants to stop Richard’s quest to find the Stone of Tears.

According to a prophecy, he’s destined to deliver the stone to the Keeper, thereby destroying all life (or at least, that’s what they’re assuming). Instead, the Prelate wants Richard to become her unquestioning disciple.

This is also why Brenna was killed – because the young sister advocated telling Richard the truth. Richard is unsure about this, as elder creeper works quickly, and the Prelate wasn’t anywhere near Brenna when she died, so... hmm. Someone in this scenario is not telling the whole truth. Nicci goes on to show him his Han (that is, the source of his magic) which is so strong that it’s causing him the headaches that brought him here in the first place. The only way to leave without the necessary training would be to get his hands on a Rada’Han – remember, one of those power suppressor collars? Which begs the question, why didn’t Richard think of using one of these before journeying to the palace?

Nicci tells him that there’s only one in the building, and that belongs to the Prelate. It’ll take her a few days to get her hands on it, and of course, that means at least a month passing in the real world.

This is a complicated episode, and it’s about to get even more so. Richard decides to confront Verna, which he rather impulsively decides to do by dragging her into an alcove and holding a knife to her throat. Perhaps not the best course of action. In hearing he’s learnt the truth about the time disparity, Verna takes him to a room full of stone prophecies.

It’s quite a nice set, with the prophecies carved into the stone walls and framed with wooden slats, all alit with candlelight. Verna points one out that tells of “the son of Brennidon” delivering the Stone of Tears into the hands of the Enemy of Light. Obviously we’re going to be dealing with a Prophecy Twist at some point, because that could mean a lot of things, and Verna follows it up with a prophecy about a descendant of two powerful bloodlines who will fight a powerful new force after the Keeper is defeated.

Uh-oh. Are they trying to set up for a proposed third season? Because we know how that’s going to work out...

In any case, Verna points out that he cannot give the Stone to the Keeper if he’s here, safely ensconced behind the walls of the palace, having left the quest to another Seeker. Richard obviously doesn’t believe in prophecy, and definitely doesn’t like the idea of abandoning Kahlan, but for now he lets himself be convinced by Verna to play the long game. Or at least lets her think that.

Training involves activities such as sand-drawing on the floor, so Richard is naturally very eager to get the heck out of dodge when Nicci brings in lunch and nods her affirmation that she’s gotten her hands on a Rada’Han. In an understated heroic gesture, Richard asks Nicci if it’s safe for her to be left behind while he makes a break for it, but a magical barrier prevents him from getting through the door anyway, after which Verna appears and promptly stabs him in the back.

Well, technically his front shoulder, into which she throws her giant ninja star. After chanting an incantation, she renders Richard unconscious. So we’re now officially in kidnapping and being held against one’s will territory.

Richard wakes up in a magical circle surrounded by Verna, Nicci, Ulicia and the Prelate. The Prelate deduces that a sister told him she was in possession of a Rada’Han, and Ulicia brags that she was the one that noticed it missing from her quarters. A trap was then set, preventing anyone from exiting the building. Richard protests his captivity, despite having seen the prophecy, and the Prelate takes him to a shrine where several candles burn – one for each sister of the palace.

With a wave of her hand, several of the flames turn green – this, she tells him, illustrates the number of sisters that have turned to the dark. They are secretly serving the Keeper, and want Richard to escape the palace so that he can deliver the Stone to the Enemy of the Light, as per the prophecy.

Okay, so there are a number of issues with this scenario. First of all, I can understand that the candle shrine is an easy visual image to get across the fact there are traitors in the palace. But the Prelate can’t tell what candle belongs to which sister? There’s no correlation between them at all? Disregarding that, how can Richard tell that the Prelate is the one telling the truth in this scenario? What if the candles are just an ominous-looking but meaningless visual that the Prelate has set up to make Richard suspicious of whoever tried to help him escape?

Granted, the whole situation is meant to be confusing. Who exactly is the manipulator here?

Richard is smart enough to know that he’s being played, and as soon as they’re alone, he confronts Nicci with this possibility. She puts up a fairly convincing argument in her own defence, and offers Richard a Plan B. Since the safer option of using the Rada’Han is off the table, she could be able to absorb Richard’s Han into herself – provided he offers it up to her freely. Still suspicious, Richard points out that this would make her very powerful. Yes, she responds – powerful enough to help him escape the Prelate’s barriers. She lays down her final card: “Trust me and escape, or stay until they decide to let you out.”

So up until this point, the episode has handled the “who to trust?” scenario pretty well. Like Richard, I’ve no idea who is telling the truth, and the web of intrigue he’s found himself in is a doozy. Taking Richard’s Han could have been Nicci’s plan all along. On the other hand, the Prelate is essentially keeping him a prisoner against his will, and time is racing by in the outside world. It’s an impossible situation, based entirely on hearsay and maybes.

Unfortunately, the episode tips its hand too soon. The next scene has Nicci meet with Ulicia, and some clunky exposition reveals they’re the bad guys. At least Nicci manages a dramatic (though completely unnecessary) unveiling to complement the reveal.

Like any decent villain, she monologues her plan to the ally who already knows full-well what’s going on: Richard is on the brink of giving up his Han, at which point Nicci will set him free. She’ll then kill the Prelate, and any other sister who doesn’t swear loyalty to the Keeper. Ulicia tells her that Philomena has sent word, and that she’s on her way to assassinate the new Seeker, so that Richard will have no choice but to retake his quest for the Stone and fulfil the prophecy.

There’s only one problem. Nicci is feeling weakened, and isn’t sure she can handle taking on Richard’s Han (I am desperately trying not to apply any Freudian subtext to this whole thing). Ulicia falls into the stupid henchman trap by smugly advising her to kill a sister and gain enough strength from her stolen Han... which Nicci promptly does. To Ulicia. Saw that one coming a mile away.

At devotions the next day, Richard and Verna kneel together and receive prayer books from Nicci. Before they begin, Verna tells him it’s tradition to kiss the book first – and the wheels in Richard’s head begin to turn.

His plan is to simply confront Verna with the whole truth: a Sister of the Dark is going to take his Han and set him free. If Verna choses to help him, she can ensure that this unidentified sister won’t slaughter any of other nuns once she’s absorbed all his power. If not, then she’ll have a bloodbath on her hands, as Richard is leaving either way. When Verna calls his bluff, saying that he’d never leave innocent women to such a fate, he declares that the Sisters of the Light are hardly “innocent”. They’re hypocritical and deceitful, and he just wants to get back to his people. He’s holding all the cards, so there’s not much Verna can do but agree.

In the ceremony with Nicci, Richard allows her to take his Han, at which point Verna leaps out with a Rada’Han to fasten around her neck, rendering Nicci powerless. Thankfully for Richard, Nicci blasted the doors open before Verna appeared, and cast a spell that prevented any of the sisters from following him.

She pleads for help, and Richard puts on his detective cap for the denouement. To wit: Nicci killed Sister Brenna by rubbing creeping elder on her prayer book, taking advantage of her duty in passing them out during devotions, and the fact that the sisters customarily kiss the covers before prayers. Why? So that Richard would become suspicious of the Prelate, who assumed Brenna’s death was suicide and acted evasively as a result.

Ulicia made sure the prayer book was cremated along with Brenna’s body, and later informed the Prelate as to the Rada’Han’s disappearance so that Richard would be captured. But why would Nicci do all this if her goal was to free him? Because this way Richard would believe the only way out was to give up his Han to Nicci, who would get an incredible power upgrade as a result.

Nicci isn’t too upset at being found out, as she’s gotten exactly what she wanted out of the situation: Richard free and returning to the quest to find the Stone of Tears. Of course, Richard denies that he’s going to hand it over to the Keeper, despite the admonishments of the Prelate – but has he heads out, Verna wonders the same thing. “I wouldn’t underestimate him if I was you. He’s full of surprises.”

***

So what’s going on over in the B Plot? Well, nothing particularly good, I’m afraid.

Basically, Cara has one of those ham-fisted What Is This Thing You Call “Love”? arcs with the new Seeker and it’s extremely cringe. She’s initially established as being confused by things such as emotions and humour, just so later she can be caught off-guard by the non-existent charisma of the new guy, who she slowly warms to once he manages to bewilder and charm her in the corniest way possible. I can see what they were going for, but does not work. At all.

Let’s get through this. First of all, she approaches Kahlan who is sitting on a log and getting teary over Richard’s sword. Cara rightfully points out that this is dumb behaviour, but it’s meant to set up the fact that she believes love and feelings are a weakness.

Zed meets up with Shota by a riverbed, and the latter tells him she’s got a brand-new candidate for the role of Seeker all lined up for him: all they have to do is find him and give him the sword. This has been discussed between them before, but this time Shota gives Zed a glimpse of the man in the water – one the audience is not privy to at this point.

A month later (and it’s a nice touch that they use a comment from Zed to establish this, as it demonstrates to the viewer that Nicci was telling the truth about the time difference in the palace) Cara uses her agiel to electrocute a man who approached their horses while nobody else was around. He’s reasonably handsome and fit, so you know what that means! We have new regular character, and it’s Shota’s hand-picked potential Seeker. On testing him with the Book of Counted Shadows, the gang realize that he can read the text therein. He’s their guy.

Later that night, they perform the same ceremony they once did for Richard way back at the beginning of the show, and I’m still at a loss to understand how this whole “Seeker” thing works. It would seem there are a number of men out there that can read the Book of Shadows and wield the Sword of Truth, but does a third party have to bestow the actual title of Seeker onto them? How is it that they’re chosen for the role, exactly? Clearly one can be called while the previous Seeker is still alive, so it’s not like a Buffy the Vampire Slayer situation, where the last Slayer has to die before the next is activated. So can there be two Seekers at once?

I suppose the answers are in Terry Goodkind’s book series, but I don’t have the time or inclination to look it up. In any case, this new Seeker (whose name is given as Leo) accepts the role and does the whole dramatic Stab the Sky routine when the ceremony is completed. There’s a nice guarded look exchanged between Zed and Kahlan.

Not only does the compass work in Leo’s hands, pointing the way toward the Stone of Tears, but he’s also a horse whisperer, who notices that the mounts are restless right before Banelings attack. It’s the requisite fight scene of the episode, and it’s mostly there so Leo can prove his physical prowess in battle. How does a blacksmith know how to swordfight? Doesn’t matter, the point is that Cara is mildly impressed.

Later on, there’s an excruciating sequence in which Cara is standing watch for the night, and Leo wanders over for a chat, claiming that he managed to sneak up on her (he didn’t, as she clearly reacts to his approach). There’s not a lot of chemistry at work, just some awkward attempts at flirting, which means that the depiction of Cara laughing at Leo’s bad joke about trained chipmunks falls horribly flat. It’s just not funny, so why is she amused by it?

To make matters worse, after Cara yields guard duty over to Leo, Kahlan comments: “I’ve never heard you laugh before.” It’s a shame they had to waste her first laugh on this stupidity.

They continue Leo’s Character Shilling by having Cara chance upon him doing some sword exercises sans his shirt the following morning, but they’re mercifully interrupted when Sister Philomena shows up to fail miserably with her assassination attempt. Leo and Cara chase her into the forest and manage to pin her to a tree, but at the sight of Kahlan approaching with the intent to confess her, Philomena grabs the sword Leo is holding at her throat and drives it home. Cara using the Breath of Life is useless in reviving her, for as she points out, the woman has just severed her own windpipe.

But if a Sister of the Light is attempting to kill the new Seeker, then something must be amiss with Richard. The team decides to split up: Leo and Zed will continue the quest to the Stone of Tears, and Kahlan and Cara will go after Richard. This doesn’t last long, as the two groups soon cross paths once more. According to Leo, the compass changed direction, and so Kahlan deduces that it’s leading them all back to Richard...

We end on one more revelation. The Sisters of the Light are going about their business, when a new prophecy carves itself into the walls of the hall: “as long as the Mother Confessor’s pure heart beats, the Keeper is doomed to fail.”

Is that a good thing? It sounds like a good thing, but I’ve honestly had enough with prophecies in genre fiction. They inevitably either turn out to be fatalistic Self-Fulfilling Prophecies or Prophecy Twists (c’mon, we all know Richard isn’t going to hand the Stone of Tears over to the Keeper, or if he does, it’ll be for some greater, as yet unforeseen reason). It can be interesting watching people react to prophecies in harmful ways, but this isn’t that kind of show. Richard doesn’t believe in them, and so they’ll unfold around him in a way that doesn’t impinge on his integrity.

Now, Richard’s integrity is one of my favourite things about him, but hanging an ominous prophecy around his decision-making just seems pointless. We know he will always do the right thing. That’s the crux of the entire character.

Miscellaneous Observations:

This was an extremely convoluted episode in a way that’s difficult to describe. Everything hung together logically, but it was conveyed in such an inelegant way (like for example, Richard ruling out the Prelate as Brenna’s murderer since creeping elder is fast-working, and she was on the other side of the room when Brenna died. It feels like such a deductive stretch, but the audience is just meant to go with it).

The whole mystery that takes place in the Palace of the Prophets feels like this, and although it all came together reasonably well – the motivations were sound, the characters acted according to their desired endgames – it was all a little automated. The whodunnit plot was so complex that the characters didn’t have time to feel like real people (what exactly do the sisters even do all day?)

Still, there were a few nice touches here and there. It’s set up early that Nicci was the sister appointed with the task of handing out the prayer books – it’s literally the first thing we see her do, and it turns out to be the solution as to how she murdered Brenna. Likewise, Philomena’s over-the-top greeting to Verna was (in hindsight) a ploy to distract her so that Nicci could make herself known to Richard.

And I liked the conceit that Nicci, our new bad guy, wanted the exact same thing Richard did: for him to be rid of his wizard powers and free to re-join his friends. Of course, they both wanted those things for very different reasons, but it’s always interesting when the desires of heroes and villains align.

Jolene Blalock had some big shoes to fill when it came to our new sultry and ambitious villainess, especially since Denna only died in the previous episode, but I think she did okay. Nicci isn’t a particularly deep character and Blalock is a weaker actress than Jessica Marais, but for what it’s worth, I was left unsure about her true motivations until the reveal. So the ambivalence of her character worked, even if her innate sex appeal is a strange fit on what is essentially a cloistered nun.

(On that note, I was amused at the veils on those Sisters of the Light. They seemingly only wore them so they could be flung off at dramatically appropriate moments, but you have to ask yourself why they were wearing them in the palace at all. Veils are traditionally modesty garments, so who were they meant to be concealing themselves from in their own home?)

Speaking of new characters, this episode also introduced Leo, the next Seeker. Look, I don’t necessarily dislike the guy, I just think his first appearance was fairly trite. Cara mistakes him for a horse thief when he’s just investigating a dodgy hoof, and he’s inexplicably able to make her laugh with profoundly unfunny jokes, and he gets a sweaty, shirtless scene thrown in for good measure.

We have a fix on his character (standard nice guy who wants to do the right thing) but it’s conveyed too quickly and in too much of a contrived manner. If he’s going to be an important addition going forward, then he deserved to have a more interesting introduction.

Nice to see Danielle McCormack, even if it was for just that one scene. I imagine she really enjoyed this gig.

What happens next? Well, it may take a while to find out as (like I said) I’m going to move on to His Dark Materials and get that ticked off the checklist. Plus, I don’t want to rush my way through this season. Once it’s over, it’s over – and I’ve already waited over a decade to watch it!