Legend of the Seeker: Extinction

First of all, I have to express my excitement that Renn reappears in this episode! This came as a total surprise to me, as years ago on a message board I was informed he was never seen again after his first appearance in “Listener” right at the start of season one, and so I had assumed the character (like so many others) was a one-and-done.

I’ve no idea if the person who told me this was lying on purpose or just misremembering the show in its entirety, but it made for an unexpected treat when he returned – even though he was an awful brat the first time around. Still, I love reappearances from previously-established characters, even more so when it comes as a surprise (or at least it would have been to greater effect if the “previously on” segment hadn’t given the game away).

The episode starts with Darken Rahl on the run through the forest, though he ends up toppling into an open grave. The Keeper is after him, and he’s not happy about his “defection” back to life, in a brand-new body that’s conveniently identical to his old one. But of course, Rahl has a story to spin: he insists he’s only returned so that he can destroy the forest of the night-wisps, thereby preventing Richard from ever reading the scroll and learning what to do with the Stone of Tears.

The Keeper takes this into consideration and commands that as soon as the night-wisps have been eradicated, Rahl is to commit suicide and rejoin him in the underworld. But he’s bought himself some time at least, and wakes up next to Garren. Weirdly, there’s no sign of the dacre that was definitely still in his side at the end of the previous episode. I mean, I suppose we can guess that a Sister of the Dark removed it at some point, but it’s still an oversight.

The following day he rounds up a garrison of D’Haran soldiers that are just... playing dice in the middle of the forest? He reveals himself as the true Lord Rahl, though they initially declare that he was killed “months ago.” Months?? Whew, it’s dizzying when when your viewing of a single show is stretched out over a long period of time. I started this season back in May 2022.

Elsewhere, our heroes are approaching the forest of the night-wisps when Cara notices that snow is falling. Having not seen pertinent episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Game of Thrones, in which what is originally assumed to be snow turns out to be ash, she’s a little whimsical about it until Kahlan realizes the truth. They race over the rise and discover that the D’Haran garrison has set the entire forest alight.

Kahlan is very gung-ho about slaughtering these guys (not that I blame her) and in the aftermath she tries to sing any surviving night-wisps out of hiding. The gang hears only one... which is currently in the palm of Rahl’s hand. He demands the scroll be handed over so he can read it with the wisp’s light, or else he’ll crush this remaining pregnant wisp and so doom the entire species to extinction. But why should they believe him?

As master-manipulator Rahl puts it, he’s already betraying the Keeper by keeping one of the night-wisps alive, and the only way for him to stay on this side of the boundary between life and death is if someone gets the Stone and heals the Rift. And that requires working with the good guys. This favourite tried-and-true trope of the fantasy genre was bound to happen at some point: Enemy Mine.

Seeing no other choice, Richard hands over the scroll. Rahl reads it, burns it, and lets the wisp fly to Kahlan’s hands.

At this point, the episode separates into three distinct subplots: Richard and Rahl will continue following the compass point to the Stone of Tears, Kahlan and Cara rush to deliver the last night-wisp to the species’ breeding ground before it perishes, and Zed heads off on a secret detour to collect Renn, in the hopes that his Listening abilities will allow them to extract the information that was on the scroll directly from Rahl’s mind.

This naturally warrants a split-up, though not before we hit a few plot-and-character points. Kahlan mentions the prophecy that Richard will “deliver the Stone of Tears to the Enemy of the Light,” which certainly seems a more likely possibility now that Darken Rahl is travelling with them. Rahl notices that Zed has disappeared and the wheels in his head start turning. Finally, Cara gets snarky about Richard and Kahlan’s farewell, while Rahl makes a sleazy comment about Richard travelling in the company of two such beautiful women, to which he gets a well-deserved punch in the stomach.

Although the three story-strands are interwoven across the rest of the episode, I’ll tackle them one at a time.

First up is Kahlan and Cara, who are making a mercy dash (or at least a forced march) to the birthing grounds of the night-wisps at the base of the Northern foothills. Kahlan is talking incessantly to the wisp in her hand, which naturally gets on Cara’s nerves. But according to Kahlan, wisps are the most fragile creatures in existence, the one she’s carrying has just lost her entire family, and if she stops communicating for just a few seconds, it might well die.

Cara questions how she even knows what it’s saying, since it only seems to communicate in strange whoombpy sounds, and Kahlan responds that it’s a magical language – if she listens carefully, she’ll understand it eventually.

They reach gar territory and start to run through the night, though it turns out that Kahlan is playing decoy while Cara carries the wisp another way through the trees. And wouldn’t you know – because Kahlan twists her ankle while distracting the gars, it’s up to Cara to go on alone in taking the wisp all the way to the birthing grounds.

You know where this is going: Cara gradually starts to open up to the wisp, divulging a couple of secrets about how she genuinely cares about Richard and Kahlan, and realizing that she can understand what it’s saying to her in return. It’s so silly and cheesy, and is essentially just Tabrett Bethell talking to her own fist, but it works somehow.

She makes it to the birthing grounds, which looks like a tropical hothouse garden, and carefully places the dying wisp on a flower, believing that she’s failed. But of course, it’s just a psych-out and she turns around to see the newborn wisps floating into the air around her.

It’s the most straightforward of all three subplots in this episode, but deals with the heftiest material. I mean, we’re looking at a full-blown genocide that’s just taken place against a critical part of the world’s ecosystem, leaving only one survivor who is tasked with saving her entire species. Those are pretty steep odds, and it’s difficult to really grasp the scale of it – especially when it’s dramatized by two women just talking to their own clasped hands.

Also, if only one wisp survived, would it even matter if she gives birth to dozens and dozens of children? Unless wisp biology is drastically different from human beings (and I guess we just have to assume that it is) any further procreation would have to involve incest between siblings.

Just to cap off this particular plot, we see Cara reuniting with Kahlan and a weird moment in which she acts all sad, as though perhaps the night-wisp didn’t make it after all. It’s a cruel thing to do to Kahlan and pointless on a Doylist level since the audience already knows the babies were born safely. Still, at least we get to see the biggest smile on Cara’s face that’s ever been featured on the show before. I think some healing took place here today, folks.

***

Meanwhile, Richard and Rahl are following the point of the compass and engaging in some rather awkward brotherly bonding. The latter is enjoying the taste of a chicken dinner, while the former points out that whether he dies tomorrow or in fifty years, he’ll still end up back in the underworld, facing the Keeper’s wrath.

Rahl disagrees, and his grand scheme becomes clear: by being the only one who knows how to use the Stone of Tears and heal the Rift, he’s secured for himself a free pass into “the Creator’s Light,” which we can only assume is this world’s version of heaven, even though it’s never been mentioned before, and we still have very little understanding of how the afterlife works in this universe (everyone seems to end up in the underworld orgy, regardless of how good or bad they were in life – or are we meant to suppose that’s only because of the Rift?)

In any case, Rahl believes that saving everyone from the Keeper will grant him enough spiritual credit to cancel out all the evil things he’s done. But Richard has seen The Good Place and points out that doing something good for selfish motivations doesn’t count – not that Rahl cares about the distinction that much.

The conversation is cut short with the arrival of the Sisters of the Dark, who are hilariously still starting their war-cries while they’re half-a-mile off, thereby surrendering the element of surprise well in advance. There’s already been a brief scene with Sister Mariana in which the Keeper has instructed her to track down Rahl and “send him back to me,” having realized that he’s reneged on his end of the deal, so now the sisters attack the half-brothers on his command.

The pair put up a pretty good fight, slaughtering most of the sisters and saving each other in the bargain. Rahl uses a flying dacre to cut his bonds, which is admittedly rather cool, but isn’t fast enough to dodge a second blade, which slices his arm open. Most of the Sisters of the Dark end up dead, though Mariana and a couple of others successfully retreat, and Dahl is left with dacre poison running through his bloodstream (which he should have had anyway since the dacre from the last episode has been removed).

Mariana goes back to the Keeper – for some reason his voice is manifesting in a cave – and she’s told to seek out someone that can kill both brothers. Mariana points out that the prophecy suggests Richard is more useful alive than dead (he’s meant to deliver the Stone of Tears to the Enemy of the Light, remember) and the Keeper rejoins that this could very well refer to Darken Rahl, who can no longer be trusted.

So the Sisters are sent to a chain-gang in a quarry, where a particularly burly prisoner is set free and given leave to kill the foreman. Apparently he has beef with Darken Rahl, having been imprisoned by the man after Rahl became concerned he commanded too much loyalty from his men. Back in the Cave of Disembodied Voices, the Sisters encourage the prisoner to plunge his arm into a vat of burning oil, promising him that he’ll be rewarded for his sacrifice by the Keeper.

He goes for it, and emerges as Iron Fist!

We’ll get back to him in a bit.

Richard is binding Rahl’s wound and assures him that if he can hold on long enough, Zed will easily be able to heal him. That’s Rahl’s cue to point out that he pre-emptively deduced Zed would be sent away to fetch Ren, and that Garren was ordered to head them off at Thandor and kill them both. He’s doomed himself with his own Chessmaster tactics.

By the time we check in with them next, Rahl is struggling and having to be half-carried across a plain of grass by Richard. He makes the argument that if death is imminent, Rahl has to divulge what was written on the scroll in order to save the world, but Rahl still has one last play to make. If he dies with the secret, then he’s got something to offer the Keeper. That, along with a lifetime of service to him, might spare him from eternal torture for “a moment’s transgression.”

This is when it gets a little weird, as Rahl shares the fact that when he was a young man, he killed himself in order to travel to the underworld and make a deal with the Keeper. Turns out that in all the time we’ve known him (or at least until he resurrected in Walter’s body) he was a Baneling.

Yeah... um... not sure what to do with that information. I guess it’s kind of interesting to know that he was being forced to kill one person per day in order to keep himself and his power intact, but since he’s also fully responsible for making that deal himself, you can’t feel sorry for him either.

Also, he’s not a Baneling anymore, so... what’s the point of learning this now? Well, apparently everything we known about Rahl has all been part of a long-con, since the Keeper knew that a) Richard would one day kill Rahl using the Boxes of Orden, and b) that death would create the Rift between the living and the dead, increasing the Keeper’s power as a result. Rahl was a tool this whole time.

In any case, Richard now begs him to divulge the writing on the scroll, promising Rahl that he’ll give him credit for saving the world. Rahl seems on the brink of capitulating, but leans forward and whispers: “behind you.”

Iron Fist guy has just turned up, and he punches the ground in order to create a crack in the earth, one with green flames flickering along its length. The fight between him and Richard is pretty quick, and ends with Richard simply cutting off his arm and kicking him into the fiery rift.

Rahl is now on the brink of death, which is Zed and Ren’s cue to turn up just in the nick of time, so let’s backtrack to see how they got here...

***

Zed has made his way back to Thandor and the magical gate that protects it from the outside world. He’s greeted by a veiled Sister of the Light, which... hang on... were they the custodians of this place the first time we came here? I can’t recall, and my review on the episode doesn’t shed any light on the subject either.

Whatever the case, the woman at the gate is certainly not the kindly older one that Renn was originally left with, and neither is there any sign of the other children that were apparently being kept safe in this secret dell. Renn appears and Zed notices that he’s wearing a Rada-Han to suppress his powers, and the Sister reminds him that the Sisters of the Light believe in the prophecy that Richard will give the Stone of Tears to the Enemy of the Light (they’re really harping on that theme in this episode, aren’t they).

Still, she tells Zed she’ll go and fetch the key to the Rada-Han so Renn can assist him.

But Zed smells a rat and advises Renn to get ready to run. Sure enough, the Sister reappears with reinforcements and dacres, though they’re all easily dispatched with a gust of magical wind.

It’s an odd little scene and I sense a retcon; one designed in order to add a little bit of danger to Zed’s otherwise uneventful subplot. It’s a shame in a way, as it undermines the sanctity of Thandor as a safe place for gifted children, and doesn’t really mesh with what we originally knew about the place.

I get that the Sisters believe in the prophecy so deeply that they’d try to stop Renn from helping the Seeker, but surely it would have been a better idea to have the Sister argue her case a little more, and maybe have Zed help her see reason. Otherwise, they could have depicted everyone getting attacked by Garren, and the Sisters either sacrificing themselves to defend Renn, or die protecting the gateway to Thandor and the other children sheltered behind it.

If nothing else, it would have bulked up Katrina Law’s role a little bit. She turns up in the next scene involving Zed and Renn, in which she’s easily outwitted when Zed draws her attention, mind-speaks to Renn without her realizing, and has him throw dirt in her face. After that, he easily knocks her out with a branch. She’s really not that good at her job, is she.

***

The next we see them, they’ve caught up with Richard and Rahl. Zed heals Rahl’s mortal wound right in the nick of time, and Renn reads his mind for the information they need: “you have to take the Stone of Tears to the Pillars of Creation on the day of the summer solstice. You have to place it in the centre of the Pillars. The light of the noonday sun will pass through the Stone and repair the tear in the Veil.” Oh, and did I mention that the summer solstice is in two weeks? So now there’s an extra time limit on it all.

Rahl insists that he was going to tell Richard, though Renn can’t be sure whether or not he’s telling the truth. That’s the thing about megalomaniacal dark lords – they don’t even know themselves whether they’re being truthful. And he’s got one last trick up his sleeve; while the other three are distracted with making new plans, Rahl grabs the dead man’s iron fist and plunges it into the ground, forming enough of a crevasse (and a distraction) to make his escape.

Cue the credits.

So with only three episodes left, we’re finally wrapping up this interminable obstacle-course quest. The compass has been found, the scroll has been read, the instructions have been learned – now all they have to is taken possession of the Stone of Tears and take it to where it needs to go.

Look, nobody is watching this show for the nuances and creativity of the MacGuffin Quest, but yeesh – talk about an Excuse Plot. It’s no coincidence that the best episodes of this season (“Broken,” “Torn,” “Princess,” “Desecrated”) have been the one-off missions that took the time to delve into the characters a little more.

Miscellaneous Observations:

Renn wasn’t the only established character to return for this episode; technically the night-wisps count as well. They haven’t been seen since the show’s premiere, in which Kahlan was using one to guide her way through the Midlands. We get a little more information about them here, like how they’re (somehow) crucial to this world’s ecosystem, and that everything will collapse without their presence.

Which is why I’m glad Cara pointed out that the one Rahl was holding hostage couldn’t possibly be the last of its kind, though of course Richard was always going to capitulate to Rahl’s demand to hand over the scroll. He’ll always opt to save a life, no matter how small. And Rahl keeps to his word and lets the wisp go – though true to his nature, there’s every chance this was just about preventing the world that he so desperately wants to rejoin from slowly dying. He keeps us guessing if nothing else.

And we even get to see a wisp close-up. They have a tiny human form, like an even smaller version of Tinkerbell.

How convenient that the birthing place of the wisps in the Northern foothills and Thandor are both within walking distance of each other, but I suppose we can generously assume Zed turned himself into a bird just off-screen. And I did like the gateway to Thandor:

The prophecy regarding Richard handing the Stone of Tears over to the Enemy of the Light came up a lot this episode, and I can’t say I’m particularly interested. Prophecies never pan out the way you think they will, and this show is pretty notorious for finding easy loopholes. Remember when Shota told Richard that Kahlan would betray him, and this amounted to her just trying to find him another Confessor in order to avoid betraying him? That went absolutely nowhere, and I’m pretty confident this one will end up in the same place.

(Heck, I’ve actually seen the remaining three episodes, back when I had Covid last December, and the solution to the prophecy is apparently so uninteresting that I’ve honestly forgotten how it’s resolved).

There were some interesting “brotherly” conversations between Richard and Rahl, and I got the feeling that we were supposed to take Rahl’s word for it when he said he enjoyed being “with family.” As I recall, he warmed up just a tad to Jennsen as well, back in the first season. Though apparently Panis Rahl used to boast about how Richard was destined to kill him while he was a child, which certainly puts a damper on things. And we also get Richard calling him out on his foster father’s death and what he’s just done to all the night-wisps.

Another interesting theme: that twice over Rahl’s plotting comes back to bite him in the ass. He was the direct cause of Iron Fist’s animosity toward him, and his plan to send Garren after Zed and Renn only slowed down Zed’s ability to heal him.

But the revelation that he was the world’s first Baneling was a bit out of left field. Perhaps like in the first season, when Rahl discloses that he’s actually Richard’s half-brother, only for that plot-point to not get picked up in any of the remaining episodes, this particular story angle was going to be explored further in the next season – though that said, he’s not a Baneling anymore, so it’s difficult to see what the writers could have done with it.

Likewise, they skipped a little over what exactly was happening with the Sisters of the Light at Thandor, and despite going to all the trouble of bringing back Renn, he only really appears in three scenes (and it’s a shame he didn’t get to interact with Kahlan). The first time I watched this episode I was left wondering what on earth happens to him, as by the next episode he’s disappeared completely, neither seen nor mentioned again by any of the remaining characters. This time around I noticed that Renn pitches the idea of going back to Thandor, and Zed almost-inaudibly suggesting he go to Kahlan’s sister instead.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the nice beadwork on Zed’s sleeve when he heals Rahl’s wound. That’s attention to detail:

One more time: unless the dacre is still in there (which seems unlikely given all the fighting he did across this episode), we’re given no explanation as to how Rahl removed the one that was stuck in his side from the last episode. It’s noticeable because the show is usually so good at clearing up loose ends and following the rules of its own magical system.