Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)
Warning: The following review contains spoilers for the “Fury” episode of Legend of the Seeker.
The producers of Legend of the Seeker have been reading our reviews here, right?
For months now, we’ve been complaining that the most boring character on the show is — unfortunately — the lead character of Richard, the Seeker. Too much of a Boy Scout, we’ve said again and again – never faced with any truly difficult choices where there’s not a definite “right” and “wrong.”
Well, this week Richard meets his inner “Evil Xena.”
The Seeker and his medieval Scooby gang come upon a group of villagers called the Minders who are not only healers — they also chosen a life of complete non-violence, even in the face of war-lords hell-bent on killing and enslaving them.
Richard offers to teach them to fight back, over the objections of the their leader. Incidentally, I love how their leader has a Red Cross symbol on her head-thingy. Not real subtle there on the costume design!
Richard turns a sub-set of the formerly peaceful warriors into a group of fighter-bad-asses. But in the process, he learns that there was a good reason that even the healers didn’t know for their non-violent ways: eons ago, they were fighting bad-asses for an evil Rahl ancestor, and they’re still magically linked to his blood-line.
Now, in one of the show’s patented combination of ancient-magic-and-Richard-lineage-babble (existing to Spackle over all manner of plot-holes), these ”warriors” are inexorably linked with Richard: the Sword of Truth is activated by Richard anger, but now when Richard gets angry, he also turns the fighter-villagers in to enraged bad-asses.
I hate it when that happens.
Anyway, got all that? See the problem? Richard can’t use the sword (and, thus, fulfill his apparently never-ending destiny as the Seeker) without creating bloodlust on the part of these former-peaceniks.
Basically, here’s all you need to know: in order to move forward, Richard needs to control his anger. But — we learn at the end of the episode — even if he seems to have controlled it now, it’s still inside him, just waiting to surface again.
In short, they’re giving Richard an inner “evil Xena” — a dark side.
So why am I still not happy? For one, it all kinda seems to come out of left field.
But it’s also that the whole thing is just too “give into your anger, Luke!” Basically, it’s too much like Evil Xena (or the Incredible Hulk). It feels like we’ve been there, done that.
(And please don’t say, “It has to be that way! It’s (kind of) this way in the books!” Frankly, I don’t care what’s in the books. This is a different animal entirely.)
Still, I asked for them to give Richard a dark side, and they did. So in all fairness, I have to give them a chance, to see where they’re going with this, right?
In other news, did anyone notice how Kahlan’s gown seemed particularly low-cut this episode? Is this a case of the 1970s show Wonder Woman where the lower the ratings went, the smaller Lynda Carter’s costume became? By the end of the run, she was pretty much wearing a washcloth.
I know their game: the producers already tried this same trick on Renee O’Connor on Xena, remember?
I’m also not sure how smug the leader of the Minders gets to be at the end of the episode. Yes, they “defeated” the warriors through peaceful means — but only after bloodthirstily slaughtering a lot of them, proving their threat was mostly real. It would’ve been nice to see how violence really doesn’t solve things for long, but I suppose that’s too much to ask for an action show like this.
Oh, and I loved Zed’s “therapy” session toward the end, when he’s berating Richard, asking him again and again, “Why are you angry?” Nice scene.
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I, too, asked myself why Richard suddenly had an evil side to him in this episode. At first, I felt that this episode would fit better in Season 1. It would have set up this other aspect of Richard and the potential for him to use the sword for both good and evil, an aspect that the show hasn’t tackled until this episode as you have pointed out. But then, if you consider how much darker Season 2 is compared to Season 1, it could be a good fit here as well. The slo-mo scenes of Richard mercilessly beating the thugs were unexpectedly graphic. Also, the bloodline part of the episode would help drive Season 2’s plot, which I think is undergoing so much distraction because Richard needs to save the day for everyone ALL THE TIME.
In a recent interview, Bridget Regan mentioned getting a new costume in season 2 that was even more “eye catching” than her existing costume.
I’m not sure if she was referring to the re-appearance of the green dress (which she wore in season 1 every now and again), but if Kahlan’s soon going to be wearing an even more cleavage showcasing dress, then I don’t know how she expects Richard to concentrate on fighting evil with those things in his face all the time.
Of course, Kahlan may feel she needs to compete with Cara who is now proudly displaying her assets after leaving behind her evil Mord Sith ways (and with them, her Mord Sith collar and corset). For some reason, being a “goodie” on LOTS seems to require displaying copious amounts of chest-flesh, especially if you’re a female “goodie” (although to be fair, female “baddies” also showcase their physicality).
I don’t agree with the comments that Richard’s anger/alter ego came out of no where. He’s been simmering silently in the background for most of the series so far.
In fact he’s done nothing but brood since season 2 started and he found out that everything he went through in season 1 was pretty much all for nothing.
I think this episode was a great way to show the anger he’s been suppressing for the last 5 eps finally finding an outlet. It was a nice subtly done build up and I’m really impressed with the way its worked out and the new dimension it adds to Richard’s character.
You’re right, they’ve definitely been leading here all THIS season. But it’s a big change from LAST season, or so it seems to me.
Yeah, when I look back the first ep was a leap, but from then on his temper was definately building. I agree the lead in could have been a little more subtle
You’re right on with the observance of the leader’s smugness. I said the same thing. The only reason you triumphed is because Richard and his zombie followers totally slaughtered that warlord’s men in the village. If they hadn’t done that, there would have been no threat and the warlord would have simply wasted the whole group. So much for the triumph of non-violence. It’s actually more akin to the theme in the book of “tricking” people based on the Wizard’s First Rule (people are stupid — and they’ll believe something if they’re afraid it’s true).
The Minders were pretty dull. And the leader of the Minders was very annoying (although apparently very competent at healing since Cara didn’t have a trace of her head wound in the last scene). I quite enjoyed when they explored the notion of non-violence on Xena: Warrior Princess, but this seemed like a very half-hearted attempt by the same TPTB to explore similar themes in LOTS.
Speaking of Xena, it was a definite cool moment hearing Richard declare: “kill em all” in true Xena style (although not quite as scary since he still looks like a doe-eyed and exceedingly friendly llama).
I hope we’ll see more of the “fury” stuff in the future. The five minute montage of “training scenes” at the end of the episode didn’t seem sufficient to really settle the issue. Zedd’s concerns seem to indicate that the story-line will pop up again, but such things are never certain.
And damn if Kahlan’s breasts weren’t distracting. I don’t know what the reasoning is behind her dress changes (she was in green for most of the episode, but then switches to white when they wander off at the very end), but she really needs to do up the bodice a tad tighter to keep those breasts under control. Or perhaps they could let her do the “Xena” trick and wear her hair over her chest so that they’re partially covered and not quite so “FHM/Maxim Covergirl”.
I’ve always appreciated that Rob Tapert and company know sex appeal when they see it.
“Doe-eyed and exceedingly friendly llama!!”
Oh, man, I just spit my coffee up laughing. That is hilarious, dude. HILARIOUS. Yeah, that shaggy hair definitely gives him a pretty llamatic appearance.
Bridget Regan says there will be a new costume to debut shortly - maybe this episode’s display is the “premier” of what’s to come?
It is surely a distraction to have both Kahlan and Cara competing in boob fashions, but it seems to have no effect on Richard. Most guys in their 20s would be hard pressed to look anywhere else…and tripping over all those tree roots and landing on sensitive parts.
If they want to add to the Richard’s tension, they should have Kahlan cover up more - it would make a nice counterpoint to Cara’s aura. Then Richard could become more interesting…naughty or nice…naughty or nice. That would be a REAL dilemma.
Richard needed a different look to make him look older and beard’s ok, but the hair isn’t working. I like llamas but the rage part wasn’t convincing to me. Craig needs to read some battle fatigue stories if he’s going to make this jump in the acting department.
Ha! You like llamas. Funny.