Constant Thoughts

This episode begins with a cliche: “Men don’t ask for directions.”

Sigh. The creators of LotS were right when they said that the show was supposed to be like Xena, only with less campy fun. Their attempts at humor are dreadful, and we’re paying for it with characters who are harder to relate to!

Anyway, after this horrible humor attempt, the Mother Confessor shows up. Cue whining from the fans of the book. “Kahlan’s supposed to already be the Mother Confessor.” I wasn’t so keen on the MC’s acting either, but the scene worked well as a whole.

Random Thought:
Kahlan’s “stand and fight” speech would have sounded better before she found out that there were no other confessors left. As it was, it just seemed stupid. I blame the editors!

Kahlan finds out that her sister isn’t dead. Naturally, she has to find her. This was a really good idea. Back in the review of the pilot, I complained that the big emotional scene of the sister’s death fell flat. It seemed pointless to have her die when we didn’t even know who she was. But now that she’s alive, the whole thing works. Our only knowledge of this character is that she was willing to die, and that makes her interesting.

There’s more bad editing after the opening sequence. Richard’s idea just comes out of the blue, and then – whoops, here we are at the prison. Whatever.

Kahlan (or Bridget Regan, rather) looked really good as a Mord’Sith. She also seem like less of a parody in that role then the actress who played Denna.

Anyway, that trick (dressing Kahlan up as a Mord’Sith) works so well, I wonder they don’t use it more often. The whole rescue scene was very good, and just the right length. I was expecting (from the episode summary) for the whole plot to center around rescuing the sister. It was pleasantly surprising for them to walk in and rescue her so easily, and rather center the episode around the baby.

Speaking of which, I have a lot of Feelings (with a definite capital ‘F’) concerning the whole baby issue, but I’m not really sure of anything. At least it wasn’t (as I feared it would be) a PSA for or against abortion. On the one hand, the pragmatic (and supposedly moral) choice was to kill the child. On the other hand, the mother’s choice was to let him live.

Or wasn’t it a PSA? After all, Richard’s point of view (abortion is *bad*) conveniently turns out to be the ‘right’ one. And if the kid turns out to be evil, who will be right, after all? Still Richard? The world of LotS does

Good episode, though. And the fight with the evil general’s “army” (well, it was just 30 guys) was pretty cool.

So the terrific trio’s plan is, sneak into the castle, steal the box, distract the bad guys, and possibly kill the big bad. Except we know that can’t happen yet!

Anyway…

That was one evil little girl. And one very good one – almost to the point of silliness. This episode banked on the cuteness factor, and I think that it mostly succeeded – as far as cuteness can go, anyway.

I do believe that this is the greatest contrast between two episodes of any show I’ve seen in a long time. Last week, torture. This week, cute children. It’s just a bit disconcerting, somehow. And although they tried to make certain parts of this week’s episode all serious and such, somehow the danger factor just didn’t seem that high. Almost as if the whole thing was, well, a puppet show.

Perhaps they were trying to make up for last week’s being so miserable, but since the stakes were supposed to be even higher, I would have liked the intensity to increase similarly. Even the ending just didn’t seem all that scary, despite the head chopping and wrist slicing.

On the other hand, the fight scenes were very nice (not so over-the-top). And the episode was cleanly written and produced. I enjoyed it, even if it wasn’t very deep.

And Rachel was a very sweet little girl.

Random Thoughts:
Zedd could have used more magic earlier, and gotten the same result.

Does Kahlan not want the Darken Rahl chase to be over? I hope that the ‘one in white will betray’ prophecy wasn’t fulfilled last episode. I think that there’s still more milage to be gotten out of it.

What are they going to do with the box?

How did Darken Rahl know his comm. book was hacked?

Will the slow pan starting from the feet, while the subject buckles up her/his armor ever get old? And look – no cleavage, for once! Denna’s voice seemed a bit girlish for the part, though. I could have done without her Lara Croft hair, too – wouldn’t short hair have been more effective?

Kahlan’s dream was very well done. Her response (kissing Richard, and then leaving) made sense too, but I couldn’t help but wish that they had built up to this point a bit more gradually. It still worked very well.

I was quite surprised at how dominatrixy Denna turned out to be (especially in terms of vocabulary, etc.) Not something that I’ve ever seen on TV, certainly. Is this is a good thing or not? I don’t know – but it was certainly different! And very creepy. Not quite, say, Callisto creepy, but getting there.

It seems they could show more of Darken Rahl. I know, I know – they’re trying to make him all mysterious and such, but it’s hard care about someone who is never seen at all. I’m starting to become very curious:

How did he get to be super-evil-guy?

What’s the organization of the world, the government? How big is DR’s domain vs. the size of the world?

Are all of the evil-types directly derived from Darken Rahl – is he some sort of ultimate evil? Or his he just in charge of all of the warlords, Mord’Sith, etc. (a la the ‘Source’ in Charmed) with only a tenuous grip on power?

Is he really just a cookie-cutter bad guy, or is he more interesting than that?

Anyway, the best part of the episode, by far, was Kahlan and Zedd’s moral dilemma over the other Confessor’s enslavement of the villagers. They all agreed that the whole situation was wrong, but were willing to use the confessed if they really had to. Finally a ploy that’s really not all black and white. It seems that the whole ‘confessor morality’ issue isn’t going away, either. Excellent job.

I don’t really have very much to say about the final few scenes, except that they were very uncomfortable to watch, and that the whole dominatrix theme was played up just a little too much to be really believable. Also, where were Constance and her friends during the last fight? You would have thought they would have stuck around for extra security, instead of going to the club, or wherever they were!

In any case, LotS just became much, much darker.

Random thoughts:
In a moment of weakness, I read a bunch of the Hulu comments, and while they were mostly inane (“I love this show!” “This show sucks!”) I noticed an interesting pattern among people who are fans of the book series. They have two complaints: 1. Not enough torture and rape (thank heavens they don’t get their wish!) 2. Doesn’t exactly agree with the world mechanics and minor plot details. The latter complaint is interesting – why does it matter? Apparently Kahlan is supposed to be the last confessor, not just a confessor, Richard was supposed to stop Kahlan from kissing him, not vice versa, Kahan didn’t tell Richard what she was nearly so soon, and on and on and.

But so long as we become emotionally invested in the characters, and care about what happens to them, and as long as they tell an interesting story, does it matter? Really?

Damn fanboys!

So somebody is seeing a vision of Richard being killed. I was going to say that that’s a cliche, but I can’t really think of another instance, so… I guess it’s okay. We’ll see where it goes. Who’s having the vision? Apparently a Galadriel clone in dark clothes (love the hair!).

Random thought:
Who pushed Kahlan’s buddy into the wall? I suppose it was Richard – but he wasn’t in the next two shots! Weird and distracting.

Okay, so we’ve got another overly complicated plot. Blah, blah. We’ve had our plot-heavy intro, I want character development! The sparring between the groom and Richard was mildly cool, though.

So an old lady gives Richard a warning. Another cliche? Not quite. I liked that a young woman turned herself into an old one, instead of the other way round. And her backup plan was interesting, if amoral – get the fake seeker killed, and let the others collect the sword and continue on.

Speaking of which, I would have thought they would have noticed that Richard wasn’t himself a bit sooner. It reminded me a bit too much of a certain Buffy episode. It was rather funny when they made up the plan themselves, and attributed it to Richard, though.

The wedding scene was nicely awkward, so say the least, and the music at the end strangely inappropriate. Meanwhile, Kahlan is unusually attracted to Griff-in-Richard’s body. You’d think that she would notice it’s not him at this point. Oh, well.

Random musical thought:
The ‘Xena theme’ is everywhere! Yay for emotional associations!

So Kahlan can’t have an orgasm, or she’ll lose control over her confessor power and enslave her beloved. I like this (even though they’ll probably find a way around it). Kahlan is a woman who is strong, important, valuable in her own right. But there are many characters like this – and many times they end up being absorbed in to a male lover anyway. Even (or maybe especially!) characters who are animate regarding their lack of need for a man often end up this way. By making this impossible for Kahlan, we are shown that her value as a person is independent from her romantic life.

Where did Zedd go during the fight in the tent? And where did the sheltered bride learn swordplay, anyway?

I liked the ending scene – it’s possibly the best so far. The last shot seemed a bit awkward, though Kahlan was a bit over-expressive there.

Annnnd we have plot continuation! High hopes for the next episode.

It’s Luke Skywalker! Only, with a sword instead of a lightsaber, and fruit instead of drones. He even got to “use the force”. Or something. I did like that Zedd obviously didn’t really seem to think that the little breakthrough moment was very important, despite the way Richard (and the audience) felt.

What the hell was up with the bathing scene? And Kahlan’s cleavage? I had hope this show (which is supposed to be rather serious, after all!) would be above this sort of thing. Oh, well. In any case, the episode was pretty terrible up until the first commercial break.

After that, it became much more interesting. Kahlan’s qualms over her Confessor abilities are much more interesting than her abused childhood was. I hope that they continue with this theme.

Random thought:
She didn’t have to Confess the man, did she? She could have disabled him by conventional means, and tried to get the info another way, saving her power as a last resort. Perhaps a part of her actually likes enslaving people?

As for the main plot, the wizard was fascinatingly delusional. He’s definitely the most three dimensional bad guy we’ve seen yet. And the magic=drugs metaphor what varied enough not to be heavy handed. I do wish that they had brought up the subject before, but the show is still pretty new – you can’t have everything!

I was disappointed in the way the the barmaid subplot turned out. I was hoping that she was an even bigger villian, and that her possisian of the necklace would turn into something major. Did Kahlan confess her to get the necklace back?

Lastly, the conversation between Zedd and Kahlan at the end seems to be following the books – good for them.

First of all, we know that the show is funded for 22 episodes, so they’re not going to be killing the evil bad guy with the unspellable name any time soon. This made Zedd’s little monologue rather pointless and silly.

Speaking of the evil bad guy (let’s call him DR, shall we?) They really need to give him a personality, and now! We’ve seen him what, once? Worse from what we’ve seen, DR is a perfectly stereotypical generic bad guy. Boring, boring, boring!

The kid was an interesting character. He was a bit confused, almost bipolar at times, and I felt like it matched his character rather well. After all, being able to see inside minds would mess one’s emotional state up rather badly! I felt like the actor did quite well.

Speaking of getting inside people’s minds, I was disappointed with Kahlan’s back story. Why is it that so many strong female characters have to have a traumatic childhood? It didn’t even work from a dramatic perspective either. She never seemed particularly tortured or dark. Focused, certainly, but not traumatized! It would have been much better if they had hinted at it, led up to it a bit, instead of introducing it suddenly this episode. I somehow doubt they’ll even mention it again.

For the next intra-head item: I’ve been putting off discussing the Richard-Kahlan relationship for a while now. In the books (according to the ‘net, anyway) they love each other with some sort of ‘true love’ but can’t be together due to the whole seeker prophecy. I really hope that they don’t change this for the show. One of the most interesting facets of LotS is Kahlan’s relationship to Richard. She’s not a love interest, and not a mother figure. Since Zedd takes care of the mentor role, Kahlan at the moment basically basically plays A: platonic friend, and B: backup muscle! This is a highly unusual role for a female character, especially when both her and the main character are single. Hopefully they won’t ruin it for the sake of gooey love feelings!

Finally, a word on the music: I haven’t generally liked it. Usually, it’s not noticeable – and that’s a bad sign. When it is noticible, it’s usually because it is being used to artificially manipulate our emotions (see the campfire scene this episode). The one good bit? The heroic fight music, which seems new this episode, or at least, I didn’t notice it before (I’ll have to go back and check…). Curiously enough, it sounds quite like one phrase of the Xena theme:

Coincidence?

So much for posting regularly. I should have known that something would interfere. Anyway…

The opening shot reminded me far too much of a commercial for a certain financial services company. We could have done without that!

Kahlan is apparently some sort of judge-type person. Confessor, they call her. She’s settling disputes in a camp while Zedd and Richard argue. I suppose that explains (and wikipedia concurs) her weird dress – it’s supposed to be a ceremonial thing. I still don’t see why she wears it while traveling and fighting, though!

Random thought:
Zedd sounded really angry in this scene, more angry than the moment justified. It seemed very out of place and uncomfortable, almost as if they filmed this scene immediately after the next ones, and the actor forget to change moods.

Richard goes hunting with some local people, and they come upon the city where he was born, Brennidon. Since he’s a hotheaded kid, he absolutely must check it out! Of course, he’s going to become trapped there. He finds out that all of the newborn children in the city were killed in an attempt to kill him – biblical parallels, anyone?

The rest of the episode is split between comic and serious. On the one hand, a woman thinks Zedd is the father of her child and he won’t hear of it. On the other, Richard is trying to escape from the city, while simultaneously dealing with meeting his mother.

The comic bit was rather funny, but I’m not sure that the contrast worked well here. It would have worked better to mix comedy and seriousness together in one plot. As it was, the comic bit seemed out of place.

Why did Richard call for ‘Bridget’ (instead of ‘Mother’) when he returned to her house? For one thing, we didn’t hear the name earlier, and for another, who calls their mother by her first name? (Yes, I know that some people do, but it still seemed awkward.)

In the end, of course, Richard and Kahlan and Zedd beat all the bad guys up as expected. It was almost a repeat of the last episode’s plot – a misguided good guy tries to turn the Seeker in, than switches sides – but Richard screwed up for real this time. He almost got himself killed, made a city rebel against the D’harens (which will likely get them killed), and he didn’t even actually find his mother!

Overall a good episode, but not quite so good as the previous one. The last 5 minutes were better than the rest of the episode put together. This show is best when it’s epic, not when it’s personal.

Random Thought:
What’s with this whole ‘lessons’ and ‘training’ thing? Did I miss something in the previous episodes?

Speculation: What if Richard keeps making mistakes like this? What if he’s really inept? Flawed heroes usually start out flawed, and then improve. Right now, Richard is a nearly perfect, stereotypical hero – perhaps we will see him develop flaws as the show continues. His name is Cypher (=cipher=0), after all. That would be very interesting and unique!