The Shannara Chronicles Season 2 Episode 2
Okay, seriously: what the **** is up with this show? Why?! If you told me at the end of last week’s premiere that the next episode would primarily focus on relationship drama, I would have – well, I wouldn’t have cared too much, but I would have been surprised at the very least. As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember commenting on the fact that those elements had been sidelined during Shannara‘s retooling. Yet here they are: pronounced, chatty, and unfocused. What gives? Whatever, Sha-nay-nay. Squander it all away. You do you, boo. The Amberle/Will/Eretria drama I could take. These new kids on the block, though? I couldn’t care less about what or who they do. (Yes, even Eretria’s saucy new girlfriend with the royal blood.) Why? Because I’m not attached to any of them yet and the show is acting like I am! It bugs me when any TV series does that – which, oddly enough, happens a lot these days. But so far, the actors don’t seem too attached to their roles, either. They’re more or less there to do sexy cosplay. And…that’s about it. What’s more, it seems Jax is also a character first introduced in a book (Wishsong of Shannara) that takes twenty years after Elfstones of Shannara, which was the source material for season one. That means we’re pretty much watching televised fanfiction at this point. Yay? Jax takes Lyria back to her mother Tamlin, Queen of Leah – a character who is not in the books at all. Her big motivation right now revolves around marrying off Lyria to Elven King Ander (the nicer clone of Mel Gibson). Problem is, Ander wants Catania, his one true Elf maiden. That’s fine, because Lyria is so sprung over Eretria that she can’t think straight. Literally! Obviously, she’s going to run off with bae when she shows up disguised in a leftover costume from The Gods of Egypt. Speaking of which, that movie appears to be the inspiration behind the look and feel of this episode. It’s like the production design said, “Hey, let’s combine the sword and sandal aesthetic of Gods of Egypt with the gilded sophistication of The Great Gatsby (2012) and use it as the backdrop for an early 2000s R&B music video!” Um, yeah. Great idea, you guys. Glad you moved on from that insatiable fixation on Rivendell you had last year. Sigh. I will never be able to rewatch any Council of Elrond scenes again thanks to you. But like I said, Eretria breaks into the Leah bordello/strip club and cuts the spontaneous Kelis video shoot short when she puts a knife to Jax’s throat and demands to know where Lyria is. The following exchange pretty much embodies everything that I can’t stand about The Shannara Diaries– er, Chronicles! I mean Chronicles – right now. A veteran Season 1 character dials it in while sussing out information from a wooden, thinly developed supporting character that is supposed to be so cool. I mean, I want to like Jax. And one day, maybe after he makes some daring sacrifice during a future season finale, I actually will. Until then, he’s just one of the many new hires I’m trying to keep track of – and his line delivery game needs some work. Then again, so does Eretria’s. But Ivana Baquero gets a free pass from me at this point, because I saw her work last season, and she doesn’t have much to play off of here. I mentioned that Ander likes Catania somewhere up there, correct? That sucks because she totally dies in this episode. She gets stabbed by the traitorous…what’s his name… pulls up the Wiki again Anyway, we have other people to talk about. Like Wil, for example. Maybe it’s the new haircut talking, but I am officially becoming more of a Wil fan with each episode that passes us by. The addition of Mareth (Allanon’s daughter) helps him out with this because Wil’s screen presence is always magnified when he is accompanied by a headstrong female type. (See: all of Season 1.) But Wil is also more or less the new “main protagonist”, which means his scenes are the ones that I actually want to pay attention to. He has this confrontation with Bandon in a dimly lit barn over the location of the big scary magic skull that Darth Maul wants, right before the credits roll. It seems exciting and all, but It’s an awful lot like that reunion between Eretria and Lyria I talked about earlier. I didn’t feel what I was supposed to feel when I was watching it. In short, it was not intense or as revealing as its presentation is told me it was. I was more preoccupied with seeing how much time was left in the episode by that point…and that’s not a good thing. And I like the cast! You’ve got a nice ensemble going on here that just keeps growing and evolving over time, and the new members this year are off to a promising start. If anything, it’s the writing and direction departments that could stand the most improvement. I’m not a big fan of the new characters yet not because of the performers, but because of how they’re being written and introduced into the mix. It reminds me of the how the second season of Earth: Final Conflict, another troubled sci-fi/fantasy series, was handled. That show moved farther and farther away from its creator’s vision as time went on, until it barely resembled the original product when its fifth and final year hit the air. Could this be Shannara’s ultimate fate if it continues? My main concern is that the series will slowly be focus-grouped to death. The struggle to find a devoted audience in a stable demographic could very well be it’s undoing. If you’re going to be a knock ’em, sock ’em fantasy/adventure program, embrace it. But don’t bog yourself down with nighttime soap conceits now. If you’re going that route, just pick up the teen drama stuff that’s already in your wheelhouse and make it more, I don’t know, comic book-y. Focus all of your romantic tension into one specific storyline. Don’t spread it all out evenly amongst characters who just showed up to the party. It’s not as interesting. That’s all you’re going to get out of me this time, Shannara Diaries. Can we have Amberle back now? Please? I’ll give you five dollars. Read the full Den of Geek NYCC Special Edition Magazine right here!
