Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Legend of the Seeker through the current episode, “Elixir,” originally broadcast the weekend of November 29th, 2008.

I really enjoyed this episode.  It’s probably my favorite episode of the series to date.  And not just because we got to see Kahlan in her undergarments.  It was a solid story with action and magic and romance.  If I had to pick one aspect of the episode that disappointed, it would be the involvement of the child thief whose name I can’t remember.  Unlike “Listener,” the child in “Elixir” was only part of a subplot.  But I actually found him more annoying than Renn from “Listener.”

As the episode begins, Richard is training with the Sword of Truth, chopping pieces of fruit that Zedd is levitating in the air.  The scene was very evocative of the scene in Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope in which Luke trains aboard the Millennium Falcon with the floating sensor pod thing.  I’m sure the similarities were intentional.  It was a silly scene, made all the sillier by the rules of the Seeker Zedd was throwing out.

Shortly after he finishes training, Richard goes off and stumbles upon Kahlan bathing in a river.  He stares at her for a moment before she turns around and catches him.  Richard awkwardly apologizes while Kahlan clutches a piece of clothing to her chest.  Hilarity ensues.  Kahlan seems almost amused (or perhaps bemused) and eventually Richard rushes off.

Kahlan, now clad in her undergarments, finds Richard near a road.  He tries to apologize again but Kahlan is more worried about the man stealing their horses.  Richard runs after the horses, manages to swing himself onto one, but after noticing the thief is just a kid, he falls to the ground.  The thief gets away with the horses.  Richard, Kahlan and Zedd track their horses to the town of Drendril, where Richard is given a drink by the bartender, which she spiked with a bit of magic, and he is given a vision of the thief.

Back at the tavern, a fight breaks out when Richard asks a merchant/trader to return the horses.  When Zedd shoots fire from his hand, some of the men run off, yelling about a wizard.  And Kahlan grabs one of the merchants by the throat, uses her ability to bend him to her will, and collapses.  To make a long story short, the town has been overrun by “merchants” selling magic to anyone and everyone.  The tavern owner asks Richard, the Seeker, to save the town.

While looking for the magic peddlers, Richard and Kahlan are knocked unconscious and Zedd is captured.  He discovers that the peddlers are led by another wizard, an old acquaintance of his, a man who hopes to finance the raising of an army through the sale of magic.  When Zedd objects to this plan, a magic dampening device placed around his neck and he is tied up.

Richard trades the necklace his father gave him for another magic drink to help find Zedd, despite Kahlan’s objections.  But while they are out looking for Zedd, the man Kahlan enthralled earlier attacks Richard and knocks him out.  As Zedd had explained to Richard earlier, forcing people to do what she wants has an undesired side effect: they fall in love with her.  Kahlan had told the man to leave town and start a new life, one without crime, but he ignored her.

Thankfully, Richard retains just enough of the magic to ultimately lead them to Zedd, who has been drained of his power.  Richard and Kahlan fight the other wizard’s goons.  One of the goons lunges towards Kahlan but the man she enthralled steps in front of her and takes a knife to the gut.  Richard fights the wizard, who has turned invisible, by remembering the lesson Zedd taught him: see things without seeing them (or something like that).  They win the day and the other wizard has his magic removed.  He will be forced to live out the rest of his life as a normal man.

Kahlan cradles the enthralled man’s head in her arms as he dies.  He thanks her for letting him die with honor and dignity.  Zedd absorbs the bulk of his magic back into his body and warns Kahlan that Richard has feelings for her.  They can’t act on them, though, and Kahlan knows it.  We were given hints of this in “Listener,” when Renn revealed that Kahlan was concerned that any potential relationship with Richard would lead to disaster because of her abilities.

And now in “Elixer” we learn that Kahlan can force men to fall in love with her and this weighs heavily on her mind.  She hates what it does to men and doesn’t want to use them for any longer than she has to.  But why would that impact a romantic relationship?  Would Kahlan, with her guard down, accidentally use her ability? I don’t know. But I’m sure we’ll find out.

One thing that confused me, though, was Kahlan apparently being unaware of Richard’s feelings for her. In “Listener,” Renn told her not to worry and it was implied heavily that Kahlan knew how Richard felt. This can be explained quite easily by the fact that “Elixir” was produced before “Listener.” According to the official Legend of the Seeker website, “Elixir” was the third episode produced but the sixth aired; “Listener” was the sixth episode aired but the fifth aired.  I don’t know why episodes are airing out of order but for the most part there don’t seem to be any severe continuity errors.