Willow Ep. 3 darkens its palette.
And in doing so positions itself neatly in the YA fantasy canon.
The Short Take:
A much more sobering Episode 3 makes our young heroes mature more quickly than I anticipated. Boorman continues to be essential and excellent, but I’m not sure where the commentary on “young people” is going anymore.
Image Credit: Lucasfilm.com
[SPOILER WARNING: We’re well on our way, so from here on out my reviews will be spoiler-y from the start. The show’s been pretty fun so far, so if you haven’t seen it, I encourage you to check it out and then return for my breakdown.]
The Long Take:
Well, that got dark fast. And even though my friend and colleague P.T. McNiff had every right to complain about how dim some of the scenes were on his television screen (why do fantasy shows keep doing that?), that’s not what I mean.
Anyone who had been relishing in the light-hearted, swashbuckling, wise-cracking mood of the first two episodes may now start to wonder what they’ve signed up for in Episode 3. The series dips its toe into what I would classify as more self-serious high fantasy — more like dark, storminess in The Lord of the Rings than the flip flamboyance in The Princess Bride. I say dips because there are still totally goofy moments, like when all our heroes crowd around a broken wagon wheel. Both of these fantasy predecessors are amazing for very different reasons, of course. But this episode decidedly swings its pendulum to the former. And it will come as no surprise that I enjoyed that. It felt like I’d finally cocooned into my familiar fantasy blankie.
Most notably, the younger members of the party encounter substantial death and loss in battle, having to say goodbye to several characters they care a lot about. And, now that I think about it, they’re not just characters they care about. They’re mentors or confidantes who have been with them for a long time. We did technically lose Airk’s mentor, Jørgen Kase, in Episode 1, but none of the characters seemed too choked up about that, and we never saw anyone talk about his loss afterwards. The tone of the losses in this episode seem much heavier in comparison. Instead of briskly moving on, we linger on them. For reference, I actually teared up when Silas, Willow’s reassuring friend, left us. His bestowing of the wood carving for his wife was touching, and the series had done a good job of setting him up as someone from whom Willow would seek counsel. So the death of Silas is just a much a blow to Willow’s confidence as a sorcerer.
Similarly, Jade must now strike out on her own. Once she discovers Ballantine has captured Elora, she must look past the reverence she has for her father figure to save her. She immediately recognizes that he’s been corrupted, and while she very clearly does not want to kill him, she also knows that she needs to set that aside to do her duty as a knight. She’s so noble, and I appreciate the straightforwardness of that. It’s, again, comforting. After Willow uses his spell (more on that later, hopefully), the real Ballantine seems to be able to break through again, just in time to give Jade one last fatherly pep talk. After he tells her she “did good,” he says, “Every road you have ever walked, has led you here, to this moment. You have to protect them. If you don’t, Tirsaleen, Galladoorn, the world will fall to the will of the Crone.” It’s a touching moment because Ballantine tells Jade he’s proud of her and tries to tell her she’s ready to do this — that she must do this — even if she thinks she cannot. Having enough confidence and courage in yourself to prevail is a huge theme of the original 1988 film (see my discussion of the finger test from last week), and we’re getting it in spades here.
Elora doesn’t lose a mentor, but she sees, possibly for the first time, the cost and the burden of her status as prophesied savior — that those around her are much more likely to meet their doom. She meets a lovely yet mysterious couple in the woods, Hubert and Anne, who immediately pledge their lives to her once they realize who she really is. While I wasn’t thrilled that Hubert met her end so quickly and because she was being a bit cocky, I get that someone needed to die in this way to raise the stakes for Elora and make all of this more real.
Hannah Waddingham plays Hubert with a comic, effervescent charm that I found simultaneously captivating and slightly off-putting, which I think might be intentional. Hubert gives off big Tom Bombadil energy. Bombadil, for those who don’t know, is a character from Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring; he makes an appearance in a chapter of the book but never made it into Peter Jackson’s film adaptation. He’s a congenial yet low key threatening. He lives in the woods with only his wife, Goldberry. He is neither hobbit nor man. A powerful being out of place and time in Middle Earth. This is the exact impression I get from Hubert and Anne. Their dust bowl farmer outfits and their mushroom-based diet make them seem out of place and weird. Hubert seems very powerful and skilled, but it’s never explained to what extent, how, or why. Waddingham plays Hubert as a Tom Bombadil character as well, like an enigmatic folk hero. I can see her West End theatricality coming through, and loved that I got to see another side of her after becoming a big fan of hers from Apple TV+’sTed Lasso.
Taking stock, that’s at least three characters who experience some kind of loss in this episode alone. I painstakingly catalogue all of them because I think this is the turning point in which our heroes leave their protective bubble and begin to mature. Suddenly, I’m reminded of parts of the fantasy canon that feature children having to grow up more quickly than they should — C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials come to mind immediately. The Pevensie children process their evacuation from WWII London through their adventures in Narnia, and become kings and queens in the process. Pullman’s Lyra Belaqua loses her best friend, Roger, to kidnapping and learns about the family history she’s been shielded from on her epic quest. These references give me a new lens through which to appreciate Elora and the gang. Circumstances foisted upon them will make them grow up and grow into formidable heroes.
What sets Willow (the series) apart from these young adult fantasy novels, though, is its mild but not at all subtle self-awareness seeping through. I had noted in the first two episodes that Boorman is the voice of older viewers like me, as he often says what I’m thinking about these younger characters. I still maintain that the party dynamic and the tone of the series doesn’t work without his voice in the mix. And he’s the character I most want to know about, backstory-wise. In this episode we see him secretly retrieve the Lux Arcana, the magic key that he, in his opening exposition story, says is necessary to use the Kymerian Cuirass, the enchanted armor that Madmartigan and Boorman were searching for before he disappeared. What does this mean? What does he know?
In the opening story with Kit, Boorman gets even more aggressive in his generational distancing, saying to her that her generation has no patience for epic tales. He’s not wrong; Kit does keep trying to get him to TLDR the story so she can learn what happened to her father. This reminds me of when I try to get my kids to watch a movie but I can only do that if I fast forward through the first act. They just want to get to the good bits and have no patience for, as Boorman says, any drama or context. Hubert makes a “kids these days” comment when she says “See, they just don’t teach young people situational awareness anymore,” implying that Elora has gotten into trouble because she’s a naive young person with zero life experience. And she is. I’m not sure what to make of this meta-commentary yet. Is it to set grown-ups up as annoying obstacles that young adults have to deal with? Or is it, like I said last week, to establish how green our characters are so that their hero’s journeys are that much more rewarding in the end? Both? Something else entirely? Let me know what you think in the comments.
I’m hedging my bets on where the show wants us to position ourselves in relation to the two generations of characters. That seems to be a good strategy with this series so far because I’m very glad I hedged my bets with Willow’s powers. Some podcasters, most memorably Van Lathan of The Ringer-Verse, noted or complained that they were hoping Willow would be more powerful and badass by now (sort of like how some wanted Luke Skywalker to be more uncomplicated-ly awesome in The Last Jedi). On CWK last week I said that I thought it was too soon to assume that he had no powers, despite Sorsha’s sick burn. And I was right! Willow still has the ability to be powerful; his spell in this episode was basically an ultimate move from a video game. He can do it and it’s amazing, but it takes a lot of energy and requires a substantial cool down. The moment when Willow finally thrusts his staff into the ground, green light radiating from it, was exhilarating and fist-bump-worthy for me.
The other characters starting to question Willow, however, wondering if he’s lost his touch, creates a juicy tension. “Can a wizard lose his…mojo?” Jade asks Grayden. I’m intrigued by the potentially complex answer to this question. Hopefully we’ll learn more about Willow’s history with sorcery and if his need to take a Grogu-style nap after using his powers has always been true, is a product of aging, or something else entirely. Chase on Pink Milk had a great theory that Willow’s waning powers may be linked to Elora’s growing powers, and that his depletion will ultimately pass the baton — I mean wand — onto the next generation.
Either way, I’m curious to see what’s in store next week. The shots of the party climbing the mountain look SO much like the Mines of Moria scenes from Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring. I suspect this is an intentional homage because there were shots of them riding in earlier episodes that looked straight out of The Lord of the Rings trilogy as well. Will we speak friend and enter or discover the long-dead corpses of a bygone age. Since it looks like we’re returning to Nockmaar Castle, Queen Bavmorda’s (and Sorsha’s) HQ in the original film, I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a lot of the latter.