Release the Elfstones.
With the heavy lifting of its mythology and world building out of the way, MTV’s The Shannara Chronicles settled into a less frenetic groove as it allowed its characters and stakes to resonate in episode 3, “Fury.”
Full spoilers for The Shannara Chronicles continue below.
We want to hear it.
One of the bigger issues of the two-part premiere was the rapid-fire pace The Shannara Chronicles chewed through its set up. The show seemed to think it needed to lay everything out on the table — romance, betrayals, magical intrigue and a whole lot of plot — for people to be hooked.
Though episode 3 picks up right where the premiere left off, The Shannara Chronicles has calmed down a bit for a more interesting, complex show. Ep 3 opens with Allanon (Manu Bennett) defeating the demon fury attacking Wil (Austin Butler) and Amberle (Poppy Drayton), but it seriously injures him, thus putting him out of commission for much of the episode. Wil takes him to the Druid’s Cave (aka magical healing table) and tries to get him some special mud that will pack his wounds, but he and Amberle get captured by Eretria (Ivana Baquero) and her Rover pal in the process. Don’t worry: Allanon ended up being fine because of course some flimsy demon isn’t going to knock that Druid down.
We want to hear it.
Despite a poor attempt to antagonize Eretria on Amberle’s part, the elf princess and the last son of Shannara get taken back to the Rover camp, where several more of their escape attempts get foiled. (Hey, characters need an arc, and Wil and Amberle clearly have a lot of room to improve.) At the camp, Wil is introduced to Eretria’s sort-of father Cephalo, who wants Wil’s help to unlock the Elfstones. Wil ends up doing that unintentionally when they activate themselves to defeat a demon that attacks, but the magic leaves Wil unconscious. Fortunately Allanon (told you he’d be fine) shows up to save the day again, and he whisks Wil and Amberle away.
They head back to Arborlon because, remember, the Ellcrys is dying and it’s absolutely imperative that Amberle get back to try to save it, despite all these side adventures. They do make a pit stop along the way to rescue an elf named Bandon (Marcus Vanco), whose family was brutally killed by a demon and who was inexplicably chained up in his house by his parents. Bandon is a new character not from Terry Brooks’ source material and seems to have magical abilities, judging by his vision of Amberle dying when he touched her.
We want to hear it.
Amberle gets forgiven by the Elven Council (but not before her Uncle Arion was a POS about Wil’s presence there) and the episode ends with her entering the Ellcrys. It seems cliffhangers are going to be a familiar episode-ender for The Shannara Chronicles, but because the series is still gearing up, these big “you’ll have to wait until next week to find out!” moments are lacking the oomph they need.
The fantasy drama is still suffering from some weak writing, but Butler and Drayton settled into their roles of Wil and Amberle in episode 3 so that when they started connecting with one another the audience was connecting with them. Bennett, whose screentime was limited, continues to be a highlight, as does the heavy post-apocalyptic setting in the fantasy world of the Four Lands. The abandoned guitar case as Wil dove down to get the mud for Allanon was particularly a nice touch.
We want to hear it.
Maybe it was the absence of the Dagda Mor in this week’s episode or maybe it was The Shannara Chronicles’ shift to showing instead of repeatedly telling how high the stakes are, but overall this episode had better forward momentum than what came before. Now it’s time for Amberle and Wil to actually set out on their adventure to save the Ellcrys instead of continually traveling back and forth to Arborlon.
Wil and Amberle’s adventure is still gearing up, and though there wasn’t much plot development in episode 3, this was a big improvement from the two-part series premiere. Hopefully the more The Shannara Chronicles settles into its world and grows more confident with its characters and mythology the more it will mature into a quality fantasy show.
