MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, metaphysical, sociological*
Compared to Season One, Two evinces more of an elegaic sense, a sense of changing realities and shifting allegiances. But one wonders if this was the original plan, before any shooting began, or if the writers were subconsciously reacting to the departures of some of the key supporting players, and the addition of new ones.
One major addition, which extends to Season Three as well, is the introduction of a potential romantic interest for Dar, who'd lost his lifemate at the end of Season One. Warrior-woman Arina (Marjean Holden) hails from another region-- maybe even another dimension-- but she like Dar has lost her people. Her purpose in her first couple of appearances remains vague, but after a time she becomes an employee of Season Two's "big bad." In due course, though, Arina is sufficiently inspired by the noble altruism of Dar and Tao to join them in more heroic endeavors.
Some of the early episodes of Two suggest that the previous season's main villain, King Zad, represents a fading approach to the acquisition of power: that of simply unleashing hordes of killers to scour the land. Zad's savages, the Terrons, get some substantial competition from a new band of warriors, the Nords, whose leader is supposedly more sophisticated than Zad.
The more sophisticated tyrant is King Voden (David Paterson), who approaches conquest with a more deliberate, considered air. He's a master schemer rather than a warlord, and one of his big schemes involves taking over the city of Xinca, the home of Tao's Eiron people. Another plot is to suborn Dar's power, to make the Beastmaster turn his animal allies into Voden's shock troops. The episode "Rage" gives Voden something of a psychological backstory. He was one of two princes of the Nord people, but his brother Bakhtiar was the older son of Nord queen Margret, and thus first in line for kingship. Much like cunning Loki playing games with the forthright Thor, Voden taunts Bakhtiar so much that the prince becomes consumed with murderous tendencies. Bakhtiar's mother, wanting to save her favorite son, appeals to an old lover-- none other than the acidulous Ancient One-- to erase his memory and to enchant him so that he'll change into a beast, a puma, when stricken with the urge to murder. Naturally, Dar and Tao intervene to solve the problems of Bakhtiar and Margret. But since the showrunners didn't have any concern with those characters except to show Voden's treachery, both of them disappear.
The Ancient One has his own shakeup. He finally gets sick of "Sorceress #1" (Monika Schnarre) becoming invested in the drama of human lives, so he imprisons her in amber, and replaces her with Sorceress #2 (Dylan Bierk). However, #2 is just as much a human-booster, and she disappears at the end of Season Two also, while Sorceress #1 returns in that final season.
Season 2 also bids farewell to Dar's quixotic patron, the forest-demon Curupira (Emilie de Ravin), who seems to have picked up a mild fancy for her human servant. However, Dar becomes the unwitting target of a demoness chick-fight, for the water-demon Iara (Sam Healy) wants Dar as a lover. Iara wins the contest, exiling Curupira from the BEASTMASTER world, but by the end of Season Two, Iara also fades from said domain.
All of this character-shuffling makes for pedestrian stories at first, and sometimes the writers work in mythological references that don't track well. "Golgotha" is the title of a jejune episode in which Dar breaks up a sacrificial cult. No person or place in the episode shares the name of the hill on which Christ was sacrificed. So apparently the writer just tossed in that reference because it sounded lofty and significant, even though the sacrifice of Christ, even to a non-believer, is functionally distinct from pagan sacrificial rituals.
Then three scripts ascend into the realm of high-mythicity, all co-written by one Tony DiFranco-- and all three following one another in broadcast order-- almost as if once everything got sorted out, the writers got more venturesome. The 15th episode, "Centaurs." starts it off. Though BEASTMASTER is set in a world divorced from human history, it's still a mortal realm, and thus capable of being invaded by the denizens of more primeval realms. Two beings from such a realm, a male and female archer both mounted on horses, escape a cataclysm, and for once, they're the ones who pick a quarrel with humans. The archers Rax (female) and Sagitto (male, patently named after Sagittarius) start liberating horses from the warriors of King Voden, which naturally causes Voden to react badly. Dar and Tao seek to help the archers, who turn out to be bonded to their horses in such a way that they and their mounts can morph into centaur-forms. Voden, on learning the centaurs' secret, seeks to bring them under his control.
"Fifth Element"-- Dar and Tao accidentally release Annubis, a spirit of chaos (Bruce Spense), from the confinement placed upon him by the Ancient One in primeval times. Instantly the powerful deity wants to plunge the existing world into chaos, first by changing Tao into a dog-man (supposedly to make Tao resemble the god's former pet, Cerberus) and then causing torrential rains to pervade their world. Even serpent-woman Iara, now in charge of the natural world, can't stand against Annubis' mastery of the four elements, but Dar can, if he solves the riddle of "the fifth element." The mythological names are poorly chosen, but the trope of a deity who simply wants to eradicate the world to start over is mythically strong.
"A Terrible Silence"-- Iara abandons subtlety and seeks to make Dar her leman, but he refuses. Like frustrated Ishtar to Gilgamesh, Iara curses her servant. In this case, because Iara inherited all of Curupira's powers, Iara can strip Dar of his Doctor Doolittle powers. This, however, causes the entire natural world to fall into chaos, discommoding even the Ancient One and the second sorceress. Dar must complete a great task in order to regain his abilities.
But after those three tales, the show returns to relatively simple formulas-- even other episodes written by DiFranco. Arina returns after being absent for several stories but becomes more of a regular in the last season. And despite the Ancient One's prophecies, to the effect that Zad was doomed to fade away, he triumphs over King Voden, who brief reign as "big bad" comes to an untimely end--after which Zad takes on a new role in the third season.
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