LEGEND OF THE SEEKER, SEASON TWO (2009-10)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

The first season dealt with the relatively mundane threat of warlord Darken Rahl's dominion of the SEEKER fantasy-realm. Season Two, however, concerns a more cosmic threat. The three heroes-- Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd-- managed to kill Rahl, but in so doing they open a rift between the living world and the world of the dead. The Keeper, malefic ruler of the death-realm, uses this opportunity to seek the world's destruction, unleashing zombie-like beings called "banelings" and installing the ghost of Darken Rahl as his lieutenant. The heroes must find a mystic artifact, the Stone of Tears, in order to seal the gap between the worlds.

This time, though, the three heroes get a fourth ally. drawn from the ranks of the Mord-Sith, the priestesses of pain and torture who normally serve the head of the Rahl bloodline. Early in the second season it's revealed that the father of Darken Rahl wished to spawn a second son who would overthrow the first one, and that second son was Richard. Cara Mason (Tabrett Bethel) decides that as a Mord-Sith formerly loyal to the previous Rahl, she now must follow Richard's band as they seek the talisman that can save the world. Her decision is aided by the discovery that the priestesses who recruited Cara betrayed her-- but even more so, her choice to walk the heroes' road represents a desire to reaquire her lost humanity. That said, though the trio of Richard, Zedd and Kahlan worked well, Cara adds a refreshing new element, as her ruthlessness and acerbic attitude add considerable "edge" to the proceedings.

As in the first season, the showrunners alternate between simple, "done in one" predicaments and the more "cosmic" events. The Mord-Sith Denna returns to cause the Seeker-group more trouble, and a new group of enemies, the Sisters of the Dark, are prominent in Season Two; they seek to control the magic of the Rahl line that Richard has inherited. The vague mythology behind the fantasy-verse is established as a duality: the female Creator engendered the world, but her consort envied her love for humans and sought to destroy her children. In the best tradition of the Miltonic deity, the Creator exiled her consort to the afterlife, so that he became the Keeper. Toward the end of the season, Darken Rahl is able to come back to life, playing a lone hand against both his infernal master and his half-brother Richard.

The most mythically complex episodes all congregate toward the end of the season, such as--

"Bound"-- This story exemplifies the "Wizard's Second Rule:" the greatest harm can result from the best of intentions. Nicci, the most formidable of the Dark-Sisters, casts a spell that imperils Kahlan's life. The spell can only be broken if Kahlan contacts the spirit of her long-dead mother, but this necessitates making contact with Kahlan's long-estranged father. Kahlan's father Frederick tyrannized his two daughters after their Confessor-mother passed away-- but he too was the victim of tyranny, as he was forced to love, marry and procreate with Kahlan's mother. The dispelling of ghosts from the past proves more effective than the cancellation of Nicci's magic.

"Desecrated"-- a magician, Cormac, abducts Cara and Kahlan to force Richard to dispense justice upon the leaders of a village that sinned against him. A ticking clock inheres in the fact that the two heroines are confined in a tomb where the air is running out. Cara and Kahlan, despite often competing with one another, now compete to see which of them can sacrifice her life for the other, resulting in a hand-to-hand battle.

"Extinction"-- Rahl has returned to the living world, and because he knows his brother needs the help of the fairy-like Night Wisps, he orders the delicate creatures massacred. Kahlan finds and saves one pregnant Night Wisp and charges Cara with getting the fairy to a spawning-ground, which makes for more scenes both amusing and touching as the hard-bitten warrior-woman has to call upon her softer side to keep the fragile entity alive.

"Eternity"-- the Seeker-group encounters a Mord-Sith named Dahlia. She claims that Cara spawned a son with Darken Rahl during her service to him, and then Rahl now wants to use him as a pawn. Cara won't agree to let this matter distract from their mission to use the Stone of Tears to save the world, but the others, more humanitarian in nature. It's a trick, of course, for Dahlia, despite having had intimate relations with Cara in the past, is working for Rahl. Cara is captured and subjected to new tortures to restore her allegiance, and at the end of the episode, Cara seems to have been turned.

"Tears"-- The final episode of Season Two starts with Zedd having rewritten the past to restore Cara to normal. Then it's a race to reach the site where the Stone can used to seal the rift, so of course Richard gets separated from his allies. This separation prefigures other shifts in loyalty, with the sorceress Nicci enslaving Kahlan and the Keeper taking on the body of a young boy whom Richard trusts. Unfortunately the final season does end with some dangling plot-threads, as both Rahl and Nicci remain at large once the world's been saved, and Richard and Kahlan still can't consummate their love for Various Reasons. I said earlier that SEEKER may have been a little too much a "straight" magical fantasy to be as successful as XENA and HERCULES, and that still seems like the most likely reason for its brief shelf-life.