This week marks the first of the double episodes of The Shannara Chronicles, and a lot happened in episodes 5 and 6! The group is still split in two, half in Leah and half in Paranor. ‘Paranor’ was written by Evan Ednicott and Josh Stoddard, and directed by Toa Fraser. ‘Crimson’ was written by April Blair and directed by Brad Turner.
The Leah Crew | Jax (Gentry White) and Eretria (Ivana Baquero) are heading out of Leah and Jax decides to go off on his own. He visits the family of one of his fallen comrades, but the Crimson are hot on his heels and kill the little boy. Jax kills all the members there but Valcaa (Erroll Shand), he wants to deliver him to Ander (Aaron Jakubenko) to get info on Riga. His fallen buddies wife is grief stricken and angry that Jax brought those men here, she slaps him and tells him to leave.
After Jax leaves her, Eretria is ambushed by Leah soldiers and holds her own until she is severely outnumbered. But lucky for her, Cogline (Andrew Grainger) happens to be around and protects her! He takes her right back to Leah to confront Tamlin (Caroline Chikezie). Cogline knows the queen made a deal with the Warlock Lord before his fall to let him drink from Heaven’s Well in exchange for her husbands death and her ascension to the throne. Cogline warns the queen that helping the Warlock Lord has dire consequences, he will want to collect on his end of the bargain when he returns.
Later, Cogline finally fills Eretria in on her history and what her tattoo means. She is one of Armageddon’s Children, a group of human/demon hybrids that can easily be controlled by beings with powerful dark magic. This is why her mother was killed, and why the Warlock Lord will want to use her when he rises.
Cogline wants to train her to fight dark magic, so he has her face a wraith he has trapped. Instead of being used by it, she forced it to bow to her. This seems all fine and dandy until Eretria says she liked the power. She later sneaks back to the cage the wraith is being kept in, enters it, and destroys it, causing her eyes to go completely black. I’m talking Waverly-Earp-touched-the-goo black.
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Elsewhere in Lyria, Ander is holding a memorial service for Catania. After, he and Lyria (Vanessa Morgan) discuss their marriage and decide to move forward with it, but it will be more of a friendship because she loves Eretria. Jax arrives with Valcaa, but the Crimson soldier gets broken out shortly after. This pisses Tamlin off and she decides it’s time for Jax to end Riga’s (Desmond Chiam) life.
When Jax ambushes Riga he is surprised when he’s ambushed by Valcaa. Riga leaves Valcaa to deal with Jax, but the bounty hunter turns the tables and kicks the soldiers ass, eventually killing him.
Wedding Time! | Ander and Lyria’s wedding looks beautiful and the bride looks stunning, unfortunately that all gets forgotten when Riga reveals himself and his men. The leader of the Crimson stabs King Ander through the heart. This was some Red Wedding kind of shit!
The Paranor Crew | Upon entering Paranor, Bandon (Marcus Vanco) reads Wil’s (Austin Butler) mind, knowing his true intentions of being there are true. Because Allanon (Manu Bennett) knew Bandon would do this, he kept his true plans a secret from Wil and told only Mareth (Malese Jow). She follows the instructions Allanon told her and traps the Druid with Bandon inside a cell where neither violence nor magic is permitted. But before getting trapped, Bandon cut Flick (Mark Mitchinson) with his poison-coated blade. Now Bandon tells Wil the only way to save his uncle is to bring him the skull of the Warlock Lord. Without that skull, Bandon will let Flick die.
Wil convinces Mareth to help him, despite Allanon’s protests, and the two of them use the Elfstones to retrace the steps his father and Allanon took 30 years ago to hide the skull. This takes them back in time, to when Shea (Jarred Blakiston) and Heady (Anthea Hill) were teens falling in love and figuring out Shea was the Shannara. Wil and Mareth must figure out why they came back to Shadyvale at this time, where his father and Allanon hid the skull.
They reveal Shea’s true destiny to him and help him deal with his first wraith. They eventually find the skull under the old family scarecrow, then return to the present to release Bandon to exchange skull for antidote. Too bad neither trusts the other so nothing happens until Flick decides to move things along by killing himself with Bandon’s sword. Too bad you didn’t do this before the skull was within Bandon’s reach, because he seized the opportunity to grab the skull and run. Mareth let Allanon out to help, but he only got cut by the poisoned blade.
Looks like Bandon has everything he needs to resurrect the Warlock Lord, Ander is dead, and Eretria is part demon! What’s going to happen to Allanon now that he’s been poisoned? Will Wil be upset over the destruction of The Sword of Shannara?
The Shannara Chronicles will have 2 new episodes this Wednesday at 9pm and 10pm on Spike.