Wait Just a F#$%#^ Second!
I had a horrible nightmare last night. I dreamed I watched the Legend of the Seeker season 2 finale (you know, the supposed LAST EPISODES EVER) and in the dream it sucked. Nothing they did made sense, none of my expectations were met, and the writing was sloppy and lazy. Imagine my dismay when I awoke this morning to find it was real. I feel horribly betrayed. So I’m going to go through and say what I thought was going to happen, or what I think should have happened, or what I would have liked to have happened. And then maybe I’ll feel better.
Let’s begin with “Unbroken.” I think that episode may have been the single most beautifully shot episode of the entire series. The part where the Sisters of the Dark are kneeling in formation and the Mord’Sith kill the hell out of them was absolutely gorgeous, as was the part where the Keeper talks to naked!Sister Marianna (I find it endearing that the Sisters of the Dark sleep naked). Not to mention the EYE CONTACT with the Cara/Rahl(/Dahlia) kiss. I love how Cara’s eyes welled up a little. Unf. Long story short, I loved watching that episode.
I thought the AU bit was odd, but no more so than, you know, the whole TIME TRAVEL bit from the first season. “Oh, Kahlan’s marrying someone, this must be AU!” I wasn’t bothered by a universe where Cara never shows up so Kahlan and Richard end up together. Because I must admit, until Cara joined the gang I was totally on board with the whole Richard/Kahlan ship. Yes, notorious femslasher little Me was on board with the het ship. So it made perfect sense to me that they’d get married and be together forever if Cara weren’t around. I never had any illusions that Richard and Kahlan wouldn’t end up together. Honestly, as much as I love Cara/Kahlan, I’ve always seen it as almost completely unrequited in the show itself. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Cara has it bad for Kahlan, and I firmly believe that’s cannon. From the end of “Desecrated” up until “Extinction” Cara is distant and cold toward Kahlan and downright snippy, almost hostile to Richard. And why wouldn’t she be? She comes as close to telling Kahlan how she feels about her as she knows how, but then when they’re rescued Kahlan is too busy kissing Richard to worry about whether she’s alive, or to help her off the floor. It’s the classic scenario: how do you go back to being “just friends” when you admit you have feelings for someone and they don’t feel the same way? Cara spends the next few episodes reeling and rebuilding her defenses and (I think) ultimately getting over her infatuation. Things are tense until Cara saves the Night Wisps. When she offers Kahlan a hand to help her up the embankment, that’s the moment when their relationship makes it back onto level ground. And then Dahlia shows up. What perfect timing! Seriously, I was impressed with how astute the timing was. What better way to churn up the feelings we thought we’d just seen get resolved than to throw in an ex Cara still has feelings for? I thought the whole Cara/Dahlia situation was as realistic a depiction of queer drama as I could ask for. Why wouldn’t Cara ultimately go back to the side that loved her back after traveling for months with people who didn’t and couldn’t love her like that? Yes, the whole “tortured with an extra-special-evil-magic-dildo” bit helped with that, but my point remains. But I digress. Let me back up a little.
I was really upset when Kahlan kills Dahlia at the beginning of “Unbroken,” both because I liked Dahlia and because I wanted to see it affect Cara more deeply than just distracting her while Richard knocked her out. Boo. Seriously? Watching your girlfriend die at the hands of a woman with whom you’ve just recently fallen out of unrequited love is pretty much the worst thing I can imagine.
So then they’ve got evil, sassy, sexy Cara all tied to a tree. Yum. Did anyone else notice how amazingly fidgety she was? More so than usual, I mean. Zedd’s gearing up to perform some seriously Powerful Magic and she’s standing there tapping her foot and fidgeting. While TIED to a fucking TREE! And then the Epic Spell of Undoing the Budget happens and poof! it’s wedding time? Wha? All of my own queasiness about weddings aside, I let myself enjoy how really pretty this strange new world is. I love it when you can see Kahlan/Bridget’s freckles. Yum. Richard has the power of Orden and it makes him comb his hair lets him make his brother share his toys. Ok, I’m still on board. The Sisters of the Sleeping Naked Dark kidnap Jensen Ackles, slit her wrist and drink her blood? Still on board. I love to hate Jensen. It must be hard to go through life with the nickname The Pristinely Ungifted One. ((Here’s where I have to insert (the first of many) kudos to the show for the deliciously intense blood and gore with which they’ve loaded this season. Between this and Trueblood I’m beginning to develop a blood fetish.)) The Sisters of the Dark separate the boxes and Duck n’ Roll puts them back together and is back to his smoldering bad-boy self? YES PLEASE! Craig Parker is currently the only one on my short list said the lesbian. Kahlan and Zedd… flee for their lives? Really? Kahlan gets married and loses her virginity, for values of virginity equal to spine. And no, before you start, “I’m pregnant” is no excuse to become a damsel in distress. Where did that come from? 8 episodes ago she fought her way out of a dungeon WITH A PLATE and no magic. To his credit for once (jk, I love Zedd) Zedd has it right: this world where everyone gives up running around the woods and fighting in order to go be housewives SUCKS. Way to go, show, for subverting the Happily Ever After paradigm. They make no two ways about how this new world Zedd created is bad and wrong and should never have existed.
Now’s as good a time as any to launch into another Cara rant. Let me preface this by directing you to trobadora ’s post about the Bisexual Paradox and how the Leo/Cara thing is a good and valid choice for the writers to have made. I must say I mostly agree. I have no problem with the idea that a bisexual female character can have male love interests or even male soul mates even if that male is a long-lost Village Person. In fact, I liked Leo and Leo/Cara better in this world than in the other one. The whole “Farm Boy? Fetch me that pitcher?” “As you wish” dynamic works for me. D’awww. That being said… I have hugely mixed feelings (blended feelings?) about how they handled Cara in this episode. I appreciate the fact that they made it clear that Cara Too-Cool-For-A-Last-Name as we know her is preferable to Cara Mason, even if they try to make it a morally ambiguous situation. Is it better for her to have been taken as a child, tortured in ways beyond imagining but then be a capable, confident, sexy, strong, queer woman? Or is it better for her to live a torture-free life that (to the best of our knowledge) is limited to her children, her chickens(lol, Cara’s chickens) and her pink dresses (though I must say it’s a good throwback to the Princess dress). Cara the Mord’Sith kills Shadrin and eats their livers raw. Cara Mason can’t even get her fucking bucket out of the well! My opinion on the matter is fairly obvious, but I can understand how the opposite opinion is entirely valid. My biggest problem has to do with how they handle the queer side of Cara. Her only relationships with women (that we’ve seen, anyway) are with other Mord’Sith or with Kahlan. Now that Cara is not and never was Mord’Sith, the only relationships we know about are with men. They never say it explicitly, but to me that implies the mindset that only women who have been tortured and broken and are now evil would ever have relationships with other women. I would even be ok with Cara and Leo if their relationship weren’t so chaste in this world. In the other world, she jumps him in the cave for fun. In this world, he fixes things for her until they shyly and delicately kiss. This also implies that only damaged women have an active sex drive and a bit of kink. I’ve given this issue a lot of thought over the course of this season and I’ve been impressed with how nonjudgmental the show has been up until now. Now I need to re-watch this season and reassess my opinion…
Back to the episode itself. Watching Cara beg for her life and her children ruffled my feathers but Tab played it beautifully. And again they tie her to a tree. And then shoot her. And she’s still gorgeous. The shot with Kahlan holding her head made my lip quiver. I love that they leave her tied to the tree, dead and full of arrows, like she’s Cuchulainn or something (Actually, that’s quite fitting, come to think about it). How tragic and beautiful. I spent all week on edge, waiting for the next (and last!) episode to set things right. After all, the show’s been ~cancelled so they’ve GOT to fix it like they did at the end of last season. Right?
And then “Tears” happened.
The episode got off to a good start (read: I apparently like my Mord’Sith tied to trees). When Zedd suggested performing the Spell of Undoing the Budget on Dahlia, my first thought was “ooh, cool, good idea!” followed immediately by “but that would only work in the first world, unless he’s planning on doing it so Cara’s alive and then doing it on Cara again. I don’t think this’ll work.” But then it did. Before the credits were done. The hell? So they pop up back in the “real world” fighting banelings. Except that’s not what I thought was going on at first. The first time the spell happened, they ended up in an alternate universe the same amount of time after the season 1 finale. Wouldn’t it make sense that they’d go back to pretty much where they started, timewise, give or take a few days? So how’d they get from to woods (remember Cara tied to a TREE?) to what looks suspiciously like the Valley of Perdition? (Seriously, I don’t mind recycling sets. We cheer whenever they use that same room with the circular grating in the floor. They use it all the time, in many different settings. But the Valley of Perdition, or a close look-alike? How loaded is that?) My first thought was “oh no, it didn’t work this time either, it’s yet ANOTHER hugely different universe!” I waited the entire episode for them to figure it out and fix it again but no, apparently everything was supposed to be right back the way it was. How come Cara was a Mord’Sith? That all happened way too quickly. What happened to the amazing timing the show’s had all along? -10 points for crappy, lazy, holey writing. +1 for the awesome “uh oh, time to find granddad a home” faces they all make at poor confused Zedd in that scene.
Moving right along, our heroes continue through the… desert? What happened to the woods? No more woods? It took me awhile to get used to the change in color palette. And Richard jumps the rift and runs off to be gullible in some ghost town. It’s been 44 episodes and Richard STILL can’t help himself when it comes to crying little kids (or heaving bosoms, but in this case it’s a kid). And my first thought is “the kid’s EVIL!” followed immediately by “or it’s Cara’s and Darken Rahl was lying when he said they’d killed him!” because I’m not convinced they killed him. I was only half right. The obvious half. Balls. -5 for a missed opportunity. -10 for the unfortunate choice of making the little kid talk with the Keeper voice. The kid was GREAT all by himself; we don’t need to be beaten over the head with the Sword of Obvious.
Meanwhile, back in the bathtub of unbearable sexiness: Sister Nicci (Snicci, as I call her) shows up. Finally. Seriously, just when I started to love her, she goes all “I’m overqualified for this job” and drops off the face of the planet. But it’s ok because she’s back and showing some thigh. Right about now I began to hope the episode would start getting good. That is, after I stopped snickering and facepalming over her hair. Apparently Extremely Powerful Magic… makes your hair crimp? Maybe Snicci spent the past million episodes in Agaden Reach with our favorite unfortunate-looking witch woman, Shota. They probably did each other’s hair and swapped spells and giggled a lot about how everyone else in the world is waaaaaay less powerful than they are. Anyway, other than her hair she’s smokin’ hot (hehe) and boils my boy Darken in his bath. I kinda hoped she’d get in the bath with him instead, but no, creative torture is good too (yes, I’m sick. I love the torture scenes, I think they’re fascinating). She goes after Richard and so Darken Rahl sends the Mord’Sith to help the good guys. Right about now I was impressed with how they shuffled the teams around. Again, Darken talking about his fearless little brother had me convinced they were still in some other horridly wrong world. Poor disappointed me.
-5 for kind of wasting the Mord’Sith, too. For such an intimidating, powerful, bad-ass bunch of women, they’re kind of a bunch of sheep. We began the season with many Mord’Sith (what do you call a group of Mord’Sith? A pride?) and they were intimidating and bad-ass. But this bunch is more like sheep. I understand the need for one to be in charge as they’re predominantly a military order, but the other ones should have personality too. There are tons of Mord’Sith named in the books. Why couldn’t we meet them? Berdine and Raina would have been nice, seeing as they’ve RETCONNED AWAY THE OTHER LESBIAN MORD’SITH COUPLE!!! RAAAAAAAAGE! *deep breath* Anyway…
Sister Verna came back and that made me happy. I didn’t realize how much I liked her until she walked onscreen this episode. I cheered, actually, it was embarrassing. And of course there’s a new really obvious prophecy. I’ll rant on the subject of the prophecies more in a bit. For now I’ll just say this new addition is really obvious and we’ve already seen it coming true. What happened to the interesting timing!? I’d give the episode a few points for going to all the trouble to bring back so many background characters except I think they went too far without going the whole way. We’ve got Snicci, the Sisters of the Light and Dark, the Mord’Sith, the Monks of the Order of Some Name I’ve Forgotten but there’s no mention of the Minders or of Flynn and Annabelle or Walter or anyone else. -1 for missed opportunities, but not major ones.
Meanwhile, Snicci catches up with Zedd, Kahlan and Cara, tried to zap them, but Cara deflects the bolt. Did anyone else think it was suspicious that Cara can just deflect Snicci’s magic when Snicci is so uber powerful? I guess it makes sense because Snicci was trying to trick them, but still. And then Snicci confesses Kahlan with her own confessor’s magic and it was totally hot. I will take this moment to point out the GORGEOUSNESS of the color of Emily Foxler’s eyes. Hot damn. Snicci tells Kahlan to kill Cara and I got all excited because the last time Kahlan and Cara battled to the death it was homoerotic and magnificent. But instead Zedd just poofed them away and Snicci and Kahlan left. -5 for missed opportunity. Then the rest of the Mord’Sheep ride up and Cara smacks Garren around and it’s hot. +5. Watching Cara slap bitches is a favorite pastime of mine. Upon further reflection, though, I have mixed feelings about Cara asserting her power as alpha Mord’Sith. I don’t like the reversion back to the beginning of the season. This is another case where I wanted them to go a little farther or not to go there at all. I was really hoping Darken Rahl and the Mord’Sith would be firmly on Team Seeker’s side so Cara could go back to being alpha Mord’Sith without being broken again. But no, there was something disappointing in how quickly she took command of the group and sent them in like pawns. I was not under the impression that’s how Mord’Sith work and I’m disappointed Cara didn’t get more of a glorious bad-ass leader moment.
I must say, though, the best part of this episode is by far Kahlan’s amazing Renfield impersonation. Confessed!Kahlan was a fascinating version of Lady Kahlan with a twist. Seriously, other than being a little twitchier, that was Lady Kahlan. It was a nice change to see Kahlan fawning over someone other than Richard that way. Bridget, I salute you, your performance this episode was amazing. Calm, calculating Con Dar Kahlan (wow, what a wonderful alliteration!) is so much scarier than out-of-control rage Con Dar Kahlan. Wow. And the fight with the Sisters of the Dark was absolutely beautiful. +1,000 to Bridget Regan.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Other than Bridget rocking my world, by now the episode is really starting to piss me off. The inconsistencies are infuriating! How is it possible for Richard to be hit that hard in the face with that much glass and only bleed a little? The show has gotten so good at blood and gore: why not use it here? Especially if he’s just going to bandage himself up right away? Way to be lazy and recycle the Rapunzel storyline, writers. Of all the plot-borrowing this show attempts, this is pretty much the only one that I won’t let them get away with. The witch blinds Rapunzel’s prince and he wanders blind in the desert until her tears restore his vision? Come ON! At least Zedd was the one to fix his eyes. I might have thrown something.
And then there is the huge disappointment that was Cara in this half of the episode. She won’t hesitate to shoot an arrow into the back of Nicci’s neck, even if it is mere inches from the back of Kahlan’s neck, but she doesn’t trust herself to kill and revive Kahlan. She has complete and utter faith in her archery skills but not in the Powerful Magic that has never failed her? Come ON! Not to mention how disappointed I am in the show for not throwing us a bone. A Cara/Kahlan breath of life is just the thing we’ve been waiting all season for and what do they do? They dangle it in front of our noses and then pull it away. Seriously, if they were worried about borrowing too much from Xena they can fuck off. They borrow too much from everything else and mostly it works well. Why not give us this? Ugh!! -20.
So Con Dar Kahlan kills Richard and he’s all “Ow! Oh well, it’s not really you. I love you byyyyyyyyyye!” It’s only then that Kahlan comes out of the Con Dar and sobs tragically over his dead body. This whole scene makes NO SENSE and continues making no sense up until the ending credits. What I want to know is this: if love is a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love, and Kahlan and Richard are the loveliest lovers who ever did love - so much so that Kahlan couldn’t confess Richard and Richard’s death brought her out of the Con Dar and broke her connection with Nicci - then how the hell could Nicci confess Kahlan? And why did it take Richard dying to snap Kahlan out of it? Wouldn’t it have been enough for her to just think of him or something? Ugh!
Speaking of love… it is NOT OK that the tl;dr version of the SERIES FINALE is as follows: Zedd eliminated Cara’s girlfriend so they can return to the right universe so the straight couple can save the world with their perfect love. Yeah, Kahlan and Richard live happily ever after. Wahoo, that’s great, they deserve it. But what about Cara!? They cut to a shot of her face right after Zedd points out that Richard and Kahlan can be together. It broke my heart. Shattered it. Couldn’t they have at least given us a scene where Cara and not-Mord’Sith Dahlia meet? Please? I like pirateygoodness’s suggestion that they meet in a tavern. Can this happen? Maybe it’ll make my heart hurt less. For more on the topic of how this episode flip-flopped on its message about love, check out bluefall ’s wonderfully-worded comment. For more on just how uncool it is for them to take away Cara’s queerness, check out trobadora ’s post.
Now, as for the prophecies… (I’m almost finished, I promise) I hate it when prophecies come true literally after being tossed and turned all season. “The Seeker will find the Stone of Tears”. Check. “He will deliver it to the enemy of the light.” Check. “As long as the Mother Confessor’s pure heart beats, the Keeper is doomed to fail.” Check. “Evil kid is evil and will lead the blind Seeker” (or the bling Seejer, as I mistyped twice in a row). Check. No twists, turns, unexpected surprises or suspense. -50. Yes, maybe I’m bitter that I was wrong about how the “pure heart” in the prophecy referred to Kahlan’s virginity. But still, I’m really disappointed. It’s not that I really wanted the Keeper to win or Kahlan to die, it’s just an awful lot of suspenseful lead-up to a very straightforward ending. Wouldn’t it have been magnificent to see Kahlan sprawled on the ground dead while the Keeper walked into the rift with the stone? Maybe a brief moment as he taunts her in NoUndiesWorld about how he’s won. Come ON, show, Naked Kahlan opportunity! -10. And then of course she disappears from NoUndiesWorld because Cara’s giving her the breath of life, maybe full-on mouth to mouth if she’s unsure she’ll be able to bring her back to life. I could have died happy if they’d done that. Not to mention how much better I’d feel about the cancellation if that’s how they’d ended it. But no.
So let’s recap. Richard and Kahlan live happily ever after, even though Kahlan stabbed him in the chest. Cara brings him back so they can be together, but Cara’s girlfriend is off being AU somewhere and is never mentioned again. She stands and seethes in the background while Richard and Kahlan kiss. A lot. Zedd gives his approval with a healthy serving of homophobia. Meanwhile, Darken Rahl and his Mord’Sith bring back Nicci and talk vaguely of teaming up after he’s cooked her back. Roll credits. Sob painfully from disappointment. Write a ~4,000 word rant.
Verdict: I feel horribly betrayed. I’m really angry about it, too. I let myself get so invested in this show because I thought it was unique and had some interesting, subversive things to do. But to end it like that? It doesn’t entirely undo what they’ve done all along, except for the part where it does. I’ll be most hurt by the “retcon the gay away” decision. That’s one slap in the face I can’t ignore. Funny thing is, now I’m even more desperate for a third season. If they’d ended this one better, I could be satisfied with two, but I can’t stand to have this be the end. On the other hand, they could make season three just as crappy as the finale and that would be worse. Hmmm. Way to go, Show. I put my trust in you and gave you my unconditional love. And you’ve broken my heart. I know it sounds overdramatic, but that’s what happened. I am heartbroken. What else can I say?
Let’s begin with “Unbroken.” I think that episode may have been the single most beautifully shot episode of the entire series. The part where the Sisters of the Dark are kneeling in formation and the Mord’Sith kill the hell out of them was absolutely gorgeous, as was the part where the Keeper talks to naked!Sister Marianna (I find it endearing that the Sisters of the Dark sleep naked). Not to mention the EYE CONTACT with the Cara/Rahl(/Dahlia) kiss. I love how Cara’s eyes welled up a little. Unf. Long story short, I loved watching that episode.
I thought the AU bit was odd, but no more so than, you know, the whole TIME TRAVEL bit from the first season. “Oh, Kahlan’s marrying someone, this must be AU!” I wasn’t bothered by a universe where Cara never shows up so Kahlan and Richard end up together. Because I must admit, until Cara joined the gang I was totally on board with the whole Richard/Kahlan ship. Yes, notorious femslasher little Me was on board with the het ship. So it made perfect sense to me that they’d get married and be together forever if Cara weren’t around. I never had any illusions that Richard and Kahlan wouldn’t end up together. Honestly, as much as I love Cara/Kahlan, I’ve always seen it as almost completely unrequited in the show itself. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Cara has it bad for Kahlan, and I firmly believe that’s cannon. From the end of “Desecrated” up until “Extinction” Cara is distant and cold toward Kahlan and downright snippy, almost hostile to Richard. And why wouldn’t she be? She comes as close to telling Kahlan how she feels about her as she knows how, but then when they’re rescued Kahlan is too busy kissing Richard to worry about whether she’s alive, or to help her off the floor. It’s the classic scenario: how do you go back to being “just friends” when you admit you have feelings for someone and they don’t feel the same way? Cara spends the next few episodes reeling and rebuilding her defenses and (I think) ultimately getting over her infatuation. Things are tense until Cara saves the Night Wisps. When she offers Kahlan a hand to help her up the embankment, that’s the moment when their relationship makes it back onto level ground. And then Dahlia shows up. What perfect timing! Seriously, I was impressed with how astute the timing was. What better way to churn up the feelings we thought we’d just seen get resolved than to throw in an ex Cara still has feelings for? I thought the whole Cara/Dahlia situation was as realistic a depiction of queer drama as I could ask for. Why wouldn’t Cara ultimately go back to the side that loved her back after traveling for months with people who didn’t and couldn’t love her like that? Yes, the whole “tortured with an extra-special-evil-magic-dildo” bit helped with that, but my point remains. But I digress. Let me back up a little.
I was really upset when Kahlan kills Dahlia at the beginning of “Unbroken,” both because I liked Dahlia and because I wanted to see it affect Cara more deeply than just distracting her while Richard knocked her out. Boo. Seriously? Watching your girlfriend die at the hands of a woman with whom you’ve just recently fallen out of unrequited love is pretty much the worst thing I can imagine.
So then they’ve got evil, sassy, sexy Cara all tied to a tree. Yum. Did anyone else notice how amazingly fidgety she was? More so than usual, I mean. Zedd’s gearing up to perform some seriously Powerful Magic and she’s standing there tapping her foot and fidgeting. While TIED to a fucking TREE! And then the Epic Spell of Undoing the Budget happens and poof! it’s wedding time? Wha? All of my own queasiness about weddings aside, I let myself enjoy how really pretty this strange new world is. I love it when you can see Kahlan/Bridget’s freckles. Yum. Richard has the power of Orden and it makes him comb his hair lets him make his brother share his toys. Ok, I’m still on board. The Sisters of the Sleeping Naked Dark kidnap Jensen Ackles, slit her wrist and drink her blood? Still on board. I love to hate Jensen. It must be hard to go through life with the nickname The Pristinely Ungifted One. ((Here’s where I have to insert (the first of many) kudos to the show for the deliciously intense blood and gore with which they’ve loaded this season. Between this and Trueblood I’m beginning to develop a blood fetish.)) The Sisters of the Dark separate the boxes and Duck n’ Roll puts them back together and is back to his smoldering bad-boy self? YES PLEASE! Craig Parker is currently the only one on my short list said the lesbian. Kahlan and Zedd… flee for their lives? Really? Kahlan gets married and loses her virginity, for values of virginity equal to spine. And no, before you start, “I’m pregnant” is no excuse to become a damsel in distress. Where did that come from? 8 episodes ago she fought her way out of a dungeon WITH A PLATE and no magic. To his credit for once (jk, I love Zedd) Zedd has it right: this world where everyone gives up running around the woods and fighting in order to go be housewives SUCKS. Way to go, show, for subverting the Happily Ever After paradigm. They make no two ways about how this new world Zedd created is bad and wrong and should never have existed.
Now’s as good a time as any to launch into another Cara rant. Let me preface this by directing you to trobadora ’s post about the Bisexual Paradox and how the Leo/Cara thing is a good and valid choice for the writers to have made. I must say I mostly agree. I have no problem with the idea that a bisexual female character can have male love interests or even male soul mates even if that male is a long-lost Village Person. In fact, I liked Leo and Leo/Cara better in this world than in the other one. The whole “Farm Boy? Fetch me that pitcher?” “As you wish” dynamic works for me. D’awww. That being said… I have hugely mixed feelings (blended feelings?) about how they handled Cara in this episode. I appreciate the fact that they made it clear that Cara Too-Cool-For-A-Last-Name as we know her is preferable to Cara Mason, even if they try to make it a morally ambiguous situation. Is it better for her to have been taken as a child, tortured in ways beyond imagining but then be a capable, confident, sexy, strong, queer woman? Or is it better for her to live a torture-free life that (to the best of our knowledge) is limited to her children, her chickens(lol, Cara’s chickens) and her pink dresses (though I must say it’s a good throwback to the Princess dress). Cara the Mord’Sith kills Shadrin and eats their livers raw. Cara Mason can’t even get her fucking bucket out of the well! My opinion on the matter is fairly obvious, but I can understand how the opposite opinion is entirely valid. My biggest problem has to do with how they handle the queer side of Cara. Her only relationships with women (that we’ve seen, anyway) are with other Mord’Sith or with Kahlan. Now that Cara is not and never was Mord’Sith, the only relationships we know about are with men. They never say it explicitly, but to me that implies the mindset that only women who have been tortured and broken and are now evil would ever have relationships with other women. I would even be ok with Cara and Leo if their relationship weren’t so chaste in this world. In the other world, she jumps him in the cave for fun. In this world, he fixes things for her until they shyly and delicately kiss. This also implies that only damaged women have an active sex drive and a bit of kink. I’ve given this issue a lot of thought over the course of this season and I’ve been impressed with how nonjudgmental the show has been up until now. Now I need to re-watch this season and reassess my opinion…
Back to the episode itself. Watching Cara beg for her life and her children ruffled my feathers but Tab played it beautifully. And again they tie her to a tree. And then shoot her. And she’s still gorgeous. The shot with Kahlan holding her head made my lip quiver. I love that they leave her tied to the tree, dead and full of arrows, like she’s Cuchulainn or something (Actually, that’s quite fitting, come to think about it). How tragic and beautiful. I spent all week on edge, waiting for the next (and last!) episode to set things right. After all, the show’s been ~cancelled so they’ve GOT to fix it like they did at the end of last season. Right?
And then “Tears” happened.
The episode got off to a good start (read: I apparently like my Mord’Sith tied to trees). When Zedd suggested performing the Spell of Undoing the Budget on Dahlia, my first thought was “ooh, cool, good idea!” followed immediately by “but that would only work in the first world, unless he’s planning on doing it so Cara’s alive and then doing it on Cara again. I don’t think this’ll work.” But then it did. Before the credits were done. The hell? So they pop up back in the “real world” fighting banelings. Except that’s not what I thought was going on at first. The first time the spell happened, they ended up in an alternate universe the same amount of time after the season 1 finale. Wouldn’t it make sense that they’d go back to pretty much where they started, timewise, give or take a few days? So how’d they get from to woods (remember Cara tied to a TREE?) to what looks suspiciously like the Valley of Perdition? (Seriously, I don’t mind recycling sets. We cheer whenever they use that same room with the circular grating in the floor. They use it all the time, in many different settings. But the Valley of Perdition, or a close look-alike? How loaded is that?) My first thought was “oh no, it didn’t work this time either, it’s yet ANOTHER hugely different universe!” I waited the entire episode for them to figure it out and fix it again but no, apparently everything was supposed to be right back the way it was. How come Cara was a Mord’Sith? That all happened way too quickly. What happened to the amazing timing the show’s had all along? -10 points for crappy, lazy, holey writing. +1 for the awesome “uh oh, time to find granddad a home” faces they all make at poor confused Zedd in that scene.
Moving right along, our heroes continue through the… desert? What happened to the woods? No more woods? It took me awhile to get used to the change in color palette. And Richard jumps the rift and runs off to be gullible in some ghost town. It’s been 44 episodes and Richard STILL can’t help himself when it comes to crying little kids (or heaving bosoms, but in this case it’s a kid). And my first thought is “the kid’s EVIL!” followed immediately by “or it’s Cara’s and Darken Rahl was lying when he said they’d killed him!” because I’m not convinced they killed him. I was only half right. The obvious half. Balls. -5 for a missed opportunity. -10 for the unfortunate choice of making the little kid talk with the Keeper voice. The kid was GREAT all by himself; we don’t need to be beaten over the head with the Sword of Obvious.
Meanwhile, back in the bathtub of unbearable sexiness: Sister Nicci (Snicci, as I call her) shows up. Finally. Seriously, just when I started to love her, she goes all “I’m overqualified for this job” and drops off the face of the planet. But it’s ok because she’s back and showing some thigh. Right about now I began to hope the episode would start getting good. That is, after I stopped snickering and facepalming over her hair. Apparently Extremely Powerful Magic… makes your hair crimp? Maybe Snicci spent the past million episodes in Agaden Reach with our favorite unfortunate-looking witch woman, Shota. They probably did each other’s hair and swapped spells and giggled a lot about how everyone else in the world is waaaaaay less powerful than they are. Anyway, other than her hair she’s smokin’ hot (hehe) and boils my boy Darken in his bath. I kinda hoped she’d get in the bath with him instead, but no, creative torture is good too (yes, I’m sick. I love the torture scenes, I think they’re fascinating). She goes after Richard and so Darken Rahl sends the Mord’Sith to help the good guys. Right about now I was impressed with how they shuffled the teams around. Again, Darken talking about his fearless little brother had me convinced they were still in some other horridly wrong world. Poor disappointed me.
-5 for kind of wasting the Mord’Sith, too. For such an intimidating, powerful, bad-ass bunch of women, they’re kind of a bunch of sheep. We began the season with many Mord’Sith (what do you call a group of Mord’Sith? A pride?) and they were intimidating and bad-ass. But this bunch is more like sheep. I understand the need for one to be in charge as they’re predominantly a military order, but the other ones should have personality too. There are tons of Mord’Sith named in the books. Why couldn’t we meet them? Berdine and Raina would have been nice, seeing as they’ve RETCONNED AWAY THE OTHER LESBIAN MORD’SITH COUPLE!!! RAAAAAAAAGE! *deep breath* Anyway…
Sister Verna came back and that made me happy. I didn’t realize how much I liked her until she walked onscreen this episode. I cheered, actually, it was embarrassing. And of course there’s a new really obvious prophecy. I’ll rant on the subject of the prophecies more in a bit. For now I’ll just say this new addition is really obvious and we’ve already seen it coming true. What happened to the interesting timing!? I’d give the episode a few points for going to all the trouble to bring back so many background characters except I think they went too far without going the whole way. We’ve got Snicci, the Sisters of the Light and Dark, the Mord’Sith, the Monks of the Order of Some Name I’ve Forgotten but there’s no mention of the Minders or of Flynn and Annabelle or Walter or anyone else. -1 for missed opportunities, but not major ones.
Meanwhile, Snicci catches up with Zedd, Kahlan and Cara, tried to zap them, but Cara deflects the bolt. Did anyone else think it was suspicious that Cara can just deflect Snicci’s magic when Snicci is so uber powerful? I guess it makes sense because Snicci was trying to trick them, but still. And then Snicci confesses Kahlan with her own confessor’s magic and it was totally hot. I will take this moment to point out the GORGEOUSNESS of the color of Emily Foxler’s eyes. Hot damn. Snicci tells Kahlan to kill Cara and I got all excited because the last time Kahlan and Cara battled to the death it was homoerotic and magnificent. But instead Zedd just poofed them away and Snicci and Kahlan left. -5 for missed opportunity. Then the rest of the Mord’Sheep ride up and Cara smacks Garren around and it’s hot. +5. Watching Cara slap bitches is a favorite pastime of mine. Upon further reflection, though, I have mixed feelings about Cara asserting her power as alpha Mord’Sith. I don’t like the reversion back to the beginning of the season. This is another case where I wanted them to go a little farther or not to go there at all. I was really hoping Darken Rahl and the Mord’Sith would be firmly on Team Seeker’s side so Cara could go back to being alpha Mord’Sith without being broken again. But no, there was something disappointing in how quickly she took command of the group and sent them in like pawns. I was not under the impression that’s how Mord’Sith work and I’m disappointed Cara didn’t get more of a glorious bad-ass leader moment.
I must say, though, the best part of this episode is by far Kahlan’s amazing Renfield impersonation. Confessed!Kahlan was a fascinating version of Lady Kahlan with a twist. Seriously, other than being a little twitchier, that was Lady Kahlan. It was a nice change to see Kahlan fawning over someone other than Richard that way. Bridget, I salute you, your performance this episode was amazing. Calm, calculating Con Dar Kahlan (wow, what a wonderful alliteration!) is so much scarier than out-of-control rage Con Dar Kahlan. Wow. And the fight with the Sisters of the Dark was absolutely beautiful. +1,000 to Bridget Regan.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Other than Bridget rocking my world, by now the episode is really starting to piss me off. The inconsistencies are infuriating! How is it possible for Richard to be hit that hard in the face with that much glass and only bleed a little? The show has gotten so good at blood and gore: why not use it here? Especially if he’s just going to bandage himself up right away? Way to be lazy and recycle the Rapunzel storyline, writers. Of all the plot-borrowing this show attempts, this is pretty much the only one that I won’t let them get away with. The witch blinds Rapunzel’s prince and he wanders blind in the desert until her tears restore his vision? Come ON! At least Zedd was the one to fix his eyes. I might have thrown something.
And then there is the huge disappointment that was Cara in this half of the episode. She won’t hesitate to shoot an arrow into the back of Nicci’s neck, even if it is mere inches from the back of Kahlan’s neck, but she doesn’t trust herself to kill and revive Kahlan. She has complete and utter faith in her archery skills but not in the Powerful Magic that has never failed her? Come ON! Not to mention how disappointed I am in the show for not throwing us a bone. A Cara/Kahlan breath of life is just the thing we’ve been waiting all season for and what do they do? They dangle it in front of our noses and then pull it away. Seriously, if they were worried about borrowing too much from Xena they can fuck off. They borrow too much from everything else and mostly it works well. Why not give us this? Ugh!! -20.
So Con Dar Kahlan kills Richard and he’s all “Ow! Oh well, it’s not really you. I love you byyyyyyyyyye!” It’s only then that Kahlan comes out of the Con Dar and sobs tragically over his dead body. This whole scene makes NO SENSE and continues making no sense up until the ending credits. What I want to know is this: if love is a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love, and Kahlan and Richard are the loveliest lovers who ever did love - so much so that Kahlan couldn’t confess Richard and Richard’s death brought her out of the Con Dar and broke her connection with Nicci - then how the hell could Nicci confess Kahlan? And why did it take Richard dying to snap Kahlan out of it? Wouldn’t it have been enough for her to just think of him or something? Ugh!
Speaking of love… it is NOT OK that the tl;dr version of the SERIES FINALE is as follows: Zedd eliminated Cara’s girlfriend so they can return to the right universe so the straight couple can save the world with their perfect love. Yeah, Kahlan and Richard live happily ever after. Wahoo, that’s great, they deserve it. But what about Cara!? They cut to a shot of her face right after Zedd points out that Richard and Kahlan can be together. It broke my heart. Shattered it. Couldn’t they have at least given us a scene where Cara and not-Mord’Sith Dahlia meet? Please? I like pirateygoodness’s suggestion that they meet in a tavern. Can this happen? Maybe it’ll make my heart hurt less. For more on the topic of how this episode flip-flopped on its message about love, check out bluefall ’s wonderfully-worded comment. For more on just how uncool it is for them to take away Cara’s queerness, check out trobadora ’s post.
Now, as for the prophecies… (I’m almost finished, I promise) I hate it when prophecies come true literally after being tossed and turned all season. “The Seeker will find the Stone of Tears”. Check. “He will deliver it to the enemy of the light.” Check. “As long as the Mother Confessor’s pure heart beats, the Keeper is doomed to fail.” Check. “Evil kid is evil and will lead the blind Seeker” (or the bling Seejer, as I mistyped twice in a row). Check. No twists, turns, unexpected surprises or suspense. -50. Yes, maybe I’m bitter that I was wrong about how the “pure heart” in the prophecy referred to Kahlan’s virginity. But still, I’m really disappointed. It’s not that I really wanted the Keeper to win or Kahlan to die, it’s just an awful lot of suspenseful lead-up to a very straightforward ending. Wouldn’t it have been magnificent to see Kahlan sprawled on the ground dead while the Keeper walked into the rift with the stone? Maybe a brief moment as he taunts her in NoUndiesWorld about how he’s won. Come ON, show, Naked Kahlan opportunity! -10. And then of course she disappears from NoUndiesWorld because Cara’s giving her the breath of life, maybe full-on mouth to mouth if she’s unsure she’ll be able to bring her back to life. I could have died happy if they’d done that. Not to mention how much better I’d feel about the cancellation if that’s how they’d ended it. But no.
So let’s recap. Richard and Kahlan live happily ever after, even though Kahlan stabbed him in the chest. Cara brings him back so they can be together, but Cara’s girlfriend is off being AU somewhere and is never mentioned again. She stands and seethes in the background while Richard and Kahlan kiss. A lot. Zedd gives his approval with a healthy serving of homophobia. Meanwhile, Darken Rahl and his Mord’Sith bring back Nicci and talk vaguely of teaming up after he’s cooked her back. Roll credits. Sob painfully from disappointment. Write a ~4,000 word rant.
Verdict: I feel horribly betrayed. I’m really angry about it, too. I let myself get so invested in this show because I thought it was unique and had some interesting, subversive things to do. But to end it like that? It doesn’t entirely undo what they’ve done all along, except for the part where it does. I’ll be most hurt by the “retcon the gay away” decision. That’s one slap in the face I can’t ignore. Funny thing is, now I’m even more desperate for a third season. If they’d ended this one better, I could be satisfied with two, but I can’t stand to have this be the end. On the other hand, they could make season three just as crappy as the finale and that would be worse. Hmmm. Way to go, Show. I put my trust in you and gave you my unconditional love. And you’ve broken my heart. I know it sounds overdramatic, but that’s what happened. I am heartbroken. What else can I say?