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The Shannara Chronicles "S1E7 Breakline" - Review: An overcrowded but good episode


The Shannara Chronicles "S1E7 Breakline" - Review: An overcrowded but good episode
7 out of 10

Breakline – After surviving the mountain line fall, Wil, Amberle and Eretria run fowl of a vicious band of Elf hunters for whom Amberle is their score of a lifetime. Meanwhile, the Changeling King tricks princes Ander and Arion into a secret mission to assassinate the Dagda Mor with the Warlock Blade.

It’s quite a heavy smash cut as our 3 main faces wake up in a moorland river without a mountain in sight after the last episode’s very contrasting scenery. It gets away with it though as the long drifting transition serves the purpose of separating Wil from Amberle and Eretria for mostly isolated story arcs linked by the threat of the elf hunters. It’s these new foes that prove the episode’s star attraction. They look fantastic in their tribal savage hunter getups (especially the ladies of the group) and despite practicing their archery skills at the Stormtrooper shooting range, they feel sufficiently threatening (drink every time they hit a tree if you dare). Through Wil and their escaped elf victim, Peck (a Willow in joke?), we explore them from a moral perspective with some relatively well made environmentalist themes: the elves are hunted for their ears purely because gnomes believe they have medicinal properties in a play on Oriental shark fishing culture. Despite some promise, this arc does get lost in morality conflicts as Wil argues with Peck against his right to vengeance killing. Peck himself also feels a little annoying as a character.

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The separate arc of Amberle of Eretria fairs much better. Firstly, its action content is much more rewarding from the early chase to the later incidences of the weapon-lacking pair, making improvised takedowns of the hunters one-by-one before the boss show down with Zora, fleshed out nicely with the reveal of Zora and Eretria’s surprising past connection. It builds well on last episode’s conclusion of Eretria going back to save Amberle and Wil by moving their relationship further into friendship than companions of convenience. Yet by far the best thing about their scenes together is their surprise setting that sees Shannara making its best use to date of its post-apocalyptic setting. The old world ruins elements have given us some good little moments to date like last episode’s playground dream sequence or simple details like using a discarded satellite dish as a water tap. Yet here, we see our characters literally falling in their past in what looks unmistakably like an old high school on some form of prom night. It creates both fresh scenery settings for the series with odd creepy beauty to it as the decorations still hang wearily and Amberle flicks through a year book. We even get the show’s best meta joke to date as Amberle stumbles across a few D&D worthy dice. This is the sort of thing Shannara should be doing more often rather than just confining the old world to background decoration.

The episode crams a hell of a lot of plot developments into the royal family and demon war side of the story; Too much, in fact. Particularly towards the end, things do feel rushed and you can’t help feel that arc would have been served better if Changeling killed the king an episode earlier allowing things to be spaced out better. As such it’s the better paced earlier scenes that prove the most enjoyable as the King sets the princes out on their seemingly suicidal mission. Arion’s motives have a great feel of Faramir from LoTR Return of the King. He’s in full comprehension that his father’s command is madness but still, he obeys out on honour, loyalty and the hope of finally proving himself worthy in his father’s eyes just like Denathor’s second son sallying out from Minas Tirith. This is enhanced well by his relationship with Commander Tilton as she echoes the voice reason in asking him to stay while still understanding his decision. Although sped through, their confrontation with the Dagda Mor is worthwhile and rewarding. Most importantly it sees the big bad finally doing something! The trap twists of the encounter may be more obvious than a Coke ad during the Super Bowl, but they provide some good visual spectacle and highly consequential events as the shows moves into its last 3 episodes.

It still may not all come together but these last few Shannara episodes have continued to pass with purpose, story development and good enhancement of its characters. Cephalo is missed this week but hopefully he’ll reappear before the end and despite being overly familiar on Gandalf, Allanon’s “you work is not yet done” return is enjoyable.

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