On Willow, side quests, stalls, and setbacks test everyone’s resolve
Guest star Hannah Waddingham teaches Elora Danan her first practical lesson about what it means to be the chosen one
TV Reviews Willow
It’s kind of impressive that we’re only three episodes into Willow, and it’s already managed to hit so many of the highlights on the checklist of fantasy tropes: a fellowship on a quest, supernatural monsters, knights in armor, royal intrigue, magic spells—it’s all here. The original Willow film didn’t shy away from immersing itself in genre conventions, and neither does the series. There’s not much that’s particularly innovative here, though, which makes it either comfortingly familiar or shamelessly derivative, depending on how you look at it. I’m going with the former, because at this point in the year a high fantasy series with a light touch is exactly the kind of thing I want to curl up to on a cold winter’s night.
In this episode, Willow embraces a time-honored tradition any fan of fantasy and video games should be familiar with: the side quest. The characters begin the episode united in the mission of rescuing Airk from the Crone and returning him safely back to Tir Asleen. By the end, though, it becomes clear that there are different goals and motivations at work within the party. We’re still getting to know these characters, so splitting them up gives us a chance to see more sides of them and learn what makes them tick.
Elora is the first one to be peeled off of the group. We saw Commander Ballantine, who’s fully evil now, abduct her at the end of the previous episode, so that makes two missing persons they need to find on this quest. Jade is the first one to catch up to him, surprisingly easily. As we learned earlier, Jade lost her parents at a young age and was taken in by Sorsha as an orphan. Ballantine trained her and practically raised her, so she can tell something isn’t right with him straight away. Also, he has an unconscious Elora draped over his horse, which should have been the first clue. The rest of the group arrives to provide support, but Ballantine has turned the other knights to the dark side, too, so they all fight. Mercifully, it takes place in the woods in broad daylight so you can actually see everything that’s happening (unlike the fight at night in the rain later on, but we’ll get to that in a bit), until Willow lets off a magic smoke bomb, and the bad guys get away. (He’s still not great at this, even with years to practice.)
Boorman—who continues to be my favorite character—proves his skills in the fight, but he isn’t particularly invested in the search for Airk or Elora. In this episode, we find out what he’s really after: He and Madmartigan were searching for the Kymerian Cuirass, a mythical breastplate that all but ensures victory in battle. It’s activated by a key called the lux arcana. Boorman relates the legend to an impatient Kit, who’s more interested in finding out what happened to her father than the history of some silly magical armor. “Your generation has, like, zero attention span for epic tales,” he tells her. Getting in a meta swipe at a good chunk of your intended audience is a choice, I guess, but since it’s not aimed at me I found it funny. Amar Chadha-Patel’s droll delivery manages to make almost every line of his sound hilarious, though. I might be able to say he makes me forget all about Val Kilmer’s Madmartigan if they didn’t keep mentioning him every chance they get.
The group mounts up in pursuit of Elora, and we get some scenic riding scenes with a beautiful green backdrop set to a sweeping score. This is the most the show has felt like the movie so far. It’s properly epic. As they traverse rocky mountain paths, there are already signs of the group beginning to splinter. Kit and Jade argue about everything except what they’re really mad about, which is that they’re unable to express their true feelings for each other. Graydon questions his value on the quest, as he’s not the heroic type, and hints at something dark in his past. I’m not sure I completely trust Graydon yet, and his ability to understand the sinister whispers coming from the “noxious twilight vale” up ahead doesn’t help his case. That said, I am really enjoying Tony Revolori’s performance.
When the wagon carrying Willow and Silas lags behind and eventually breaks down, the party can’t agree on which road to take. Boorman, who’s traveled this way before, prefers “Piddler’s Pass.” It doesn’t sound great, but it has the benefit of going past a cozy little inn called “The Slaughtered Lamb.” With a name like that it’s got to be either adorably quaint or filled with unsavory characters. Boorman takes Kit with him through the pass, while the rest of the group heads for something called “the voluptuous vale,” which Kit refers to as “the vale of boobs.” Willow aspires to be the kind of show where cheeky modern phrases like that sit (not always comfortably) alongside florid dialogue like “a swirling vortex of rage and madness there’s no escape from.” It takes some getting used to.
Anyway, it turns out The Slaughtered Lamb is not so much an inn as a heap of rubble where an inn used to be. But Boorman has an ulterior motive. Years ago, he and Madmartigan hid the lux arcana in the basement and he’s there to retrieve it. Leaving Kit on the lookout for were-rats (they’re exactly what they sound like), he finds it and stashes it away, telling her there was nothing there. He’s a rogue, what did you expect?
Back in the forest, Elora escapes all on her own and makes a break for it into the woods. She gets turned around and finally comes to a sunlit clearing with a little cottage and two women outside chopping wood. One of them is Hannah Waddingham. She may be best known for her role as Rebecca on Ted Lasso, but she actually has a few fantasy projects on her CV, including Game Of Thrones. (She was the Septa ringing the bell and calling out “Shame shame shame!” while marching a naked Cersei through King’s Landing.) It’s great to see her here, and though it’s a small role she doesn’t waste a second of her minimal screen time. Elora tells them her story, and they are instantly ready to sign up as the first recruits in her army of soldiers against the forces of darkness. Unfortunately, this makes them targets, and when Ballantine discovers them Elora gets her first big lesson in what it really means to be a chosen one: There will be good people who will be inspired to fight for you, and some of them will die.
Still chasing after Ballantine in the hopes of rescuing Elora, the group is stalled again when the blasted wagon gets stuck in the mud. While working together push it, Jade complains to Graydon that Willow could be more helpful with his magic. Graydon wonders if there’s a reason Willow moved the Nelwyn underground. And come to think of it, we haven’t seen Willow do much impressive magic in the show yet. He knows a lot about the enemy, and he was able to reveal the hidden birthmark on Elora’s arm, but other than that his tricks don’t seem any more advanced than in the old days. Separately, Willow confides in Silas that he’s conserving his magic for when he really needs it. Doing magic takes a lot out of him and he’s not as resilient as he once was. The conversation leads Willow realizing that he knows where they’re going, but he’s interrupted by Ballantine and his minions. Another fight ensues.
A lot happens in this sequence, which is unfortunate because it’s so murky and dimly lit that the action is hard to follow. Sigh. We’ve seen this so many times now it’s become a cliché. Willow is clearly capable of staging fight scenes that are easy to watch—they did it earlier in this very episode—so why resort to this kind of viewer-unfriendly filmmaking? It’s one fantasy trope I wish they would let fall by the wayside. In case you can’t make them out, the important developments in this scene include Silas dying heroically (R.I.P. Silas! I’ll miss your fondness for daggers and frustration with maps), Graydon getting hit with the same evil stick that turned Ballantine to the dark side, Willow finally using his staff to magically blast the creatures away, and Ballantine coming to his senses long enough to beg Jade to kill him. She does what she has to do, and it messes her up for a while.
Finally reunited as a group again (minus Elora), Willow tells them where they must go next: Nockmaar. Sounds like a lovely place. I’m sure nothing bad will happen there.
Stray observations
- “Someone just concisely recap everything I missed.” Just did, Boorman.
- The episode closes out with a cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” Using anachronistic musical cues in fantasy shows has been done before, but so far they’ve kept it to the end credits and it’s working for me.
- Hannah Waddingham’s character’s name is Hubert, which makes me suspect it was originally written for a man. If that’s true, good on the Willow team for not only casting her in the role but keeping the name and her partner’s gender. I love that Ann never speaks and Hubert won’t shut up.
- Farewell to Ralph Ineson as Commander Ballantine. He’s great in everything he does, but he played the character’s full range from noble knight to disturbing monster very convincingly.
- Filming the show on location in Wales, where the original Willow was also shot, has given it an impressive sense of scale you just can’t get from a set. Plenty of Disney+ shows have made use of the Volume and similar technology to great effect, but (as we saw recently in Andor) there’s no substitute for the real thing.
39 Comments
Great review, but I don’t jive with the credits music being modern rock. One of my favourite things about the movie was the score, so it seems like a missed opportunity to have something wonderfully orchestral here
I’m loving the huge amount of people pissing and moaning about the Princess talking like a modern American, when none of them had any issue with her father doing it in the movie.
I rewatched Willow two weeks ago and no, he did not talk like a tiktoker.
Even worse the terrible wardrobe in this series. It looks like cosplay or larping. It’s not well worn or dirty. It looks like a play they’re performing in the park lol!
I didn’t care for it in the movie either. It reeks of trying too hard in a “how do you do, fellow kids” sort of way. The modern music at the end would be bugging me too, if it wasn’t confined to the end.I was also very disappointed in the fight being poorly lit and in the rain. It could have been a really good fight, but they made it into crap.Still, liking the show better than the movie overall.
I think I can explain the choice of having the battle in the dark… I too thought it was annoying and probably to hide bad special effects, except there weren’t really any special effects until Willow cast his spell (which was a big deal).
And his spell wouldn’t have looked as effective if it weren’t dark.
The fight scenes are so clumsy, the dark and rain just worked to hide some of the poor choreography.
I don’t remember that about the movie, been too long, but yeah I’m pissing and moaning about how everyone speaks and it bothers me so much I just can’t get into it. Oh well I’m out then.
I’m not really bothered by how the characters talk in this, but Madmardigan didn’t talk like a modern American, unless you mean his accent? Usually when I see people complain about people talking like modern Americans, they mean more the content and structure of what the characters are saying than the actual how they’re saying it.
I guess you could say it’s a bit anachronistic, except for it being a fantasy world so that argument doesn’t really work.
Not to mention the Brownies sound like French tourists.
Has there been much troll feces to speak of in the series thus far? The film had troll feces.
I’m annoyed at how many characters are insufferable so far (Willow and the princess standing out the most). Plus killing Silas who was one of the only enjoyable characters.
The nostalgic kid in me *wants* to enjoy this but it is a tough go at this point.
I need an alternate reality show that is just a Silas and Boorman buddy adventure.
“She was the Septa ringing the bell and calling out “Shame shame shame!” while marching a naked Cersei through King’s Landing” so one of the greatest moments in the show.😀
Boorman, who’s traveled this way before, prefers “Piddler’s Pass.”That would be “Pitiless Pass”.
I feel like someone made this show to be purposefully insufferable…The writing is terrible. I lost it after after the introduction of Jade and Kit, who had one the lamest modern reveals… Their dialogue was so stiff and their relationship (still) seems so incredibly forced. They just blatantly give away character details as if none of us were capable of discerning them (which is the worst way to develop characters). “I’m skilled and talented.” “Also arrogant.” “Maybe you’ll one day beat me.” “But I’m better than you are.” “Superior in every way.” Why are being spoon fed all this information about Kit?And seriously, how many times is Erin Kellyman going to be introduced as a character by taking off a mask in a statement that just screams “I’m a mixed-race female redhead with freckles! I bet you didn’t expect that!” We’ve seen this in Star Wars, the MCU, and now Willow, so I guess maybe it’s Disney’s fault…? ALSO, what does Jade even do in this show? What is her job or role in the royal court? It’s never really made all too clear as to why she’s so involved with everything. At one point, she blocks a prince from talking to the princess. Without any form of proper development, Jade comes off as “a token lesbian” a really bad term for characters that exist just to make another character gay. Even as the series unfolds, I have no real way to place Erin Kellyman’s character in the world. I can’t figure out how long she’s been with Princess Kit, how involved they are, what their relationship is/was, what her family is like, where she came from, or what she does in the court. She’s clearly not training the princess to be a sword fighter since the princess is and has always been better than her.If there’s one thing that’s ruined narrative in the modern age, it’s this notion that characters need to be given a direct (dialogue-based) confinement to break out from in order to grow as a character… even though they already start out completely grown and rounded. In this case, The Princess, Kit Tanthalos, is frequently reminded of her expectations as a “lady” and that she needs to be in a dress, do courtly things, and blah blah blah. But we get introduced to her by watching her fight all masked up and unknown so that the reveal can be “Oh, it’s a girl, well I guess I didn’t expect that.” At this point, in 2022, this whole reveal process of a character being a girl—while doing a “manly” thing like sword fighting—has been lazy. Nintendo did this with the first Metroid game in 1986 when they revealed Samus to be female, and most instances since then have been lackluster. I mean, can you imagine if they did this with Arya Stark in Game of Thrones? And then we have Prince Airk Tanthalos’s introduction… After we find him making out with some blonde girl under a tree on a hill, we’re force fed some more character traits about his reputation, some of which might be true, but he’s really not that kind of guy, and they’re somehow in love. The he talks with his sister, the princess, who further reminds the audience that the prince is an uncommitted jerk that gets around too much and probably can’t even remember the names of his victims. Then the queen somehow magically discerns that her neatly kempt and fabulous looking son was (at one point) laying down on a grassy dirty hill, where he was actually laying down on a blanket. The queen also goes on to remind everyone of the princess’s narratively arranged character confinement: a dress. The notion of wearing a dress obviously upsets the princess, who really just wants to wear pants, and acts as though she been picking her own royal outfits since the age of 7 (an age she apparently never grew up from with the way she’s acting). The worst part of this is the fact that the clothes Kit chooses to wear before the dress look boring and raggedy, while the green dress she gets into actually looks amazing.But that wasn’t really the worst part… The worst is the arranged marriage plot, where Kit, who is definitely a lesbian, is set to marry Tony Revolori’s completely emasculated character that can’t even drink wine. Again, this is done as a narrative character confinement—laid out as directly and simply, just so that Princess Kit has something to break out of, even though she’s gong to do this by being the same that person that was already spoon-fed to us. They do this same sort of “groundbreaking” with Jade who was accepted to train with some knights, even though they don’t allow………………. women. The show was going to say women, but then they cut off Kit’s dialogue as to not be direct about it. That part doesn’t make sense to me is the fact that Queen Sorsha was a great sword fighter in the original Willow movie, but they’re not just going to kind of gloss over that point to create some kind of sexism in their society for the female characters to rally against. It’s completely unnecessary to the plot, doesn’t play into the story at all, and is only being thrown in to add the sort of “modern woke” twist that lots of movies tend to adopt these days. Hell, they even have a made-up story about a princess that secretly fought in a tournament just to avoid having to marry the winner… You know what’s bad about that story? She’s royalty. Her horse eats better than most of the people that serve her. Marrying for the betterment of the realm is a duty that separates royalty from the working class. To be a good king or queen, you have to sacrifice all aspects of selfishness for the betterment of your people, otherwise you’re just whining about things that a starving beggar can’t even fathom.This is how we get to know the characters, and it’s all incredibly quite terrible. They ruined most of the attachment we’re supposed to have by making everyone so insufferable, an aspect that they seemingly copied and pasted from Galadriel in Rings of Power. Instead of making the character’s aspirations for adventure paramount to her interests (see Arya Stark), they instead created a sexist confinement for the princess to run away from, which make them a far less interesting character, and with the way they did it… they basically turned a good character bad. The idea of the royal adventurer is great and all, but it’s been done before (see Netflix’s Disenchantment), and it’s been done much better than this. What Willow does differently is that it repeatedly shits all over the men of the series in order to develop the female characters more, which is a terrible trend in today’s filmmaking.I highly doubt I’ll continue to watch or recommend it to anyone that wants a fun fantasy series to watch. It’s entirely too serious and not well written.
Oh no, now they added an Asian person to Lord of the Rings. Anti-WOKE grifters are gonna be upset lol
https://deadline.com/2022/12/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-adds-season-2-cast-1235191374/
The more Hannah Waddingham talked, the more I wanted her to join the cast, and the more I realized she was definitely going to die. And then when maybe I thought Elora was getting a fearless gay mute sidekick, Ann was cut down in a scene that genuinely shocked me.Not as heartbreaking as Silas (goodnight sweet prince) but still. This show has a talent for quickly writing upinteresting characters I care about with very little screentime needed, so I hope this doesn’t slow down (even if they die spontaneously…)
I get the impression I’m the only one who likes the show. The anachronistic talk, the rock songs at the end, these are stylistic choices and sometimes it felt for me like “The Princess Bride” with the were-rats and the strange woodcutting women. And despite most of the actors clean good and not so medieval looking young people, they bring all backstories, motivations and secrets which keeps me interested. And I remember, that Queen Bavmordas troops were called “The Nockmaar-Army” in the movie, so maybe Nockmaar is the old stomping ground of the movie baddie.
It’s literally the “final dungeon” in the movie’s climax.
definitely getting “Princess Bride” vibes from this show. i’m liking it a lot. it takes itself seriously, but not TOO seriously.
On Willow, side quests, stalls, and setbacks test everyone’s resolveSo like a typical session of D&D.
A lot more OSE or DCC in this show than D&D, I feel. It does, however, set a bar of both self awareness and self acceptance that I genuinely doubt the actual D&D movie will reach. I think Willow is every but as good a TV show as it is a movie, and sits comfortably alongside shows like Xena: Warrior Princess, in knowing and reveling in what they are.
Or any MMORPG in the last 25 years…
This show is wild. I mean it is tonally all over the place, the spacial distances make absolutely no sense and the time between events is nearly impossible to figure out. For example, after being kidnapped by corrupted nights, Elora manages to escape into a dark forest under a grey sky, only to end up at a cottage belonging to two outdoorswomen brightly lit by the sun at which point it switches to a semi-comedic segment where she just tells them everything. At which point it becomes a speech about what she represents before the head corrupt knight comes around leading to the casual murder of both women, the latter once again in stormy weather.And here’s the thing, none of that bothers me as I’m completely in on this show and can’t wait to see what happens next. It’s because the show gets what it is as a homage to those fantasy epics of the 80s which were this. Where it was always about the journey, not the world, and thus commits to that part of it while playing loose with everything else. Because of that, it works for me here, despite in shows like, for example, Witcher Season 2 and Wheel of Time it drove me nuts. Those shows wanted to be these serious dark fantasy epics with complicated worlds, failing miserably at that even if I did ultimately like Witcher Season 2, while this show just wants to have fun with some poignant moments. And more power to it.
your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter…
Yeah, it’s weird. The overall plot has about as much depth as the cheap syndicated fantasy shows that were a dime a dozen twenty-odd years ago (Hercules, Xena, Beastmaster, various Conans, etc.) which is incongruous when paired with production values and casting more worthy of the near limitless money Disney has at its disposal.Obviously, they’re not spending anywhere near as much as Amazon is on The Rings of Power, but as with other genre shows on the likes of Apple and Disney, you can paper over a bunch of shortcomings if you’re willing to throw money at the production side of things. For a time, at least.
I would also add that Willow doesn’t have the same weight of expectations as The Wheel of Time and Witcher shows had, both with rapid fan bases who were bound to be disappointed by anything that didn’t hew close to the original plot (an near impossible task at the best of times). As the inspiration for the show, Willow, the movie, was never a critical favorite or beloved by a legion of fans.It didn’t help that Game of Thrones had set such a high bar either.
Something I really like about the show is that not only are both Willow and Kit pretty much dicks, but I get why they are like that. That’s not to defend either of them, but rather they are setting up these character arcs for them. Additionally all of the main cast are flawed, but they are so in different ways that play off each others.While there were additions to Willow’s fears revealed here, what really surprised me was how much I ended up being intrigued by Kit’s journey. Like in the first episode, I found her the most boring of the bunch as she felt like this traditional heroine princess, but these past two episodes have been hitting her self-conceptions pretty hard. There’s something really great about the way the show and the actress are conveying to us that she always thought she was the special one, but now she’s suddenly next to the actual Chosen One. Just the shift in the character when she realized that Elora did make the bush grow was great.And while I feel dumb that I should have realized it right away, I absolutely adored the reveal that Jade was actually the superior fighter of the two, by a pretty wide margin based on the fight scenes, as it instantly added such an awesome layer to their story.
The end of the episode, with the dark fight of darkness during the darkest of dark night. Unwatchable and inexcusable. Complete garbage. No, “but I’m building ATMOSPHERE” isn’t acceptable.Game of Thrones got away with it because they had a ton of goodwill built up. Two meh episodes ain’t gonna cover it, Willow.
The show is kind of all over the place, but I’m along for the ride at least for now. Sad to see Silas go. Elli Bamber is definitely the weakest link in the cast, which is unfortunate because she has such a central role.
From ep1 I was liking Tony Revolori’s performance. Way better material here than what he had to work with in the Spider-Man movies. That’s not a knock on the Home Trilogy, it just is what it is. He’s a good fit here.I was expecting the log-cabin ladies to be revealed as something supernatural – what with their sunny forest clearing and all. Supernaturally friendly is enough I guess.
There’s something oddly refreshing about Graydon being so self-aware about his cowardice, and yet remains cool and calm about it.
He’s upbeat too.
I’m still not sure what this show is trying to be, exactly. Tonally it’s completely jarring. You get comic relief characters introduced in one scene and then brutally murder them in the next. There’s a lot of clunky editing, especially in the fight scenes. It’s not always clear what’s going on. There’s weird anachronistic elements, not just in the needle drops and the dialogue, but the fact that Hubert is clothed almost entirely in denim, which seems a little…out of place?I’m still all in on it, ‘cause I loved the movie and I wanna see where this goes. But the whiplash of it being so all over the place is frustrating.
I have to wonder if I’m the only one who was completely thrown off by the way Hannah Waddingham was dressed. A Canadian tuxedo is not exactly something that screams ‘fantasy world’ to me. Mainly because I’m roughly 93% sure that Canada actually exists.
I thought it was meant to be deliberately out-of-place considering Elora had just run from the encroaching darkness to suddenly find this little sunlit oasis. Reminded me of Tom Bombadil.
It was cute and a great scene thanks to Waddingham, so I’m willing to overlook that the writing didn’t really go anywhere.
what was up with the smoke bomb? it was “pitiless pass” not “piddler’s pass.” The original Willow was blenderized fantasy tropes with wizard bilbo and silly sexy strider…at least this show is watchable, but generic “the crone” (hopefully she’ll become a character? hopefully Hannah Waddingham comes back infected as the Crone) and “The darkness” not “the nothing” from NeverEnding Story mind you…were-rats not R.O.U.S. mind you…Boorman is fun but it’s not exactly peak television. Funny we got a fight in daylight considering the last fifteen minutes of the episode can’t be seen. They made one step towards making the princess bearable, and that has to be her arc, but she really is an insufferable spoiled asshole who whines about everything. Arc quicker!
So the were-rats were rats that turned into bigger, hairless rats? Very odd.
I can’t stand this show. I’m trying to give it a chance, but the way the majority of characters speak (not just the princess) with a modern sensibility takes me out of the show. Not to mention the wardrobe which looks too clean. Are they larping or putting on a stage production of Willow in the park?