Richard Cypher might be forgiven for thinking that now that he has fulfilled the prophecy of the Seeker and destroyed the evil overlord of D'Hara, Darken Rahl, he'll finally have a chance to put his feet up, enjoy a few feasts, and maybe figure out how to make things work with the Mother Confessor, Kahlan.
Veteran fans of the fantasy genre might have warned him, because they know that when the evil king is defeated -- well, that's when hell really breaks loose. In this case, literally.
Out of the Frying Pan
The season premiere of Legend of the Seeker (Nov. 7 and 8, 2009, in syndication) shows Richard (Craig Horner) more in trouble than ever. With Darken Rahl gone, his soldiers are now leaderless -- except for the ones who want to swear allegiance to Richard himself. Worse, these soldiers reveal a disturbing secret about Richard's heritage long known to fans of the Terry Goodkind novels on which the series is based, and expect Richard to pacify the land with an iron fist as the Lord Rahl had done before him. This secret will not sit well on the ordinary people feting the Seeker for his ending of Rahl's tyranny, and furnishes Richard with a series of no-win decisions.
Meanwhile, some of the Rahl-sworn Mord'Sith are furious their master has been dispatched, and a contingent of the female torturers led by Triana (guest star Charisma Carpenter, who unfortunately is really terrible in this) set out to stand in Richard's way. But all that pales in comparison with the really bad news, which is that the magic Richard used to destroy Rahl opened fissures to the underworld, allowing the escape of the evil minions of the Keeper of the Dead -- and maybe, just maybe, the Keeper himself. And just for icing on the cake, the Keeper has elected to use the spirit of Darken Rahl himself (Craig Parker) as his agent in the world of the living, so it turns out killing Rahl didn't rid the world of his evil after all.
Richard and Company
In this context we have a chance to measure Horner's maturation in the role since the beginnings of the series: though he still has a ways to go before he can be called a great actor, Horner is now prepared to anchor this series and take charge of the stories it tells, rather than just wandering through them like the grinning ex-surfer kid lucky enough to have a TV show dropped on him he appeared to be a year ago.
This shift, both in the Seeker and in the complexity of his burden, creates some fallout for the supporting cast. A storyline involving Richard's mentor and grandfather, the wizard Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander (Bruce Spence), cannily raises doubts about the new Richard: Zed learns of a shocking new prophecy from the seer Shota (Danielle Cormack), that Richard will not be able to stop the Keeper and a new Seeker must be chosen if the world is to be saved. This gives Spence a number of chances to cast his trademark grave and horrified looks on his grandson, as he considers the import of the seer's secret words.
And then there's the new companion, the fascinating ex-Mord'Sith Cara (played with great panache by Tabrett Bethell). Richard trusts her because she helped him defeat her master (and because he saw her future when he was accidentally sent forward in time at the end of last season), but he's the only one. Sharp, bright-eyed, and dangerously unpredictable, Cara's presence completes a minor but palpable realignment of the show.
Extraneous Beauty
Sadly all of this is bad news for Kahlan (Bridget Regan), who after some challenges dealing with a surfeit of her power late last season is now relegated once more to the role of anxious, white-dressed beauty -- a love so unavailable, despite Richard's devotion to her, as to be irrelevant. The show did such a good job last season of establishing both the extent of their love for each other and the impossibility of it, for reasons having to do with the nature of the Confessor's power, that there remains little more to tell. And Richard's maturity, while great news for the storyline, means he's more capable than he once was of setting aside love for duty: which is nice for Richard's character development, but not so much for the romantics in the audience, or, for that matter, for Bridget Regan.
Legend of the Seeker still lags behind certain other genre shows, particularly Merlin, in quality, style, and sheer pleasure for the viewer. But its saving grace is its unstinting and relentless avoidance of the smirky, self-aware camp that both popularized Xena and Hercules and, ultimately, ruined them. Richard's errantry is no longer just a romp in the woods, and while there is still work to be done Legend of the Seeker seems ready, after a year as an increasingly confident tenderfoot, to shoulder adventures that are a little more difficult to tell.
