Willow finally addresses Madmartigan’s absence in “Prisoners of Skellin”

With only two more episodes to go, we’re officially in the home stretch for the first season of Willow on Disney+. The show has spun many mysteries throughout season 1, but with the finish line in sight, its time to start answering some of those longstanding questions.

As always, there will be SPOILERS for this week’s episode of Willow below.

Willow Episode 5 review: “Prisoners of Skellin”

If last week’s episode, “Wildwood,” felt like a fun diversion for the show, “Prisoners of Skellin” represents a return to form. It’s a good episode, even if it strings some things along. Take Prince Airk (Dempsey Bryk), for instance. We first got a glimpse of him standing amidst the ruins of Immemorial City at the end of Episode 4. He was entirely absent from the following episode, and “Prisoners of Skellin” doesn’t do much to move his storyline forward. After hearing the voice of the Crone tempting him to enter a malignant-looking doorway, Airk decides to do the opposite and takes off to go wander the surrounding wasteland.

However, the end-cap scene shows Arik arriving right back where he started, somehow unable to actually put any distance between himself and the eerie ruin. Thirsty from his pointless journey, Airk drinks from a well which is almost certainly infused with evil before finding a strange woman held in a jail cell. The two lock eyes, and “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys kicks in for the credits.

The Prince Airk scenes are generally fine, but he continues to take a back seat to everything else going on in the show, despite him being the reason for this whole adventure. We’ll see if that changes in the coming weeks.

Don’t trust Christian Slater, especially when he’s singing

The rest of the episode is far more interesting. “Prisoners of Skellin” completely skips over the troll attack we saw happen at the end of the preceding episode. Instead, we pick up with Willow (Warwick Davis) and Kit (Ruby Cruz) being led into the titular troll fortress, where they’re to be tortured until they reveal the whereabouts of Elora Danan (Ellie Bamber).

The pair is herded into hanging crow cages, which leads into a wonderful callback to the 1988 film when a shadowy figure claiming to be Madmartigan starts cracking jokes from the next cage over. Obviously viewers will recognize that this newcomer is played by Christian Slater and not original actor Val Kilmer, so the show doesn’t keep the ruse running too long before revealing the stranger’s is Allagash, a former comrade of Madmartigan’s who also happened to be the last person to see him alive.

Slater’s performance is one of the joys of “Prisoners of Skellin,” and arguably of the show as a whole. Willow has often swayed back and forth between being outright goofy and lightly grim, but this episode manages to find a balance. Despite not being the real Madmartigan, Slater’s performance as an unhinged older warrior infused the episode with a bit of the character’s spirit. From his aspiration to become the world’s greatest songwriter to his absurd fight with Boorman later in the episode, Slater nails every beat.

Slater doesn’t hog all the fun in “Prisoners of Skellin.” The trolls themselves are pretty funny; they have a kind of deadpan office humor that keeps things light even when they’re threatening our heroes with horrible deaths. Together with Slater’s performance, they help the episode feel like a classic ’80s Lucasfilm story.

Where in the world is Madmartigan?

We cut between various groups as they sneak around the troll fortress. Willow, Kit and Allagash escape and go in search of Madmartigan and find a mysterious door deep in the bowels of the fort. Elora and Jade (Erin Kellyman) go in search of their captured friends only to learn that Boorman (Amar Chadha-Patel) has double-crossed them in hopes of retrieving the impenetrable Kymerian Curiass instead. And Scorpia (Adwoa Aboah) splits off on her own to free her other comrades who were captured by the trolls.

There’s quite a lot going on here, and the episode does a pretty good job of navigating it all without making things too confusing. Sure, the details behind Madmartigan’s disappearance remain somewhat vague and the trek to Immemorial City feels a little like an afterthought, but Willow has consistently been more about the small personal stories than it has the bigger picture. And in that regard, “Prisoners of Skellin” stays the course. We still get personal beats like Graydon (Tony Revolori) coping with his feelings for Elora or Kit’s angst over her missing father.

The big difference is that “Prisoners of Skellin” also feels like it’s propelling the story forward in big ways. We don’t really know the nature of the evil that Madmartigan left the mortal world to go fight, but we get enough info that it feels like we can finally move on to deal with the impending climax at Immemorial City.

“Prisoners of Skellin” ends with our heroes making their way across a pit at the bottom of the fortress; it looks like it’s filled with lava, but we come to find it’s actually some kind of frozen lake. As Kit berates Elora at the most inopportune time (something the other characters call out, thankfully), she falls in. The scene cuts to black as Elora tries her hardest to free Kit with magic. Hook us in for next week, Willow, sure.

Willow Bullet Points

• Boorman was forced to come somewhat clean about the fact that he didn’t “slaughter” a bunch of trolls to escape the last time he was in Skellin. “More like I slaughtered their pizzazz.” This show’s one-liners continue to be so absurd that you can’t help but laugh. On another fantasy show they’d just be bad, but Willow has consistently pulled them off.
• Have to love that Allagash actually has two eyes, despite wearing an eyepatch for his first few minutes on screen.
• The riddle sequence in Wiggleheim’s tomb was another very fun moment.
• One of the more interesting beats this week involved Elora, whose magic is quickly growing beyond her control. She’s now at the point where the mere act of sneezing causes the entire mountain to shake. Very curious to see where the show takes this.
• There’s still some ambiguity over whether Boorman or Allagash actually betrayed Madmartigan; both claims the other did it, while also making it clear through their actions and loaded expressions that they cared too much about him to outright stab him in the back. It seems like both of them might have fled or lied in specific ways they thought would help in that situation? Hopefully Boorman clears this up a little more next week.
• While we didn’t see Madmartigan in this episode, we did hear his voice when he spoke to Kit from beyond the mysterious door in Wiggleheim’s tomb. That voice was not Val Kilmer, in case you were wondering, but his son Jack Kilmer. “We actually recorded with Val and we used his performance as a guide track. Then Jack was given Val’s performance to listen to and then copy what his dad had done in terms of you know, the performance elements of Val’s thing,” showrunner Jonathan Kasdan told Decider.

Verdict

While Willow has been a relatively consistent show and done a good job of nodding back to the 1988 movie whenever it can, “Prisoners of Skellin” is the episode that best captures the spirit of the cult classic original. From its humor to its plot twists and the standout guest performance by Christian Slater, this will easily go down as one of the best episodes of the season.

Episode Grade: B+

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels