“Beyond the Shattered Sea” is a beautiful setup for Willow’s endgame

Another Wednesday, another new episode of Willow. “Beyond the Shattered Sea” has officially moved us into the endgame of the fantasy show’s first season, with our heroes embarking on a perilous journey across the titular shallow sea while Prince Airk is tempted by dark forces in the Immemorial City.

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

Willow Episode 7 review: “Beyond the Shattered Sea”

The penultimate episode of Willow’s first season has arrived, and with it, a feeling that the end is nigh. “Beyond the Shattered Sea” is another tightly focused episode that splits time between our traveling group of heroes and Prince Airk (Dempsey Bryk), who is still trapped in the mysterious Immemorial City but has discovered a new companion in Lili (Rosabell Laurenti Sellers).

At 59 minutes, “Beyond the Shattered Sea” is the longest episode of the show yet, which feels just right for where we are in the journey. Unlike many of the previous episodes, where Airk only showed up in tiny moments to tease the looming confrontation in the ruin, this time he has a more substantial role. The cast is so big and good that Airk’s absence hasn’t been too big a deal, but it feels right to get him more involved now that we’re heading into the climax.

Airk spends much of his time trying to figure out Lili’s true identity, along with plenty of teenage flirting. At first she plays coy, then she claims to be the princess of Cashmere…but by the end of the episode we learn that she is seemingly the Crone in disguise. She gradually breaks down Airk’s resistance until he agrees to do whatever she wants and drinks more of that weird brown liquid we saw him gulping last episode.

The sequence with Airk and Lili/the Crone worked fine, although the flirtation felt a bit forced. Willow has consistently dialed into its YA tones, often pretty successfully, but in this instance it was a little more distracting than usual.

Out of a frozen pool and into an endless ocean

Fortunately, the Airk and Lili bits don’t distract too much from the main quest. The rest of the episode focuses on Willow (Warwick Davis), Kit (Ruby Cruz), Elora Danan (Ellie Bamber) and the rest of their team. Last week’s episode, “Prisoners of Skellin,” ended with Kit being trapped underwater beneath a sheet of flash-frozen goop. “Beyond the Shattered Sea” picks up right there. As Airk sees his sister through the brown not-water pool in Immemorial City, the scene shifts back to Elora, who manages to successfully use her powerful magic to pull Kit out of the pool.

From there we’re off to the Shattered Sea, a shallow waterscape that marks the end of all known maps. Immemorial City is supposed to lie beyond it, but as no one ever returns from the place, there’s a leap of faith required from the party.

They get a push out the door from a surprise meeting with a beach hermit named Zeb, played by Game of Thrones veteran Julian Glover (Grand Maester Pycelle). Glover’s acting is masterful, hilarious and a little meta. I can’t be the only one who thought of Thrones when he tried to recall a past adventure only to get confused and complain that “all these battles and aspirants to the throne” blend together over time.

The respite in Zeb’s cabin is short-lived, as it soon becomes clear that he’s being used by the Gales to set a trap for the group. They escape on Zeb’s water cart, which is pulled by an amphibious creature called a mudmander. The ensuing chase scene is one of the better action sequences the show has given us, recalling the magic of older Lucasfilm productions like Return of the Jedi or the original Willow film.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that “Beyond the Shattered Sea” in particular is one of the better combinations of Lucasfilm and Disney’s respective styles. There are times when the fact that Disney owns all these various properties feels like it could be diluting them, but in Willow, everything meshes well. Sure, there are princes and princesses pining after one another, but there’s also enough swashbuckling and cool creatures like the mudmander to recall that old school Lucasfilm feel.

The journey across the Shattered Sea is a great bit of isolated storytelling with plenty of opportunities for character moments. Standouts include Jade (Erin Kellyman) and Kit professing their love for one another after a steamy training session, Elora learning how to do battle magic under Willow’s somewhat jerkish tutoring, and Graydon (Tony Revolori) discovering that he too has the ability to do some magic. Boorman (Amar Chadha-Patel) tries to use the Kymerian Cuirass but it fails to activate, leading him to a crisis of faith.

Lucasfilm is still the best at using the Volume

One thing that stands out during the long Shattered Sea voyage is the sheer beauty of the environment. Much ado has been made about the Volume, the three-dimensional soundstage that Lucasfilm created when they were making their first live-action Star Wars show The Mandalorian. This revolutionary technology has been used on tons of other productions in the years since, like House of the Dragon and Thor: Love and Thunder.

With “Beyond the Shattered Sea,” Lucasfilm proves that they are still the best when it comes to utilizing this technology. Some of the scenes are absolutely gorgeous to look at. The nighttime Volume shots blend perfectly with daylight shots of a wide open plain.

Eventually, the party reaches what seems to be the end of the world: a sheer waterfall with nothing visible beyond. This is when Kit finally sets aside her rivalry with Elora to encourage her to keep going when the rest of the team gives up. While this is a great character moment between the two, it’s undercut a little by how quickly everyone else just gives up at the first sight of obstacle, saying they’re going to walk all the way back.

Willow has at times felt like it’s skipped around a little quickly for the sake of expediency. Everyone giving up at the waterfall, how quickly the scene shifts after Graydon reveals he’s in love with Elora, Airk’s willingness to drink brown goop water…there are quite a few moments where it feels like the show just pushes things along because it’s strapped for time. It’s unfortunate, because aside from that, this is probably one of the strongest episodes in the show’s run, balancing the character stories with creatures, magic, and a looming sense of dread.

The waterfall, of course, is a test. Elora and Kit dive off of it together, down into a pool far below. When they swim to shore, they see that they’ve arrived at the Immemorial City. Prince Airk awaits them, corrupted by the Crone and decked out in black leather armor. It’s the perfect cliffhanger before the finale.

Willow Bullet Points

• There’s a pretty funny subtitle when Julian Glover’s hermit Zeb gets out of his chair, “man grunts, farts.” Maybe it wasn’t a Pycelle reference but I’m going to pretend it was, because he got off at least one or two memorable farts on Thrones as well.
• Kit says that she saw Airk when she was drowning and that the Crone was reaching for him, which sounds like she actually saw Airk dive into the pool in Immemorial City trying to save her, and Lili’s true form as she pulled him back out.
• Boorman’s comedy was toned down a little this episode, but he still had some good one-liners. My favorite was “don’t worry, papa’s got a harpoon,” right before he shoots a harpoon gun and totally misses the bad guys.
• The costuming threw me a little bit this episode. Willow has a modern-day-but-fantasy aesthetic that has felt more like an intentional choice than a flaw. But Elora’s jean-style jacket with its many zippers got me. Same for Kit’s jean jacket.
• The mudmander’s pretty cute! We haven’t had a huge number of creatures in the show outside of the Gales, so this was a really welcome addition.
• Another costuming thing that kind of bugged me is that Elora’s hair is noticeably darker in this episode. She basically went from bright blonde to almost red over the course of the last two episodes?
• Right after they make out, Lili tells Airk that she trusted the wrong person once. Bavmorda, maybe?
• We also found out more about the Wyrm this episode. Willow told Elora Danan that it’s a creature that feeds on magic, which is the “bloodstream of the universe.” So maybe a big ol’ dragon of some sort is coming in the finale?
• Willow continuing to grouse about how he’s “not a great sorcerer” feels kind of silly at this point. He claims he was just a farmer who got lucky, which was absolutely true in the 1988 film. I like that he’s had to wrangle with how he built his reputation on a lie. But at the same time, he’s been steadily doing magic throughout this entire show. So he’s not not a sorcerer at this point either.

Verdict

“Beyond the Shattered Sea” dials back the jokes, instead homing in on the psyches of our characters as they’re cut off from the outside world. There were still some laugh-out-loud moments, as well as the action and romance that have been the show’s trademarks, but things are getting grimmer as we head into the finale. Unfortunately, some odd costuming and a few rushed beats keep this episode from being as good as it could be.

Episode grade: B

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