It’s Wednesday morning, and that means Willow. Episode 4, “The Whispers of Nockmaar,” is the one where the show finally gets everything I’ve been waiting on, and it’s also the one that probably should’ve been Episode 3.
Slightly different format this time. I’m handling the recap at the front end, short and to the point, so I actually have room to talk. The group takes refuge from the rain in Bavmorda’s abandoned castle. Willow prepares to exorcise Graydon of the Lich’s demonic influence with the help of Kit and Elora, while Jade mourns Ballantine, who she regarded as a mentor. Retrieving ingredients for the ceremony, Kit has visions of her grandmother Bavmorda, descended from a dark line known as the Blood of the Six, and learns that Bavmorda pledged allegiance to the Crone. Elora has visions of her own birth and her mother’s death. The possessed Graydon breaks free and tricks Elora into the High Tower, where he plans to complete the ceremony, and Willow, Kit, Jade and Boorman join forces to exorcise him. The Crone answers by sending the Lich and the Scourge to kill the entire group except Elora. Elsewhere, the captive Airk wakes up inside an abandoned city.
The Dark Version of the Storybook
This episode’s really interesting because of how it opens. Instead of the normal storybook, all nice and beautiful with the Elora Danan symbol on it, you get a dark version of the book. I believe they call it the Malatrium, and it’s essentially the Willow version of the Book of the Dead. It looks just like the Book of the Dead from Army of Darkness, and I was half expecting someone to whip out all those special words. The book opens and you see blood coming down the pages.
I feel like this is one of those opportunities they take to be really creative, and that’s great, because you’ve got to do stuff like that with a show like this.
So the heroes head into Nockmaar. It’s going to be their home for the night while they wait out the rain, which I find interesting, because the clouds are sort of surrounding Nockmaar as they approach. Kit recalls very acutely what her mother Sorsha said, that they have the blood of Bavmorda flowing through their veins, and she’s very much worried going in.
Then you get the story everyone’s been telling, which is that Willow and Raziel used the Fibonacci hex. So they have math in Willow’s world. I’m down. But remember, nobody was there. Nobody saw anything. That’s what I love about this episode.
This Should Have Been Episode 3
This is clearly a member berry episode, and storytelling wise, I got everything here that I normally want to find by Episode 3.
The way these things work now, with shorter seasons, you have to get everybody hooked in and moving. We’re getting eight episodes total, and Episode 4 is literally the midway mark. They could have crammed most of the events from the previous three episodes into the first two, made this one the third, and then the fourth is where you get the turn into act two. Instead we’re halfway through the series and only now turning into act two, with a whole bunch of backstory and history they had to lay down. That kind of defeats the purpose of having the kids do the thing, because the point of the kids is that you can retell and recap some of the story as you go and still let them have their own adventure.
Boorman, and the Thing About Killing a Defenseless Man
Kit suggests they’re going to have to vote on it, and she’s talking big and tough about how I guess we have to kill him. Boorman’s like, oh yeah, no, you go right ahead and do that. She says you don’t think I will? And he says no. It’s one thing to kill a man who’s trying to fight you and trying to kill you. It’s another thing to kill someone who’s literally defenseless.
I thought that was wonderfully put. And of course it dovetails right into Jade, who just had to do that very same thing.
I like the maturity they’re showing in the show. You’re still getting the younger sounding parlance, the CW style talking between the younger folk, and I’m not going to sweat that too much. You do get a lot more Boorman in this episode, which I liked, and a little bit of character development with him. He finds a vault-like door and all he wants is to get through it, and he admits it later to Kit. Yeah, I’m totally trying to sack your grandma’s abandoned castle. He explains that you don’t normally come across castles like this, abandoned and never sacked, because who’s going to come to Nockmaar? It’s a cursed place.
Meanwhile Jade is standing guard up on the wall, watching for the bad guys to come, and Boorman shows up and they talk for a bit. You find out it’s going to be either her or Boorman who has to end up killing Graydon if Graydon has to be put down. She hugs him in this really awkward, very uncomfortable moment, and you can tell he’s not used to that. He’s like, there, there. Everyone’s entitled to one good solid cry per adventure, or quest, or whatever.
Bavmorda, the Pigs, and Hashtag Pickled Possum
Willow has a book, and he tells Bavmorda’s backstory. She was a regular sorceress like Raziel, like Cherlindrea, like anybody else, like him. She was wonderful, she was on the path of good and light, and then something happened. She turned dark, she renounced it all, she gave her loyalty to the Crone, and she became the evil person she was.
They’re all eating something while he tells this, which I assume is pork, and he explains that she once turned everyone into pigs. And you turned everyone back human, right? Yeah. Mostly. So that’s the end of anybody eating that. It’s really funny.
Then he lays out how they’re going to solve this. They have to make a poultice, there’s going to be a spell, he’s not powerful enough yet because he’s not fully charged, so Elora’s going to help him, and everybody else goes to search out the ingredients.
One of the ingredients is essence of nightshade, and Elora’s the one who says possums eat nightshade, so go find a brined possum belly and we can boil it down. Boom, essence of nightshade. Kit goes and finds one.
While she’s searching she comes across a tapestry, and in it she gets to see the history sort of animated. You hear Bavmorda’s voice, which I believe lends credence to the notion that the actress who plays Bavmorda may have lent her voice to this, because she is still alive. You see Bavmorda and the Crone as representations in the tapestry illustration, and then there’s one part where Bavmorda is sitting on top of what looks like a lion with eagle wings. There’s a fantasy name for it and it’s not a griffin, I know that. I think it’s a sphinx. And suddenly she’s got Kit’s face.
Kit freaks out, backs up, the whole thing explodes into fire, and the hallway’s open. She also drops the jar and it smashes, so now she’s got to carry around this brined, pickled possum. Hashtag pickled possum. It’s very humbling, and she’s even like, oh, she’s never going to let me live this down, because they actually had the ingredient.
The Specters of Nockmaar
Willow and the others start the process, holding this thing back, and they have to do it together and say the words together. That’s when Graydon starts talking, and the first thing he does is talk with Airk’s voice. I don’t know where I’m at, I’m in a cell somewhere. They tell each other it’s not really him. Then it switches and it becomes Willow’s daughter. You’ve got to tell her the truth. That makes Elora break focus, she wants to know why he isn’t telling her, and Willow says if you can’t be helpful, get out.
So she goes out, she runs into Kit, and while they’re talking Elora starts to hear voices.
I love this part so much. The voices she’s hearing are specters of the past, and they’ve awoken something there. You could say it’s the Crone, but I think it’s both worse and simpler than that. It’s the essence of the nightmares of that place. The magic at Nockmaar has brought some of these things to life. They’re specters more than they’re real ghosts.
Immediately crazy things start happening. Boorman’s losing things he thought he had. The Lux Arcana, which is what he went for at the grave of that guy at the Slaughtered Lamb, is gone. Walls are shifting.
Elora Looks Into the Past
At some point Elora starts seeing the moment from the very beginning of the movie. They overlay the scenes. You see Bavmorda step out of the prison cell from the opening of the film, but they have her surrounded in smoke, so it looks like you’re seeing specters, illusions of the past. They married it super well and it looks so great.
Then you get a scene that, if they didn’t film new stuff, has got to be a deleted scene. You see the entire moment when Bavmorda steps out and says find the child, kill her. You see the guards, you see the mother’s face, and just as she’s about to be killed she says I see my daughter. I see Elora. She’s strong and grown and powerful and she will destroy you. And it’s our Elora standing there looking at her.
If it’s a deleted scene, it’s perfectly timed 30 years later. It looks great.
I believe firmly that Elora, because of who she is, because of that place and the weakness in the veil (we’ll call it the veil), 100 percent saw and looked into the past, and her mother saw her. That was Elora’s way of giving her mother that assurance. I’m going to grow. I’m going to be strong. It’s a wonderful moment, and I flipped over. That’s awesome.
This was good writing. We’ve been getting lazy writing in parts of the other episodes, and this was very, very well done. This was fan service and member berries in their best form, because it lets us see all the pieces they’re intertwining with everything else.
General Kael, No Mercy
Jade is walking through the halls and she starts to see visions of her parents, and then General Kael. He’s got the skull mask, the whole bit. I think they either got a voice guy to do some similar voice work or they used audio clips of his voice from the movie, because he’s saying no mercy, he’s swinging his sword, and they’re fighting. He’s somewhat substantial, too. Her sword is hitting his. So these specters are existing and not existing, here and not there. I really like it.
She gets backed up into the lab, where she runs back into Kit, and this is where Boorman starts banging down the door. They let him in and he rushes the princess. Where is it? I know you took it. She’s like, Boorman, what are you doing? And he kind of reveals, well, doesn’t reveal, that he’d found the thing, the Lux Arcana. That’s before they start hearing screams, and Boorman sees a light through the window.
Don’t Go to the High Tower
Elora, after her experience, goes back and finds Graydon getting dressed. He tells her only Willow could help him, that Willow took it into himself, I don’t know where he is, we have to find him. He’s really convincing, and for a split second I’m like, oh, maybe he’s okay. He’s totally not, and I dig what they did here.
Of course she goes up. I literally looked over at Mrs. Know-It-All and said, didn’t Willow say the first thing was not to go to the High Tower? Literally, don’t go to the High Tower. It’s the gateway to the nether realm.
Up there he reveals himself, and he’s looking like Ballantine did. Then Willow walks in with a little bruise on his head, so obviously Graydon hit him, and she’s like, hey Willow, use the flux capacitor, whatever. She can’t say the name either.
The Lich, in control of Graydon, tells her he’ll show her the truth, and the same way we saw the specters downstairs, we see young Willow holding the baby, and then we see Raziel do her thing and the lightning strike her. Raziel died because of her own carelessness. It had nothing to do with Willow. And then he says I won’t be so careless, and puts a barrier up.
Man, it’s good.
Why Sorsha Told Willow He’d Never Be Great
Willow uses his magic to knock Elora down and protect her a little bit, but every time he uses magic he falls. He’s frail, and I feel for him. I think his body is not capable of handling the level of magic that he can channel, and that’s why he’s hurting.
I think that’s the real reason Sorsha told him he’s not going to be great. I don’t think Sorsha was being mean. I think she was trying to be helpful. Somehow she knows, whether she was told something or not, that he’s not strong enough to channel the powers he can channel, so when he does it, it hurts him physically. And they show it to us again right here. He still manages to help.
Finally he’s telling her no, don’t do it, and Elora takes the evil that’s in Graydon into her own mouth, and you see it begin to move out of her and up into whatever this portal thing is above them. Even Willow’s like, wow, that’s great. I believe they dispersed and stopped whatever evil was in that place, and I think Elora did that. She exorcised more than the demons in him.
We also get this really interesting moment where you see Graydon’s past. You see his older brother, who the same actor plays, by the way, and then they de-age the current actor all the way down to childhood. It’s brilliant. If you can make an actor look like a child version of themselves now, bro, that’s some awesome technology for filming.
The Immemorial City
Then Airk wakes up and walks out, and there are giant statues and wrecked buildings everywhere. The description says he wakes up in an abandoned city. Everything about it says to me that this is the Immemorial City, and I think that’s exactly what it is. It’s this place that’s got the wreckage of whatever else came before, and it’s kind of brilliant.
The Verdict
Willow Episode 4, “The Whispers of Nockmaar,” is a 9 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. A solid nine.
I liked everything they were doing. This was a wonderfully proper and judicious use of member berries and nostalgia, in service to the story they’re telling. Every ghost they walked past led to something, and every piece mattered to the story they’re currently telling. It was a wonderful way of doing exposition without expositing.
Let me know what you thought of the episode. I genuinely appreciate you taking the time, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
