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Shannara Chronicles Season 2, Episode 8 Recap: Amberle

This article contains spoilers for The Shannara Chronicles season two episode – Amberle.

I figured out during this episode one of the things they did to make the show speed up and feel like things where constantly happening: they took out the travel. They have to go to the Ellcrys, boom, they're at the Ellcrys. No seven days' ride with camping scenes and pitfalls along the road. This is something the folks who are doing Lord of the Rings over at Amazon Prime might want to think about.

This episode was a lot about accepting who you really are and what other people really are. Wil goes into the Ellcrys, sees Amberle, and must come to peace with both his father and her. Allanon has to accept that his time may be drawing to an end and that Mareth is his daughter. Mareth must accept her destiny. Eretria has not choice but to accept her dark side. Bandon must accept that Catania never loved him and that the Warlock Lord believes in tough love. Tamlin must accept her fate and General Riga must accept that he wasn't really the big bad of this story.

Riga tosses Anders body into the falls and demands that Tamlin bow before him. She does at first, but eventually she chooses to leap to her death rather than succumb. Riga finds out where Allanon and the Codex are and that Allanon has a daughter. He uses that to capture them both. But when he learns that Graymark has gone quiet, he leaves ordering the Druids to be burned alive.

Meanwhile, Bandon asks the Warlock Lord to resurrect Catania, who then rejects him, and the Warlock Lord has fun with her. He then shows Bandon the truth: that she never loved him, and that love is a weakness. Bandon slays her again and can now stand beside his master. Riga and his men show up to Graymark. The Warlock Lord uses magic to kill off all the Crimson but Riga, who is immune. So the Warlock Lord traps him in the keeps gate and then chops off the General's head. I had hoped Jax would've had the chance to kill him, but this works, too.

Outside the Ellcrys, Eretria is trying to help the Chosen get away from the Crimson and does pretty well for a while, but eventually they surround them. Then a Mord Wraith shows up, destroying the remaining Crimson and plunging inside of her. One of the Chosen sees this.

Inside the Ellcrys, Wil is fighting the idea that he can stop the Warlock Lord. When he used the Sword of Shannara, it showed him that he failed and he accept that as the truth. But he wasn't ready for the truth, and that's why the sword broke. The power of the sword is that it shows whoever touches it the truth about themselves. That's how it defeated the Warlock Lord in the first place, revealing to him that he was actually already dead. (It's in the novels.) Wil talks with the young version of his father again and makes peace… and then he has to accept that Amberle is truly gone and will never come back. That it was her destiny, and she chose to go through with it. Once he accepts it, the sword is whole once again.

And we end with Allanon and Mareth about to be burned while Wil and the infected Eretria reunite, and we see the Chosen that saw the Mord Wraith is now dead.

Next week we get the last two episodes of the season back to back. What's interesting in the trailer below is that we see the back of Allanon's neck, and it's clean. No runes. The runes on his skin are the source of his power, and they've established that as those runes disappear, so do his powers. Will they continue on the path they appear to be on, killing off Allanon and ignoring the book continuity — or will there be a quick bait and switch at the end? I for one can't wait to see how this all wraps up.

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