The main quest ofWillowas a creative effort has been resurrecting a bit of the classic fantasy film magic with an appropriate new cast of heroes. It’s been a bit of a mess so far, but as the series rockets toward the end of Season 1, there’s still a lot to like.
Screenwriter Hannah Friedman is back for “Chapter 6: Prisoners of Skellin,” after her rousing successwith the previous episode. Joining her this week is Stu Selonick, who is known for his work onRunawaysand as aJeopardycontestant. The episode finds our heroes in the depths of a nightmarish prison system, only to be joined by a bold cameo performance.
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In the dramatic ending of episode five, tomboy princess Kit was taken by malevolent trolls. Episode 6 opens with both Kit and Willow caged over a nightmarish lava pit. A familiar face sits trapped in the neighboring cage. The audience is left to gasp in horror for a moment, wondering whether Val Kilmer’s Madmartigan might be recastor worse, digitally de-aged. Instead, the man in the cage claiming to be the lost hero and Kit’s absentee father is Allagash, a former friend of Madmartigan’s. Allagash is portrayed by noneother than Christian Slater, whose storied career makes him an interesting choice for the role. He’s a traveling troubadour who despises violence, despite fighting constantly. He and Boorman fall into non-stop squabbling until every other character and the audience are left unsure of the events of the plot. Allagash is a great addition to the cast, even though he’s not around for long.
Episode six is about a jailbreak, but it’s not going to have fans standing up and shouting in their living roomlikeAndor’s masterful climax. The episode follows Kit and WIllow’s efforts to save themselves, along with Boorman, Jade, Elora, and Graydon’s work to find them. The prison guards are a new high point for this series' practical make-up effects. They’re massive bipedal creatures that all look a bit like Bigfoot in white fur. The boss of the evil team is a weirdly gregarious troll named Sarris, portrayed by Tom Wilton. Sarris is polite, almost weirdly formal, and insistent upon good manners with his allies. The prison is a great set, the villains are funny, the action remains compelling, and the core goal makes a lot of sense. Theprison aspect of the episodegoes on reasonably well, but the other half is a bit less well-handled.
Once Allagash joins the larger crew, most of the episode breaks down into verbal sparring between him and Boorman. It’s clear that the show has some direction for this dispute, but every aspect of the battle between Madmartigan’s old allies fails to engage. Both characters seem to be lying more than half the time, so there’s no way of knowing who to root for. It’s just a lot of yelling and scuffling amounting to very little. Both parties are still looking for a magical MacGuffin that will presumably become important at some point. As it stands, it’s a slightly boring element to keep checking in on. By all accounts,Val Kilmer will notbe appearing in the series, but the showrunners clearly need some way of keeping the hero from the original film in everyone’s hearts. Both Boorman and Allagash are a lot of fun, but they have to spend so much of their screen-time bickering and battling that they lose many opportunities. This is, in many ways, a symptom of a larger problem.
Upgrading a two-hour movie to eight episodes of streaming television is difficult. Quadrupling the necessary time is bold, but it also ensures that a team will eventually resort to something close to filler. There are a ton of subplots, many of which aren’t very interesting. Multiple awkward romances, a complicatedbackstory for characters that aren’t present, and a lot of references to earlier material that most will have trouble remembering make the show tough to recommend as a whole. Maybe all the separate threads will hang together better with an audience watching every episode in a row. As it stands,Willowremains an unfocused pick-and-mix with a lot of good parts and a lot of stuff in the way of them.
Willowremains entertaining, but it’s unclear whether its finale will allow it to be more than the sum of its parts. A lot of modern streaming shows make the mistake of ending on a cliffhanger to hook an audience for season two, but it’s tough to imagine that occurring here. There’s a great cast, some fun writing, solid action, and the kind of filmmaking that evokes an earlier age, but the show still can’t decide what it wants to be.Willowis worth watchingif you may stomach the never-ending knowledge that it could have always been so much better.
