The Shannara Chronicles - 'Utopia'

"Look at me; stripped to my corset like some sort of princess."

Eretria is brought to a human village - incongruously located in troll country - where the elf-hunters sell their high school loot. The village elder insists that Eretria be part of the deal and has her put in their infirmary. Meanwhile, the troll traps persuade Amberle that she and Wil should rest in their pursuit, long enough to eat, discuss the failings of the elves as the supreme administrative authority of an apartheid state and make out, although the certification cock blocks Wil once more, as the potential coitus is interrupted at around second base by the sound of Cephalo getting caught in a troll trap.

"Congratulations, Cephalo; not only are you an unrepentant rapist sleaze
bag, you are official less woodscrafty than a stay-at-home mummy's boy
healer with a bad case of hormonal poisoning. No offence, Wil."

He offers to take them to the village if they rescue him, which they do. I'm not going to say that they never learn, because it works out okay for them this time, but it really shouldn't have done. James Remar is one of the acting highlights of the series, but I can't help feeling that having the characters forget what a bastard he is is meant to help the audience do the same, and I don't want to. A charismatic rapist asshole is still a rapist asshole.

Back in the village, which is called Utopia, Eretria finds herself with a drip in her arm, which is a bit weird in and of itself. There's a burn-faced guy in a wheelchair, but her kit is all still there, including a knife which... I don't know, maybe came as a package deal from the elf-hunters? It's clearly not medical (see picture above) so I guess it's one of hers. Maybe they didn't check all the pockets?

That face!

Tye, who has the feel of being the leader that this lot would claim that they don't have, does his best to make Eretria feel welcome, despite the obvious hollowness of his promise to send out rescue parties to look for Wil and Amberle. He explains that they are a community dedicated to the awesomeness of humanity and the reclamation of human culture. They have pie on white china plates with machined forks, saline drips and other good stuff. If the high school was a rather sad abandoned museum of humanity, this is a living history centre, or possibly the post-apocalyptic equivalent of a Renaissance Festival, where disaffected youths who feel like they belong in an earlier age get together, elect their own president, stage street races and talk about how much better things were when we had income tax and pollution.

"There is no way this is coming back to bite me."

They also have guns, to which Tye attributes their safety from marauding trolls. He teaches Eretria to shoot, although this turns out to be largely unnecessary, as she apparently has a natural shooting stance and understanding of the recoil of a fricking magnum. Seriously, I've never fired a gun in my life, but I'm pretty sure a cannon that size is going to have some brutal kick for a first timer.

Back at the ranch, Allanon is handing out jobs. He tells Ander not to wuss out on the king gig (he was planning to hand off to Councillor Sourface, who probably would have been a brooding, scheming presence if Allanon, Eventine and Cephalo hadn't met MTV's quota of character over forty already.) Then he tells Bandon that he is going to train him as a druid, pretty much will he or no, since if he doesn't then the Dagda Mor will basically eat his soul.

Ahhahahahahaaahahaahhaaaa!

Cephalo drops Wil and Amberle off at the village, obvious-pickpocketing-hugs Wil and takes off to get captured after finding the body of elf-hunter Zora.

Tye takes Eretria to a party, where he lets her turn on their electric lights. They watch a bit of Star Trek the Motion Picture and boo Spock's elf ears, then they crank up the wheels of steel and have themselves a rave.

I am not even kidding a little bit. These hicks have slamming dance tracks on vinyl, because this is a post-apocalyptic world, DO YOU REMEMBER THAT? Seriously, this episode is utterly determined that we are going to understand this point if it kills us, or at least any interest in the plot.

Amberle and Wil swipe cowboy hats from the cloakroom and infiltrate a tiny, close knit community like bosses. Seriously, they tell one person they're elf-hunters and apparently that gets around. At the party, Eretria is completely won over by Tye telling her she gets to choose what she does, and when Wil finds her basically tells him to shove his quest. She accuses Amberle of just wanting the map that they found, and Amberle a) doesn't deny it, despite not even mentioning that this episode and b) doesn't mention that Tye's number two was talking about murdering Eretria before the night is through.

Then someone swipes Amberle's hat and they get dragged away.

Eretria retrieves the map, intending to send the others on their way, but is warned by the burn-faced man that she must go with them because she is 'the vessel.' He's speaking in a creepy vision voice, which is totally unexpected and yet entirely convincing, apparently, as she grabs Tye's gun and cold cocks him before running off.

"Yep; not regretting those shooting lessons at all."

Amberle and Wil find themselves tied to stakes as an offering for the trolls by way of land tax. On the upside, the Utopians were decent enough not only to reclaim their threads, but to dress our heroes back in their own things before sending them to a gruesome death. Cephalo is there too and tries to trade the Elfstones for his freedom, only to discover that what he nicked was the dice. Yeah, in trying to trade something that his captors could easily just take and getting played by Wil, Cephalo's humiliation is now complete.

A troll appears, a hulking figures in a gas mask that no-one seems to take screen shots of, but Eretria shoots it in the head. As people are cut free, Tye and his peeps appear and yell that they have killed Utopia; perhaps unsurprisingly not a fuck is given. Cephalo catches a bullet and stays to cover the retreat, overegging his partial redemption by claiming to consider the girl he repeatedly threatened to sell to the highest bidder for consent-optional sprog-bearing to be the best thing he ever created. It's a shame, because you couldn't like him as a card-carrying villain, but you could respect the performance.

The three amigos escape towards Safehold (which appears to be the former San Francisco) and Utopia is butchered by trolls, so our heroes indirectly destroyed the last known print of Star Trek the Motion Picture and the Four Lands entire supply of dubstep. Hurrah!

Oh, and in the end Ander becomes king and Councillor Sourface is all 'if I had speaking lines...' As the Fellowship love triangle heads into Mordor Frisco, Gondor Arbolon prepares for war. (Honestly, the parallels are pretty tight, except of course for the fact that the Dagda Mor has no use for the seed, nor any reason to suspect it is being kept in Arborlon, but would have been better served sending another dozen demons along with the Reaper.