The Shannara Chronicles - 'Breakline'

"Hi; I'm Perk. I'll be your ensemble dark horse."

After taking a fall into an icy canyon, Will wakes up in a sunlit river, clearly fucking miles from any snowy chasms, although by happenstance mere inches from the corpse of the Reaper. I'm not sure if the fall or the Elfstones did for it, but it seems to be dead now, so that recurring element is out of the way.

He meets Perk, an elf scout from Hicksville who has lost his ear to a band of elf hunters, who sell the ears to gnomes for traditional medicines. I am not even kidding.

I feel that the camera should start spinning; maybe play a
Doors number.

Amerle and Eretria wake up not far from each other and are almost immediately forced to start dodging the elf hunters. As they flee, they fall though a set of boards into an open space full of streamers and tables, where a stage is decorated with a banner reading 'We Can Be Heroes.' Totally alien to them, for the audience this is another reminder that we're in a post-apocalyptic environment, because it is a miraculously preserved (Eretria comments that it's way too preserved, but lampshading doesn't make it okay) school hall, decked out for prom. Eretria makes a torch by winding streamers around a chair leg - because all prom streamers come saturated with flammable oil - and they go looking for a way out. In an extremely meta moment, Amberle is struck by the resemblance of a set of polyhedral dice to the Elfstones.

"We are stealth ninjas."

Back in Arborlon, Prince Smugchops insists that a frontal assault on the demon army would be doomed, so FauxEventine proposes a commando assassination mission: Smugchops and Grumpus with the Warlock Blade to infiltrate the Henge and murder up the Dagda Mor, then home for tea and crumpets. Captain Twofer is dubious, but the princes are like 'Princely duty, blah blah,' and away they go into the Breakline, completely solo. As with any travel in the Four Lands, it takes them a few hours to get there. Seriously, I'm starting to suspect that the Four Lands is actually an amusement park and everything is taking place within the same thousand-acre complex.

"For identification purposes, we are not Grounders*."

Will and Perk locate the Hunters' camp. When the lead Hunter takes her forces to chase Amberle, Will is all up for leaving and coming back for Perk's captive partner later, but then the guard left behind pulls an ear out of a pot.

"That's. My. Ear!" Perk roars, in what is sure to become one of the series' stand out memes (if it has any.) He and Will capture the guard and threaten to get all ear-cutty on him if he doesn't tell them where the rest have gone. Then Perk takes the moral high ground, refusing to maim or torture the man, and just slitting his throat instead. Will acts all shocked, as if the world they're living in was a civilised on in some way. I decide that I like Perk, throat slitting and all.

Also, his partner is a giant reptile-bird thing.

"Level twenty-four, motherfuckers!"

In the Druid Cave, the dying - but in a twist move not dead - Allanon is visited by the spirit of Obi-Wan Keno-Druid, who tells him he is not the last; there is another. Once again, I am not shitting you; glowing ghost druid pretty much copies dialogue beat for beat from Jedi. This encounter provides just enough XP for Allanon to level up, granting him cool new robes, a cool new staff and an extra spell slot every day, and more importantly restoring him to his new Hit Point maximum.

Back in the high school, Amberle and Eretria talk high school stuff: "Life can suck," "we're not all that different***," "isn't it funny how we come from such different backgrounds but we're both spunky orphans who are hot for the same pasty bland hero?" They fail to find a way out, the school being completely buried, remember, and then hear the Hunters arriving.

"Well... That went well."

Up in the Breakline - and given that that's the title of the episode, surprisingly little of the action happens there - Smugchops and... Okay, there names are Ander** and Arion, and they find Bandon's soul in a cage then confront the Dagda Mor. He thanks them for bringing him his sword, takes it and shanks Arion. Fortunately for Ander, Allanon steps in (a harsher critic of the Druid might point out that he was basically just standing on a ridge while Arion got killed, and might even suspect that he was a little bitter about Prince Grumpus stabbing him in the kidneys that one time,) creating a wall of magic between Ander and the Dagda Mor and, incidentally, pinging Bandon back to his body.

I'd say it's a small world after all, but we've known that all
along.

Amberle and Eretria take out the support hunters like bosses - shooting one with his own crossbow, which the action makes it clear is clip fed, since all Eretria needs to do to reload is pull back the string - but get jumped by their leader, Kora who, wouldn't you just know it, is Eretria's bitter and slightly bunny-boiling ex. We have cross the al-but uncrossable mountains, and we're still barely running into anyone that doesn't know at least one of heroes. It's all about to go south when Will commandos in on a rope dropped from Perk's heli-dragon. They get airlifted out, but Eretria is shot in the side and falls. Will and Amberle just bog off, but do at least both swear to rescue her. Perk gives them an emergency thistle whistle in case they need him.

And then Anders kills the Changeling and becomes King. Good luck explaining this lot to Captain Twofer, especially when the real king's body turns up in a closet.

* Although I guess if they were and if they are more or less as described in the books, they would have come first.
** Yes, the elf prince is called 'man'.
*** Take a shot.