We're back for one last look at The Dragon Prince as I finally catch up with all the pre-summer releases, horray?
Fire and Fury
They group have found a cave to rest in, Callum I splaying
with the cube. Meanwhile Claudia and Soren are bringing along a captive Corvus,
who has already tried to escape more than once. They hope to drop him off in a
local jail and get back on the Princes’ trail.
Callum asks Rayla about the difficulty of getting into
Xadia, crossing the river of Lava. She reveals there’s a secret moon path that
they can walk that poses minimal danger. But the town they arrive in has a more
immediate problem, a dragon flying over the village. It’s not attacked so
they’ve resisted firing at it but then Soren takes command and begins to fight
back.
The noise it makes is loud enough that our heroes can hear
it too. Now it’s been fired upon, it fires back, destroying one of the
Ballistas and half the town in the process. Realising how bad things are
getting, Soren releases Corvus to help get people to safety. Claudia uses a
griffin eye to enchant an arrow not to hit its target, the dragon is brough
down right where Ezran and the others are and Ezran quickly comes to its aid.
Back at Katolis Viren has returned to face the ire of the
council, who have worked out that he forged the meeting. Ezran removes the
arrow from the dragon but when an army comes to capture it, they’re forced to
leave. Rayla has a lot of regrets over this. With everything falling apart for
Viren, he decides to uncover the mirror.
Rayla decides she can’t leave the dragon behind and goes to
help, though she’s successful early on she’s soon on the ropes against Soren.
Callum decides to try and do something to help, even if it’s something he’ll
regret. He uses dark magic, crushing a caterpillar or something I think to turn
the chains binding the dragon into snakes. The effort makes Callum fall
unconscious briefly, Soren is knocked into a rock.
Ezran loses Zym in a game of hide and seek, they find each
other but Claudia finds them too, she’s forced to release them when she sees
the state Soren’s in. He can’t move, Viren finalises the enchantment with his
own blood, a weird beetle thing transports itself from the mirror prison to
Viren, it allows them to finally communicate properly.
This one was hard-hitting and will have consequences moving
forward, but it all relies on the co-incidence of a dragon hovering over a
village for some reason.
Rating 7.5/10
The Book of Destiny
Callum is not in great shape after the battle, but it’s
worse for Soren who is still unable to move, despite Claudia’s attempts to heal
him. Callum sees himself in a room of keys, and finds the cube within it. He
then sees visions of the cloaked figure, similar to the one from the mirror,
Aavaros, the master of the 6 primal forces. He doesn’t know where he is, but
his name is what Viren was after, and seals his bug in a jar.
With the council onto his deception, they’ve sent guards
searching for him. With Callum still delirious, Corvus catches up with them and
the large pennies are starting to drop, as he greets Ezran as a king. In the
town, the medics tell Claudia that he won’t walk again. Viren enters the
library and begins researching Aaravos, but every time he reads his name, the
words dissolve and the books turn black.
Turns out the Aaravos cloaked figure was in fact Callum
himself, and he’s trying to convince our Callum to embrace the use of dark
magic. Soren is aware of what has become of him, but as a silver lining, it
means he can’t do anything to harm the princes, revealing his secret mission to
Claudia.
Part of Callum’s consciousness manifests as King Harrow tell
him not be by bound by fate, a lesson he takes to heart and rejects his other
self, who turns to stone and crumbles to dust because…
Back to Claudia and Soren, Soren has decided to live the
rest of his life as a poet. I don’t think he’s much of a wordsmith. Claudia is
distraught and is ejected from the hospital. Callum’s journey doesn’t end
there, coming across the blind captain from earlier and another storm. And in a
totally not terrifying bit of imagery he becomes the boat’s sail.
Corvus tracks down Ezran, who looks to have been attacked by
an animal, at least from his perspective but Rayla laughs it off, saying he
likely took a ride on one, which we see as he confronts Claudia outside the
hospital. Viren asks Aavaros why he should trust him, Aavaros responds quite
interestingly. He probably shouldn’t but here we are, I like that. Callum finds
himself with the primal stone. The ship he was on has crashed, the blind guy is
rescued by his now huge parrot and Callum begins to drown, which is shown to be
affecting physically too.
We have another 2-parter and I can’t help but wonder, is
this it? Still, as character studies go it’s far from a bad one.
Rating 7.5/10
Breathe
Back with Ezran and Claudia, Ezran remarks about how scary
it was to see Claudia like that. But they agree to talk. With Viren, Aavaros
asks to earn his trust by helping him deal with the leaders of the other 4
kingdoms. Claudia regales Ezran with a tail about her mother, how when they
split up, the kids were forced to choose between staying with their father and going
with their mother, Soren chose to stay and Claudia was told he needed her.
Claudia asks Ezran to find milk-fruit, claiming that’s how
she can help Soren. Callum’s near panic-attack is calmed by his mother’s
consciousness, the sky rune on the box has started to glow. And coming out of
this vision quest with knowledge of the sky arcanum. Ezran leads Claudia right
to the milk-fruit, with a family of deer right nearby. She sends Ezran back to
Callum, who successfully performs a spell using the sky arcanum.
Claudia on the other hand uses dark magic on the deer,
killing it and using the dark magic to successfully heal Soren. Ezran decides
it’s best for him to go back to Katolis with Corvus and take the throne, which,
all things considered, is the right choice. Taking Bait with as he’s done so
little for the plot I’ve barely mentioned him. It’s a slightly teary farewell
to Zym but it’s for the best.
Meanwhile, in an effort to persuade the other kingdoms to go
to war, Viren uses a spell to create moon-shadow assassins to go after the
other kingdoms. Now for Callum and Rayla it’s time to cross the moonstone path.
The palace guards attack and whilst Aavaros helps him for a while, he knows
when his number’s up and soon surrenders.
The sun rises and soon the moon runes that light the path
begin to disappear. Ezran can somehow sense it, and helps Zym fly, blocking out
the sunlight long enough for them to pass but their next obstacle awaits, a
dragon named Sol Regan, but we’ll be back next series to work out his deal.
Some pretty major things happen, but it’s probably easier to
digest the pacing of this season if you consider the first 3 9-episode seasons
as one full 27-episode season. Unfortunately, it wasn’t released like that,
which makes the pacing feel slower. Still, this is an excellent episode for
moving things in the right direction
Rating 8/10
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