Willow – Season 1 Episode 6 “Prisoners of Skellin” Recap & Review

Prisoners of Skellin

Episode 6 of Willow begins with Airk being encouraged by The Crone to come and join him. Instead, he nopes out of there and decides to leave. However, he finds himself staring at an endless desert. Despite that, he walks on and tries to find a way back to the Kingdom.

While Airk is just lackadaisically captured, the same can’t be said for Willow and Kit. After the surprise Troll attack out of nowhere last episode, the pair find themselves being taken to their labyrinthian home, complete with hanging cages and rooms carved out the side of the rock.

Willow and Kit have been separated from the others, where they learn that Christian Slater is actually playing Allagash, Madmartigan’s friend who knows where Madmartigan is. Two Trolls show up who evidently don’t know out characters, especially when they call Kit “nice”. Inexplicably, it seems the other Trolls didn’t bother with the rest of our motley band of misfits, who happen to be outside staring up at their headquarters.

One of the Trolls, going by the name of Lord Sarris, shows up to see Kit, who cracks jokes while sitting in a torture chair. They’re actually after Elora, but of course if they’d actually done their due diligence at the party, they would have found her nearby. Anyway, they needn’t worry too much because she’s actually inside the Troll City, Skellin, now working their way past the very, very light security.

Elora’s wand goes a bit haywire, enticing the Trolls to come and show up, while Scorpia decides to leave, realizing Jade has her own family now so she doesn’t need to stay with the Bone Reavers anymore. At the same time, Kit and Allagash manage to free themselves, given the Trolls just left them all alone.

With disguises on, Graydon is separated from Boorman, Elora and Jade, while Allagash, Kit and Willow try to reunite with them. Those disguises don’t last long though as a few seconds later they’ve taken them off. Why? Who knows, let’s continue.

Elora loses her wand in the process of navigating a wobbly wooden pathway while Kit’s group decide to try and find Madmartigan. Allagash gave the wrong name on purpose to keep the Trolls from looking for the real hero.

Eventually the two sets of characters end up reunited together, with none of the particularly bothered that Graydon is down in the lower levels. Allagash and Boorman end up fighting until Kit jumps in and stops Boorman. The group find a secret doorway leading to a riddle, which Elora solves. In doing so, they end up finding a treasure room full of trinkets which Boorman and Allagash fight over. As for Kit, she heads in and finds a sword. She hears Madmartigan’s voice, asking for help. However, the whole place starts to come down.

Allagash has gone, having taken the Lux with him. And I may add, through this entire scene no one has even bothered to ask about Graydon. Thankfully, Graydon helps himself and he reunites with the others with absolutely no aplomb. No one even bats an eyelid that he just shows up, while our group fight off the Trolls and kill them. With more coming, the group skip away. Allagash stays behind to buy them some time though.

We haven’t had much of insufferable Kit today so of course she makes it up to us late on, when she confronts Elora. She’s not happy that Elora is the chosen one over her, blinded by anger and jealousy. Then suddenly, Kit is smacked by a boulder from above that doesn’t kill her but keeps her trapped under this orange sea. Elora tries to use her magic to save her.

Meanwhile, Airk finds himself wandering on through the desert…until he finds himself back where he started from again. He crawls into the city, until he hears a strange voice calling out. He follows the noise to find a girl trapped behind iron bars in a cell. She asks him to help release her.

The Episode Review

Willow has a lot wrong with it, which we’ve discussed in great detail the past recaps but the most damning part of this comes from both the editing and lack of urgency. The amount of times in this show where a scene has cut and missed off crucial bits of exposition is pretty insane. This episode we see our characters wearing disguises to break through the Troll ranks. Pretty smart… until the next scene after Graydon is taken where they decide to ditch the outfits completely and continue on. With absolutely no repercussions either I may add.

Speaking of Graydon, no one seems to care that he’s taken. It’s the same situation again with Willow and Graydon captured and everyone else ends up partying. But then the show tonally can’t make up its mind what sort of story it wants to tell. Moments of “tension” are undercut by lame jokes or characters just looking bored and waiting for their turn to speak. The Troll torture scene being a great example

Ultimately, Willow is one of the worst shows this year. It’s a bland, blasé piece of fantasy that can barely stack up with a B-movie effort, let alone something that’s come from Disney. Still, we’re almost there guys. Only 2 more episodes to go!