“Sometimes being the Queen means you can’t follow your heart.”
- Queen Pasiphae
Jason, Py and Hercules are out in the market doing some shopping when they happen upon an old man whose cart has lost a wheel and toppled over. Jason goes to help him when a young man who is rather haughty and entitled demands the old man move his cart immediately. When the man says he can’t move it until the wheel is fixed, the young man starts beating him until Jason intervenes. This of courses lands all three of them in front of King Minos. Apparently Jason got into with the queen’s nephew, Heptarian. As punishment, all three of our heroes are sent to learn how to jump bulls. Seems like a really stupid thing but I guess with the odds of survival being so slim, it controls the prisoner population well enough Ariadne is worried for Jason and the queen (who it turns out is not actually her mother) can’t do anything to help.
The boys are taken down to the bull court to see what they’re up against. You literally have to leap over a bull (along with the rest of your team) to be set free. The queen and Heptarian are putting a plot into motion that will ensure at least Jason dies. They watch him deftly leap over the practice bull (after Hercules falls flat on his face in front of it). The motive for having Heptarian marry Ariadne is not entirely clear (though I’m a little less disturbed by the thought because they aren’t blood relations). That evening, one of the other prisoners on Jason’s team slices off a lock of his hair and delivers it to Heptarian. It seems they will use it for their nefarious purposes when Jason faces the actual bull in front of Minos. Meanwhile, Jason’s team is not at all cohesive as they watch another group get gored. There’s too much tension between a Nubian prince and a common thief. Something tells me, though that Jason will find a way to unite them all and work together.
Sure enough, when the group faces the real bull for the first time Jason charges the bull and looks like he’s been seriously injured so as to get the group to work as one. It achieves the desired result and everyone (minus the one woman in their group) share a meal together. Back in the palace, the Queen makes a voodoo type doll. Now they just have to wait for Jason to face the bull for real. One of the other prisoners confronts our snipping chica and he gets killed for it when he tells the guy who has been training them. My guess is he was in on it.
And this episode continues to be somewhat predictable. After seeing the guy’s body laid out in the bull pen (their trainer says the bull got him while he was out feeding it. The young woman in the group finally admits to Jason what she did and why. Heptarian said he would free her. Yeah, I doubt that, sweetie. But this only serves to bond everyone tighter together. Since you know, Jason failing means they all die. Ultimately they decide to get Medusa a message to try and find the lock of hair so the queen can’t use it in her spell. And it would seem Heptarian is not having much luck wooing Ariadne. The queen tells him to be patient because soon Jason will be dead and forgotten.
The day of the dance comes and the queen heads to her secret lair to start poking her voodoo doll. But lucky for our heroes, Medusa got the note from Hercules and sneaks in and watches, waiting for the right moment. For some reason (probably the pretty factor), Jason is the only one shirtless in the arena. Now don’t get me wrong, he’s attractive but it seems a bit unnecessary. Anyway things aren’t looking so good for them when he basically collapses in pain. The queen’s magic is working. So the Nubian prince and Hercules jump the bull first. The lone woman does as well. All the while, Heptarian is sitting at Ariadne’s side and sorta twirling his goatee in anticipation. The dude is creepy. Just as things are looking dire, Medusa steals and destroys the doll and Pythagoras and Jason are able to jump the bull as well and seal their freedom for the group. Honestly, it couldn’t have ended any other way. For one thing, the trio is the core of the piece and there’s no way they’d kill any of them off in episode three. They all end up leaving and Hercules is convinced that Medusa now has feelings for him while the guys continue to give him crap for it. That is going to be kind of a weird pairing given the mythology behind the two characters. And it seems Ariadne is going to do her own thing because she doesn’t really care what step mom has to say about her feelings for Jason or lack thereof for Heptarian.
It was an interesting episode overall but it didn’t really give me any surprises at all. Maybe it’s because I watch so much TV that a lot of twists don’t shock me anymore. I keep expecting it to be like Merlin in quality but it just isn’t there quite yet. Obviously, Merlin season 1 wasn’t to the same level as say 4 or 5 but it was still strong and it had twists that I didn’t see coming. This so far just isn’t doing a lot for me. It may be that I’m expecting it be heavier on the mythology and Jason’s purpose (again as it was in Merlin) and that doesn’t seem to be where it’s going right now. I’ll stick through to the end of the season for sure to see what happens. They are still trying to find what kind of show they want to be and I can respect that. I’ll just have to be patient and hope that the mythology part of the storyline becomes a bit more prominent soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment