Here we are, the final episode of Season 1 of Legend of the Seeker. By the end of this article, TV World will be fully caught up on the series and prepared for the Season 2 premiere in just a few weeks. I have to say, "Reckoning" was a lot better than I expected for Seeker. Though this show falls roundly into the "guilty pleasure" category, I'm happy to defend its occasional foray into intellectualism and even artistic cinematography. This finale did a lot of unexpected things and actually answered some of the big questions lurking underneath the standard swords and sorcery action of the series.

Legend of the Seeker has, at its best, been a meditation on the meaning of heroism and how it affects the lives of not-so-heroic people. The Seeker and his companions are ostensibly good, but a lot of death and destruction follow them. So much badness hangs over them, in fact, that sometimes it seems like it would be better in some episodes if they had never shown up. "Reckoning" shows us just what would happen if the Seeker lost. In short, things get about as bad as they could possibly be.

As Richard discovered in the Book of Counted Shadows, the mind-controlling powers of Orden can be tempered by the magic of Confession, so the plan is to use the combined magics to finally kill Darken Rahl. But just when Kahlan confesses Richard in front of the Boxes of Orden, a Mord'Sith hits him with the Agiel. This is essentially the three most powerful magics in the world occurring at the same time in the same body, so weird things start to happen. Richard and Cara, the Mord'Sith, get teleported to the distant future, where things are ugly and blue-toned like every bleak cinema world.

So, in short, here's what happened with Richard out of the picture. Zedd's dead, baby. Zedd's dead (I always wanted to write that). Kahlan gets that anti-magic collar put around her neck and she negotiates with Darken Rahl to temper his cruelty with the promise of marriage. The two have a kid together, but the child is male. As we learned earlier in the season, male Confessors are unspeakably evil, so Nicholas Rahl becomes a creepy, blonde-haired monster by age 10. He kills his mother, then his father, then starts tearing the whole world apart.

Stuck in the future, Richard and Cara form a kind of bond oozing with cold sadness and sexual desperation (unconsummated). Nicholas even slaughters the Mord'Sith, so Cara is completely alone. What's really interesting about this vision of the future is that it's only so horrible because Kahlan tried to do some good. Rahl was bad, Nicholas is worse. This suggests a kind of fatalism in the story. It was never about the good guys winning, it was about the right person dying at the right time. However coincidental the amorality of this show may be, it's still pretty fascinating.

So, with an aged Shota's help, Richard and Cara make it back to their right time and Darken Rahl gets roasted by a magical green fire when he tries to separate the Boxes of Orden. No word yet on whether or not he's completely dead. The cast list for Season 2 is pretty hazy. From the looks of things, the show won't need a Big Bad, though. Picking up where Season 1 left off, there's a big power vacuum that's inevitably going to be filled by all kinds of minor evil.

All in all, Legend of the Seeker is a lot more entertaining and intellectually stimulating than I thought it would be. "Reckoning" is proof that old action show conventions can still be interesting and presented in an updated style. I look forward to Season 2 and I'll be covering it here on TV World. I hope you'll all join me as we watch Richard once again try to save every shrew in the forest while shirtless, among other things.