Sorry for the late post, Legend of the Seeker fans. I found myself in a far off, mystical land to the east on personal business this past weekend so I couldn't get around to coverage of "Torn" until today. It's a shame, too, considering that it was the closest thing that Seeker could have possibly gotten to a full-blown Valentine's Day episode. The subject matter loses some of its punch after the holiday has come and gone, but thankfully "Torn" has a lot more to it than just a few steamy scenes. Like all of the best episodes of the series, this one was a contemplation of some of the major themes Seeker relies on for emotional gravity. In this particular case, it was an excursion into the nature of desire and duty, especially the way they can contradict one another.

Both the Sword of Truth books and the TV series make multiple references to Aydindril, one of the most significant cities in the story's world. "Torn" is the first time we actually get to see Aydindril, which consists of an impressive exterior shot and a few standard "medieval town" sets. Our heroes find themselves there when a wizard escapes from a new tyrant who has set up shop in the city. He happened to be a wizard of the second order, so apparently he sucks compared to Zedd in a variety of ways that were never really described in the episode. Really, the series hasn't taken any time at all to explain just what the hierarchy of magic is all about, but given the average lifespan of magical things that aren't in the main cast I'd say it doesn't really matter for the show's purposes.

Long story short, the wizard of the fail order takes an arrow in the back just as he uses an amulet to teleport himself directly to the Mother Confessor hoping to bring her back to Aydindril and restore order. At that point our heroes are on the road to The Next Quest Thing and maybe a little stopover at a famous makeout spot. If I had a nickle for every time my Valentine's Day plans were ruined by the sudden appearance of a corpse...

Because this episode revolves around a Magical Thing, some weirdness has to go down. This happens to be weirdness that introduces us to another TV Writing Rule, #3098: If one of your characters is cloned or otherwise duplicated, either all but one must die or the copies must represent different aspects of the character and thus be schlupped back together by the end. Such a thing happens when Zedd and Kahlan use the amulet to fast-travel back to Aydindril. The part of Kahlan that wants to cook breakfast and have a million babies with Richard stays behind while the justice-driven schoolmarm part of her shows up in the city ready to bust some heads.

tl;dr: Two Kahlans. One's a caricature of a hysterically emotional woman and the other is a harshly rational dictator.

On the plus side, Emo Kahlan doesn't have any Confessor powers, so the show finally allows Richard and Kahlan to knock boots after the umpteenth time that it was technically possible. See, this part actually bothers me quite a bit. The Sword of Truth universe has an ugly piece of jewelry that does nothing but suppress magic. I know Kahlan spent an entire episode developing a Serious Conviction (tm) about not wearing a Rada'Han, but keeping one around to act as a Confession condom doesn't seem too outlandish. Of course this episode cheats a little by reminding us that the version of Kahlan who had a roll in the leaves with Richard wasn't really the woman he loves, so maybe it doesn't count. Also, when they finally put the two halves back together the resulting duct-tape-tastic Kahlan doesn't remember anything.

I guess that's my favorite part of the episode. It was unambiguous about the fact that putting the two Kahlans back together pretty much involved killing them both. Whether or not it was intentional, this put a nice spin on the standard "heart and mind balance each other out" message. The two sides of Kahlan never reconciled on their own and they were both treated as utterly expendable. I like it when this show goes back to its brutal roots.

Best Moment: The double love scene, if only because we've been waiting for a season and a half for it to happen and the series keeps teasing us.

Notes: Is it just me or have they scaled back Richard's horrible beard?

Episode Rating: 4.5/5- It was a worthwhile premise and I like that Bridget Regan pretty much played the many faces of Kahlan as all being one kind of mess or another. Still, it was another distraction from the main quest, so I can't give it a full 5.