The Truth About Unicorns
Episode 6 of See Season 2 begins with Paris awakening after a horrific vision. She foresees bloodshed and betrayal; two ominous signs that cause Haniwa to grab her horse and gallop on along to find Baba Voss and Maghra. Back in Pennsa, Toad teaches Kofun how to fight. But why? The guy has the gift of sight so…why not just give him a gun? Or maybe a long spear akin to the sarissas from Ancient Greek times? Ah, forget logic and my ramblings, let’s continue on. Anyway, the pair continue to fight, with Toad encouraging Kofun to fight blindfolded instead to get a feel for where his opponent is. Brilliant. Queen Kane continues to wrap her slimy hands around Kofun, encouraging him to take her out for a ride on his horse. This is then followed by the pair together that evening, with Queen Kane seducing Kofun and sleeping with him. As predicted, she’s after his seed to make a sighted baby. Meanwhile, Edo promotes Wren up to the position of Captain. She’s tasked with making sure the talks and negotiations with Maghra and the others fail, given Edo wants to go to war. This is the way he’s going to get around the government currently in charge. Stuck in a difficult position, Wren agrees. She’s the one out to meet the convoy on the road too, where both sets of soldiers agree to head in unarmed – and undergo a thorough search before being let beyond the borders. Wren is also cleared too, despite holding her breath when her bag is searched. As we later find out, she’s actually stashed a knife in a baguette. As she’s cleared, Haniwa shows up with news of Paris’ vision. Negotiations continue to get underway with Baba Voss recognizing Wren’s voice. The terms are read out, including the apology for the queen which goes down like a lead balloon. In retaliation, Lord Harlan finds out his brother was beheaded and sent back as a present for him spying. This immediately destroys the negotiations for the day, ending things on a sour note and teetering on the edge of war. With negotiated peace seemingly lost, Maghra confronts Harlan about what happened. However, the latter is convinced this had a good outcome, pointing out that the Trivantians wouldn’t be willing to negotiate and hear them out so much if they didn’t actually want peace. That evening, Wren meets Haniwa in secret, high above the meeting point. Speaking of secret, in the middle of all this Maghra meets one of the Trivantian negotiators. She confirms that Kane won’t be queen for long, and confirms that she intends to usurp Kane’s position. In order to make that happen, the Trivantians need to apologize and play along for the time being. If they do, Maghra promises to make the truth known once she’s taken over the queen’s throne. A thin alliance is formed, although quite how strong this agreement is remains debatable. As we soon find out, one of the terms includes Kane relinquishing her obsession with the sighted – something that Maghra knows is going to be easier said than done. That evening, while everyone is sleeping, solders sneaks around camp, taking out the Trivantian guards. Only, it doesn’t take long before all hell breaks loose and the place is left a bloodbath. When Wren finds out, she grabs Haniwa and holds her up at knifepoint. She’s convinced that all of this was planned, with Haniwa serving as a distraction so all her soldiers can be slaughtered. Wren slips away, with Baba Voss and the others allowing her to go, despite being the only survivor. She also leaves Hainwa a panicked, sobbing mess. Of course, all of this was a ploy by Queen Kane to force the negotiations to fail and set up a war. Wren heads back to Edo, feeding back details of the attack on the negotiators. He questions how Wren was the only one to survive, forcing her into divulge the truth for him. Silently, she fixes up his puzzle, confirming that she can see as Edo gasps.
The Episode Review
See returns this week with another slow-paced chapter, this time turning toward the negotiations that we all knew would go sour. It’s no surprise then to see the Trivantians attacked so ruthlessly by Queen Kane’s soldiers, essentially setting up a war to come in the final two episodes. Or, given the show has already been renewed, the third season. So far though, this world has continued to dance around the elephant in the room (the sighted and guns) and instead doubled down on the importance of this upcoming war. The ideas around the sighted being vilified by the majority of the blind is a good one, although these later episodes seem to have abandoned the worldbuilding and the larger expanse around the settlements in favour of small, claustrophobic sets to build up the political intrigue. The trouble is, everything here is so obvious and played out. Anyone would have seen Queen Kane’s intentions coming a mile off with Kofun. Wren and Haniwa hooking up and the misunderstanding trope played out, setting up Wren and Haniwa for a final emotional fight, is also another pretty obvious play at this point. And that’s before mentioning Edo Voss, who just seems to have faded to the shadows for these last 2 or 3 chapters. It’s no surprise that critics were only given the first 3 episodes to review, and it’s also the reason I didn’t write up a review for this ahead of release. Having watched further now, it’s clear to see why. Although this second season has opened the world up, it’s also somehow become more stale and drawn out too. This show is in desperate need of some pacing – and big action set-pieces – but with such a flawed world to begin with, is there any saving this one?
