The Outpost
“The Dragman is Coming” (Episode 110)
October 2, 2018
If you aren’t caught up on The Outpost, you can read my latest recap here.
SPOILERS AHEAD for tonight’s season finale!
After retrieving a piece from the burned Book of Names, Janzo, Talon and Garret set out to return to The Outpost. Along their journey, they come across an area with plagueling remains and flies (lots of flies!) This piques Janzo’s curiosity. He starts to examine a green substance that is lining the rocks and notices that they are fly eggs. Talon comments that it looks like colipsum and Janzo has now solved the mystery of the Plaguelings. Colipsum is essentially fly eggs. If there is colipsum in a person’s body, and a plagueling injects the person, then the venom fertilizes the eggs. Since Garret has never taken colipsum, he never turned. The Greyskins are harvesting colipsum to give to humans and use as a weapon. This area they came across is a farm. Now Janzo feels like a murderer since he brought all the colipsum back to the Outpost.
“You figured it out and now we can stop it from spreading.”
When they return to the Outpost, they go back to the same area that they left, and climb back up the ropes. (I have to give a whole lot of credit to Jake Stormoen in this scene. There is no stunt double climbing the ropes for him, that is actually him. He scales the wall effortlessly. Well done!) They are immediately met by Dred on top of the wall. Talon hides the crystal from the Book of Names inside the wall. Dred goes over to cut her hands and finally finds the Blackblood he has been looking for.
Cut to the three of them chained up. Dred demands Talon to summon the demon, but she refuses. He warns that she will watch her friends die until she proves what she is. On the gallows, Talon, Garret, and Janzo are joined by Wythers, Munt and The Mistress. Again, Dred demands for Talon to prove who she is, but she refuses. She pleads to let them all go, but he bargains with her to choose one. She refuses again. Dred tells the guard to pull the lever for Garret, and Talon finally agrees. When she calls for Baphnoro and he does not appear, Dred orders them to die. As Marshal Higgs is reading them their rights, soldiers led by Gwynn (should we start calling her Queen Rosmund now?) slit the throats of the Prime Order soldiers. A bell tolls and war begins. Gwynn rides through the gates of the Outpost.
“Rescue the prisoners, and take back The Outpost.”
In the battle, Raelius is killed by Dred. He starts to flee, but Talon notices and goes after him. After a battle with Dred, Talon is about to end his life, but Gwynn stops her. When Dred asks who she is, she reveals that she is the queen.
Garret regrets leaving The Outpost, but Gwynn feels that it wouldn’t have ended any differently. As Gwynn is sentencing Dred, he tells her that governments are meant to be overthrown. She orders Dred to be executed at sunrise.
“Today we bury the dead, tomorrow we prepare for war.”
Rosmund appoints Garret as base commander and reinstates Wythers as gate marshal. Wythers goes to visit Higgs who is trying to steal gold. Wythers confronts him and Higgs picks up a crossbow. He shoots it at Wythers, but Danno steps in the way and dies. Wythers stabs Higgs and kills him.
Janzo goes to see the Mistress. As he is telling her about the discovery of the colipsum, her take away from the conversation is that he knows how to manufacture it. He feels she is missing the point and that it’s a conspiracy from the Greyskins. Janzo takes the rest of the colipsum and burns it.
“You’re so greedy, you would happily let innocent people die if it paid you enough gold.”
Wythers is having a drink at the Nightshade. Garret sits down next to him and thanks him for helping Gwynn.
Talon is at the blacksmith’s place with the crystal from the Book of Names. Janzo joins her. He takes the piece and holds it over the fire. It glows blue and words of another language are heard. Only the Dragman can hear the fire song of the Vex Rezicon. They are voices captured in the crystal and they need to translate the voices.
Naya takes the keys from the guard while he is sleeping and frees Dred. He assures her that her debt is paid and he will release her family.
Garret goes to see Gwynn. He wants her to go celebrate with her men and tempts her with Octo, but she just wants to be alone with him. They begin to kiss and are in a very compromised position when Talon knocks and opens the door. As she begins to tell them that they figured out the Book of Names, she steps back realizing they were not expecting company. She goes back to the blacksmith’s with Janzo. Clearly seeing that she is upset, Janzo tries to sum it up to the drinking Garret was doing. Talon tells Janzo that he is twice the man Garret is. Continuing to lighten the mood, Janzo agrees in brains, but not in muscle mass.
“You always find a way to make me laugh.”
Dred sneaks up behind them and grabs Janzo. As he tells Talon to lower her blade, Janzo grabs a hot poker from the fire and burns Dred. Dred stabs him. Talon is fighting Dred, but Janzo calls out for her to help him. Faced with the tough decision of saving her friend or getting the revenge she has been waiting for, Talon decides to let Dred go. Janzo tells Talon how to help him. She needs to cauterize the wound with the hot poker. She asked if she could do anything for the pain and Janzo jokes that he needs colipsum. She kisses him instead.
“It took almost losing you to realize that I haven’t cared about anyone like this since Eremus.”
At first Janzo was excited that Talon had feelings for him, but when Talon tells him that Eremus was her brother, Janzo was disappointed. She explains that she only kissed him to distract him from the pain. As she is tending to his wound, she noticed that it is turning green. He tells her to go to his lab and get a powder.
Dred met up with Essa and she tells him the book is destroyed. She hands him the page and wants her gold. He says he will pay her when he is safely returned to the Prime Order. Not part of the deal, he will double the gold and she agrees.
Now that Janzo burned all the colipsum, the Mistress wants to get more. She sends the carrier pigeon with a message for more.
Naya is still with Gwynn. They discuss trust, and Naya reminds Gwynn that her father vetted her to be true to the crown. (Lies!)
Talon is at the lab getting supplies and Garret stops her. He apologizes, but Talon doesn’t care. He is assembling a team to go after Dred and he asks her to join them. She refuses and goes to help Janzo instead. While she is tending to Janzo, she puts the crystal over the fire again and hears the voices. Just then, Ilyin comes into the room and sits down. She starts to write and Talon asks who she is. “I am the Dragman.”
End Credits.
Thoughts.
This is the last episode for the Summer series, and they tied up loose ends pretty well. Garret chose to be with Gwynn, Janzo and Talon are just friends, Janzo figures out the colipusm/plagueling connection and we find out who the Dragman finally is. The only thing that bothers me with this ending is that Dred gets away. Talon set off in the beginning of the season on her mission to avenge her family. She comes close to completing that mission, but doesn’t. She did, however, find a new family, which makes up for it. I would have liked to see the storyline with Dred end though. Now that there has been an announcement for a Season 2, I wonder if he will be the main antagonist again. If this is the case, hopefully they will be able to keep the story interesting enough and not rehash the first season again.
I am still surprised by how little Essa appeared in this episode. It would be great to see her as the main antagonist for Season 2. Once she returns Dred to the Prime Order, it would seem as though her storyline would end. What will be her future? I was also hoping to see Sill in this episode. I enjoyed her character and she accompanied both Wythers and Gwynn really well. I would have liked to see scenes with her and Janzo or Talon. Hopefully she will be back again.
I was surprised to see Garret and Wythers sharing a drink together. That scene closed out that relationship well and put a nice ending to it, where they can share a victory together.
One of the biggest aspects of this show (that I found, at least) was relationships and family. Talon lost her family, but found a new one at The Outpost. Gwynn lost her family, but Calkussar raised her. Janzo didn’t have a family, but the Mistress raised him. Garret didn’t want to be part of his family and left to join the military. Even the relationships with status between each other, where Janzo felt inferior to Garret and Garret felt inferior to Gwynn, all played out where it didn’t even matter in the end.
I think perhaps, the most drastic change with status, was with Wythers. He went from being the Marshal, to a prisoner, back to Marshal. Even though he was probably one of the least liked characters on the show (I think Dred and Higgs fill that spot better) I felt bad for him. All he wanted was to protect his Outpost, and since Talon arrived there has been nothing but chaos there.
Overall, I enjoyed this show this past Summer and I look forward to the second season. I believe there has been an increase in episodes to thirteen next season and they will be filming in Serbia as opposed to Utah. It will be interesting to see how the location change with play a part in filming. I thought they did very well in Utah, using the resources they had and the sets that they built. I hope that they increase the budget a bit more, especially if they go to a 13 episode season. The effects were lacking a bit this season and I hope they can do better with that aspect of the show next season. Well done! Looking forward to Season 2!
Episode Score: 4 out of 5 Caseys. I’ll also give a whole season score of 4 out of 5 Caseys as well. I enjoyed this show this Summer. It broke up the monotony of medical shows and cop shows and gave us something adventurous and exciting!