The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Part 10
This is the final episode in the series. To me the series for the first seven episodes was pretty poor. Episodes 8 and 9, though, seemed to be better done than the earlier episodes.
The episode opens with an explosion. Deet has been making bombs. Rian sort of comes on to Deet but she's not ready for anything yet. There's something wrong with her hand and arm as there are some kind of red lines showing up.
The Emperor says when he sleeps he has nightmares and then talks about before they were 'rent asunder.' He's really worried about what comes after their life is over. (They had been thinking they could live forever which would mean no worries about what comes next but the death of the Hunter pretty much brought reality crushing down upon them.)
The Emperor calls the Darkness into him. The scientist is told to remain behind when the attack on the Gelfling. He's supposed to make the army (which will be the garthim.)
Brea brings a small group of Gelfling with her for the fight. Seladon is with them. Then there's a scene of the Skeksis around the crystal and they are all yelling and screaming. They are also in armor. The scientist is working on a dead Arathim.
The Archer mystic is in bad shape, near death. He says Aughra. The scientist is taking some time off, sitting on the Emperor's throne and having music played for him.
Then the Hunter comes alive. (Reminds of of the 'I'm not dead yet' routine from Monty Python.)
The Skekesis get to Stone-in-the-Wood. It looks like no more Gelfling have shown up. The two armies are pretty much balanced in numbers but the Skeksis are stronger, taller, armored and better armed. Definite advantage Skeksis at this point in the war. (This doens't count that the Hunter is coming also.)
Rian challenges the Emperor to a fight, just the two of them. The Chamberlain, though, convinces the Emperor to let the General take his place. Rian has been watching some of the samurai-type movies, performs an amazing aerial roll and then stabs the General.
Then Dummy Rian refuses to kill the General. Hello, rocks-for-brains. You are in the middle of a war. You have a weapon that seems to drain Skeksis essence. The Skeksis have sworn to kill every single Gelfling. You can kill their main military leader but you said you don't want to kill anyone?
It has to be about the most stupid move ever in a battle. Ever. Yes, the Gelfling are peaceful people, normally, but this is a war when the Skeksis have sworn total extermination of all Gelfling (and all life on Thra,apparently, although what they will eat afterwards is hard to figure out. )
The Skeksis attack but the female Gelflng fly off, dropping the homemade bombs (which aren't that very powerful) on the Skeksis. One of the Skeksis kills wounds Mauda Fara. The Skeksis is about to kill her but a fizzgig attacks him. Fara dies.
Back at the castle the two Grunaks attack the Scientist. He kills both of them. The Chamberlain catches he General alone and kills him. The General disintegrates like the Emperor did in the movie.
The Hunter attacks Rian. The Archer mystic gets up. The Archer falls off a cliff and his death kills the Hunter. Aughra rises from the Hunter's body.
Then the rest of the Gelfling tribes show up. We've seen one Gelfling die so far and two Skeksis die (the General and the Hunter.) Advantage in numbers now goes to the Gelfling. The Arathim spiders join them.
The Emperor releases the power of the Darkening but Deet counteracts it. Deet then releases it right back at the Skeksis and one of them blows up.
Here's where we have a major problem. Actually a couple of them. First, the Gelfling have beaten killed several of the Skeksis and the Skeksis start to retreat to the castle. This is where the Gelfling should have kept up the attack and wiped out the rest of the Skeksis.
This is similar in a way to the Battle of Gettysburg. Lee's army lost a large number of its soldiers in the battle. Pickett's charge had failed. The Union now had the advantage and could have opened up with their cannon on the fleeing rebels and then led an all-out assault on what was left of Lee's army. They didn't and Lee and his army were able to get away and so continue to fight. Lincoln was very upset with Meade that he didn't pursue Lee right away.
(Granted, the Union army had also taken many dead but there was still a chance they could have at least inflicted further damage on Lee's army and perhaps rendered it pretty much useless.) This is pretty much the same case; with all the Gelfling just arriving the time was perfect for them to attack the remaining Skeksis, eliminating them and then go to the castle, eliminate the scientist and end the Skeksis threat forever.
They didn't. It didn't even seem to occur to them to do that.
Now here's where a question arises. Did the Gelfling understand that the Skeksis and the Mystics were two parts of the same being and that when one died the other died? From what I have seen they didn't really know that and so should have had no second thoughts about attacking the fleeing Skeksis.
Or would Aughra have stopped them? She knew what the truth was. Then a direct tie-in to the movie happens when the shard from the crystal is found. Rian finds Deet but she's definitely changed. Where she walks things die.
So, they have defeated the Skeksis. They have the missing shard to heal the crystal. Yet does anyone do anything about it? Here is where attacking the fleeing Skeksis would have been the best choice. While the Skeksis were being attacked a few of the Gelfling could have taken the shard to the castle right then and healed the crystal. The scientist hadn't had enough time to make usable Garthim at the moment so the Gelfling would have had a very good chance of getting to the crystal and healing it.
The scientist shows the Skeksis the first of the garthim.
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