The Mighty Nein: Many Gifts (1x06)

Okay, I have some Things to Say.

Cons:

At this point I just feel so... frustrated and unhappy with all the Essek stuff. I've been trying to fight this feeling, but so much of what made him interesting, structurally, in the campaign has been thrown out entirely in order to give him more of a main character arc. I think it makes him seem more sympathetic and also way more stupid. Seeing Trent influence him so easily, seeing him do his magic math on the chalkboard and then leaving that work when he leaves the room, and the Beacon, in the hands of the Volstruckers? Like, here we are in the first season, still very far away from Essek meeting the rest of the gang, and Verrat has... discovered Essek is a traitor? So, I guess the entire way Essek gets integrated into the story is completely out the window at this point. We're not going to see the Mighty Nein realize he's a traitor, as he's not going to be assigned to them by the Bright Queen. Or at least I assume not. I don't know, this feels dangerously like someone griping because they don't like change, but I promise it's not that. I'm not going to complain about the Yasha changes, for example. Big drastic changes to story can be great. But this version of Essek seems like a naive little baby who just stumbles into war crimes, and that's... not Essek Thelyss, to me. He is the weakest part of this adaptation to animated form so far, and he was one of the things I was the most excited to see.

The only other larger note I have for the "cons" section is that the timeline feels... weirdly squished? Like, I think they have a problem here where because they're supposed to be traveling together purely for convenience, unlike Vox Machina who have thrown their lot in with each other as an adventuring party, there has to constantly be a hook as to why they're going where they're going. They're not just looking for jobs, they're going to the Gentleman to get a new protection amulet for Caleb. And that's fine, but it does make me start doing math in my head. In the campaign, the quick pace of things is sort of obscured by the long meandering episodes. I always just sort of... edit in additional days of travel between things to account for the slowly deepening relationships. But here it's like, you guys met at the circus, like, it seems like maybe three days ago? How many days have passed since the pilot episode to now? Because there's a whole-ass war going on, and I can't tell if it's been a week or a month since that beacon was stolen. I wish they did add some suggestion of time passing on the road to Zadash, or similar, just to give a sense that this group has been hanging out long enough to start to coalesce. Maybe we'll get some time jumping between season one and two, and that will help smooth this over.

Pros:

I really did like this episode, although at this point I think I have to admit to myself that whatever secret sauce they put into The Legend of Vox Machina that made me so, so eager for each new episode drop just doesn't exist as much for this one. Like, with the other animated show I was rushing to watch it the SECOND it was available, no matter what else I was in the middle of, and then running to YouTube to watch every reaction video I could find. This time, I haven't felt compelled to do that, but I don't think that's a quality indicator, I think it's more about the type of show this is, in terms of its mood and tone and pace. With Vox Machina, I was so relieved to hear that they got their last two seasons, to round out a five season arc for the story. With Mighty Nein, I'm like... they could make a hundred episodes of this show and I'm not sure it would be enough to tell the story with the type of depth and nuance they're going for in these early installments. And that's not a bad thing, although I am curious what that's going to look like in the long run.

I want to start with Yasha. Once again, we're just seeing hints of her, but we see a memory of a singing Zuala, and we see more examples of how Yasha is controlled by the rune on her neck by... some mysterious force. lol. I do have to give props to the utter brutality of the violence, it's ROUGH. So much blood, and head crushing, and just... yikes yikes. No punches pulled. And here's where my theory comes in, tell me if this is too much, and GIANT SPOILERS for show-only people, so look away now... I mean it...

 Ready...

Okay, I think Yasha maybe kills Molly? Like I think maybe they're replacing the backstory with them knowing each other and being friends, with another reason why they'll be linked by the story. What if mind-controlled Yasha is Molly's murderer, and then she falls in with the group and learns about him posthumously, as part of her journey to recover from and gain redemption for the person she's been? I mean, that would be a big change and a big swing, but they've already taken away that Molly & Yasha connection from the stream, so... what if this is where they're going? I would be so down for that, it would be wild and it would hurt my feelings for Yasha's sake but also... all the drama and angst would be so juicy.

I've complained about the Essek stuff, and honestly I don't have much in the way of compliments to pay any of the stuff with him, or with Trent being found out as a traitor too, like, slow down with the plot twists, here. However, structurally, I do like the way the beacon is positioned specifically as a weapon, the stakes of why the Empire has it, how they're using it, what the real issue is in this war, that's all nicely done. That shot of King Bertrand walking up that hill with Trent, beacon in hand, the horror of someone showing up to a battlefield like, "guess what, I have a fuckin' nuclear bomb and I'm going to use your souls to fuel it mwah ha haaaa..." like, that's undeniably good stuff from a larger world-building and stakes perspective. I think it's important to show this war really fucking things up so that the Mighty Nein's involvement in said war is grounded in their actual material reality.

Let's get to the main story with our gang. This story is a little more of a team-building exercise, which I really appreciated and think is highly necessary at this stage, given what I said about overall structure/timing in the season thus far. They show up at Zadash, and Molly uses knowledge from the late Gustav to get in with the Gentleman. There they meet Kree, who calls Molly Lucien. The whole group steps in and just kind of helps him get away with it, and then they're in with the Gentleman, who gives them a quest to fetch a magical compass. They have to get past traps and use teamwork and cleverness etc. etc. to achieve their goal, pretty classic D&D stuff, in the best way.

Hearing the name Nydas was so fun, and then hearing Lou Wilson's voice was such a fun surprise! I love that they got him. Now we've had two Calamity cameos in the animated world. If they make a Calamity animated movie I will cry tears of gratitude. I loved the suggestion of a reason why there would be all these convoluted traps or puzzles, a hint of the personality behind doing it this way. The bulk of the traps are pretty conventional things, and we see Nott in charge of getting past them. But then we also have Beau and Caleb's trust exercise moment, and we have Molly figuring out that noise is the trigger for the giant automata. It was great to see different strengths come into it as they figure out how to solve these issues.

But the character work is really what I want to focus on, here. Beau and Caleb's animosity as they try to figure out their loyalties is EVERYTHING I've ever wanted. Gawd. Beau sneaks off to talk to Dairon, who warns her not to trust anybody claiming to be an ex-volstrucker. Caleb is suspicious of Beau for having her own priorities she's not sharing with the group. There's a moment when they argue about Nott going ahead to check for traps. Beau ends up helping and saving Nott's life, but Caleb's takeaway is that Beau didn't trust her to do it on her own, which is interesting. Then there's the moment where Beau has to jump from invisible platforms, guided by Caleb, who is using magic to be able to see where the platforms are. It means Beau just has to trust that Caleb is giving her the right distances, or she'll fall potentially to her death. He ends up basically holding her hostage on one of those platforms to grill her for information, which is just the kind of ruthlessness we love to see from our morally grey poor little meow meow. In the end they seem to have gained more respect and trust for each other, or at least they've agreed to try. Beau admits she's not actually a lone wolf, she's just never had friends. And Caleb, of course, has good reason to have trust issues too.

Then you've got Fjord, who's on his own little quest this episode. I love that we have Beau and Caleb staring daggers at each other, completely mistrusting, meanwhile Fjord's the one who's got sinister voices speaking to him, giving him power to breathe under water, and leading him to a mysterious glowing orb. It's just so funny that he has this sort of boring, steady reputation among the gang, and he's arguably the one they need to be the most concerned about, with regards to mysterious and dangerous powers. Well, him or Molly of course, but that's... for another day.

We didn't get a ton of new stuff for Molly, Jester, or Nott, but we continue to see how the group works together. Molly is often stepping in to be the peacekeeper, we see Jester keeping people's moods up, including a great moment of dick graffiti left behind for guards to find, and we see Nott continue to use alcohol to fuel her reckless moments of bravery. Caleb seems to have the attitude of letting her do whatever she needs to do, while Beau is rightfully concerned.

The way the fight ends up, with Fjord capitalizing on the antagonism between him and Nott to start a screaming match, using their noise to wake up the statues and using those statues to defeat the soldiers, was so cool. It gave us an opportunity to see Fjord as a strategist, and also to have that classic moment where we see him make a choice to stay with this group, come what may: he could have gotten away, but he comes back at great risk to himself, and encourages them all to start calling out the shit they don't like about each other. Talk about a group therapy session!

As we end this episode, the group is heading back into Zadash, to give that compass over to the Gentleman and get some fresh protection for Caleb. Little does he know that Astrid has already seen him in the time since the last amulet was destroyed and Owelia got that message off about Bren before she died. But Astrid, for reasons of her own, has chosen not to tell anyone, even Eadwulf, about the reappearance of their erstwhile lover and teammate.

We know there's just been a devastating battle and slaughter of the Kryn, we know that Yasha is circling in closer and closer, and we know that our gang of weirdos doesn't realize how caught up in world events they're about to be. I find it hard to decide how I feel about this show so far, like, it's really really good and I don't think there's any way to deny that it's well-made and complicated and cool. But emotionally, I am definitely having a less strong reaction to it than I wanted. Then again, that was my experience in the stream with the Mighty Nein, too. We were well on our way to the halfway mark before I was fully like "wow, I care a lot about these people." I'm excited to see how the relationships continue to develop. So much yet to come, I do hope they get to make like eight seasons of this.

7/10