The third episode of Disney+’s Willow, “The Battle of the Slaughtered Lamb,” does nothing to fix my current opinions of the show. It continues to be painfully trite and repetitive, and just overall an abomination of sorts to the high-fantasy genre as we know it. I’ve tried to give it the benefit of the doubt – sometimes a show has trouble getting off of its feet, but even at the end of episode three, I am still thoroughly bored and unimpressed.
In “The Battle of the Slaughtered Lamb,” the travel companions of Elora, played by Ellie Bamber (Nocturnal Animals, The Serpent), attempts to rescue her from her kidnapper, Ballantine, played by Ralph Ineson (The Witch, The Green Knight). She tries to escape on her own using magic, and ends up escaping, meeting two woodcutters who offer to help her but also end up being murdered by Ballantine’s cronies. Elora remains under their control. While all of this is going on, Kit, played by Ruby Cruz (Mare of Easttown), and Boorman, played by Amar Chadha-Patel (Dashcam, Beecham House), split from the rest of the caravan to retrieve the Lux Arcana from a tomb. Luckily, Willow, played by Warwick Davis (Willow, The Harry Potter Series), and the others intercept Ballantine and win Elora back, where another little fight breaks out.
There are a few casualties post-battle, leaving a grieving Willow to obliterate Ballatine’s soldiers and add more insult to injury to Ballantine himself, who’s already possessed by The Crone. Ballantine, on the brink of death, momentarily breaks his trance of possession and begs Jade, played by Erin Kellyman (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Solo: A Star Wars Story), for a mercy killing. After this is all said and done, the group arrives at Nockmaar, the one place that Willow has been actively trying to avoid.
My claims of the episodes being unnecessarily long still stands – anything key that occurs in these episodes could be boiled down to 20-30 minutes. It’s honestly a crime to attempt to make viewers sit through more than that. The acting isn’t good or moving enough, nor are the visuals enticing enough to even keep my eyes on the screen. I have to basically leave my phone in another room so I’m not tempted to distract myself or start doing something else.
Does the plot of the show itself have potential? Sure. However, the lackluster writing and acting and entire production value itself make this very complicated. Willow is supposed to be high-fantasy, but the overall vibes that the show expels are that of poorly done YA. The costumes, graphics, and dialogue are all incredibly rough and cringe-worthy.
Do I have any hope left for the five remaining episodes I have to watch? Not particularly, no…but I guess we can just see how much more of a dumpster fire that this show can become.
Rating: 5.5/10.0