Review: Unicorn: Warriors Eternal “The Heart of Kings”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The Warriors make their way to an ancient forest that Edred once called his home, but abandoned in his original life because he loved Melinda. Unfortunately he also did this by fleeing a marriage of convenience between his Northern elven clan to the Eastern elven clan, breaking an “unbroken line” of magic from a sacred gem called “The Heart of the Forest”, and so the two sides have been at war ever since, with the Easterners having stolen the gem to create their own line. Upon arriving, the three face off with Eastern troops, with Seng possessing Copernicus’ body, but they are saved by Edred’s still living younger brother, Aelwulf, who informs them of the situation…and promptly arrests them.

Edred meets with his father, or at least what remains of him, who tasks Edred with regaining The Heart for their clan. In the meantime, Melinda and Seng are put in the dungeons, where they find…Merlin. The wizard was apparently captured by the elves not long after the first time the team defeated the great evil, but he’s now surprised to find how young the current incarnations of the three are AND that they haven’t had their souls put back in Copernicus after the evil’s supposed defeat. Emma urges Melinda to confront Merlin about what she saw in Melinda’s memories about Morgan’s death, allowing the two to finally reconcile.

Edred also meets with Gobi, who made his magic sword Twillion, but is now removing the magic until Edred completes his task. He and Aeuwulf travel to the castle of the Eastern elves to find a necromancer collecting blood from their leader Thraen into the Heart. Edred is able to stop this but initiates a battle with the Necromancer, who utters the same line Seng has been saying about “the blood to remake will flow for all time”. Speaking of, Seng, Melinda, and Merlin are able to escape their cell to join the battle, and soon it is won, with Edred reclaiming the unbroken line and reviving the forest.

Merlin uses the Heart to fully repair Copernicus, but also reveals that the evil the three swore to face is not defeated. Edred is reluctant to leave his family, but Copernicus puts Aewulf in Edred’s original body to maintain the line, but Edred himself can never return to his people. Also Merlin goes to investigate the still living evil.

OUR TAKE

I don’t know if I’ve made it very clear so far, but I really do not care for Edred as a character. Since his introduction, he’s only ever had two modes: swear love for Melinda and drive to kill the evil. He’s been single minded in his quest to defeat the evil, lacking in any self awareness or any awareness in what is happening to the people around him. He claims undying love for Melinda, but is not in any way compassionate to her dealing with Emma’s maintained personality, or to Winston who has no idea what’s going on. And now we learn that abandoned his family and society just to be with Melinda. Romantic on the surface, sure, but we now know it was a completely short-sighted move that caused a lot more damage than he even bothered to consider. With the most non-human design out of the three, he has definitely stuck out the most, and so now that we’re finally focusing on his backstory, it feels the most like a detour from the main story. I suppose that if there was any time for a detour, it would be now, but it still feels pretty out of place.

We’re three episodes from the end of the season and we still have no clear goal in sight aside from “kill the evil”, and the incredibly anti-climactic way they “defeated” it last episode, it was clear that the matter was not settled. But now we’re throwing in a bunch of stuff about these blue elves who had an alliance with the turquoise elves with this giant red stone, and also there are giants and necromancers and giant skeletons, etc, etc. Yes, clearly this is a fantasy story about reincarnation and magic and animal people, but all of that was plenty to work with on its own. And I’m not opposed to diving into more unseen angles down the line, but we still don’t know major things about the stuff we’re already working with. Let’s deal with what’s on our plate now before making a whole new meal, shall we?

Even the things we ARE working on now feel like they’re resolved a bit too cleanly and quickly for how complicated they are, raising further questions that I don’t expect to be answered. Was the problem with the forest due to Edred himself leaving or just that someone young enough didn’t link with the Heart of the Forest? Why was Aelwulf not sufficient to make that link until he entered Edred’s body? Was the forest doomed to be in ruins because the Northerners weren’t connected to the Heart, or would an Easterner like Thraen have been sufficient? And moving away from that, is Copernicus just able to transfer ANY soul to ANY body? Or put two souls in one body? How exactly did they pull that switcheroo with Aelwulf? Is Aelwulf okay with basically faking his own death and living as his own brother? And most importantly, can family issues that have last centuries really be completely resolved in one brief talk and a hug?

I have to just come right out and say it at this point: I’m just not feeling this show. I completely see now why it was so difficult for Tartakovsky to get this made after all these years; it is damn near INCOMPREHENSIBLE sometimes. Again, three episodes remain, probably the same length as the rest. This one is only about eleven minutes longer than the previous six, apparently because there was so much that just couldn’t be cut, but with only about an hour of story left, I have no clue what they think will wrap this story up.