Review: The Mighty Nein “Many Gifts”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The Mighty Nein are tasked with finding some ancient treasure as payment for getting Caleb a new amulet. Meanwhile, Trent’s research with the Beacon is uncovered and he must convince the king that the oncoming war will be worth the bloodshed.

OUR TAKE

This week has the plots being very clearly separated into the main cast working through their trust issues in a big fun group treasure quest, and the villains in the background facing some speed bumps before they enter the bigger stage of their plans. Oh, and we get a brief check in with Yasha, Ashley Johnson’s character who wasn’t present for much of the early parts of the campaign because she was still shooting for the show Blindspot when said campaign this show is based on was first starting. But for the Mighty Nein group as they are assembled now, it’s mainly about Caleb and Beau further getting over their understandable distrust of each other that was worked on last episode. Fjord, Jester, Molly, and Nott still get to be cool and fun, with Molly in particular likely setting up some problems for them to deal with down the road when he impersonates another purple Tiefling, but the forefront of the character development is between Beau letting down her guard about Volstruckers to see Caleb as someone who willingly left them, and Caleb learning he can trust her and their team to help him in his quest to stop Trent and the Volstruckers.

Speaking of Trent and Volstruckers, Beau’s contact with the Cobalt Soul gets the message back to the king, who has Trent imprisoned as he continues work on the stolen Beacon, which Trent is slowly gaining more control over. But as we see, Trent has clearly planned for these sorts of interruptions, as he has a whole canned response ready to explain to the king that yes, he did steal the Beacon and start this war, but what does that matter if they can win it? And it seems his gamble pays off, as the king follows suit and watches Trent use the Beacon to wipe out a legion of the Kryn. Essek realizes this a bit too late and is able to save a friend from dying, only to end up outing himself as having helped steal the Beacon. And with the Dwendalian Empire now openly making advancements with this stolen technology and Trent continuing in his maniacal pursuits, the remaining two episodes will really need the Mighty Nein to assemble fully to stop this major threat. But that seems like a lot to do in just two episodes, so we’ll probably have to put it off until the second season at least.