Review: Nomad of Nowhere “The Kindness of Strangers”

This was posted on Friday the 13th! Has luck run out on this show?

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Vultures circle overhead an empty cart which the Nomad runs head first into. The owner, an undertaker, helps him hide from Skout and Toth as they ride in on horseback and leads them off the trail so they can go be cute and ineffectual elsewhere. Once they leave, he offers to take him across the more treacherous part of the desert and the Nomad happily accepts. However, he actually takes him back to his graveyard home and knocks him out, strapping him to bone chains in his basement.

The undertaker is fascinated by the Nomad’s famed magic and wants to run a few tests to sate his intellectual thirst. When the Nomad demonstrates his power, he curiously is only able to effect metal made objects, but not ones made from bone. The undertaker theorizes this is because the Nomad’s powers cannot bring to life things that previously was alive, something even the Nomad might not have known. To add to his research, the undertaker uncovers a spell book written by the Yaddala (people with relation to Toth which I didn’t mention in the third episode because I didn’t want to risk misspelling it), which comes from a time before the magic of the world disappeared, and the undertaker wants the Nomad to use it to raise the dead and ask them…stuff.

The Nomad refuses, and the undertaker destroys one of the items brought to life in his rage, visibly devastating the Nomad. The undertaker (okay, it’s really hard to describe these characters when a lot of them don’t have proper names) decides to move onto the dissection portion of his experiment until a bounty hunter named Big Jib (see? Was that so hard?) arrives with his dead friend for grave services. One of the Nomad’s minions makes Jib a bit jumpy, but the undertaker takes him down with a shovel before he can even react. The minion helps the Nomad escape, but he’s then stopped by the undertaker, who kills it and demands he be shown the Nomad’s magic. Pushed to the breaking point, the Nomad brings to life all of his furniture and appliances, scaring the crap out of him and allowing the Nomad to escape with the Yaddala spell book, as well as bury his dead minion. Big Jib, somehow still alive, rounds up his group to go chase him, and the journey continues.

OUR TAKE

It is with great sadness that I must admit…we finally have a good episode of this show. The streak is broken!

On top of the further exploration of the Nomad’s powers, including their limitations and how much we can control, the undertaker (played by A-List Rooster Teeth acting talent Shannon McCormick) provides a deeper, darker insight into the bigger implications of what those powers could mean, while also leaving more questions for viewers to speculate about. What is the nature of life in this world if skeletons are impervious to this kind of magic? The Nomad creates life, and is saddened by its death, but what does that say about him? Why are they loyal to him sometimes and other times not, like with the water wheel? How do the Yaddala fit into all of it? This feels a lot different compared to previous weeks, where actual information was sparse and questions were more about getting bearings and catching up than piqued curiosity. We now actually have a sizable piece of info meat to bite into and savor, and while the order was a bit late, the wait was mostly worth it.

Unfortunately…despite the notable step forward in a convincing serious tone, the show still cannot manage to get out of its own way with its clashing art style and even some of its writing. The undertaker’s demented reasons for using the Nomad are simple and crazy enough, but the intervention of Big Jib seems pretty superfluous. Yes, it gives the Nomad a chance to escape and show more of the undertaker’s insane side, but it also has moments of attempted comedy thrown in that sours the whole thing. On top of that, despite multiple strikes to the head by shovel, Jib’s perfectly fine by the end. In fact, the only “casualties” we see are of tiny objects the Nomad brings to life. And yes, we have a better understanding of what they mean to HIM, but without any human deaths to offset, it really downplays the actual threat level here.

I feel like this should’ve been a two-parter, kind of like how the second and third episodes both covered events in Bliss Hill. Maybe one half would be the Nomad demonstrating his powers to the undertaker willingly, along with someone more closely involved with the Yaddala who seems gruff but honest and reverent of life and spirituality, to contrast with the undertaker’s seemingly niceness and cold, calculating nature. The first half would end with him capturing the Nomad and the Yaddala, while the second would be about them trying to escape while the Yaddala sacrifices themselves to let the Nomad flee. Not that I’m not appreciative of what we were able to get from this episode, just that much of it felt rushed and underdeveloped.

But this was most definitely a massive improvement, especially over last week. Little else pains me more than seeing a story with so much potential limp away from all it could be, and we might finally be seeing a glimpse of how good, or even great, this show can become.