? July 3, 2014 Warning: full episode spoilers follow.
Before I get into this week's episode, I should note that we won't be doing weekly Defiance reviews anymore. Unfortunately, the continued reader interest hasn't really there this season. But I'll still be checking in with the show from time to time, especially once the finale rolls around in August.
The big hurdle with Defiance's second season so far has been accepting that, while the lives of the main players might have shifted, the overall tone and direction of the series hasn't changed as much as the Season 1 finale might have suggested. And it's definitely frustrating at times to see so little focus on the tension between the Earth Republic and the ordinary citizens of Defiance. But that aside, "The Cord and the Ax" continued last week's trend of spotlighting the full cast and mining good character drama out of everyone's respective quests to restore normalcy to their lives.
Datak Tarr and his wife Stahma have always been the show's most interesting characters. I'll never complain about seeing a show revolve around those two. But their son Alak is rapidly coming into his own this season. He's matured since we first met him, becoming a husband, soon to be a father, and doing a passable job of maintaining his father''s criminal empire. But the question is whether Alak has the stones to be the next Datak Tarr, or if that's the sort of life he truly wants for himself. The baby reveal was an effective way of bringing that conflict into focus this week (and a nice dose of comedy during the scene where Stahma and Alak ruined the surprise with their noses). Alak knows the stakes and what he stands to lose. And there's still enough of the old, likable, gregarious Alak there that I hope to see him choose Christie and his child over the family business.
Meanwhile, Datak continued his transition from the pathetic, bumbling fool he was in the premiere back to the confident, self-assured crime lord he was in Season 1. It seems his belated realization that Stahma has been purposely letting him rot in prison was the final spark Datak needed to motivate him. Never mind the fact that it was actually Doc Yewll who secured his release. The climactic scene as a filthy Datak returned home just in time to partake in a little traditional Castithan family bathing was handled very well. No words were needed for this reunion, as we saw fear and tension give away to all-out violence as Datak took revenge on his wife. I honestly expected one of the Tarr family would be meeting their end in that tub, either with Stahma drowning or Alak going full Oedipus and killing his father. But it seems as if the Tarrs will exist in an uneasy truce for now. I just hope the show continues to play up the tension there and doesn't revert to the old Season 1 dynamic.
Unlikely drinking buddies.Outside of the Tarr clan, the big focus this week was Irisa struggling against the influence of Irzu and unwillingly committing more murders. She's becoming a much stronger and more multi-faceted character this season. It's less about portraying her as the bad-ass warrior with the mysterious past and more about exploring the terrible fallout of her big sacrifice in the Season 1 finale. This episode showed the extent Irzu is willing to go to force Irisa to uphold her end of the bargain. This isn't like Kubrick's The Shining, where you could almost dismiss the supernatural manifestations as the hallucinations of a crazy person.
At the same time, Irisa's storyline this week called into question what Irzu's end game actually is. According to the tiny goddess, Irisa is doing her victims a favor and sending them to Irzu's protective embrace. It would be easy to write that off as a baldfaced lie, but the fact that Birdie showed up alive and well at the end does make you wonder exactly what is going on here. Are Irisa's other victims alive too? Can Irzu be taken at face value? Who knows at this point? But I was glad to see an unexpectedly happy ending to this week's conflict.
For a change, Nolan was relegated to more of a supporting player this week. I actually wish he had been utilized even less. Nolan's conflict - that of learning to let go and not be such an overbearing father - was a little sappy and off-kilter with the rest of the episode. And really, his daughter is going around ostensibly murdering people at the behest of a goddess. He probably should be concerned about what Irisa is up to.
If any character deserved more screen time this week, it was Amanda. The former mayor is in a dark place now, between the disappearance of her sister, the takeover by the E-Rep, and her growing drug addiction. Needless to say, she's a far more interesting character than she was early on in Season 1. I enjoyed the scene of Amanda and Stahma as drinking buddies, and even more the scene showcasing her wailing on an unruly customer. Who needs Nolan when she can lay down the law like that?
As much as I feel like this show is wasting good storytelling potential in terms of the tension between Defiance and the E-Rep, there's plenty of smaller character drama to keep this show moving. The Tarr family was as fascinating as ever in this episode. And as Irisa and Amanda struggle with their personal demons, the show is making better use of its full cast than it did in Season 1. If we learned anything this week, it's that we don't always need Nolan around to play the Han Solo role.
Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.
+Plenty of Tarr family drama.+Irisa and Amanda's stories are steadily improving.– Nolan's storyline was out of step with the rest of the episode.
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