The Outpost – A Crown for The Queen

By: Patience Kapfer

Will Talon (Jessica Green) be able to get to the Outpost in  time to save Gwynn (Imogen Waterhouse)? Will Garret (Jake Stormoen) succeed in taking Gwynn to the Prime Order? Will Janzo (Anand Desai-Barochia) get caught for freeing Naya (Amita Suman) and will he be able to finally find a real common cure for plaguelings? These are just a few of the questions we have going into this week’s episode of “The Outpost.”

We don’t have to wait long to get some of these answers as we begin the episode with Garret being met by Prime Order soldiers in the forest. They yank Gwynn off of the horse and tie her up to be questioned by Garret, as he takes more of his “medicine” to keep him brainwashed for the Prime Order’s benefit. Talon is, unfortunately, too late as she and Zed (Reece Ritchie) arrive back at the Outpost only to be told by Janzo and Tobin (Aaron Fontaine) that Gwynn left willingly with Garret a day earlier. Talon tells Janzo and Tobin that Garret doesn’t want to marry Gwynn, but instead wants to kill her. They are in complete disbelief that Garret would ever want to hurt Gwynn and Janzo can’t believe that Garret would stab Talon. Talon tells him that Garret isn’t Garret anymore and now he serves the Prime Order. Talon is outraged that no one tried to stop them from leaving, but of course everyone was just happy that Garret was alive so they let them go without any question. Talon determines that it is highly likely that Garret would be taking Gwynn to The Three if he hasn’t killed her already, so she plans to go after them. Janzo wants to summon some guards to go with Talon, but she insists that Gwynn stands a better chance of staying alive if Garret doesn’t think a whole army is after him. Tobin wants to go with Talon, but she won’t allow him to do so because he is drunk and will be no use to her or Gwynn. Janzo, like always, is worried that Talon won’t be able to defeat an entire group of covenant guards so he makes a tonic to help Tobin sober up and sends him after her. Zed refuses to go with Talon to help save Gwynn because he doesn’t trust Gwynn and won’t risk his life to help her. Talon says Gwynn is her Queen and her friend and leaves without Zed.

While taking a break to get water in the forest, Tobin has a chance to catch up to Talon. She is still insistent that he’s drunk and will slow her down, but he says by the time they catch up with Gwynn he will be totally sober. Talon notices that Tobin seems different, that he’s willing to help save Gwynn even after she left him during their wedding. He says he’s made mistakes, but this is the right thing to do. While they ride through the night to catch up to Gwynn, Garret has set up camp and has Gwynn tied up and gagged. He tells her he needs to hear her confess her lies, she needs to admit that she is no queen and that her and Calkussar lied to him. Garret seems a little crazed as he tells her to tell the truth and set him free.

Once Talon and Tobin find Garret’s cam, Tobin wants to make a plan of attack, but Talon rushes in with no preparation. As Garret and the soldiers are preparing to cover Gwynn’s head and continue their ride to The Three, Talon makes her dramatic entrance into the camp. Garret calls his guards to protect him and Gwynn and sets the rest of the soldiers after Talon to kill her. However, the soldiers are no match for Talon as they run towards her only to be met with her superior fighting ability. She fights them one by one and comes out victorious each time. As Garret is getting ready to make his escape, Tobin rushes in and prepares to fight him. Gwynn begins to run away and hides while the fighting ensues, but as a soldier comes in to fight Tobin, Garret makes his escape with Gwynn by horseback. Talon sees them leave and rushes after them, leaving Tobin to continue fighting the soldiers. While Talon chases after Garret and Gwynn, Gwynn loosens her hand from the ropes and knocks Garret off of the horse. Once on the ground Talon engages in a sword fight with him, telling him she “doesn’t want to have to kill him.” It is clear that Talon doesn’t want to have to fatally harm Garret as she knocks him unconscious and ties him up to take back to the Outpost. Tobin defeats all of the soldiers except for one. The last one has a high perch and shoots arrows at Tobin as he walks towards him, hitting him with four before Talon is able to throw her own knife at the soldier. Tobin channels his inner Janzo as she puts her knife in the fire and makes Gwynn pull out each arrow while she cauterizes the wounds.

Upon returning to her home Talon finds Zed lying in bed. She tells him that Tobin almost died and they really could have used his help. He is angry that Talon continues to say she wants to help their people, but every time she has a choice she chooses to put the humans before the Blackbloods. Talon tells him that she puts the most urgent need before anything else, the key could wait, but Gwynn couldn’t. He exclaims that their people have waited even longer to finally receive help. Talon acknowledges that this is true after having seen what it was like on the other side of the portal, but when she was on the other side Blackbloods attacked her. Her own people, even if they were Black Fist, attacked her. How can she expect Gwynn to trust the Blackbloods if Talon can’t even trust them? Even though Zed told Talon that his people are not with the Black Fist, he tells her that they did all need to work together when they were first tricked to go through the portal by humans. Upon entry they were met with terrifying fire snakes and Rebb was the one to figure out how to kill the snakes and turn them into their main source of food. Zed says that now they do not work together or get along with the Black Fist and he wants to keep them in the portal as much as Talon does. Talon tells him that it is not the right time to bring any Blackbloods through. Gwynn needs to know she can trust them first. She also tells Zed that he would have made it a lot easier for Gwynn to trust them if he would have helped save her.

To answer the final questions, Janzo is able to cure another plagueling by leaving him in the sun with a certain type of flower over his body. However, he is still unable to determine a common link between the variables and a cure since the other plagueling in the same condition was not cured. And even more unfortunate for Janzo, Gwynn puts him to the task of determining what the Prime Order did to Garret and fixing him. He tells her that he’s busy with the plaguelings, but she knows he is the one who freed Naya so she tells him he will be under the supervision of guards and work to find a cure for both the plaguelings and Garret, as well as heal Tobin. But after that, Gwynn says she will find a sentence fitting for the man who freed the traitor of the crown.

Even though Garret is under the watchful eye of guards day and night, it seems as though not all hope is lost for him. A new guard enters to bring him supper and, after he makes sure that Janzo is not looking, he shows Garret the sign of The Three.