The Outpost – This is Our Outpost

By: Patience Kapfer

After such a tumultuous season, the finale does not disappoint. Gwynn (Imogen Waterhouse) finally remembers who she is as a queen after her discussion with Captain Calkussar (Patrick Lyster) in the previous episode. The first thing she does as they prepare for battle is release Janzo (Anand Desai-Barochia), the Mistress (Robyn Malcolm) and Naya (Amita Suman) from prison. Gwynn also expresses her sincerest gratitude to the Mistress and Janzo for doing so much for her and The Outpost. Naya is hesitant to leave her cell  as she believes after what she did she deserves to be locked away. Gwynn is still unsure she can forgive Naya for what she did, but she commends Naya for coming back to warn them of the Prime Order’s weapons.

Garret (Jake Stormoen) and Talon (Jessica Green) return to The Outpost and warn Gwynn that the Prime Order’s army is only about a day’s march away and that they outnumber Gwynn’s soldiers by five to one. They also confirm Gwynn’s fears about the incendiary device, that even from far away the ground was shaking from the explosion. In a meeting concerning the Prime Order, Garret continues to deliver bad news by telling them all that now Sana (Jelena Gavrilovic) has the power to cause tremendous pain since she is one of The Three now. Tobin (Aaron Fontaine) suggests that they all leave The Outpost and go to his stronghold so that they can regroup and live to fight another day. Gwynn tells him that The Outpost is not only her home, but it’s strategically important for the success of her kingdom. The Outpost owns the only mines that produce the ore they need for weapons. Gwynn then says, “A queen that abandons that isn’t a queen at all,” so she will stand with her soldiers or she will die trying. Gwynn; however, does make a public statement to her people that the Prime Order soldiers are on their way to The Outpost. She tells her people they should evacuate, but she will stay to defend their home. To this she is met with enthusiastic chats of “long live the queen!”

Janzo is thrilled to see Talon back safe and sound and makes her one of his special brews. Gwynn soon joins them to spend some time and talk with her friends while the generals are drawing up a plan. During their chat Janzo starts to tell Gwynn about some of his newest discoveries he thinks might be able to help them in battle, but then distracts Gwynn by asking her to remove the prisoner that’s in his lab. Gwynn realizes the prisoner is Sam (James Downie) and goes to Janzo’s lab and frees him so that he doesn’t have to die at the hands of the Prime Order. Once offered his freedom, Sam tells her to give him a sword and he will stay and fight for her. Despite working all night, the generals are unable to come up with a plan to protect The Outpost. Even without a plan Gwynn still will not allow Talon to bring forth any demons or Blackbloods to help them. Instead, Gwynn comes up with another plan.

During the evacuation Janzo is excited to see Munt (Adam Johnson) has returned (Munt might just be overjoyed to see Janzo again). Munt tells Janzo that he missed his family so he had to come back. He is even excited to have Naya as his future sister-in-law, but he is even more thrilled when Janzo explains to him that is his sister, thereby making her Munt’s sister as well. Munt even gives her an enormous hug, telling her he’s always wanted a sister. Naya wants to stay at The Outpost to help defend it, but Janzo insists that she needs to go with the people who are evacuating. He tells her that she is a caretaker and needs to go in order to help take care of the children and elderly that will soon be without a home. Naya eventually reluctantly agrees.

As the townspeople are all evacuating, a guard sends a message to the Prime Order to inform them of the evacuation. After receiving the message, Sana instructs the first regiment to storm the Outpost. She says they should use the device only if absolutely necessary due to the mineral importance of The Outpost. The regiment sends in one soldier first to assess the situation within The Outpost. Upon realizing the place appears completely empty, the remainder of the soldiers of that regiment march inside the walls. Once inside the soldiers are greeted by Gwynn who tells them she is going to give them one last chance to drop their weapons and join her. Instead of taking Gwynn up on that last opportunity, the lead soldier tells his men to kill her and bring him her body. As the soldiers remove their swords and prepare to attack Gwynn, the gates to The Outpost are closed, trapping the soldiers. A bit too late, the lead soldier realizes it is an ambush as Janzo begins throwing the grenades that he constructed. Gwynn’s soldiers use their elevated positions along the walls to attack the unsuspecting Prime Order soldiers with arrows and, eventually, with their own swords in hand-to-hand combat. Garret, Tobin and Talon all partake in the fight while Janzo focuses on using his grenades from above. Unfortunately, while he is preparing, with yet another grenade some of the Prime Order soldiers manage to corner him sending him into the fray on the ground.

While the fighting ensues the Mistress and Munt make their move to steal back their gold. As they are making a break for it with all the gold, they both hear Janzo scream and see him being attacked by Prime Order soldiers. When Munt sees Janzo get knocked to the ground he immediately rushes to him knocking over the two soldiers and attacking them. While Munt is preoccupied with those two soldiers, another runs at Janzo with his sword drawn and the Mistress doesn’t hesitate to pull out her knife and rush to save him saying, “That’s my boy!” The Mistress is unable to overpower the soldier though and he pulls the knife out of his stomach and proceeds to stab her to Janzo’s cries. Watching Janzo crawl to his mother after her selfless action is extremely emotional to witness. Before the Mistress takes her last breath she tells Janzo that the tunnel goes around in the field all the way, which confuses him…at first.

Talon, Garret, Munt, Tobin and Gwynn’s soldiers manage to defeat all of those Prime Order soldiers inside the Outpost’s gates. It seems they have won the battle, but the war has not yet begun. Even though it seems they made a dent in the number of Prime Order soldiers that are left outside the gates, the Prime Order still has a large explosive device that poses a high risk to The Outpost. Talon and Garret both realize the only way to deal with the device is for one of them to detonate it, but it is impossible for either of them to get anywhere near it. That is until Janzo realizes what his mother was trying to tell him – that they can take the tunnels all the way up under the Prime Order’s army. Unfortunately, none of the tunnels lead to an exit, but with Janzo’s own small explosive devices they can blast their own way out of the tunnel to get to the device. The next problem is deciding whether Talon or Garret should be the one to go detonate the device. Talon volunteers herself because Sana’s kinj won’t work on her, but it’s obvious that Garret would still like to get revenge on Sana. Eventually, it is decided that Talon needs to stay at The Outpost to defend Gwynn while Garret will go detonate the device.

While those at The Outpost are planning their next move, more Prime Order soldiers are on their way to the battlefield and Sana orders they attack as soon as they arrive. Talon, Captain Calkussar and Tobin notice another two more large armies marching towards them. They realize they don’t have enough men to fight and are essentially doomed. As the armies approach, Captain Calkussar orders that the gates be sealed, but the traitor inside The Outpost blockades himself in the gatehouse and opens the gates instead. With the impending war looming, Talon orders that Gwynn retreat to the cellars and hide. In true Gwynn fashion, she refuses to leave and wants to stay and fight with her men. As Gwynn and all of her men fall back to the keep, Talon remains at the center of The Outpost saying the prophecy to herself, “A Blackblood will summon the slayers of men.” At that moment Talon opens the portal and begins speaking Blackblood, calling forth Vikka, followed by Zed (Reece Ritchie). She then gives Zed permission to call forth the other Blackbloods and demons. The demons and Blackbloods go straight to work fighting the Prime Order and defending the gate. The Prime Order soldiers don’t stand a chance against the demons who swat them away like they are nothing more than flies.

In the tunnel Janzo and Garret carefully place Janzo’s incendiary device on the ceiling to blast their way onto the battlefield. Following the explosion, Garret crawls into the Prime Order’s camp and makes his way into Sana’s tent. Sana immediately knows that Garret is no longer working for the Prime Order, but she doesn’t use her kinj on him because she’s already sent it back to the council of The Three “where it belongs.” As Sana walks towards Garret she tells him he cannot kill her because he belongs to her forever. It seems she was wrong as Garret looks her in the eyes and plunges his sword into her stomach. Extricating himself from Sana’s body, Garret rushes to light the fuse on the device and sprints back to the tunnel. He makes it inside the tunnel just in time for the incendiary device to detonate, wiping out everything and everyone in its path.

Following the war Tobin tells Gwynn that they lost roughly half of their men, but it would have been more if Talon had not summoned the Blackbloods – leading Gwynn to believe she should have allowed Talon to do so sooner. Gwynn gathers her people to go welcome the Blackbloods to the Outpost, but this season couldn’t end on such a pleasant note now could it? As Gwynn welcomes Zed, he tells her he’s “afraid it’s the other way around” as the rest of the Blackbloods and their demons begin to surround Gwynn’s people. Zed then tells Talon she has a decision to make, it’s them or us.” It is then that Zed also tells Talon that hundreds of years ago the Blackbloods built The Outpost so now the humans are all the Blackblood’s prisoners and from this point forwards “this is our Outpost.”