Battle Fury

Temair's Review
I thought the majority of this episode was excellent. It contains betrayal, quests, victory and defeat. And just enough of a touch of silliness. It contains something for everyone.

"Battle Fury" opens with the Mystic Knights courting a border villiage trying to keep it on the side of Kells. Unknown to the knights, this villiage has already pledged itself to Temra and they soon try to capture the Mystic Knights. This was a great battle scene. The fight scenes are stronger when the knights are not in their armor and are just fighting with their swords and sheilds. I feel the best fighter of the group outside of Rohan is Deirdre. She is strong, quick, and very agile. The worst fighter of the group is Ivar. It didn't take long for him to get pinned down in this battle.

Temra is getting extremely confidant with Lugad fighting on their side.

This is shown in a banquet in the great hall of Temra. Torc is being his usual loudmouth self and braggs about how much he had to do with Temra's current good fortunes. I would like to say that I'm getting to like Torc better all the time. He may be a coward, but I love the way he looks. His full beard, his hair sticking out from under that helmet, not to mention that he has a great scowl and a great smirk. He looks great as a celtic warrior, and I wager that the warriors looked more like him than Rohan back then. However he has a tragic flaw, he runs from his battles and can't keep his troops in line. It was only a matter of time that Maeve would get tired of him and replace him with something better. This is where Lugad comes in. Torc has been replaced and he knows it. Gerry O'Brian is finally getting a chance to shine by showing his jealousy of Lugad. It's about time. It just shows that the problem with Torc is the character and not the actor. I look forward to seeing more.

The last few episodes look like the fight coordinators have done some research on celtic battle scenes. They are getting much better. They are also looking a lot more authentic. I can't wait to see what another year will do to improve the fight scenes even more.

Rohan goes on a quest to get better armor to help him defeat Lugad. This leaves the rest of the knights to defend Kells, and gives some of them a chance to shine, namely Angus. Being a thief, Angus has to think on his toes and be very tricky. It takes a really inteligent person to carry this out. Unfortunately he gets lost behind Rohan's shadow most of the time. Angus proves how smart he is by devising up a plan to slow the Temra army down a bit. He notices that the Temra army is taking a short cut and walks through a narrow path underneath a mountain. Angus gets Pyre to create a rock slide causing Temra to go the long way around. The footage shot of the rocks falling on the Temra soldiers was definately great, very well done. I have a question though. I thought that only Draganta could comunicate with Pyre. Is Angus now able to work with Pyre too? I know that in the episode "Friends for Life" Angus had to convince Pyre that he was Draganta in order to save Rohan.

Did this adventure give Angus a bond with Pyre?

Rohan has a very interesting quest. He must prove himself in two tests before he can be given the battle fury armor. I thought the tests were very interesting and well done. Rohan displays the wide range of his talents in the first test. He throws water on the statues proving that he learned as Catabad's apprentice saying "Water and magic just don't mix." His second test requires for him to fight himself as the thing he fears most. This is cleverly done. He can feel his double's pain and they are evenly matched. They even call their armor together. I only wished that we could have seen evil Rohan as more than just an evil laugh. It wasn't until I watched it the second time that it occured to me that he had to face up to the fact that only he could be Draganta. I would have liked to have seen more taunting from the double so that could have come across clearer. Otherwise these tests far outweigh any other tests Rohan has done before.

It's a shame that his reward couldn't have been better. His new armor seems clunkier and for the life of me, I can't see how it wouldn't slow him down. In fact he fights a lot slower with the twin blades than with the Sword of Kells. They cause him to do a lot more posing than fighting. The Dragon Torch is ludicrous. It looks silly, he can barely hold it, and...well...it looks silly. I'm not exactly sure what it does because when he tests it out, it completely destroys what he's shooting at. However, when he uses it to stop Lugad, the energy he shoots just deflects off a shield and distracts Lugad. If it was supposed to destroy what it hits, then they should have lost half of Kells wall. This new armor is the first thing I was disapointed with in today's episode. Not only does it seem useless, but it also seems to try to be Power Rangers. I want to go on record right now saying that Mystic Knights is not Power Rangers. The premise is completely different. Therefor there is no need to bring in the Power Rangers tricks into this show.

I was very impressed with the storming of the castle. There are several things that show how difficult it is to bring down a castle. And yet, they did it again. Temra soldiers are in the Kells castle. They basically have control of the situation. Then Rohan shows up, does a couple of unimpressive things with his new armor, and Lugad gets knocked off the wall. After seeing what Lugad can do, I have a difficult time believing that he couldn't just get up, dust himself off, and get right back into it. But what does Torc do? He stops a succesful raid and tells his soldiers to retreat. Why? They had Kells beaten. Sure, there would have been a lot more damage when Rohan gets involved, but there is nothing that proves that Temra couldn't have won the day. That is the one thing about Mystic Knights that bother me the most.

I believe that this weeks episodes are some of the strongest yet. This show is very entertaining to watch all of the time. But, it turns into quality programing when the focus is not on the humor, but on the war. I really loved "Battle Fury"!

Amergin's Review
Well I think Temair said it all in her review. I do still wonder though how the Temra soldiers can get so easily into Kells castle and vice versa. The whole point of castle, especially Celtic ones, were that they were supposed to help keep the enemy out. Yet it seems in this episode, just as in all the others, someone manages to sneak in and do something.

The fighting has definately taken a turn for the better. Someone has done research and been to a few faires. The point where the two armies clash is very realistic.

I also must agree that Rohan's armour is pretty goofy. The armour before at least looked a little more plausible, but now he looks like a clown. Makes me wonder if the rest of the charaters will get the Battle Fury armour, as with the toys.

I thought "Battle Fury" was a very good but not great.