Gwynn’s summons for aid produces irritation for her and an unwelcome familiar face for Elinor. Talon wrestles with her responsibilities. Janzo gets some unexpected advice from Naya.

Remember how Garret apparently ‘died’ last week and it was a fairly major deal and his father made some big emotional speech before riding off to recover his body? Seemed like that might be a fairly big plot point didn’t it? Well, you might not know it, given how much screen time it gets here.

In all seriousness, the episode does open with Gwynn being terribly depressed, neglecting her responsibilities as queen as she wallows in the sorrow of the love of her life being dead. Given that she and Garret had been lovers for years though, and how much impact you would expect knowing he had died would have, it takes surprisingly little in the way of pep talks to get her back on track. But then that’s The Outpost for you – narrative impact might get in the way of the ‘jokes’.

Meanwhile, Naya continues to be perhaps the most obvious spy ever while Gwynn continues to be equally oblivious. Having sent out for aid to all the surrounding barons, Gwynn is a little despondent to only have one response to show for it – walking ego Baron Tobin, who comes with the most obvious proposition possible and gets a predictable reaction to it from Gwynn, before going off to wander about town causing mischief. His arrival also brings another familiar face who Elinor isn’t necessarily over the moon to see, and that gives us another opportunity to witness her monologuing about her ambition and how being ‘secretly rich is as good as being poor’. Quite.

Talon is still struggling with the idea of what to do about Rebb. Should she trust the strange blackblood, give her the power she currently possesses and let her bring her people back through the portal together with the demon army? There’s an attempt here at the traditional second act of many a hero’s struggle – whether they are worthy to wield the power with which they are entrusted. The problem is that the prophecy which causes much of this wrangling was delivered to her by a man who – besides being a mere human blacksmith – turned out to have been one of the men who exterminated her tribe (but got the willies at the last minute and decided to spare her). Why place any truck at all in his opinion on the prophecy?

Moreover, the speed with which Talon goes from hating Rebb and being convinced she must have kidnapped the Dragman to wondering whether the other blackblood might not be the purer, more likely candidate for the rank of chosen one sort of robs the process of any dramatic impact. Not to worry though, there’s a nice ‘funny’ sequence whereby Janzo gets a two-second makeover from Nya (which essentially involves altering his hairstyle and telling him to stand straight) so he can stand a better chance of catching her eye because Gwynn has decided to play matchmaker. Hahaha, you definitely won’t find yourself saying, as this painful sequence plays out.

Oh and yes, there’s a bit with Marshal Withers and his search for Garret, and if you’ve seen or read any genre story of the last fifty years or so, you’ll be able to almost perfectly script how this plays out in your head without me telling you, even before the final utterance from Withers himself just before the closing credits kick in.

Verdict: As slapdash, predictable and cringe-inducingly bad as ever. It’s nice to know some things never really change, I guess… 3/10

Greg D. Smith