Willow | Chapter 7: “Beyond the Shattered Sea” Episode Guide

Airk and the strange woman from Cashmere appear to be the only people in a vacant city. “The sun never sets. This day never ends,” Airk laments. Then suddenly he hears something echoing from the pool of rust-colored liquid: his sister, Kit. He jumps in to rescue her, but although he can see her, she remains just out of reach.

On the other side of the fountain, Elora succeeds in casting her spell. The mysterious sea spits Kit back onto the surface before she drowns and Elora’s hair turns a fiery red as she reaches her full potential as a sorcerer.

The group continues on their quest. “The Shattered Sea: where the maps end and our final test begins,” Willow says. “Walking across it.” To gather their strength, they stop at a small outpost to rest for the arduous journey ahead. The owner, Zeb, seems to have died in his chair, but is just sleeping.

The shopkeeper serves up a meal, claiming he’s an excellent cook. Worm-like creatures writhe in the soup, but some of the travelers eat up. The dinner is awkward as Zeb struggles to recall how he came to be stranded out on the edge of the Shattered Sea alone after years of wandering. “Our boots rotting. Our swords rusting in their scabbards. Until we forgot who we were, what we were searching for. And, in the end, turned on each other.”

Airk awakens to find the fountain is drained, leaving only dust. He finds the strange woman staring into the glowing abyss through a mysterious door. When they return to the outside world, suddenly the water is back. The woman reveals she as a princess in Cashmere before the Order of the Wyrm took over the castle and she was kidnapped and brought to this abandoned place.

The next morning, the travelers awaken after an uncomfortable rest to find Zeb offering breakfast. But when a doppelgänger begins puttering around the kitchen, Graydon punches the offender square in the face, realizing it must be a trap! They escape on Zeb’s sleigh, a single Mudmander propelling them through the Shattered Sea, as the Gales give chase.

Graydon uses his flute to channel his own kind of magic and strike down the Dag. But Elora freezes up when confronted with the other thug, and Jade must come to her rescue stabbing the foe through the back and pushing it from the sleigh, still living.

The Mudmander now called Kenneth and the rest of the travelers grow weary and need to rest. While the sleigh is parked on an island outcropping, Willow and Elora continue to train, a furious exchange of spells and magical bursts that frequently lands Elora face-down in the shallows. But the sorcerer isn’t the only one who needs to prepare for battle. Graydon, who has been watching and learning, becomes a participant in some of Elora’s exercises.

While the sorcerers are occupied with their magic, Kit and Jade sneak off to spar with their swords. Although Jade seems to be more skilled than her opponent, she is not immune to being caught off guard. “I love you!” Kit declares, knocking Jade down playfully, at long last admitting her true feelings.

Frustrated and feeling baited by her tutor, Elora casts a dark magic spell, sending Willow hurtling through the air. It’s a spell she learned from Nockmaar.

Back in the city, the Cashmere princess challenges Airk’s beliefs and his loyalty to Dove with a passionate kiss. But he soon discovers that she’s the one who kidnapped him. “Forget all you know or think you know,” she tells him.

Willow continues to be plagued by the visions in his sleep. He sees Mims pleading for his help next to the body of a fallen and bloodied comrade as an unseen battle can be heard around her. He can’t shake his fears that he’s about to lose his daughter.

Kenneth is depressed the closer the sleigh gets to the city, pale and listless. The proximity to the Crone’s stronghold is weakening everyone’s resolve. Even Willow is defensive, his emotional state rattled with longing for his family. “We’ve been out here a long time. Weeks. Months? Can’t even tell anymore,” Kit says.

Beneath the glittering night sky, Kit and Elora have a heart-to-heart talk. Kit must face her jealousy of Elora. The princess has always wanted to be brave and loved, while shedding her identity as a royal, qualities that Elora seems to have instead.

Alone in the darkness, Boorman decides the time is right to try the Kymerian Cuirass. “I’m worthy of this,” he whispers to no one. But the cuirass doesn’t respond to the key.

In the fog of the new dawn, Willow reaches out to Mims. “How is your adventure, Da?” she asks, turning to reveal the face of a creature possessed. Shaking her friend free from his vision, Elora is certain it’s the Crone manipulating their fears to separate the team. Tensions continue to rise as Graydon sets the sickly Kenneth free to save his life, leaving the sleigh stranded. “Nothing, nothing has gone the way it was supposed to,” Boorman says. From here they’ll have to walk.

In the vacant city, Airk crawls toward a new fountain, gasping and weakened to the point of collapse. As the Cashmere princess offers him a drink, he hoarsely agrees, “I’ll do whatever you want.”

Meanwhile, his friends are still wandering through the wasteland trying to find him, getting more depressed and desperate with every step. Boorman admits he’s not the man he thought he was, inspiring Graydon to make his own confession to Elora. He used to pretend to be a sorcerer when he was a boy. “Without you, I never would have become the man I always wanted to be,” he tells her, admitting that he loves her without hope of having the feeling returned.

They reach a dead end: a waterfall dropping off into nothingness. “This isn’t how it ends!” Elora yells. There’s a future she knows to be true. “In the Immemorial City with the wand broken and me dead. It’s what Willow saw in his vision all those years ago. The reason why Sorsha didn’t want him to train me, tried to hide me away. Because if I face the Crone, that’s how it will end, isn’t it?” Elora breaks down in tears. “I don’t want to be Elora Danan,” she says. “I just want to go home.”

But Kit won’t let her give up. “You’re afraid? So am I. But you know what? My fear, it doesn’t get to decide. It doesn’t get to define me,” she tells Elora. “I’m not giving it the power. I’m giving it to you.” Finally united, Kit and Elora leap off the edge together, locked in an embrace. And on the other side they find the city, ominously quiet and desolate. But they are not alone.

Actor Julian Glover scores a rare Lucasfilm franchise trifecta by appearing in Star Wars (General Veers in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back), Indiana Jones (Walter Donavan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and now as Zeb in Willow.

The siblings’ attempt to reach each other through the fountain of vermiscus fluid was inspired in part by Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Early in development, such new landmarks as the Barrier and the Shattered Sea prompted the creation of a detailed map for the world of Willow. Using research done from the original film and an incomplete and somewhat apocryphal map from The Willow Sourcebook, production designer Kristian Milsted recharted Andowyne.

Zeb’s outfitters and public house offers bowls of chowder with live albino tapeworms squirming in lumpy cream.

Though Kenneth the Mudmander’s body was designed in concept art, only his head and neck were created as an elaborate puppet by the creature effects team.

Much of the outdoor action of the Shattered Sea chase was photographed at Pendine Sands on Carmathen Bay, Wales. Its smooth surface is renowned for racing events and attempts to break the world land speed record.