Review: Nomad of Nowhere “El Rey”

Old woman pronounces “gift” with a soft G?! 0/10!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The Nomad flees in terror from a persistent Skout and Toth, soon facing a sandstorm. Braving the dusty winds and random lightning strikes (which apparently do actually happen in sandstorms sometimes), he finds an abandoned fort adorned with mysterious crowned eye crests. Hunkering down to rest (and making a couple rock friends to keep him company), he decides to sleep, waking up to an odd old woman who welcomes him and is pleased to see magic still alive. The Nomad is saddened by her kindness, knowing he is the only magic left, and telling her upfront he has a bounty. The woman doesn’t seem to mind, deciding to give him a tour of the fort.

Suddenly, the Nomad begins having visions of some kind. They center around a young warrior who braved many feats, challenges, and foes to claim a magic golden crown, using its power to become a king. With his power, he fed the hungry, healed the wounded and sick, and generally had good approval ratings all around. However, as he grew older, his powers weakened, and the crown became dormant. He ordered his guards bring him someone else informed in magic, but once they arrived, the crown reactivated and consumed the magician, regaining its power and the king’s former youth. The king began ordering every magic user to his castle, draining their power for himself and depleting the land’s natural resources in the process. To quell an oncoming rebellion, he changed his soldiers into monsters and destroyed any and all who stood against him. He then ordered his governors to separate corners of the kingdom and was from then on known as El Rey.

…assuming he wasn’t already called that when he became king. It’s hard to tell with no dialogue, even though the visuals are quite nice.

Outside the storm, Toth manages to encourage Skout to enter with her, but they are soon attacked by some sort…lightning stego-rhino? Going by Turn Based RPG Rules, Toth holds her own well enough but is struck down. Skout manages to nail one of its scales with the ax but gets swatted by its tail. Enraged, Toth takes the creature out with another swing but sees Skout is losing blood fast. She wakes up days later back at the Oasis, while Toth gets another tongue-lashing from Don Paragon. With excuses no longer working and progress on capturing the Nomad stalling, the Don grabs her by the proverbial short hairs and reminds her of their deal: She captures the Nomad, the Don gives the Nomad’s magic to the Yaddala so they can survive. In addition, the Don will become the first new governor in over a century, and gain all of the power it entails. But to do all of this, Toth must leave Skout behind.

The Nomad awakens in the fort, his time there appeared a dream and continues his quest through the desert.

OUR TAKE

The last episode of the first half is more or less the same level of quality from last week, which is a good sign moving forward and into the seasonal break, but it also has a bit of an odd mixture. We have three incongruent plot threads that work fine on their own, are all somewhat related, but don’t quite mesh: Toth and Skout, the Nomad’s arrival in the fort, and the storybook exposition about El Rey.

The Toth and Skout thread is certainly the strongest, adding to their initial scenes in the first few episodes and the little name drops about Toth’s connection to the Yaddala and reasons for helping Don Paragon. Toth and Skout have the probably the most substantially written relationship in the show so far (even if they don’t exactly have much competition in that regard), and while Toth has not been known to be especially competent in her Nomad hunt for her own reasons, her doting on Skout is a clear weakness for her. She cares about her spittoon girl (in what way is uncertain even though Skout is confirmed to be crushing hard on her end), and trusts her enough to bring her on the chase over her own trained soldiers, but her lack of training makes her a liability. Toth is torn between her loyalty to her people and her precious underling, and it seems she’s sided with Spock in regards to the many and the few. Guess we’ll see how that decision impacts things when the show comes back.

The Nomad’s story this time is noticeably less meaty than last time, as that was about really picking apart the idea of what his powers can and can’t do, while this has him…take a stroll through a fort. He’s not looking for anything other than a little shelter, he’s not learning anything that really benefits him, and he ends the story the same way he began. The old lady, probably a Yaddala, goes pretty unexplained as to whether she’s a ghost or a flashback or something else entirely and it kinda pulled me out trying to wrap my head around it. We’ve seen something vaguely like this briefly back in the first episode, but I don’t know how anyone was supposed to think this and that were connected, or what it could mean.

The tale of El Rey is an artistic marvel with nostalgic charm of old fairy tales and enticing artwork that manages to tell a concise and vivid story entirely on the strengths of its visuals and lends us some insight as to the origins of the man at the center of this world’s plight and decay. It also has no reason to be in this episode, as far as I can tell. The visions the Nomad receives are completely at random, the story doesn’t really connect to the fort (aside from the eye-crown symbol) or what he’s doing there, and it all feels like a really clumsy way of dropping exposition that doesn’t add much of anything to the plot as we see it play out. I’m reminded of RWBY’s “World of Remnant” shorts that dumped either superfluous or insubstantial information in two minute monologues, but even they didn’t try forcing it into an actual episode. I obviously can’t deny that this section was beautifully done and tackled the “SHOW” part of “show, don’t tell” with remarkable ease, and the people who worked on it should be very proud of their work. It just did not belong in this episode, especially since El Rey isn’t even a real character as of yet. I know RT likes to lay their breadcrumbs and act like they’re setting up a massive twist, but this just feels forced. If the Nomad is related to El Rey through something other than or because of magic, this was not the way to establish that.

All of these plots, while perfectly acceptable on their own, really only serve to undercut their neighbors as they’re ordered here. And considering Jordan Cwierz’s earlier blog post regarding this as “the natural end to the first arc of the season”, I can’t say this delivered on that. The Nomad was found and then traveled while being chased. Toth and Skout arguably have more of an arc, and they’re basically extras for about half of these first six episodes. I am, however, relieved to see the show fully capable of bringing its characters, concepts, and world to life to an extent, even if the art still has a long ways to go in fully mixing with the story.

Nomad of Nowhere will be off for the foreseeable future, but it leaves us on an assuring, if not a bit frustrating, step in our thousand mile journey. For now, we settle at mile 500 and await the day we can walk 500 more. So sayeth The Proclaimers.