Episode 8: The Duelist and The Drifter
Original Air Date: September 9th, 2011
Episode Written by: Tab Murphy, Directed by: Shingo Ushada, Sean Song
Article by: Purrsia



WB Summary:
While traveling through a village built on swordsmanship, Lion-O's cockiness loses him the Sword of Omens to the Duelist, a villainous sword-collector. With the help of the listless Drifter, Lion-O must get it back.

Purrsia's Synopsis:
While the others work on getting the Book rigged up to the ThunderTank, Lion-O ventures off with Snarf to look for supplies. He soon comes upon a town and meets up with a fellow who literally drifts with the wind. The Drifter tries to warn Lion-O about the nature of the town, but he does not heed it.

Once in town, Lion-O finds his Thunderian money has no value there and learns he can compete with other sword swingers to win money to buy the supplies he needs. The sword contest consists of each swordsman appraoching a huge rock to see who can leave the largest mark with their weapon. Lion-O impresses by slicing the massive rock in half by far defeating his competition.
Happy to have won some money, Lion-O buys his supplies and is about to be on his way...until the Duelist shows up. Impressed with the swordplay, the man challenges Lion-O to a duel. Lion-O is satisfied that he's already proved the legendary Sword of Omens is the best blade in town, but the duelist appeals to Lion-O's ego by pushing the idea that it is Lion-O that needs to prove his worth. When that doesn't coax Lion-O into a duel, the man insults Claudus.

As Lion-O prepares for the duel, Snarf suggests he flee. The ego in Lion-O will not allow it, and he intends on going ahead with the duel. The Drifter shows up again, and after Lion-O can't even split the reed in the Drifter's teeth, the Drifter tells the tale of the Duelists' favored Sword - the Sword of Hattanzo. When Lion-O learns the Drifter was the maker of the great sword of Hattanzo, he demands he help him beat it. But the Drifter says their is no way and will not help.

Lion-O goes through with the duel and as predicted, he loses the Sword to the Duelist. Determined, Lion-O decides he must get the Sword back and after the Drifter refuses to forge a new sword for him, Lion-O tries to do it himself. However, once the Drifter sees Lion-O's sword forging skills are lacking, he takes over the task. A few hours later, the Drifter emerges with a blade for Lion-O and he is off to challenge the Duelist to a rematch. Lion-O wants ALL the Duelists swords if he wins. The Deulist agrees if only on the condition Lion-O gives up his life as well as his new sword.

When Lion-O's blade breaks during the sword fight, all seems lost for him until he finally understands the lesson that "willows are weak" that the Drifter has tried to instill in him throughout. Now that he can "bend with the wind", Lino-O is able to overcome the Duelist and win back not only his sword, but the others as well. The Duelist is dealt his final humiliation by the Drifter, who thwarts the attempt to kill Lion-O by taking him on - and winning - with nothing more than a reed. Now that's humiliation!

The Drifter has a new purpose - returning all the swords the Duelist had collected to their rightful owners. And Lion-O returns with his supplies to the others...only to be berated by Tygra for taking so long, the presumption being that Lion-O was goofing off.

Quotes:

"Leave before it's too late. Or don't. I don't care." - The Drifter.

"It's the Sword of Omens and with it, I never lose." - a boastful Lion-O

"And now they're relics of a fallen empire." - a shop owner's response to Lino-O trying to pay for his goods with Thunderian coins, now deemed worthless.

"In his hubris, the swordmaker believed the strength of his sword would overcome his weakness as a warrior." - The Drifter.

"Without the Sword of Omens our mission is doomed." - Lion-O

"I understand now. Power alone is rigid, but if you bend with the wind you'll never break." - Lion-O, finally understanding the willows are weak lesson.

Facts of Note:

Thunderian money is worthless, now that the kingdom has fallen.

The Sword of Omens is lengendary, even in "these parts".

Seems Hattanzo may be a mash-up reference to Hattori Hanzo, the great sword maker in the Kill Bill movies, the Drifter also having similarties to that movie character as well. This is unconfirmed and just an observation.

Classic Compare/Contrast:

This episode was a throwback to the classic "Lion-O needs to grow and learn and important lesson", along with an over all moral for us to learn along the way - even the ending had the classic light-hearted moment of the OS.
Lion-O was as full of hubris as ever. New creatures, strange places on Third Earth - all of that familiar to anyone that was a fan of the OS. And I thought one of those dude's in the village looked a lot like a Tabbot. Apparently I'm not the only one who saw some similarities to the OS episode, The Demolisther.

By contrast, so far in this new series, Lion-O has not called the Sword to him. It could be something introduced later, I don't know, and I wondered at first if this ep wouldn't be the excuse to do so. In the end, I'm glad they didn't because it would have been a cheap way out of the jam Lion-O got himself in.

Purrsia's Two Cents:

Liked this episode over all, and the Drifter character was fun. Lots of funny moments, and it had another growing pain lesson for Lion-O. I do hope the other characters are featured more in the next ep, even the Lion-O fan that I am.
As a side note, my husband remarked that the Tank is still not working to which I replied, "Well, nobody knows what the f*ck a samoflange is, so what do you expect?" ha, old joke. Moving on...

WB VIDEO CLIPS





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Captures From The Duelist and The Drifter

WB SCREEN SHOTS PURRSIA'S SCREEN SHOTS