The Shannara Chronicles 2x01 "Druid" brings forward a rich setting ripe for exploration

As someone who has never read the Shannara books, it is not really my place to speak about how the show is attempting to adapt the book material into a visual medium. That being said, the season two premiere of The Shannara Chronicles certainly has grabbed my attention by catapulting what seemed to be a fairly standard hero's journey from the first season into something that seeks to be a bit more refined in their character arcs and setting.

Even as someone who has never read the books, the setting of Shannara is fairly interesting and rarely executed on-screen. Placing the usual fantasy tropes and settings in a post-apocalyptic Earth is one of the reasons that drew me to the show in the first place. When that stark contrast is brought into relief during the first season, that is when the show shines. The show seems duller when it focuses more on the gilded halls of Arborlon and more interesting when it involves our heroes trudging through ruined information-age buildings like high schools and having little to no clue as to the significance of that structure.

After a quick epilogue to show Eretria's fate at the end of season one, the second season jumps a year into the future and places the world in an interesting new set of circumstances which I hope will prove as the basis for an interesting and more varied season. Although Amberle appears to have moved from central figure to the sidelines now, many more allies appear in the form of Lyria and Mareth for Eretria and Will respectively, as they find themselves worlds apart after the events of the first season, and by the episode's end, it seems like they must leave their worlds of relative safety and comfort to reunite again.

It remains to be seen what the true journey for Will shall be until he reunites with Allanon, but it seems that it will likely be related to Bandon's fairly creepy dark magic attempt to resurrect some 'warlock' figure. That, mixed with the background developments of General Riga and the Crimson hunting down magic users through the land will likely provide some interesting situations where our heroes will have to fend off two antagonists with opposing viewpoints on their journey. Although Bandon's attempt to bring a dark evil into the world seems like a fairly standard fantasy plot, the fact the Crimson are running around trying to persecute magic users might provide for some more fruitful and nuanced storytelling.

• Liked the small nod to Rey in The Force Awakens as Eretria was working inside the ruined aircraft carrier.
• Hats off to the effects team who did a fantastic job with Bandon's snake disciple after he drank the warlock blood. 
• I'm not sure but it seems like the move to Spike from MTV could be for the better? It does not seem the budget seemed to have dropped at all. Although it does keep a lot of the DNA of beautiful people being framed as gorgeous very often.