Time for our 118th episode review, and this time it will be Sojourner Truth. It was a pretty average episode overall, but it didn't rank too bad. It was more of a "middle of the pack" episode. After this review, only two more to go:
THE DRIED EAR OF CORN OF SOJOURNER TRUTH
MOAT: 5/10
(Credits to "Purple Parrots Fan" for her contribution to this section)
For this moat, the teams had to simply crawl across the moat on a wobbly bridge. If the players fell into the water, they had to start all over again. This was a rather dull round, and none of the teams were impressive getting across. At the end of the round, the Purple Parrots, Green Monkeys, Blue Barracudas, and Orange Iguanas advanced to the Steps of Knowledge, a very rare steps color combination.
LEGEND: 7/10
One of the bravest and outspoken women of her day was the African American, Sojourner Truth. Over six feet tall, she was an imposing figure and a fiery speaker. In the 1840's, she began touring the country and speaking out against slavery. Her name always wasn't Sojourner Truth. Her actual slave name was Isabella Baumfree and legend has it that once she was free, she began smuggling food and supplies to Union soldiers during the Civil War because they were in short supply of them. Instead of thanking her though, the lieutenant in charge thought that she was spying. Sojourner claimed that she was only trying to help the famished troops, but the lieutenant thought she had an alternate motive. The lieutenant imprisoned her into a barn where she resided there for a few hours until she heard a faint scratching on the door. It was a couple of African American Union shoulders that Sojourner helped out earlier on. The soldiers gave her some bread and corn, and Sojourner managed to escape to freedom. The lieutenant was still upset about her getting away, and asked who the woman was. The soldiers said she was a "solider of truth", but the lieutenant thought they said her name was Sojourner Truth. The name stuck with her and she kept the Ear of Corn to remember the brave men that helped her. The Dried Ear of Corn eventually made its way to Olmec's temple. This legend was pretty good, and I think it told a good story about Sojourner Truth. Most of the legend sounded pretty accurate and there was no weird lines or voice acting in it. However, the artifact was pretty absurd though to associate with Sojourner Truth. A dried up piece of corn? I bet it took the producers all night to come up with that artifact.
STEPS OF KNOWLEDGE: 6/10
This round was pretty much about the Green Monkeys and Orange Iguanas. The Green Monkeys swept the Steps of Knowledge by getting the first three questions Olmec asked correctly. The Orange Iguanas eventually got the next 3/4 of Olmec's correctly too, (with the Orange Iguana boy answering all the questions), and met the Green Monkeys at the bottom to be the second team to go to the temple games. Nothing stands out about this round except for the very generous answer the Orange Iguana boy got. The answer to one of Olmec's questions was the "Union Army", but his "North Army" answer was counted correctly. If this was Season 1 and maybe Season 2, then this answer wouldn't have been counted as being correct.
TEMPLE GAMES: 6/10
The temple games featured a matchup between the
Green Monkeys and
Orange Iguanas. The
Green Monkeys featured
Tess, who wanted to be the first woman President and enjoyed gymnastics, and her partner
Eddie was into basketball and wanted to be a Marine biologist. Their opponents on the
Orange Iguanas included
Shannon, who was into ice hockey and wanted to be an ecologist, and her partner
Jerome, who was into science and school and loved football. The temple games were pretty tight for each match-up, but it still ended up being a snoozefest. The one highlight of this round though is in the second temple game where Kirk mixed up the teams bins.
Furthermore, this episode uses the exact same temple game sequence used in "The Lost Whale Bone of Pytheas," the episode taped before this one.
In the first temple game, Eddie and Shannon had to help feed the Union troops. To do this, they had to grab loaves of bread and place them into their baskets. The player that grabs the most loaves of bread after 60 seconds will win. Both players kind of had trouble getting a loaf of bread into the basket. In the end though, both players got 4 loaves of bread a piece. Both players earn a half-pendant in their first temple game. On a side note, Kirk kept referring to Eddie as a girl in this temple game.
In the second temple game, Jerome and Tess had to deliver a copy of Sojourner Truth's speech to people across the country. To do this, they had to pull themselves to the other side and grab a scroll and then come back and place it into their bin The player that gets the most scrolls into their bin after 60 seconds will win. Jerome kind of struggled in this temple game and he kept dangling from his harness while Tess kept goo rhythm in this temple game. In the end, Tess won the temple game with a score of 4-3. On another side note, the producers had the team baskets mixed up. Meaning, Tess was putting her scrolls into the Orange Iguana basket and vice versa for Jerome. Luckily, Kirk counted it before he shafted a team with an bad call.
In the final temple game, the teams had to help Sojourner collect money bags in order to support the Union Army. To do this, the first player had to jump onto the net and grab a money bag and drop it through the middle of it. Once they were done, their partner had to do the same thing. The first team that dropped the most money bags into their bins will win. In the end, the Green Monkeys collected more bags of money than the Orange Iguanas. With two pendants, the Green Monkeys earn the right to enter Olmec's Temple.
TEMPLE RUN: 5/10
(Credits to "Purple Parrots Fan" for her contribution to this section)
This temple run is very reminiscent of "The Bonnet of Dolley Madison," where too much stalling in a room (preferably the Dark Forest), costs the team a chance at victory. Eddie runs into the temple first, where Kirk calls his "Fast Eddie." I didn't see it, he moved a little too slow for my blood. Eddie also gets owned in the Pit big time, (see above photo), by taking a nasty dive while trying to get back on the platform. In the Chamber of the Sacred Markers, a temple guard takes his pendant, and he stalls quite A bit trying to complete the objective. In the Room of the Ancient Warriors, Eddie is removed from the temple with 1:47 left on the clock. It should also be noted that the Room of the Ancient Warriors is MUCH darker than usual. Almost like the lights in that room were turned off or something. All the other runs that day didn't have that problem.
Anyways, Tess enters the temple next and she's even slower. She eventually makes her way to where Eddie ran off, and wastes time fitting herself in all the armors, when the door to the Shrine was already open. The Shrine door opened when Eddie got removed from the temple. Furthermore, in the Shrine, Tess kept trying to assemble the monkey with the monkey turned around, wasting even more time. Tess eventually makes her way down to the Dark Forest, where a temple spirit takes away her full pendant. Unfortunately, the temple spirit distracted so badly she got completely confused and wasted the rest of the run trying to figure out what to do. By the time Tess did gain access to the Jester's Court, and laid her hands on the corn, time had already been called. In the words of her partner Eddie, "Just one more second." If Eddie and Tess had moved a little faster, they would've had a much better chance at winning.
FINAL VERDICT: 5.8/10
(Credits to "Purple Parrots Fan" for her contribution to this section)
Overall, Dried Ear of Corn was average in every sense of the word. The legend was interesting, but everything else about this episode was mundane. Despite Eddie and Tess' domination throughout the episode, their performance in the temple just didn't measure up. They were both way too slow and hesitant, and really should've been able to reach the corn, if not bring it out in time. Tess was especially hesitant, from assembling the monkey in an unorthodox and cheap way, to getting completely confused in the Dark Forest, ala Ashlie from "The Bonnet of Dolley Madison." Furthermore, this temple run uses the exact same layout as "The Much Heralded Helmet of Sir Gawain," only these players run into all three temple guards, and lose. So the temple layout wasn't particularly hard. Without all the hesitations, Eddie and Tess could've very easily have won this layout. All in all, while Dried Ear of Corn wasn't a bad episode, it was still a very forgettable episode. Despite that, I still recommend this episode to anyone.[/b]
Topic: Legends Episode Ranking System - COMPLETE (Read 87136 times)
