Willow creator talks season finale, from Graydon's fate to the implications for Willow and Elora's powers
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Warning: This story contains spoilers about the season 1 finale of Willow.
The Crone is dead, long live the... Wyrm?
In the season finale of Willow, which hit Disney+ on Wednesday, our ragtag crew's adventure came to an end (for now). Finally reaching the Immemorial City, Elora Danan (Ellie Bamber) and Kit (Ruby Cruz) were faced with a choice — fight the Crone (Jane Carr) or give in to the Wyrm's promises to fulfill all their desires.
Eventually joined by the rest of their enclave, including Willow (Warwick Davis), Elora and Willow teamed up to defeat the Crone, losing Graydon (Tony Revolori) to the Wyrm in the heat of battle. But they did manage to save Airk (Dempsey Bryk), reviving him from his evil transformed state. The final moments revealed Graydon waking on the same battlefield from Willow's nightmares, only to find a short-haired Elora inviting him to join her and her army so that they could rule the world.
It's still unknown whether or not we'll see how this plays out in a second season, but executive producer Ron Howard (and director of the original 1988 film) is thrilled with what they've done so far. "I wouldn't have even supported [the project] if it hadn't been for [Jonathan Kasdan's] instincts and take on how to make the show be more contemporary and not be nostalgic," Howard tells EW. "He was such a fan of the movie and understood it and the DNA of it. I knew he could get the tone and build on it."
Howard always hoped there would be more Willow, and he says that conversations with George Lucas, who produced the film via Lucasfilm, about expanding the world started as early as ten years after the first film. But the budget and technological capability required to tell the story with the effects, magic, and sprawl to do it justice on television only became possible in recent years.
While we wait to hear Willow's renewal fate, we called up series creator Jonathan Kasdan to talk about that action-packed finale, Graydon's potential switch to the dark side, and the implications of losing Willow's staff and Elora's wand.
Lucasfilm Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis)
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I don't think you could end the show without losing someone, but how did you decide it would be Graydon as opposed to Airk, Boorman, or anyone else who's life was in imminent danger?
JONATHAN KASDAN: There was some conversation about that. But we all felt that there was something beautifully tragic about Graydon, and as a character, he is our Dark Prince. We always called him the Dark Prince in our construction of the show. One of the questions we always had and hoped to keep alive to some extent throughout the season was, "Is he good or is he evil?" As the show progressed, he's pretty definitively good. His devotion to Elora was so pure, and the way he played those scenes was so lovely and tender. It felt like the thing that would most impel Elora into this final stage of her development was the loss of this completely devoted person. As is often the case with these decisions, and they're sometimes unpopular, sometimes you want the most devastating possible thing. And for her, he felt like that.
Now that Airk has come back to himself, is there any chance he and Elora would reconnect? Or is her heart fully with Graydon at this point?
She's not with either of them, frankly, at the moment. She's intent on taking a little break from the dating world entirely, and we'll see how she does with that. But conversely, Airk is not at all over her. In fact, she's only more attractive to him now that she's empress of the world and the most powerful sorcerer ever and has come into her power so fully. But I definitely think the bloom is off the rose for Elora.
If Elora hadn't changed her mind during that wedding ceremony, how bad would that have been for everyone else?
It would've been bad. One of the things that the movie set up that is a helpful bit of storytelling is this idea that this baby, they couldn't just like chuck her out the window and kill her, and that would be the end of it. There was something about her spirit that needed to be either extinguished or transported or moved in some way that made killing her not a good option, which is convenient as a storytelling device for the movie. They've got to get her back to the castle. She's going to be okay a little longer. But it's really helpful for us here in the series that there's something more at stake than simply, "Will she live or die?" There's something about her that is spirit. It's in line with George Lucas' philosophical, quasi-religious stuff about the Force. There's a great speech in Empire Strikes Back that I was just thinking about last night — that I'm sure my father wrote — which is that we're more than just this crude matter. We're celestial beings. There's something of Elora that is pure light, and it would've been really bad if he'd been able to suck that light out of her mouth.
Boorman gives his own reasoning for it, but why is Kit finally able to use the armor?
Kit's journey is about embracing responsibility. It's a very personal idea to me because I myself struggle with this very question of, "How much responsibility do I want to have? And family and who do I take responsibility for?" She's running away from that responsibility all season. In the end of the season, she finds herself moved by Elora and devoted to her, and above all the other characters, she is the one most equipped to protect her, spiritually and emotionally. Metaphorically, Elora represents the natural spirit of the world, and Kit represents our human role in that. She goes from being very selfish to very generous. It's that journey that makes her worthy of the armor.
We do see Willow and Elora defeat the Crone, but I take it, if you have your druthers that their fight is far from over?
Absolutely. It was always designed to be a three-act story. These things have to have a finite end to them. Because as a fan of these stories, I don't want to think that creators are just continuing it as long as they can to make a buck. It's nice in this day and age where there's an appetite from these streaming services for stories that do continue but aren't endless. This was very much designed and intended that this would be the first part of the story about Elora coming into her power, and then she would have to contend with darker forces beyond that.
They do end this with the charred remnants of Willow's staff and Elora's wand broken. How much is that going to be an obstacle to them? Will they need to repair those things?
You really hit on something with the staff question, and it's been something we've talked about a lot in the writer's room. It was a very intentional decision for Willow to sacrifice the conduit for his power to save Airk. We wanted him to give something up that was meaningful. It felt like a fun way to enter potentially future stories where he doesn't have that way of expressing the magic in himself and to have that be a challenge that he has to overcome.
Lucasfilm
Early in the show, we see Willow say a prophecy claims Elora Danan has to die. We saw her make it through this time, but should we still be worried about that?
Absolutely. The Crone is the Wyrm's agent. She's this talent agent, she goes out, she makes the deals, she tries to recruit the people. She's the producer, but she's not the talent herself. The Wyrm is the thing. And that dark force that presses against the light is still very much out there in the world to be contended with.
When we get to those final moments of the season, Graydon seems to be waking up on this battlefield that we've seen in Willow's nightmares. Is that accurate?
It's so accurate that the moment we finished shooting Warwick standing up in that battlefield, we were like, "Okay, get Warrick out of there, throw Tony in." We were racing the clock to do it. And Tony was in position not 10 seconds after Warwick had vacated it.
The final battle really reminded me visually of the Harry Potter wand duels. How much of a visual reference point was that for you?
Huge. There's the promise of a lot of things in that final scene. But the big one for me is that in a character like Elora, much like Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter, there is the potential for incredible good and incredible darkness. We wanted to complicate the meaning of that a little bit over the course of the season and not have such hard and fast concepts of good and evil. Particularly Star Wars has a very clear bad guys-good guys thing, and we've made it much more in our series about desires versus ideals and the conflict between those two forces within ourselves. Certainly, that conflict is alive in Elora. The temptation of what the Wyrm represents is powerful. Ellie communicates it in this almost ecstatic way that she plays out the battle with the Crone. It's terrifying and hard, but it's also clearly getting her off a little bit (laughs). We really wanted to play on that and unequivocally with that final scene, stay with the fact that the potential for something really bad is in her too. Something really rather destructive is in her too.
Should we interpret that final version of Elora that Graydon sees as her potential alternate path?
Yes. And as the clear statement of intention by the bad guy.
You said before you'd like to have Val Kilmer appear in a second season.
There's nothing I would like more. The world is unpredictable, but certainly the runway has been laid for him, and we'd love it.
But you did have Christian Slater as a guest star. Is there another 1980s heartthrob you'd love to have on the show?
I'm a huge Billy Zane fan. If I could find a way to use that man in Willow, I would be very pleased. He's under-appreciated, under-loved and brilliant. I'm not the only one who feels this way. He's done some great stuff lately. So I'm hopeful that he's someone we could use someday.
Hulu and Disney+ are a package deal, and with Reservation Dogs, there are now two Elora Danans in the Disney family. Is there some crossover potential there?
(Laughs) No, but we invited them all to the premiere. They weren't able to make it, but we are still fighting for an opportunity to have a coffee between our two Elora Danans. They need to sit and do a photo shoot together or something. It's too perfect. That show is unbelievably great. I would love to have Devery Jacobs guest star on the show. That would be a really fun idea.
Is there any news you could share on a potential season 2?
Only that I'm sitting in my office and continuing to plan and scheme. It's a strange time in the business. It's a transformative time for Disney. So, I couldn't tell you anything that felt certain, except that we're continuing to work on this with every intention of doing more.
Can you tease where you envision it going from here?
The events of the finale have to be dealt with in a meaningful way at the top of wherever the story goes and the implications of the trauma those events caused to our characters and where it lands each of them. I'd love to get these characters out of that desert. Beyond that, they're all looking at very clear conflicts that were deeply positioned in season 1. Specifically, with Jade, the question of her loyalties and where her politics are going to land her is at the forefront in our minds in terms of where that character can go and, and how she's torn between love and country a little bit. There's no shortage of directions that we'd love to explore, but at its core, it is about this conflict between this otherworldly entity and our heroes. And that's far from over.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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