Knightfall episode 8 review: Was that backstab justified?

After spending many weeks dabbling in talk of the Holy Grail, the cup really runneth over on Knightfall episode 8. Over the course of this episode we had a chance to see a lot of story play out in regards to the most sacred of items, which had apparently found itself in France. Landry found himself within a discussion with the Church over it, which went just about as well for him as you would imagine.

We’ll admit that the Holy Grail story still remains to us the show’s weakest part of the episode, if for no other reason that we do tend to bounce around to so many different characters that it’s hard to focus on any one of them. By the end of the episode, what we saw was Landry preparing for yet another battle. We will say this: Landry can make a compelling battle cry. His part of the story tonight culminated in a pretty bloody, intense battle sequence — it was a little smaller in scale than what we’ve seen elsewhere, but kudos to the series for making do with what they had and using camera angels to make the battle feel a little more epic than perhaps it actually was. The History channel has long proved that they are the top of the pack when it comes to making epic battle scenes out of very little, just look at what they’ve done with Vikings over the years.

In the end, though, Landry won this battle — while also serving as executioner in the process for who is a Templar and who isn’t.

What Knightfall does continue to excel at is painting a picture of medieval life that is dark, hardened, and certainly violent in ways that you would expect. You also see just how far many are willing to go for the sake of faith and to preserve their own family names. The pieces shuffled around for a while, but everything exploded at around the 40-minute mark.

Related – Want to know what’s coming up next on Knightfall?

Is something still missing? We would argue that, (until tonight) they still needed that one big shocker that gets people talking. This is a series that has a major challenge in airing after Vikings and there are some very-clear struggles still in trying to live up to that show.

Basically, tonight’s episode brought you one of the more bloody, brutal murders that we’ve seen. A pregnant Joan decided that she wanted revenge, and was very much intent on doing what she needed to be done. She argued that she committed this murder for the sake of helping everyone in Catalonia restore peace, which is probably a little bit easier of an argument to make when you are not covered in blood. Yet, at the same time her rousing speech after the murder to the army seemed to make some sense.

The message here? Don’t mess with Joan, and she won’t mess with you … at least as much as she did to Elena. With her own cousin gone, her work isn’t entirely done — she still wants safety, and more than that, she wants independence.

CarterMatt Verdict

Knightfall episode 8 proved itself to be probably the best episode of the season, at least in terms of bringing a lot of drama and some genuine jaw-dropping moments.

What did you think about Knightfall episode 8, and the entire first season to date? Share some of your thoughts on that subject now in the comments! Meanwhile, you can also like CarterMatt on Facebook for some additional insight regarding Knightfall whenever you want. (Photo: History.)