ABC’s ‘The Quest’ episode 3 review: Who would save the Queen?

After the end of last night episode of “The Quest,” we were basically sold that the Queen was going the way of King Joffrey: Death by poison. The only difference is that people actually like the Queen.

Luckily, there was a plan sprung into motion tonight to revive her and preserve Everealm, and this set the stage for what has to be our favorite episode of the entire season so far for a variety of reasons. For one, the challenges were cooler than they have ever been. Having this terrifying “Hag” (their choice of words, not ours) force the paladins to concoct materials to a potion turned out to be very entertaining, from those who fared well (Andrew and Patrick) to those who stumbled. Christian continues to be the guy who barks but likes the bite. He lost his key and spent the rest of the challenge finding it.

Andrew was eventually bestowed the winner, and his reword was some other Everealm merit badge while also getting far closer to the Queen that you would probably get to any actual Royal. Does the winner of “The Quest” get to become King … or Co-Queen? Could be a cool twist? Just saying.

Our biggest critique of the show so far has been that the challenges before the Fates were kind of weak, and lacked the sort of spark and sizzle we were hoping for. Tonight’s showdown between Bonnie, Jim, and Christian was not the case. While it was a simple act of balancing out ground-up materials, you had an interesting narrative in here. You had Bonnie, the likable underdog somehow managing to make it to the top. Then, you had Christian continuing to stumble despite this being his third time in the bottom.

We have no idea why the paladins sent Jim home. Who cares is Christian looks like Legolas and claims he’s really good at stuff? If he cannot prove it, it doesn’t really matter. Plus, Jim actually looks like the sort of guy who really should have been there given how much he dug the story. Maybe he can write the sequel or a “Quest” tabletop game. We’d play that.

As bummed as we are about the end, we gotta give some props to the way the show devises cliffhangers in a way similar to “Whodunnit.” This time around, the teaser was that Sanctum is under attack. Could we have the “Quest” version of “Blackwater”? We sure hope so, because if they find a way to actually give us a reality TV battle sequence, we’d file it under “one of the coolest things ever.” Episode Grade: A (though we’re tempted to dock it a little because we don’t get the elimination).

What was your take on this episode? Share your thoughts now with a comment