"The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills."
Hello everyone!
I'm a little late this year with my review of the second season to this show, partly because there's just been SO MUCH to catch up on, and partly because my job keeps me from keeping up as well as I used to while jobless.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm thankful to HAVE a job in the current climate, but it's true that you're severely hampered by this stuff LOL.
So anyway, I finally literally blew through the eight episodes of the second season, and MAN is the show getting better and better with each installment. It's like someone's been reborn on the turning of the Wheel or something.
Yep, I know you know what tonight's all about: the second season of Amazon's Wheel of Time adaptation!
Links to previous related posts, including and specifically the review of this show's first season, can be found at the bottom of the page, as per usual.
Very briefly, however: Moiraine Damodred, Aes Sedai, a woman who can channel the One Power, which is the magic of this world, broken by some dudes who thought they knew better (and some women who didn't want to back them up), finds five kids with a huge chance of becoming this person they call the Dragon Reborn, who'll stand against the Dark One in the Last Battle. Many adventures and disasters later, it turns out only one of them actually IS this Dragon dude, and his name's Rand al'Thor, but the Last Battle isn't fought and so everyone kind of goes their separate ways.
Season two is fragmented (think The Two Towers but on steroids) and I won't be jumping between plot lines so much as I'll go through them one by one so that we have some cohesiveness on this board. I'll do my best to keep them all as linked as possible so they make sense!
The very cold opening of the show is a poor little girl getting frightened by Trollocs outside where her mother's currently in a meeting, but my favourite part is Ishamael suddenly ducking down under the table where she's hiding and being all 'you know, this is an important meeting, what the actual heck'.
Then he takes the kid outside to pet the Trolloc like it's some sort of nice little doggy, and you start to wonder just what's going on in this guy's head.
Turns out, a fair amount, but we'll get back to that!
Everyone and their mother's been wondering about Moiraine since she got cut off from the One Power by Ishy himself back at the Eye of the World, and it turns out she hasn't exactly been doing all that well.
She's kind of sort of falling apart, but still pulling on the strings she spread across the world while fully in control of her power, and she's also done a fantastic job at pushing Lan as far away from her as possible, even as she learns dangerous and grave things and tries to sneak away without telling him.
Lan, for his part, is trying to be patient, but I feel that while everyone's putting Moiraine to the forefront of this pain they're feeling, that being severed from the One Power is the worst thing that can happen to a woman, no one's taking into account how LAN is feeling, not to the same degree at least.
He's been violated too, in a way, and it shows in the fight against the Myrddraal where he fails to properly protect his Aes Sedai, which then prompts her to cruelly dismiss him and pack him up with Alanna and her two Warders so that she can go on to do her own thing.
This hurts, for Lan and the viewers both, but he tags along (after swiping a poem she bought, by the way) and bides his time, making Alanna and her guys suspicious, until it all comes to a head when it's discovered that the poem is about a Forsaken named Lanfear, probably the strongest channeler besides Ishamael himself, and as devious as she is cruel in her single-minded quest for power.
Lan manages to convince his compatriots he's not, in fact, a Darkfriend, so they take him to the Amyrlin Seat, where he confesses what Moiraine hasn't really mentioned in the six months of letters, prompting (and forcing) Siuan to take matters into her own hands for a bit.
Meanwhile, the girls, Egwene and Nynaeve, have now been at the White Tower for months as novices, but only Egwene seems to be making progress, while whatever block Nynaeve has between herself and the One Power remains as stubbornly in place as she is. This causes a slight rift between the two friends, and Egwene meets Elayne Trakand, Daughter-Heir of Andor, whom she instantly bonds with as a fellow novice.
This is fantastic news because Liandrin is sniffing around Nynaeve, and for the life of me I can't figure this woman out, but let's proceed.
She manages to get Nynaeve to break her block once, then convinces the other sisters she should be sent through the Arches to become an Accepted, which backfires spectacularly when Nynaeve doesn't come out of the third and final arch, thinking she's already out - but really, the One Power is a fickle beast and is just toying with her, giving her a glimpse of a potential future that includes her getting hitched to one al'Lan Mandragoran.
Honey, you should have known as soon as the bad long hair wig came out this was NOT reality! Heroes don't have such terrible hair, come on now.
She eventually makes her way out, in an unprecedented move, and is risen to the rank of Accepted, which only furthers the rift with Egwene ... until it doesn't, because Liandrin spoon-feeds her some news about the boys she still cares about, prompting all three girls (because Elayne isn't going to be left behind, thank you!) to get themselves caught and parceled up like pretty gifts.
We'll return to them in a moment.
Because Liandrin's been busy, you see; she's been keeping an eye on Mat for Moiraine, just as she asked the Red Ajah a while back, and Mat's been properly miserable, except for when he discovers Min in a cell next to his own, and they strike an unlikely friendship.
After having a secret of hers exposed (ie, she has a son, this being the man Moiraine referred to her visiting back in season one), Liandrin's had enough of Mat and sets him free, or so it seems, until it turns out that this is another ploy of hers as Min is supposed to take him somewhere. Min isn't happy about it, but she's been promised something she can't refuse: if she does this, then Ishamael will take away her visions forever, enabling her to live a normal life.
So off Mat and she go, to Cairhien of all places. This also happens to be where Moiraine ends up, on her old family estate, WITH the remnant of her family, of which her nephew just so happens to be marrying the Queen, but our Aes Sedai has other business than to play house with the people who've left all the paintings and artwork of her on the walls while she's been off gallivating around the world.
She's on a quest, you see, seeking Rand, and bopping along to Logain Ablar while she's at it. You know, the guy the Aes Sedai gentled back in season one?
Moiraine had him moved over to her old hometown, because she was pushing things along, and she makes him promise he'll teach Rand to channel, then she might even let him kill himself since he's patently mad.
Cairhien also just so happens to be where Rand's been all this time, by the way, shacking it up with an innkeeper called Selene, a beautiful woman with black hair, white skin, and blue eyes.
He's also been in to see Logain, and he set Selene's inn on fire by accident because his grasp of the One Power is a little bit ... er, off, not that he admits as much. He just misses Moiraine because Selene whisks him out of the city, where they're attacked by Fades and Rand happily torches them, of course exposing himself as a male channeler.
Selene plays her part to perfection - in case you haven't yet figured out she's not who she's pretending to be - pushing him away and telling him to go, then softening and supposedly accepting him, up until the point Moiraine pops up to "kill" her as she's on top of Rand.
Dragging the reluctant boy with her, our Aes Sedai explains Selene is actually Lanfear and way back when, she and Lews Therin were a thing, before her quest for power disgusted him, he met the woman he ended up marrying, and Lanfear turned to the Dark as a response. Now she's trying to control Rand, as the baby Dragon Reborn, something Moiraine can't allow, which is why she also doesn't allow Rand to go to sleep.
But the one surprise in all this is that Moiraine's sister has actually already met Rand, during a gala he and Lanfear attended, which makes even Moiraine blink, and pause to accept some advice from the same sister she's been ignoring all season long.
She decides to send Rand to the dream world, where Lanfear is perhaps the strongest, but he's the only one who can possibly figure out what Ishamael actually wants (because, as these things go, you never know with the villains who have too much time on their hands and deliver soliloquies every second of their screen time).
Do we actually figure out what that is? Well, not entirely, because we're sadly interrupted. Remember how I said Lan went to Siuan?
Well, Siuan pops up in Cairhien too, takes Moiraine and Rand captive, stills the kid, and then proceeds to tell Moiraine about all the things she royally fucked up, which wasn't what Lan had in mind when he went to her for help, mind you, but he's only working with a third of the knowledge that Moiraine has because she talks to no one.
Rand asks Lanfear to bust him out, since part of Ishy's plan, the one part we know, is to get him to Falme, and Lanfear cheerfully wreaks havoc across Cairhien, which enables our heroes to escape with a little help from Verin Sedai, but not without a final confrontation with Siuan, who gets her ass handed to her by Lanfear, and the relationship she and Moiraine had probably crumbles to dust when Moiraine follows Lanfear and Rand into the Ways.
But wait! You say. We've been talking about the girls, and Mat and Rand.
What about Perrin?
Where's our favourite blacksmith off to? Well, he's been bopping with the Shienarans, as Ingtar & Co are hunting the Horn of Valere, and of course things don't go easy for them, because they happen to be in a village that gets attacked and captured by the Seanchan - remember those weird ships from the very end of season one?
Well, turns out that way back when, an expedition was sent across the ocean that never returned, but it actually made landfall and turned itself into a bustling Empire, which is now back to claim what they believe belongs to them. They make everyone swear an oath, and poor Uno, a fan favourite, bites the dust because he refuses.
Bastards.
Loial and Ingtar get whisked off to Falme, of all places - yep, all roads lead to Falme, as you can probably tell by now - but Perrin gets his ass saved by their tracker, Elias, who turns out to be a Wolfbrother, and who explains that Perrin's one, too.
And oh yeah the people he loves and cares about? They're not his pack, he better abandon them.
Fat chance, says Perrin, and hightails away with just the one wolf, Hopper, by his side, so that he can rescue his buddies, only to stumble over White Cloaks, who he really, really doesn't like. But he manages to free one of their captives, Aviendha, an Aiel out here searching for their leader of leaders, and she makes sure he knows she owes him a debt of life now, as they trek across to ... Falme.
I swear, Falme is this universe's Rome, honestly.
Because the girls, remember them? They got themselves caught, trusting Liandrin, who actually tricked them to deliver some really strong channelers to the Seanchan.
But then she made sure Nynaeve wasn't tied down, so she and Elayne escape, but Egwene is captured and literally leashed, because the Seanchan view women who can channel as lower than animals, using them as weapons only.
The scenes of the sul'dam trying to break her new damane are harrowing and brutal, and props to Egewene for holding out as long as she does, because even stronger Aes Sedai than her, ones who have been Aes Sedai longer, have broken much, much faster.
Her two friends will stop at nothing to save her, though, and neither will Rand, who knows Egwene's captive at Falme and that's his main motivation for going there, prophecy be damned. Nynaeve and Elayne, however, get whisked off by an Aes Sedai in hiding, who explains how the Seanchan work, and shows the collar and vambrace the women use to control channeling, so if they figure that out, they can rescue Egwene.
Nynaeve, of all people, has the breakthrough: the collar is a remnant of a past Age, and is whole only when put on a woman (which makes you wonder what the hell these people were smoking back in the day), and she uses it pretty nicely on one of the Seanchan so they can blend in and get to Egwene.
By this point, everyone's converging on Falme: Lanfear delivers Rand there, Mat's there because Ishy tricked him (naturally), the girls are gunning for Egewene, Egwene is lower than a slave, Loial and Ingtar swipe the Horn of Valere (obviously), and Moiraine's now back to channeling because Rand cut through the knot Ishamael put on her when he shielded her.
This last is curtesy of Lan, who's been doing some reading to try and figure out how to help his Aes Sedai, making you wonder just how single-minded Moiraine is that she couldn't first solve her own problem before tackling the next big thing, but anyway.
The pair gets yeeted away from Rand and Lanfear and is stuck on a beach across from Falme while everything's going on, but at least their bond is back where it should be and they function as one again, which is what we've all been wanting.
Mat, meanwhile, takes back the dagger he's been tempted with, but ingeniously makes a spear out of it so he doesn't have to touch it, and reunites with Perrin during an attack on Falme by the White Cloaks, because of course these idiots will be trying to liberate the city. The boys then cross paths with Ingtar and Loial, who explains where Egwene (and the other two girls, probably) are, but also that Rand will need the Horn of Valere, so everyone decides to give it to Mat while they fight.
During this fight, Perrin fully embraces his nature as Wolfbrother, and we all cry a river when Hopper dies defending him, but Mat's a little bit like Peter Parker during the Endgame battle, backed into a corner and with no other choice but to blow the horn to get himself out of there.
As the Heroes of Ages past appear, so do his memories, revealing that Ishamael was lying when he spoon-fed him a tea that supposedly shows him all his past lives, and which convinced Mat he was just a horrible waste of air: no, the Heroes say, he's one of them, and he has fought by their side times outnumbered.
And oh also, Uno's one of them, too, because OF COURSE HE IS!
The battle's now in full swing, but Ishy learns Lanfear betrayed him since she's more pro-Rand than anything else, and Rand (after killing the high-ranking Seanchan) figures out he can't do much against Ishamael when he's being shielded by the Seanchan channelers.
This is where all his friends suddenly pop up, a pissed-off Egwene who just watched the girl who tormented her die without lifting a finger to help (after putting a collar on her, too), Perrin with his wolfy abilities, and the girls, prompting a meeting between Elayne and Rand while she's trying to heal him from a wound Mat inadvertedly caused him when he tried to stab Ishamael.
And then while Ishy's there bemoaning that he'll have to wait for another lifetime to get things done properly (and we learn that Lews was the one who locked him up, a former best buddy to boot), Rand stabs him through with his heron-marked sword, ostensibly killing him.
Can you really kill a Forsaken though? We've already established that with Lanfear so, until there's actual confirmation Ishy's dead, my vote's on he's just licking his wounds somewhere.
This all happens after Moiraine puts her big girl pants on and destroys the Seanchan so that Rand has access to the One Power again; then she pulls another trick out of her sleeve and conjures a fire dragon, proclaiming Rand atop Falme for everyone to see, and while everyone cheers, our group of friends watch from above, trying to make sense of what's what, and what kind of world they've now entered.
And as for Lanfear?
Well, she's convinced she can dump the seals holding the other Forsaken and not worry about them again, but then she sees that Ishamael broke them, and we meet the craziest of the bunch, Moghedien, who explains that the rest of them always thought she and Ishy were too close to the Dragon to do what needed doing ... so they'll do it for them.
With a wink, she's gone, and Lanfear realizes that the shit-show is only just beginning.
Light help you indeed, Rand al'Thor.
Because that's where season two ends, and while we know season three's finished filming, it probably won't hit our screens for a little while, unfortunately.
This second season of what I believe will turn into a power-house for Amazon definitely packs a punch, and breaks free of what was plaguing it back in the beginning. While the storyline IS absolutely condensed and not as branched out as in the books, the main pathways are all walked and we're basically going towards the same goal.
My personal favourite moments remain the emotional ones where we learn more about characters themselves, like Liandrin with her son (whom Lanfear kills, by the way) or Moiraine's sister with HER son, you know, the guy supposed to marry the Queen? Well, turns out he's a Darkfriend, and so his mother makes the difficult, if right choice, to end him.
Daaamn.
I'm also in love with the distinct costumes for each region this season, how Nynaeve's sleeves as an Accepted hold all the colours of the Ajahs, and how Lanfear and Ishamael dress in something recognisibly modern but with a slightly futuristic twist to indicate they're from a different time entirely.
Most of all, however, I'm impressed with how the writers handled a multi-faceted story and so many main characters at once. It's not an easy job, but they definitely did it.
Now, we wait - and possibly read the books in the meantime! And we remember that there are neither beginnings nor endings to this Wheel of Time ... and as Loial points out, the people of today are the heroes of another Age's legend.
It is, indeed, time to start acting like it.
xx
*images and video not mine
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