Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 1, 2, and 3 Discussion

[halfhand]

Episode 1: A Taste of Solitude
Lan, Nynaeve, Egwene, Perrin, Moiraine and Mat find themselves more isolated than ever.

Episode 2: Strangers and Friends
The Two Rivers youths forge new relationships, while Lan tries to mend an old one.

Episode 3: What Might Be
Lan, Nynaeve, Egwene, Perrin, Moiraine and Mat find themselves more isolated than ever.
Release date: Sep 1 2023

Spoiler warnings: Spoiler mark Episode w and further. Spoiler mark any appropriate Book spoilers.

So I missed the actual premier, probably because the lack of hype and advertisement this year (which may be a little ominous, but WoT is approved through Season 3).


My review.

Characters: Thought the new characters were overall good. They did seem to stick close to the book with Elayne. I might prefer new Mat to old Mat.
Poor Uno. He is a fan favorite, but probably the best way for him to go out.
Elyas hybrid Hurin was good. Needs more fur.
Selene. Apparently Rand is into Peaky blinder MILFs, but I think will do a good binary act.
I don't understand what Moiraine was thinking with baiting three Fades by herself and powerless (also while I liked the Shadow Walk, the Fade die a little too easily)
Liandrin

Story. Pacing was fine. I understand the separating the characters and keeping them busy, but I was a bit bored with initial Lan/Moiraine and Mat in the jail.
The three arches test was good (The arches themselves look just so fantasy "generic" on the show, like too many things).
The Darkfriend social was the start of a good open (I know childcare can be tough, but maybe not the best place to bring your kid to work), but lots of missed potential here.

Background/costuming: I hate the Seanchan. The pacifier is obnoxious and you can't tell me its better than the leash. Although the American accent is good.
White Tower still seems a little claustrophobic and "small" to me.

Overall: I think it is a 7/10. I think the more it leans towards the original material, the better it will do. I think it already missed its mark with a lot of the enthusiast audience. General consensus seems to be that S2 is better than S1 but may be a little late. We will have to see how the viewing audience does, but I'm not it will last further than Season 3 without major change in momentum. My WOT-casual spouse wanted to go back to watching the One Piece live action.

[Eol]

Appreciate you creating the thread.

-I'm one episode in.
-Tried to watch the Moiraine-Fade Fight during the day before my kids went to bed - light shining in through windows, couldn't see a damn thing.
-The second I saw Elyas take the hybrid role I thought - yeah, that's one of those small sacrifices. That said I like seeing more Elyas.
-Would have liked more at the DF meeting
-I was amused by Moiraine's deal making.
-Nynaeve learning swordsmanship was kind of an eyeroll. I liked how they used it, but my memory of the books was novices are worked to tears, daily.

My TV immediately tried to play episode 3. Threw me off for about 10 seconds. I just know I'm going to hate the Seanchan.

[Prykor]

The Season 1 opening was a feast for the eyes, and ended up being the best part of several episodes by a good margin. Seeing that shortened to the last 5ish seconds with the simple gold outline ouroboros that dissolves was an incredibly disappointment. I was really hoping for another rug weaving cinematic...

The first episode felt like a filler episode. It was like 15 minutes of recap, 40 mins of several somewhat-ish character moments (most of them felt dragged out to all hell - Moraine's bath scene especially), and 5 mins of time spent pushing the story forward. I can't say I was very happy with most of those character moments, either -- Lan felt very out of character, and Moraine somewhat out of character.

Second episode was better (was a very low bar tbh), but not by enough to get ones hopes up. Certain characters things feel very dragged out, and others incredibly rushed. It makes me wonder what the director was thinking for most of it. It feels like they had about 2.5 hours of material that they wanted to pack into 60 minutes, but without the willingness to commit to cutting some of the less important threads and without the wherewithal to rescope, combine, and reshoot others to get those points across in a way that better fits the TV medium.
[spoiler]My wife was also very confused with this episode. "why is Matt still alive? Isn't the red girl group's job to kill male channelers?" and then near the end "why is the false dragon dude still alive? Wasn't the entire point of parading him around in a cage to bring him to the gallows to be hung?" [/spoiler]

The color coding of the weave threads is helpful, but it feels a lot more jarring against the poor acting (or direction) with the "waving my hands back and foreth woosh woosh woosh" and the heavily color + effects/motion focus of the new weaving stuff is a touch overdone (imo it should either be a softer effect with the strong colors, or dimmer colors with that strong effect). The multi-element weaves also seem a bit disappointing, I was expecting some rug-weaving action with the threads woven together, but they just spin in circles next to each other without crossing in any intentional or meaningful way.

[Chloro]

I think for the simple face that majority of the wheel of time books are inner dialouge and if you removed it your left with about 8/13 they are doing a fantastic job. The show will not be the exact books, no one has that kind of budget or patience to sit through it all.

Good things I Found:

-Verin/Adalease being the twins instead of yet another pairing.
-Adalease's Sass mouth at Verin and Moiraine.
-Alanna not being able to tell when a novice is talking about class or the bedroom..
-Nyneave being true to the books and questioning authority at every moment.
-Sheriam being a no nonsense get it done Sedai.
-Lan being told to Shut up for the first time in his life.
-Thomas being a former player.
-Seleane getting the abandonment fear right.
-Elemental flows having color to them.
-Elyane actually having a brain.
-Nyneave's Arches being true to the books.
-Expanding on Liandrin and using her Character to show the real cost of being Aes Sedai, watching your loved ones die while you do not age. That simple scene explains so much about her Character and motives.
-Finally, the Ajahs being true to themselves. The Suttle difference in members and in women from on Ajah to another. Sheriam seems on a mission and not willing to accept less than perfection, Alanna lets her warders speak like they are people, Moiraine is driven to the brink every time we see her, and Verin is just Verin. Sharp wit, noticing all, always one step ahead of the others.

[Katherine]

** spoilers, read only if you read the books and saw Ep 1-3 Season 2**

I liked Episode 2 and 3 much more than Episode 1. Episode 1 just brought back the bad taste in my mouth about how the authors rewrote so much of the core narrative. Ep 2 and 3, especially with the scenes in the Tower, was actually pretty good. It wasn't 100% book, but the scenes felt like they were just telling the story from a different angle than the books. The novice and Accepted dresses were done well. Still do not like how they just erased Elaida from the books and replaced her with a poorly done Liandrin hybrid role. Elaida is an incredibly important symbol and her demise is also an incredibly important symbol which was not lost on Sanderson when he wrote that scene from RJ's notes.

I love Elayne's casting. They should've introduced her in Season 1, but I think that may be due to them going off script with Rand's love life.

The arches! Other than over-complicating Nynaeve's testing there, they were done well. They even used the book script for dialog. I used to say "come, the hour waits for no woman" when bringing novices the arches years ago. It sounds cool.

There was a reference to NS when Lan explained how he and Moiraine first met. Not only the part about Lan throwing her into the pond, but also the part about her deciding on making him a warder after leaving Chachin. That is all 100% book accurate.

I love the casting for Verin! She's not as I pictured her when reading the book, and that's a good thing because she sells the part very well. Also the scene where she is talking to Moiraine about Rand and Moiraine is prepared to strike Verin dead to protect Rand is 100% book accurate. It happens in TGH either in Fal Dara or sometime after leaving, fairly early in the book. The writers may be paying some attention to the source material finally. Verin was always one of my favorite Tower characters. Cant wait to see how this ends. *wink*

Fares Fares as Ishamael is starting to grow on me. I'm still not really there yet, but I dont dislike him. Its not a home run casting decision, but its not terrible either. *shrug* Seeing him next to the Suroth reminds us that Ishamael has been pulling strings for a long time throughout history. of course in the books he's not freed by Rand and Moiraine in the Eye of the World. He's been free for thousands of years and is even responsible for the war between Tar Valon and Artur Hawkwing. Here we see him advising Suroth, which is certainly keeping with his character.

Plot continuity is bad. And we saw this in Season 1 too. Alot happens in the books. There are ALOT of plot arcs and characters that sort of branch out from defining events and then do their own thing for 1-2 books and then converge again on the next major event. I can see how that would be difficult to translate into a screenplay BUT it was done well in LOTR by Peter Jackson. We never got lost (for very long) trying to following the different branches of the story. WOT has a continuity problem. We start season 2 and Rand is in Cairhien (what?), Nynaeve, Egwene are in the Tower (ok I understand how they might've got there), Perrin and the Shienarians are all the way the frack in Toman Head, and nobody told us until Episode 2 or 3 when the Seanchan show up and we learn they are at Atuan's Mill. For most of that episode I thought the writers had placed the Seanchan in Shienar or along a river in Andor/Cairhien. I was completely lost and certainly did not put it past these screenwriters to do something that stupid. But nope they are just a few days ride east of Falme. oooooooooohhhhh. ok. hmm. Could've handled that better. a little exposition with a map would not have broken the budget I think.

Anyways, I am watching. I dont hate Season 2. I'm not in love with it. I'm watching because of Elayne, Selene and Uno. Well, ok Elayne and Selene (sigh wtf).

[alyse]

I'm enjoying the series, despite the departures from the book. I will say, however, that I wasn't a fan of dispatching with Uno so early on. He had more stuff to do! **sigh**

[Aira]

Perrin and the Shienarians are all the way the frack in Toman Head, and nobody told us until Episode 2 or 3 when the Seanchan show up and we learn they are at Atuan's Mill. For most of that episode I thought the writers had placed the Seanchan in Shienar or along a river in Andor/Cairhien. I was completely lost and certainly did not put it past these screenwriters to do something that stupid. But nope they are just a few days ride east of Falme. oooooooooohhhhh. ok. hmm. Could've handled that better. a little exposition with a map would not have broken the budget I think.

Yeah, I was literally lost. Although apparently you can go online and use the 'explore' button and it will show "Toman Head", but also "Arafel" (which should be Adeleas and Verin's place) and Cairhien. Given how important maps are for the fantasy genre, I disagree with having to use outside material in order to understand where someone is. There should've been a line like "we've been chasing them south-west for weeks without a trace".

[Katherine]

Perrin and the Shienarians are all the way the frack in Toman Head, and nobody told us until Episode 2 or 3 when the Seanchan show up and we learn they are at Atuan's Mill. For most of that episode I thought the writers had placed the Seanchan in Shienar or along a river in Andor/Cairhien. I was completely lost and certainly did not put it past these screenwriters to do something that stupid. But nope they are just a few days ride east of Falme. oooooooooohhhhh. ok. hmm. Could've handled that better. a little exposition with a map would not have broken the budget I think.

Yeah, I was literally lost. Although apparently you can go online and use the 'explore' button and it will show "Toman Head", but also "Arafel" (which should be Adeleas and Verin's place) and Cairhien. Given how important maps are for the fantasy genre, I disagree with having to use outside material in order to understand where someone is. There should've been a line like "we've been chasing them south-west for weeks without a trace".

Probably not in their CGI budget, but a scene where the camera pulls back from Fal Dara and slides off to the south west over TV then west over the Mtns of Mist and then zoom into the plains of Arad Doman with Falme in the distant background would've done wonders for continuity not just for knowing where Perrin and the Shienarans are at, but also seeing how the main features in between are position in relation to each other to help frame the other scenes better.

[Aira]

Yes, moar maps!

[Mronz]

I'm liking it much better than season 2, so far.
*SPOILER EP3*
I was about to lose it, when I thought they had actually killed off Nynaeve, as well as Uno, lol.
/SPOILER*

Simple book accuracy, I don't understand why CAirhien has a queen, instead of it being a king...

At least sound wise, it sure seams like in the show, Nynaeve and Egwene, are way more verbally rude to the aes sedai, in the tower, then would ever be permitted, in the books.

Sul'dam / Damane:
Now, not seeing the screen, only using the descriptive audio...
They described Damane as "female warriors with silver muzzles on their faces"
That seams far from, cowering timid women, clad in gray dresses, trailing behind a sul'dam, by a silvery leash.
I keep trying to see if I can find anything, where Rafe explains his damane choices, but I've not found it yet.

Overall, super excited to see where season2 goes.