The Wheel of Time (S2 Review) | The Show That Required The Ring Of Power’s Budget.

My journey into The Wheel of Time‘s world really started with the series Rafe Judkins created, I read “The Eye Of The World” before the Season One premiere but the TV series prompted my reading of the first book at the time. Even if Robert Jordan‘s books were sitting on my TBR for some time. The same happened with this season, I read “The Great Hunt” before the Season two premiere. What brought my attention to the show in the first place was Rosamund Pike who’s back for the second season alongside Daniel Henney, Madeleine Madden, Zoë Robins, Josha Stradowski, Marcus Rutherford, and Fares Fares. Dónal Finn (Rogue Heroes, Cursed, The Witcher) comes in as the new Mat Cauthon, with Ceara Coveney (Young Wallander), Natasha O’Keefe (Peaky Blinders, CB Strike, Sherlock), Ayoola Smart (Cocaine Bear, Killing Eve, Juliet, Naked), and Jay Duffy (Handsome Devil, Hollyoaks) joining the cast.

Last season: Perrin, Rand, Mat, Egwene, and Nynaeve left their tiny village, the Two Rivers. They’ve been taken on a journey around the world by Moiraine, a member of the Aes Sedai, a powerful organization of women who can use magic. She believes that one of them may be the reincarnation of the Dragon, a powerful individual who is prophesied to be the savior or the destroyer of the world. During their journey, these five young men and women have been separated, discovering unsuspected abilities within themselves, before being reunited to find out which one of them is the Dragon reborn.

Premise: After Rand faced the Dark One with Moiraine, in what they thought was the last battle to save the world, Moiraine was cut from the one power, and evil is not gone from the world. Now scattered all over the world the young friends from the Two Rivers have new and very old threats seeking them out. With Moiraine out of the way unable to help guide them they must find other sources of strength. In each other, or themselves.

Review: When I finished the first season, I was aware that there were elements in the story that must have come from later books, but I still thought that it was a solid adaptation of the first novel. While this season was airing, I was reading books three through five, and it kind of messed up my enjoyment of the episodes. I was a bit lost and didn’t understand some of the choices that were made in the TV show.

Even changes from season one that I didn’t mind at all started to bother me in season two. I’m mainly referring to Moiraine’s storyline. It’s not that I’m a stickler for the structure of the books, if you’ve read my book reviews you know that I started to really enjoy them from “The Dragon Reborn” onward – I’m in the middle of “Lords of Chaos” at the moment. My main problem with her storyline is that it reinforced what we already knew about her from the first season, we didn’t learn much, except maybe seeing the effect her loss has had on Lan, he’s not as strong and his senses are not as keen.

I do appreciate how Rand’s storyline played out – in particular regarding Selene. They showed us glimpses of his darkness right away and how even his “good deeds” are sometimes self-motivated. However, given that they didn’t exactly show Rand’s skill with a bow last season, telling us that he’s had sword-fighting lessons with a blade master seems like a bit of a waste. I would have loved to have seen it.

Liandrin was given more depth this season, but somehow more rot. The reveal about her wasn’t as dramatic as it should have been. In fact, twice they’ve switched things up to the detriment of a female character, first it was Nynaeve and Elayne’s escape that was aided instead of Nynaeve sniffing out a trap and reacting to it, that would have been more impactful. I also don’t like that they made Nynaeve less smart than smart, suggesting or doing things that we’ve established she wasn’t dumb enough to suggest. It started to look like they couldn’t elevate Egwene while giving depth to Liandrin, and fleshing out Elayne without bringing Nynaeve down.

Mat has now grown on me, not because of the TV show, but I’ll address the recast now by saying that Harris’ Mat looked and felt like he had an innate darkness in him while Finn’s Mat looks like he was corrupted despite himself. However, he might be a better fit for what’s to come for Mat, at least as far as I know for now.

Perrin is still my boy and his storyline is the one I’m most satisfied with. His interactions with Bornhold makes so much more sense for the future. Plus, having him with Aviendha somehow makes more sense. I like how they snuck in some bit of Aiel culture with how they introduced Ji ‘e’ toh, it was simple and quite effective.

To me, Egwene was made to be the stand-out of the season I love how they’ve showcased her growth and strength but it might have been too much. As impressive as it looks her being able to withstand Him for that long does not seem realistic and kind of diminishes the threat the Chosen pose.

The more I read the books, the more I feel like the show does not have the budget for the scale of the book series. They’re doing a great job of it but I’m now thinking that this show should have had The Rings of Power‘s budget.