Episode Grade: A-

tl;dr version:

• It was a bit slower than Leavetaking, which was to be expected.

• A lot of Rand whining, which wasn’t fun, and I’m hoping that’s not the usual course for him.

• Some lore dumps which could have been a little more interesting,

• Trollocs still look awesome

• Myrddraal are nightmare fuel

• Rosamund Pike’s performance of The Oaths is subtle and excellent

• Abdul Salis’ take on Eamon Valda will be the Joffrey Baratheon of the series

I’ve spoken with a few friends who have not read the Wheel of Time books about the Wheel of Time series. They have all had the same reaction: they aren’t sure. One friend, Jim (@JimnmyTrashTalk) said, “Cant say there was anything terrible about it but it was just...mediocre? [Game of Thrones] had me by the balls from the get go.”

This seems to be the sentiment of people who haven’t read the books, which is…well, odd, really. Most times when books are adapted to another medium, it’s the other way around; the book readers are generally unhappy with how much was changed, and the “general” audience is happier without the baggage of the books.

I’m hoping that as the season progresses that the slow burn will pay off and that the audience sticks around so we can see how the producers will develop fifteen(!) books into something manageable for television.

On that note, on to random thoughts on The Wheel Of Time Season 1 Episode 2, “Shadow’s Waiting”.

Trollocs and Myrddraal VFX

The Two Rivers Crew is on the run from the Trollocs, which, once again, need mentioning as looking incredible. This would have been so easy to mess up, but they look unique and real. I’m having a hard time figuring out if they are a mix of practical and CGI effects, or purely CGI. It’s a testament to the work of the team at Cinesite, the VFX house behind the series.

I believe that this is also the first clear look we get of a myrddraal, and Jeezus H Christ on a stick, more nightmare fuel! Too many teeth in that mouth! Once again, Cinesite is just killing it.

Tolkien Influence

The scene at the river crossing definitely felt Fellowshipesque, and it’s not surprising. Jordan freely admitted the influence Tolkien had on his work (and, quite frankly, every fantasy author since the publication of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings).

The Children of the Light (aka Whitecloaks)

The Whitecloaks make their first appearance in this episode, and I like that we get to see a contrast in attitudes between Abdul Salis’ take on the sadistic Eamon Valda and Stuart Graham’s genteel Geofram Bornhald.

While the Whitecloaks are pretty universally antagonists throughout the books, Jordan didn’t paint them all with the same brush. Some are more reasonable, others are more fanatical. I get the impression that Eamon Valda will be the Joffrey Baratheon of the series.

The Three Oaths

Another important concept is introduced in this episode: the Oaths that the Aes Sedai take upon being “raised to the shawl” (essentially anointed, much like a Catholic priest). It prevents them from “speaking any word that is untrue”, which Moiraine explains is different from lying.

A common theme is that the words an Aes Sedai speaks are not the ones you think you hear. We see this in her interaction with Valda, where she says, “We came from Baerlon,” in response to the question of where they saw Trollocs. She answers the question without answering it: they did just come from that town, leading to the implication of that is where they saw the trollocs.

(Nice acting choice by Rosamund Pike here as well. It looked like the lie got caught in her throat and she had to course-correct to say what she wanted to say.)

Ironically, the oath that ostensibly prevents Aes Sedai from lying ultimately seems to create even more distrust in them, essentially negating the entire reason behind that oath. I’m sure that this will create some interesting fan moments as they figure this out and attempt to dissemble every word spoken by any Aes Sedai character.

Lore Dumps

I feel that despite Robert Jordan’s propensity for verbosity, he definitely wove a very rich and detailed history of his world, and if we’re going to get into the lore (which we should) there needs to be something more than just a character telling the story. This can get old very quickly in a visual medium, and requires a lot heavy lifting on all of the actors’ parts to keep that interesting.

The song about Manetheren was a nice touch. I think that this was used in place of a scene in the book when the villagers are initially escaping Two Rivers and as they charge a line of trollocs, Mat begins shouting in the Old Tongue (a language that is never specifically identified by name and is only understood by scholars and nobles to varying degrees). I suppose this was once more a means of showing that “the old blood runs deep” without tipping their hand as to who the Dragon Reborn is.

Finally, we end up in Shadar Logoth, a creepy-ass abandoned city. Now I never envisioned it with a wall, and I don’t think it was mentioned as having one in the books. They weren’t isolationist as much as utterly and totally fanatical about victory over the Shadow at any cost, and they essentially became what they beheld and fell to their own paranoia.

I wish they had played it from that angle in the series, as it’s a very interesting approach to examining a potential fate of a civilization, even when they had the best of intentions. Extremity in any capacity will lead to evil. (The Whitecloaks are a “contemporary” example of this, as mentioned above in the comparison of Eamon Valda and Geofram Borhald.)

At any rate, Mat does the one thing he’s told not to do in taking the dagger (I’m sure there won’t be any consequences there, right?) and they encounter Mashadar. In the books, Mashadar is described as a semi-sentient greenish fog, so I’m not sure why the producers chose a creeping shadow instead. It’s a little thing, nothing that breaks the immersion, but still, I wonder.