The Wheel of Time Season 2: Analysis of Second Season Before Episode 8 Release
One step away from its conclusion, the fantasy produced by Amazon still proves incapable of overcoming its historical defects.
Following a first season that was contradictory, to say the least, The Wheel of Time Season 2 returned to the public with four new episodes of fundamental importance, because they were responsible for the continuation of a potentially very extensive project: the show produced by Amazon Prime Video – the second most expensive in the history of the medium – in fact, it aims to bring Robert Jordan’s fantasy saga to the small screen, an adventure 14 novels long and therefore full of imaginary characters, places, and cultures.
The initial impact of the second season, which you can recover by reading the first look of The Wheel of Time Season 2, had not dispelled all the doubts that hovered around the project, but a breezy third episode left us with an interesting question about the dual nature of the TV series. Slow and bombastic in large portions, but also captivating in sparse moments of unexpected brilliance, what path would the ambitious television sequel have followed? Will the writers finally manage to balance world-building with the construction of an intriguing narrative? After having watched another four episodes, and thus having arrived one step away from the conclusion of the season, we can say that the questions have been answered, but it will not satisfy the desires of the still undecided viewers.
The Wheel of Time Season 2 Analysis: Perpetually Waiting?
Like a chess player who leisurely ponders his next move, the narrative observes the pieces placed on the playing field waiting for an elusive and predictable shock. Perrin’s hunt for the Horn of Valere crashes against the excessive military power of the Seanchan, a belligerent people determined to reconquer with brute force that continent from which they were expelled centuries ago, but his strange bond with wolves captures the attention of Ishamael, the Outcast who in the shadows prepares the ground for the great battle between Light and Darkness.
Rand is still dealing with his difficulties, at the mercy of the drama caused by his being the Dragon Reborn, and therefore is charged with protecting The Wheel of Time as well as capable of destroying it definitively: pulled to one side by the Aes Sedai who want to preserve the world as we know it, and on the other by the agents of the Dark One eager to break the inexorable circle, the boy experiences a personal conflict that perhaps his old friend Mat could dispel. Nynaeve and Egwene’s novitiate at the White Tower ends in the worst possible way, but their destiny is never to become yet another Aes Sedai who pulls the strings from behind the scenes, so they embark on the journey to Falme to save their comrades from foreign army, ending up straight in the beating heart of the enemy advance in Randland.
Forgettable Passages!
It is essential to focus precisely on the two channelers to analyze the now well-known ambivalence of a TV series that at times seems incapable of managing the original material of the novels: their plot is in fact in constant evolution, progress made of places, objectives, and discoveries that lead them to be the true factual center of four episodes largely incapable of moving without them. The test of Nynaeve’s Bows deepens on a personal level the character of a protagonist who had only demonstrated her immense power in flashes, while Egwene’s jealousies are short-lived due to the clear betrayal of Liandrin, who delivers the two women to the invading empire after making a pact with the messenger of Darkness.
When the two novices appear on the screen it is, therefore, reasonable to expect news, more or less surprising revelations, and confident cliffhangers, but unfortunately, their presence is not constant and the narrative more than willingly delves into the negligible lives of the other characters: if the plot around Rand, as the great driving force of the entire imaginary universe, is always (at least potentially) capable of surprising, the momentary glimpses of the remaining companions of the Twin Rivers make us impatient with the narrative void that surrounds them. Perrin’s aimless wandering in search of a pack, as well as the puppet existence of a Mat who has abandoned his group of friends, are visual rather than conceptual pretexts that the writers use to break up the episodes, but the real abyss touches on the intolerable “nothingness” of Lan, an aching hermit trying to overcome the severed connection with his Aes Sedai.
We would then need to come up with a much more complicated, and not at all positive, discussion on the show’s treatment of Moiraine both in terms of the screenplay – some of her decisions appear incomprehensible for a woman of fine acumen – and on the acting level of an at times embarrassing Rosamund Pike: it is perhaps in this character that lies the worst specific flaw of the entire series, therefore we prefer to suspend the provisional judgment and postpone the complete analysis to the final review when the whole picture will be clearer and the exact extent of the crime will be revealed intertwining.
The Incredible Waste!
It is curious how the popular verb of this imaginary kingdom, “the Wheel turns inexorably”, which indicates a perpetual movement in defiance of all the ambitions of crystallizing a moment in time, exemplifies so well the terrible immobility of a plot that struggles to find momentum despite some moments of shining greatness. It is almost impossible not to return to a word that it is no coincidence that we used for the title of the review of The Wheel of Time, that famous “waste” of which the screenwriters still do not seem satisfied: the arrival on the scene of Lanfear, a new, very powerful Outcast capable of invading the dreams of his victims, managed intelligently, it could have been a magnificent scenic earthquake, and instead it is presented by a few banal sentences within a rather lazy episode ending. What then about the empire that moves its offensive towards the continent?
New customs, a revenge hatched over the centuries, and above all the treatment reserved for one’s channelers, initially seen horrifyingly but over time revealed itself to be increasingly similar to the socially accepted one of the Aes Sedai. The Seanchan is a hotbed of unexpressed ideas that unfortunately the screenwriters fail to implement properly, and all too often it is left in the background as a spectator without the possibility of immersing oneself in the plot. The universe chiseled by the screenwriters and by Jordan even before them is vivid and intricate, but within it, the gears do not seem to move with the intensity suitable for filling episodes lasting a good hour, and so the dissolution of the initial group in many small personal stories without too many twists pay the price of an almost soporific narrative, net of some major reversals arranged with malice in the final moments of each episode.
The Last Words
Only one episode separates us from the conclusion of what proves – once again, and therefore even more guiltily – to be a very heavy prologue towards something gigantic and exciting, thus making it very unlikely that a turning point will arrive that could change the destiny of a series that flounders in the bombast of a multiple narrative perhaps too complicated for the screenwriters to manage. Glimmers of pure fantasy majesty can still be admired within episodes that are far too diluted and verbose, but what really shocks is the superficiality with which some major issues – social, sentimental, tactical – are ignored by a plot that grabs events almost everywhere, rarely finding anyone worthy of note.
