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“The Wheel Of Time” Drops First Look Images Ahead Of Season Three

MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME THROUGH BOOK FOUR: THE SHADOW RISING, AND POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME SEASON THREE, AHEAD!

The best (and most criminally underrated) fantasy series on television, Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time, is returning for its third season in less than two months, and the streamer has dropped first-look images showcasing new locations and characters, key moments from the pages of Robert Jordan’s The Shadow Rising, and a wardrobe’s worth of bold, beautiful costumes designed by the absolute madwoman (complimentary) that is Sharon Gilham. Rand al’Thor and the rest of the Emond’s Field Five feature heavily, while characters like Alanna Mosvani and Liandrin Guirale are nowhere to be seen, indicative of the series-wide shift in focus away from the Aes Sedai (including Rosamund Pike’s Moiraine Damodred) onto the younger cast led by Josha Stradowski’s Rand, happening in season three. This shift, which doesn’t occur in the books because Rand is the clear protagonist from the get-go, is something some fans have eagerly anticipated and others have dreaded, and I am very interested to see if The Wheel Of Time can achieve a healthy balance. Let’s see what we can glean from the new images.

Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, and Donal Finn as Mat Cauthon in The Wheel Of Time, standing in the common room of an inn. Rand and Perrin are leaning against a square stone pillar. Rand has short reddish-brown curly hair and wears a dark blue jacket over a lighter blue shirt. Perrin has frizzy dark hair and a beard, and wears a dark plum-colored coat over a plaid vest. Mat, out-of-focus in the foreground, has short dark brown curly hair and a patchy beard, and wears blue.
Rand, Perrin, and Mat | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Rand, Perrin Aybara, and Mat Cauthon get together for drinks, something they haven’t had a chance to do since they left Emond’s Field in season one, episode one. This shot has to be from very early in the season, because the three boys’ storylines obviously haven’t yet diverged, with Rand heading off to the Aiel Waste, Perrin returning to Emond’s Field, and Mat apparently accompanying Nynaeve al’Meara and Elayne Trakand to the city of Tanchico. Based on the architecture, the setting is probably the city of Tar Valon, which tracks with what we know (from descriptions of footage shown at CCXP in Brazil) about one of the first major set-pieces in season three, a battle between the Aes Sedai and a mutinous contingent of Darkfriends led by Liandrin Guirale that moves from the White Tower out into the streets of Tar Valon.

Ceara Coveney as Elayne Trakand and Ayoola Smart as Aviendha, drinking together and smiling. Elayne has long reddish-brown hair and wears a gold dress. Aviendha has long reddish-brown hair in locs, and wears a sand-brown hood made from a coarse fabric, with lightweight brown leather armor and fingerless gloves.
Elayne and Aviendha | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

In what looks to me like the same tavern in Tar Valon, Elayne and the Aiel warrior Aviendha are seen sipping drinks and staring into each other’s eyes. This image immediately caught my eye for the simple fact that I’m queer, and like many queer readers, felt that there were definite undertones between these two characters even in the books, where Elayne and Aviendha come to regard each other as “first-sisters”, an Aiel term for two women who are not of the same mother but are as close as if they were kin. In Robert Jordan’s expansive world, there are a fair number of female characters one might be tempted to categorize as canonically queer characters, although unfortunately, nine times out of ten, I feel it would be more accurate to describe these characters as overtly heterosexual women thrust into homoerotic situations by their creator for no other reason than that he was a straight man who was not particularly subtle about his fetish for women making out with each other (that, and women being spanked: there’s so much spanking in The Wheel Of Time). So in spite of all the evidence that would seem to support queer interpretations of Elayne and Aviendha’s characters and relationship, I genuinely do not think Jordan himself thought of them as anything but straight.

That being said, the television adaptation has already canonized one relationship that was ambiguous in the books, between Moiraine and Siuan Sanche. Jordan wrote that the two women were ‘pillow-friends’ during their youth — the Wheel Of Time equivalent of saying they ‘experimented in college’ — referring to a practice amongst the isolated female Novices at the White Tower of finding comfort in same-sex partners: only, Jordan emphasizes, because there are no men around. It’s understood in the books that Novices are supposed to ‘mature’ out of desiring these same-sex relationships, with those who don’t often framed as having sinister motives. Moiraine and Siuan, however, are middle-aged women in the show, and their love is portrayed as just that, love, not a ‘phase’ either woman is looking to outgrow. There are also several other explicitly queer characters on the show, both male and female. So I have faith that fans of the “Avilayne” pairing will not be let down.

Natasha O'Keeffe as Lanfear, standing in a doorway, looking over her shoulder with a slight smirk. She has short jet-black hair and dark eye makeup. She wears a black-and-white cloak or mantle, and around her ear she wears an ornament in the shape of a three-headed black snake.
Lanfear | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Although it’s hard to tell for certain where this shot of the Forsaken Lanfear fits into the timeline we’re piecing together, I’m going to put it here because the architecture in the background feels more like Tar Valon than any of the other locations we know we’ll be visiting in season three, and it would be very much in-character for Lanfear to stalk Rand while he’s out with friends. I’m gonna tell you my theory: Lanfear is keeping just enough distance between herself and Rand so as not to make her presence near him known to the other Forsaken who may be watching, but Rand notices her in this scene – and this is the moment she turns away, with an almost sorrowful expression on her face that says she could protect him from what’s coming, if he only let her back into his heart. By the time he reaches the door, she’ll have vanished, of course, leaving him shaken up. You can remind me come March if I was right or if this shot is from an entirely different scene.

Sophie Okonedo as Siuan Sanche, throwing her arm out and channeling red and gold threads of the One Power into a spiral weave as she battles an unseen opponent. She has short dark hair under a lofty headdress made of gold lace and baubles, and wears a gilded coat.
Siuan Sanche | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Siuan Sanche, the Amyrlin Seat of the Aes Sedai, throws out her arm and channels a complex weave using red and gold threads of the One Power in this image, which I feel pretty confident in saying is from the aforementioned battle with Liandrin and her cronies. The woman beside Siuan is Alanna (yes, I lied when I said she was nowhere to be seen, though to be fair, it is only a bit of her shoulder; but those gold epaulets are clearly the same ones she’s wearing in the teaser trailer, shown below). Siuan is channeling upwards in this shot, which leads me to believe that Liandrin is on the mezzanine encircling the round Hall of the Sitters, or has brought the roof down on their heads.

Priyanka Bose as Alanna Mosvani, weeping over someone's body. She has long dark hair covered in ash. She's wearing a green dress with gold epaulets and a gold collar.
Alanna | youtube.com
(from left to right), Ceara Coveney as Elayne Trakand, Madeleine Madden as Egwene al'Vere, and Zoe Robins as Nynaeve al'Meara, on horseback. Elayne has blonde hair in a bun, and wears a gauzy green dress with gold armor. Egwene has short dark hair under a gold tiara and wears gold armor over a long gold gown with a serpentine flame pattern. Nynaeve has long dark hair, and wears a padded silver vest and armor over a yellow dress.
Elayne, Egwene, and Nynaeve | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

This striking image of Elayne Trakand and Nynaeve al’Meara flanking Egwene al’Vere, all three on horseback and wearing impractical armor over luxurious gowns, can only be from one of the two Accepted Tests we haven’t yet seen, Egwene’s or Elayne, and I’m gonna take a wild guess and say it’s Egwene’s based on the fact that she’s front-and-center, and dressed as the Amyrlin Seat (Flames of Tar Valon are emblazoned on her armor and embroidered on her gown; she’s also wearing a ring identical to Siuan’s; the gemstone necklace is a curious accessory, unique to Egwene but with no immediately apparent symbolism). In the books, the last of the three alternate universes Egwene enters during her Accepted Test is one in which she is Amyrlin and must preside over the trial and gentling of Rand al’Thor, a captive of the Red Ajah.

The sense I’m getting from the show’s version, or at least from this still-frame, is that Egwene and her companions are hunting Rand themselves, and will engage him in battle. Whereas in the books, this stage of the Test is built around Egwene’s fear of Darkfriends amongst the Aes Sedai, I think the show will make her greatest fear the future that awaits Rand (not to mention the whole world), if she can’t figure out how to stop him from going mad like all male channelers before him: and to that end, I think Rand will kill the alternate universe versions of Elayne and/or Nynaeve in his madness, with Egwene narrowly escaping.

Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor and Daniel Henney as Lan Mandragoran in The Wheel Of Time. They stand back-to-back on a mountaintop, practicing sword forms. Rand has short reddish-brown curly hair and wears a gray shirt with rolled-up sleeves and dark trousers. Lan has black hair in a top-knot. He wears a gray long-sleeved shirt and gray trousers.
Rand and Lan | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Next up, we see Rand practicing sword forms with Moiraine’s Warder, Lan Mandragoran — a scene from the first chapter of book two, The Great Hunt, that didn’t make it into season two, although Rand did pick up a few moves from an elderly blademaster in the city of Cairhien, and Lan taught him one of the better-known forms, ‘Cat Crosses The Courtyard’, before his audience with the Amyrlin Seat. Fans of their relationship will be pleased to have the sword training subplot picked up again, and hopefully afforded a little more time and space, in season three. This was one of two clips shown to the audience at CCXP (the other being a preview of the battle in Tar Valon), and descriptions of the footage place Moiraine and Egwene in the same scene, suggesting that this takes place during their journey from Tar Valon to the Aiel Waste.

(From left to right) Nukâka Coster-Waldau as Bair, Synnøve Macody Lund as Melindhra, Daniel Henney as Lan Mandragoran, Björn Landberg as Rhuarc, Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor, and Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred, standing on a rugged hilltop in a desert under a cloudless sky. Bair has long white hair and wears a white dress with a hood and shawl. Melindhra has blonde hair under a brown hood, and wears lightweight brown leather armor, a skirt of tassels, and brown pants, with three short spears strapped to her back. Lan wears a gray hood and baggy gray tunic. Rhuarc has red hair under a sand-brown hood, with brown leather armor and trousers made from a coarse brown fabric. Rand has short curly reddish-brown hair and wears a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, dark trousers, and a sword strapped to his back. Moiraine has long brown hair under a large hat, and wears a brown shawl over a sand-brown top, with a long gray dress.
(left to right) Bair, Melindhra, Lan, Rhuarc, Rand, and Moiraine | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

This reverse angle of the opening shot from the teaser trailer gives us our first look at several new characters from the Aiel Waste, including Nukâka Coster-Waldau as the Wise One Bair, Synnøve Macody Lund as the Malkieri refugee turned Maiden of the Spear Melindhra, and Björn Landberg as clan chief of the Taardad Aiel, Rhuarc. The teaser reveals that they’re looking out over Rhuidean, a city built shortly after the Breaking of the World, the ruins of which have been put to use by the Aiel as a testing ground for women training to become Wise Ones and men looking to become clan chiefs. The city is home to several ter’angreal, magical constructs with specific functions, including one that shows visions of possible directions a person’s life may take, and another that allows a person to relive historical events through the eyes of their ancestors. Rand’s journey to fulfil the prophecies of the Dragon Reborn will lead him through Rhuidean, while Moiraine will learn there what steps she must take to keep him alive until the Last Battle.

Rhuidean is widely regarded as one of the most memorable sequences in the entire fourteen-volume book series, and while I expect it to play out a bit differently in the show for a number of reasons (namely, the apparent absence of Mat Cauthon and the inclusion of Moiraine’s perspective), I hope what we get from the adaptation is similarly rich and immersive. The show has tried to simplify Robert Jordan’s complex magic system and worldbuilding for general audiences, but three seasons in, if you’re still watching, chances are you’re already invested in the story and won’t be turned off suddenly by an influx of new information.

Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred, standing in a desert, channeling golden threads of the One Power into a glowing orb she's holding out in front of her. She has long dark brown hair, and a blue gemstone on a slender gold diadem sits upon her brow. She wears an intricate gold lattice-work chest-piece over a sleeveless blue dress.
Moiraine Damodred | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Moiraine channels golden threads of the One Power into a glowing sphere, potentially a miniature version of one of the two enormous crystal balls that collectively form the ‘Choedan Kal’, a sa’angreal (an object that allows a channeler to channel more of the One Power than they would normally be able to). The Choedan Kal is the most powerful sa’angreal ever made, and requires two ter’angreal to unlock it, referred to as access keys. I suspect what we’re looking at in the image above is Moiraine attempting to unlock the Choedan Kal using just one of the keys,  possibly during a confrontation with Lanfear or another of the Forsaken.

Olivia Williams as Morgase Trakand and Shohreh Aghdashloo as Elaida, walking side-by-side down a corridor in the White Tower, between rows of soldiers in red-and-gold uniforms and Novices in white dresses. Morgase has short blonde hair under a gold tiara encrusted with rubies. She wears a large white heart-shaped lace collar, and a long-sleeved white lace coat over a long dark red gown. Elaida has short jet-black hair. She wears a crimson coat over a dark red gown with a heavy gold necklace, large gold earrings, gold bracelets on both arms, and multiple gold rings.
Morgase and Elaida | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

Queen Morgase Trakand of Andor and her Aes Sedai advisor Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan make their debut in this shot of the two entering the White Tower, presumably looking for Morgase’s daughter Elayne, who as far as they’re aware is still missing after being kidnapped from the Tower by Liandrin in season two and whisked away to Falme on the other side of the world. By the time they arrive, I fully expect Elayne to be long gone from Tar Valon, this time on a top-secret mission to the city of Tanchico, hunting Liandrin and her cabal of Darkfriends (more on that in a minute). The ensuing stand-off between Morgase and Siuan is only recounted after the fact in the books, but leads to Elayne giving Mat Cauthon a letter to take to her mother in the city of Caemlyn before she sets out again, which ends up being a surprisingly fun little subplot; not crucial by any means, so I won’t be shocked if it’s cut from the show, but what is crucial is the emergence of Mat’s luck (he’s essentially got the same powers as Marvel Comics’ Domino), through episodes like the quarterstaff fight with the Trakand boys, the chase across the rooftops of Tar Valon, and the encounter with Aludra the Illuminator, which are all part of this subplot.

Morgase’s advisor Elaida, an Aes Sedai of the increasingly powerful Red Ajah that oversees the systematic extermination of male channelers, is someone to keep an eye on – and not just because The Wheel Of Time was fortunate enough, speaking of luck, to nab Oscar-nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo for this role. Elaida is one of the most important characters in the entire series, a complex antagonist to Siuan Sanche who sees herself as the leader the Aes Sedai desperately need if they’re to defeat the Dark One at the Last Battle: because they’re sure as hell not going to rely on a male channeler like Rand al’Thor, not if Elaida has any say in the matter. The White Tower she’ll be returning to in the show, after years of living in Caemlyn, is one that will have just been rocked to its foundations by an attack from within. The Red Ajah, which Liandrin belonged to, will be eager to pin the blame on Siuan, but needs a charismatic representative with no connections to Liandrin to make the argument. There’s no better moment for Elaida to step in and fill that role.

Donal Finn as Mat Cauthon, Zoe Robins as Nynaeve al'Meara, and Kae Alexander as Min Farshaw in The Wheel Of Time, standing in a smoky room amongst a crowd of colorfully costumed revelers, speaking to a man in a black hat who is handing them something wrapped in a cloth. Mat has short dark brown curly hair and a patchy beard. He wears an oversized frilly maroon coat over a low-collared saffron-yellow shirt. Nynaeve, standing beside him with her hand on his arm, has long dark hair in a braid and dark eye makeup. She wears a red, black and gold long-sleeved dress with shoulder cutouts. Min has black hair in a slicked-back mullet, with a black-and-white headwrap. She wears a black leather bolero over a black-and-gold top, and a gray dress with pockets. She has a throwing knife in a small scabbard on the front of her belt.
Mat, Nynaeve, and Min | Twitter @TheWheelofTime

In the books, book three to be precise, Siuan assigns Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne with a top-secret mission: following Liandrin to the city of Tear, where (unbeknownst to Siuan) Liandrin is going to try and capture Rand with the help of the Forsaken Be’lal, who is disguised as a High Lord of Tear. Mat, as I mentioned, goes to Caemlyn to deliver Elayne’s letter to the Queen, but while there, learns that the girls are walking into a trap, and makes his way to Tear in the company of the gleeman Thom Merrilin. Liandrin ends up escaping to the city of Tanchico, where Nynaeve and Elayne continue their hunt for her in book four, The Shadow Rising, with Thom as their escort, while Egwene goes to the Aiel Waste with Rand. The television adaptation is, as far as I can tell, having Nynaeve and Elayne head straight to Tanchico from Tar Valon, bypassing Tear entirely, and Mat will be joining them – though whether from the outset of their adventure or, as in book three, after realizing that they’re in danger and coming to save them, remains to be seen. There’s a very strong chance that Tanchico is where we’ll be reunited with Thom, last seen on the show in season one and presumed dead by much of the general audience, but returning at long last for season three. And obviously but rather oddly, the seer Min Farshaw is here as well.

Tanchico is the capital city of the nation of Tarabon, which in recent years has been torn to pieces by a civil war instigated and prolonged by the Whitecloaks in neighboring Amadicia, who hope to destabilize the region (in the books, the reason why the Whitecloaks are in Falme is to try and set up another vassal state north of Tarabon with which to slowly blockade the larger nation into submission). Tarabon has two rulers, a male King and an elected female ‘Panarch’, who governs from a palace complex in the hills above Tanchico. This palace houses the world’s largest museum, containing relics dating back thousands of years to before the Breaking of the World – including several ter’angreal. Is one of these the object wrapped in cloth that Mat, Nynaeve and Min are seemingly looking to purchase or barter for in the image above? And who is the man they’re dealing with, anyway? My bet’s on Juilin Sandar, the rat-catcher whom the girls hire to spy for them in Tear.

Well, that’s everything. What I’m hoping to see from the next batch of images released by Amazon is our first look at what’s going on in the Two Rivers, along with some more new characters like Faile Bashere and Gawyn Trakand, and familiar faces like Thom Merrilin, Tam al’Thor, Liandrin Guirale, Moghedien, Verin Mathwin, Dain Bornhald, and Logain Ablar. How about you? Who or what got you most hyped out of these new images and who or what are you still hoping to see before season three arrives this coming March? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

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Shohreh Aghdashloo Joins “The Wheel Of Time” As Elaida

MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME UP TO BOOK FOUR: THE SHADOW RISING, AND SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME SEASON THREE, AHEAD!

Some surprises are not lessened for having been spoiled well over a year in advance, and Shohreh Aghdashloo being cast as Elaida in The Wheel Of Time season three is certainly one of those. Aghdashloo, an immensely talented Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning actress best known for her roles in sci-fi drama The Expanse and HBO’s The Batman prequel series The Penguin (and for her distinctive, gravelly voice, which she has lent to animated series Arcane: League Of Legends, fantasy film Damsel, and video game Assassin’s Creed: Mirage), is a huge get for Prime Video’s adaptation of Robert Jordan’s fourteen-volume epic fantasy series, standing on equal footing with star Rosamund Pike and guest star Sophie Okonedo (both Oscar-nominees). And fans have been waiting for this announcement for a very….very long time.

Shohreh Aghdashloo as Chrisjen Avasarala in The Expanse. She has long dark hair in a braid. She is wearing a red-and-gold sari.
Shohreh Aghdashloo in The Expanse | imdb.com

It all began back in December of 2021, while The Wheel Of Time was airing its first season and The Expanse was airing its sixth and last. Both shows being on the Prime Video home page resulted in a lot of crossover between the two fandoms, and people started fan-casting Aghdashloo as various characters from The Wheel Of Time books who had yet to appear in the show, particularly the cantankerous sorceress Cadsuane Melaidhrin. Aghdashloo took notice and even brought it to Wheel Of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins’ attention, tagging him in a fateful tweet that read: “Hi, @rafejudkins, the fans say, we need to talk”. Judkins responded: “Girl, I’m in. I don’t know how to use Twitter but if I did I would DM you. You’ve been on my mood board for a certain character since 2018 haha”.

We now know that the character Judkins had in mind was not Cadsuane at all, but rather Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan, an even more important character in the books who takes an antagonistic role to protagonists Rand al’Thor and Egwene al’Vere, not because she’s a Darkfriend, but because she genuinely (and mistakenly) believes she’s the most qualified person to lead the fight against the Dark One. Elaida is a divisive character: some readers (myself included) regard her as one of The Wheel Of Time‘s most compelling villains, while others find her unbearable or almost comically misguided. I am nonetheless confident that the adaptation which somehow turned us all into Liandrin Guirale redemption arc truthers will give us a reason to begrudgingly sympathize with Elaida, maybe even root for her. Aghdashloo’s casting makes it a near-certainty that her shenanigans will be more entertaining to watch than they sometimes are to read about, that’s for sure.

Elaida is a member of the Aes Sedai, the order of female channelers (sorceresses) who have historically used their considerable power to try and repair a world that was deeply fractured three-thousand years earlier during the Breaking, when all the male Aes Sedai went mad and turned on each other. Elaida belongs to the Red Ajah, the largest faction of the present-day Aes Sedai, whose primary task is to hunt down male channelers and subdue them before they can go mad and cause another Breaking. Elaida is one of the most powerful Aes Sedai alive, equal in strength to Moiraine Damodred and Siuan Sanche, and at one point seemed to have her eye on ascending to the Amyrlin Seat (the leadership position which Siuan currently holds). It therefore came as a shock to many when Elaida abruptly moved to the nation of Andor and became the full-time advisor to Queen Morgase Trakand, seemingly conceding the Seat and ending her promising career in Aes Sedai politics. What none realized was that Elaida had the rare Talent of Foretelling, and had seen in a vision that the royal line of Andor would be the key to victory in the Last Battle: which she interpreted to mean Morgase’s daughter, Elayne Trakand, who can channel and is indeed stronger than Elaida herself.

Wide shot of the Hall of Sitters in the White Tower, from The Wheel Of Time. A woman in a long red gown is sitting on the Amyrlin Seat, with a dark-haired woman in a white dress sitting on the armrest at her left hand.
The Amyrlin Seat | youtube.com

Elayne began training at the White Tower in season two, and was almost immediately kidnapped by Liandrin Guirale, an Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah and secretly a member of the unofficial Black Ajah made up entirely of Darkfriends. Her abduction was covered up, and Liandrin was consequently able to avoid being caught for a time, but season three opens – Rafe Judkins has said this, the teaser trailer confirmed it, and footage from the sequence was shown to CCXP attendees – with Liandrin finally being exposed, and subsequently activating a whole bunch of Black Ajah sleeper agents amongst the Aes Sedai to help her escape punishment. The ensuing massacre (my word choice, but that’s what it looks like to me) will rock the Tower to its core; and amidst the upheaval that must surely follow, Elaida will return at long last, probably looking for Elayne and instead finding the Aes Sedai in total disarray, enflaming in her a fierce desire to fix the Tower, even (or perhaps especially) if that means getting rid of Siuan Sanche and replacing her with a more competent, capable leader, someone like…oh, I don’t know, Elaida herself.

To say any more would require me to get into major spoilers for The Shadow Rising, the book being adapted in The Wheel Of Time season three, so I’ll leave it there and let you discover what happens next when The Wheel Of Time returns on March 13th, 2025. In the meantime, share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

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High Camp Meets High Fantasy In “The Wheel Of Time” Season 2, Episode 5

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME SEASON TWO, EPISODES 1 – 5, AND BOOKS 1 – 3, AHEAD!

This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the series being covered here would not exist.

I’m not sure how Robert Jordan would feel about me describing his books as campy. But that’s beside the point. His books are campy, and delightfully so. The Eye Of The World, the first book in what would grow to become a fourteen-volume series spanning decades, was published in 1990, and hailed as a radical return to the classic formula that initially made high fantasy successful after a decade of the genre being dominated by weird, esoteric science-fantasy and grim, hypermasculine sword-and-sorcery, but far from being just another tired take on the hero’s quest, The Wheel Of Time is distinctly fun, right down to the iconic, endearingly garish cover of the first book that depicts Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) as a seemingly three-foot tall woman with a beehive updo sitting sidesaddle on a white pony, riding alongside a hulking samurai. It’s a colorful blend of the poetry and profundity of Tolkien and Le Guin’s seminal works, the vividly pulpy imagery of Brothers Hildebrandt artwork from the 70’s, and the wild romanticism of McCaffrey’s Dragonriders books, rolled up into the strongest, trippiest joint you can possibly imagine.

(Left to right) a Seanchan soldier; Fares Fares as Ishamael; Karima McAdams as High Lady Suroth; Jessica Boone as Alwhin; and a second Seanchan soldier. Ishamael is wearing a black leather vest over a long-sleeved white shirt with dark trousers. He has dark hair slicked back, and a dark beard flecked with gray. Suroth is wearing a rust-red scale-patterned coat with a long train bunched up around her feet, over an orange vest and teal-blue gown. She is bald apart from a strip of dark hair down the center of her scalp. Alwhin is wearing a bronze-colored scale-patterned jacket and a long rust-red gown. She has dark brown hair neatly arranged in geometric buns on the side of her head, and her face is partially covered by a mask. They are all standing under a teal-blue and rust-red canopy in a lavishly furnished room with hanging lamps.
Ishamael and High Lady Suroth | press.amazonstudios.com

Of course, grabbing a little bit of everything encompassed by the fantasy genre means that, inevitably, a few unsavory or downright icky ingredients make it into the mix. Every book in the series is as dense as the day is long, and the lore only gets more incomprehensible the deeper you go. The rules of Jordan’s gendered magic-system are extremely dated, and he writes women like he heard about them once from fragments of an ancient, poorly-translated myth. The queer representation, even if progressive for the time, is still abysmal. It’s a difficult book series to recommend for all these reasons. But if you happen to enjoy camp, there are the fabulously-dressed, morally-ambiguous middle-aged sorceresses to consider. The eccentric and overtly queer-coded villains who throw masquerade-balls and tea-parties in their spare time, fierce young women put through the ringer both emotionally and physically, and numerous hunks with romance novel-ready hairstyles, many of them stoic and brooding and deeply repressed, are a nice treat, too.

And of course, there’s the kink and eroticism, can’t forget all the kink and eroticism.

While Amazon’s adaptation of The Wheel Of Time may not be skewing close to the plot of the books in its second season, the series has never been more faithful to the essence of the source material than it is right now, simply by being unapologetically fun, bold, and at times a little bizarre. I mean, we were straying into surreal territory already with the Trial of the Arches, but I think Lanfear (Natasha O’Keeffe) donning a BDSM-inspired all-black leather outfit to seduce submissive farm-boy Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) in the World of Dreams might be what finally convinces the average viewer that this is not another Lord Of The Rings or Game Of Thrones, and it’s not trying to be, either. The Wheel Of Time was made for the girls and the gays. Unintentionally? Perhaps that’s what Jordan would say, but there’s no way showrunner Rafe Judkins – a gay man himself – doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Episode five is high camp from start to finish, opening on the masked High Lady Suroth (Karima McAdams) having her foot-long lacquered fingernails clipped with a sword to symbolize her fall from grace, and closing on O’Keeffe’s Lanfear debuting her dominatrix look. Every minute in between is practically dripping with the homoerotic subtext that Jordan injected into so much of his writing; somehow most palpable when Lanfear and Ishamael (Fares Fares) are onscreen together, going over their plans. While they circle each other with a hungriness in their eyes, both wearing oversized, open-collared nightshirts and sipping wine from enormous goblets, there’s one thing on both their minds, and it’s Rand al’Thor (an underrated hilarious aspect of The Wheel Of Time is the fact that Rand is Just Some Guy™ in this Age, but all these three-thousand year old entities with enormous power remember him as someone completely different, and much more impressive). The Forsaken take turns toying with each other’s emotions – and demonstrating their prowess in the World of Dreams – by conjuring lifelike images of the sheepherder lying in Ishamael’s bed, while they loom over him. Ishamael even snuggles up to him and caresses his face at one point. I legitimately believe things would have escalated further if Ishamael hadn’t been woken out of his pleasant dream by something in the real world that was no doubt far less interesting to him.

Mind you, this isn’t the first time Ishamael has shared an intensely erotic scene with one of the ta’veren boys – I have not forgotten how he force-fed Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) in episode three while making uncomfortably prolonged eye-contact with him – nor is it the last, but this is the first time in the show I think it’s unequivocally clear that Ishamael’s obsession with them has an undercurrent of sexual attraction. There’s certainly a debate to be had over whether The Wheel Of Time has enough heroic queer male characters in its cast to get away with portraying the main antagonist as a gay man, but anyone who’s watched any Disney animated movies can tell you that it’s the campy, queer-coded villains who make the strongest impression, and there’s no denying that Ishamael has been a highlight of the second season, his jovial nihilism unexpectedly endearing.

The fact that he looks and dresses like the grizzled, older, sexually adventurous wealthy businessman on the cover of a very filthy Wattpad fanfic is another point in his favor – and I don’t just mean because he’s very attractive for those who are into that sort of thing. The trope of a queer male villain besotted with a straight male protagonist is quite common. It’s rare, however, to see a queer male villain portrayed with such raw sex appeal, and that changes the whole dynamic. There is nothing loathsome or pitiable about Ishamael, nothing ineffective about his preferred tactic of seduction. He is potent, affecting everyone who comes into his orbit and leaving them shaken even if they manage to pull away. Take Perrin, for example. If he wasn’t bisexual before meeting Ishamael, he is now.

Put a pin in that, we’ll get back to it later. I’d be remiss for not first praising the scene-stealing performance of Natasha O’Keeffe as Lanfear, a juggernaut in black leather thigh-highs. She was holding back on us in the role of Lanfear’s alias, flighty, free-spirited Selene, diminishing herself and her presence to match what Rand wanted from her, but as Lanfear she effortlessly dominates the screen, a dismissive flick of her wrist the most motion required to pop a man’s skull like soap-bubbles or stitch a woman’s mouth shut with intricate needlework. She seems to take joy in doling out these and other sadistic punishments for the minor offence of existing in her vicinity, but no pride. She does not swagger or brag to intimidate those she does not see as her equals. Everything humans have built and accomplished in the last three-thousand years since the Breaking is of little interest to her, or provokes a mild disappointment. But then, even the other Forsaken who survived the Breaking, powerful as they are, earn her derision – “Moghedien’s insane, Graendal’s a vain idiot, and the boys couldn’t execute a plan even if they were under Compulsion”. Rand has her respect, because of what he is, while Ishamael has her partial attention because he stands in her way.

Lanfear is iconic, and we love to watch her on a rampage, but she would not be half as interesting if she were simply evil for the sake of being evil. While the Dark One wants to break the Wheel of Time to restore the universe to its natural state of chaos, and Ishamael believes that breaking the Wheel will end the cycle of violence and suffering, Lanfear – unsurprisingly – could not care less what happens to the world, as long as she and Rand walk away from the Last Battle hand-in-hand. She loved the last Dragon before Rand, Lews Therin Telamon, and when he left her for his eventual wife, she turned to the Dark to get him back. With all that said, I do hope the show eventually delves a bit more into who Lanfear was before the Breaking, including her work as a quantum physicist and her involvement in releasing the Dark One, because there’s more to her, too, than her relationship with that scummy dude.

The Wheel Of Time has taken an empathetic approach to many of its villains (with the notable and appropriate exception of the imperialist Seanchan); Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) is among the most three-dimensional characters in the series, which is incredible given that Robert Jordan wrote her to be the exact opposite, a mustache-twirling minor antagonist whose schemes were repeatedly foiled by her own unamusing incompetence. Fleetwood’s Liandrin, apart from being complex and compelling, is also extremely capable. She sidesteps every trap laid for her, and does what she can, with the limited power at her disposal, to walk a fine line through the gray area between Light and Dark. She turns Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoe Robins) and Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) over to the Seanchan as prisoners, as expected of her, but frees her beloved Nynaeve just before exiting through the Waygate and stranding them there with High Lady Suroth – who is incompetent and only succeeds at collecting Egwene, letting Nynaeve and Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney) slip through her (now significantly shorter) fingernails.

Katie Leung as Yassica and Meera Syal as Verin Mathwin in The Wheel Of Time, seated next to each other on a couch, staring down at a piece of parchment. Yassica has short dark hair pulled into a low bun, and wears a brown sweater over a white blouse and a long brown dress. Verin has short gray hair, and wears a light brown gown over a white blouse. She is peering through a golden monocle on a chain around her neck.
Yassica and Verin Mathwin | press.amazonstudios.com

Back at the White Tower, the sudden disappearance of three very powerful Novices does not go unnoticed, but someone – Liandrin or another Darkfriend amongst the Aes Sedai – has already contrived a cover-story; that the girls received permission to attend Elayne’s brother Gawyn’s nameday ceremony in Caemlyn. Furthermore, the same someone used a forbidden weave of Compulsion (essentially mind-control) on the kindly Mistress of Novices, Sheriam Bayanar (Rima Te Wiata), to make her write the blatant lie into her log, breaking the Three Oaths…unless, of course, Sheriam is a Darkfriend herself? In a short amount of time, the show does a fairly good job of making the viewer feel suddenly unsure of who to trust, just as the books did when the so-called “Black Ajah” made up of Darkfriends first came to light.

I’m a little sad that Egwene and Nynaeve couldn’t participate in the investigation of the Black Ajah, as they did in the books, but I would gladly watch an entire spin-off series focused on Verin Mathwin (Meera Syal) and her fellow sisters of the Brown Ajah playing at being detectives in their stead, taking on a different Darkfriend each week. If the lovably quirky Brown Yassica seems familiar, by the way, that’s probably because she’s played by Katie Leung, best known as Cho Chang in the Harry Potter series and as the voice of Caitlyn in Arcane: League Of Legends (though as Yassica, Dundee-born Leung speaks with the strong Scottish accent she’s spoken in the past about wanting to use more frequently).

Another recognizable face in episode five is that of Will Tudor (Olyvar in Game Of Thrones, and Sebastian in Shadowhunters), who joins the ensemble cast of The Wheel Of Time as Moiraine’s foppish nephew, Barthanes Damodred, soon to be the King of Cairhien through marriage to Queen Galldrian. Moiraine’s interactions with her family continue to be surprisingly meaningful, probably ranking among her best scenes in the series despite having the least basis in the source material, though the very subtle references or allusions being made to the ruination of House Damodred during the Aiel War by Moiraine’s uncle will likely fly over most viewers’ heads, as I don’t feel the show has done enough to connect those dots. With the Aiel being introduced properly in this episode, you’d think this would be the perfect moment to expand on their lore.

But that’s why I’m here, to provide you with answers to all your questions. In short, the Aiel are a society of primarily red-haired warriors who come from the Waste beyond the Spine of the World, and follow a complex system of honor and indebtment called ji’e’toh. They are divided into several clans and subdivided into dozens of individual “septs” – Aviendha (Ayoola Smart), whom Perrin first meets as a prisoner of the Whitecloaks in this episode, is of the Nine Valleys Sept of the Taardad Aiel, for instance. She and many other Maidens of the Spear were sent west across the Spine in search of their prophesied Car’a’carn, or “Chief of Chiefs” (no bonus points for guessing who that might be). Aviendha is one of the most important characters in The Wheel Of Time going forward, and bringing her into the story at this early stage makes sense from a writing perspective, though I’m of two minds on how the writers actually went about it – lifting Aviendha out of her subplot with Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne and transplanting her in Perrin’s subplot, replacing Gaul as the Aiel he rescues from a cage, incurring much toh.

The change is logical in the short-term – Aviendha is by far the more relevant of the two characters, and needed a momentous opening scene – but in the long-run, it’s hard to believe that Perrin and Aviendha will have many more opportunities to interact, while her, Nynaeve, Egwene, and Elayne (colloquially referred to as the “Wondergirls”) form enduring connections in the books and share many of their greatest moments in future storylines between them. Losing Gaul also means changes to Perrin’s arc, though they might not be quite as consequential if Gaul is introduced early next season, before Perrin’s The Shadow Rising arc kicks off. And while I don’t necessarily expect anyone to take me seriously on this, it also means Perrin is missing the source of all the homoerotic tension in his storyline. Thankfully, Dain Bornhald (Jay Duffy) steps in to fill that role quite effectively.

Dain is one of these characters that got tiring to read about in the books after a while because his relationship to Perrin was just so tenuous and one-dimensional, but Dain in the show is a different story. Him and Perrin have chemistry, however you want to interpret it. Maybe they’re just totally platonic bros who share drinks by candlelight and give each other cute nicknames and bond over their trauma. I’m not sure I buy it, with the way Dain was checking Perrin out, but it’s possible. Either way, having them interact before the season finale – and the event that shapes both their futures – was a smart choice.

The Whitecloaks, of which Dain is a part, are extremely important in the finale, and I would have liked more setup for their storyline, but the episode was already juggling a large number of subplots and one more thing on top of the pile might well have been too many. We don’t even see Dónal Finn’s Mat, and still there’s a lot going on. Two scenes that definitely needed more room to breathe were the capture of Egwene by the Seanchan and the reunion between Moiraine and Rand – the former could have used an extra few minutes of action, the latter even just a few additional lines of dialogue. Of course, with more and longer episodes per season, this wouldn’t be a problem, but The Wheel Of Time is just one of many large-scale streaming series’ being undermined by time constraints for which there is no good reason. We’re past the middle-point of the season now. The people who are still watching are probably more likely to be put off by a lack screentime rather than by an overabundance of it. Amazon really needs to give its best fantasy show everything it’s earned with this incredible second season, including ten episodes (though I wouldn’t be opposed to twelve), each at least an hour and ten minutes long, and a larger budget so that the VFX isn’t spread thin and we can visit more locations.

Jay Duffy as Dain Bornhald sitting across from Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara (whose back is turned to the camera) at a table outdoors, every inch of which seems to be covered with low candles providing a slightly romantic atmosphere. Dain is wearing a brown mantle over his clothes, and black leather gloves. He has short blonde hair swept to one side and a beard.
Perrin Aybara and Dain Bornhald | press.amazonstudios.com

What the writers, directors, cast, and showrunner have done with this episode is elevate The Wheel Of Time once again to a point you don’t think can possibly be surpassed – only to top themselves again the week after. Episode four was the exception, not the rule, and although with the season now completed I can say for certain that the seventh and eighth episodes don’t quite surpass the highest highs of episodes three, five, and six, my favorites, the difference is largely a matter of which characters I believe were underutilized or misrepresented as a book reader, and not really a reflection on the show’s quality. The Wheel Of Time is an excellent adaptation, the best kind in fact: one that takes risks by making bold, purposeful changes to the source material while honoring the themes and tone of the books. Nailing the blend of unserious, delightfully irreverent campiness and drama played completely straight was probably the trickiest part, but they got it. I walked away from episode five craving more of the Forsaken, their sexually charged interactions with just about everybody, and that unmistakable queerness that is woven into the very fabric of this fantasy world.

I can’t speak for all of us in the fandom, but I know that’s what I’ve been looking for from this adaptation. The Wheel Of Time has always been high camp. It’s just finally embracing it.

Episode Rating: 9/10

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“The Wheel Of Time” Season 2, Episode 3 – Nynaeve Steps Into The Spotlight

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME, SEASON 2, EPISODES 1 – 3, AND BOOK 2, THE GREAT HUNT, AHEAD!

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here would not exist.

It’s fair to say that the first season of Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time was carried through its highs and lows by Rosamund Pike, the epic fantasy series’ Oscar-nominated star and producer. Not only was she front-and-center in all the marketing, her name alone a major draw for casual viewers unfamiliar with the acclaimed yet inaccessible source material (fourteen weighty novels and a prequel, published over the course of three decades by two authors), but in seven of eight episodes she was the clear lead amongst an underdeveloped ensemble cast, despite her character Moiraine being something of an enigma in the early books. While her young castmates had moments to shine, it was only in episode three that they had the run of the place to themselves, so to speak, while Moiraine was unconscious. It was New Zealand-born actress and relative newcomer Zoë Robins who stepped up then to fill her place, going above and beyond what was asked of her to earn her top-billing alongside Pike and Daniel Henney, two established stars. And in the second season, though all the cast have returned much stronger and more confident to their roles, it is Robins once again who tethers The Wheel Of Time to her perfect performance in a third episode that follows the pattern of sidelining Pike and Henney.

Nynaeve al'Meara, wearing a plain white shift with her hair braided, standing in a darkly-lit stone chamber, looking over her shoulder to the right with an expression of concern. Behind her stands a silver-gray arch with wide columns.
Nynaeve al’Meara | Twitter @TheWheelOfTime

Pike and Henney may be the bigger stars, and Josha Stradowski may play the main protagonist of the books, but Robins is this adaptation’s beating heart, her soulful eyes the window through which we see most clearly all the workings of the world laid bare, because her Nynaeve al’Meara, while arguably even more likely than the other four villagers from the Two Rivers to reach some wildly wrong conclusion based on the limited information at her disposal and act on it before anyone can stop her, to be fair, is usually much closer to the truth of the matter than she has any right to be.

With a lesser actress in the role, I can easily imagine where this would become aggravating to watch, like one of those infuriating ads for a home-renovation mobile game that doesn’t resemble the actual game in the slightest, the ones where the “player” is presented with an extraordinarily simple problem yet somehow makes all the wrong choices and inevitably kills their character while all you can do is scream at the screen. It can still be like that, sometimes, watching Nynaeve metaphorically pick the sledgehammer to fix the bathroom sink, except that in her case, I know from the subtleties of Robins’ performance that it’s because Nynaeve has a relatable bad habit of deluding herself to the truth while simultaneously insisting that she couldn’t possibly be deluded, and not because she’s trying to make me download some generic match-three game.

Nynaeve is not one to be impressed by the artifices of the White Tower or the insufferable pageantry of its occupants, the Aes Sedai. She respects those who speak the truth plainly and mean what they say, no more, no less, so bending the truth without breaking it does not – and likely never will – come naturally to her. As a former Wisdom (the closest thing to an authority figure that existed back home in the Two Rivers), she particularly detests being made to feel like a pawn in all the ridiculously intricate mind-games Aes Sedai play at the Tower; a valuable pawn but a pawn nonetheless, to be used and cast aside by one woman, then another, as they all vie for higher seats in the Hall, with the ultimate goal of ascending to the Amyrlin Seat itself. And for all these reasons, The Wheel Of Time never made a better choice than when it paired Nynaeve up with the phenomenal Kate Fleetwood as Liandrin Guirale, an Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah who has had decades to practice the art of confounding young women by oscillating unpredictably between seeming like the least genuine person in the Tower and the most.

We don’t even see much of the masterful interplay between the two actresses in episode three, which opens with Nynaeve attempting the perilous Trial of the Arches alone and becoming trapped in a “mirror-world” for the entire duration of the episode, yet while Robins is occupied with selling Nynaeve’s growing desperation, Fleetwood, with a tremor in her proud jaw and a twitch of panic in her steely eyes, never allows us to forget that it was Liandrin’s ostensible confidence in Nynaeve’s abilities – and Nynaeve’s reluctant trust of Liandrin, formed through manipulation – that led her to this point. Whatever ulterior motive she may have had is irrelevant to her now as she watches this girl she’s come to regard with respect and pride be pulled apart, stitched back together, and thrown back into the meat-grinder in a ritual that will ultimately determine not whether she has what it takes to be Aes Sedai, but whether she is willing to sacrifice everyone and everything for the White Tower.

And in the first two mirror-worlds behind the silver Arches, Nynaeve heeds Sheriam Bayanar (Rima Te Wiata)’s repeated warning that “the way back will come but once” and successfully returns to the real world, at the price of abandoning her mortally wounded parents in one mirror-world and the disease-ridden population of the Two Rivers in another. But the callous attitude of the Aes Sedai enrages her as she heads into the third and final Arch, which leads her…straight back into what seems to be the real world, clinging to a blood-soaked lock of al’Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney)’s hair. Unable to remember what happened in the third Arch, she blows up at Liandrin and the other Aes Sedai, rejecting the Great Serpent Ring they offer her for completing the Trial and stating that she won’t be an Aes Sedai if it means turning her back on the people she loves. She says farewell to Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden), leaves the Tower, and unexpectedly reunites with Lan, who takes her in his arms and assures her that they can go wherever she wants, together. And Nynaeve agrees, dismissing the small voice whispering urgently in her head that “the way back will come but once”, and the misty outline of the silver Arch dissipating swiftly behind her as she steps out of the Pattern, into a different life.

Meanwhile, in the real world, there is nothing that Liandrin, Sheriam, and Leane Sharif (Jennifer Cheon Garcia) can do but stare helplessly into the roiling depths of the third Arch, all three of them silently praying that they haven’t just gone and killed the most powerful channeler the Tower has seen in a thousand years, and probably wondering how they can cast the blame on each other…until the ter’angreal goes quiet and any chance of Nynaeve returning has disappeared. Leane skedaddles (she’s the Keeper of the Chronicles, she can’t be seen to have been involved in this debacle), Sheriam berates Liandrin and hurries away to clean up the mess, and Liandrin, in another disarming display of genuine affection for Nynaeve, stays behind, tears welling up in her eyes, before angrily flinging a clay pot on the floor and storming away in search of somebody she can take out her pain on, specifically Mat Cauthon (Dónal Finn), who barely has time to crack a joke before Liandrin is lacing into him with a monologue so scathing, so demeaning, and delivered with such brutal sincerity that Mat has no choice but to become a background character for the next two episodes.

What for Nynaeve feels like five or six years in the mirror-world is only about a day in the real world, yet even in that brief time the world comes close to falling apart without Nynaeve around. Liandrin leaves the door to Mat’s cell ajar and tells him to go find his friends or die in the Blight for all she cares, he makes a halfhearted effort to seek out Egwene and actually comes upon her crying for Nynaeve but turns away at the last moment and instead returns bashfully to his cell, where it falls on fellow prisoner of the Red Ajah Min Farshaw (Kae Alexander) to persuade him that being of little consequence to the Pattern is something to be envied, and that they should run off together…only for the audience to discover that Min is actually moving Mat out of Tar Valon at Liandrin’s explicit instruction. Egwene, distraught over Nynaeve’s death, refuses to be consoled by her new friend Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney), telling her “I don’t even know you!” as she slams a door in the Daughter-Heir’s face. She then seeks out Liandrin and actually channels at the far older and more experienced Aes Sedai – notably, without using her hands – but Liandrin effortlessly unravels her weaves of fire and only barely resists the urge to push Egwene off a balcony (forget the Last Battle, the Amyrlin Seat needs to do something about the lack of guard-rails at the White Tower).

Far west of Tar Valon, Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) and the Shienaran soldiers seeking the fabled Horn of Valere are made prisoners of the Seanchan Empire, whose representatives stand atop a pyramidal palanquin, wear fabulous scale-patterned robes, ornate masks and bladed fingernail covers, and speak with the most unnerving accent to hear in a high fantasy setting – a thick American Southern drawl. The Seanchan, we soon learn, are invaders from across the Aryth Ocean who have come to reclaim the lands that belonged by birthright to the founder of their mighty empire, Luthair Paendrag (everything from Toman Head in the west to the Spine of the World in the east). They could perhaps accomplish this goal with their massive armies, fleets, and the element of surprise alone, but they also have a…unique approach towards the use of the One Power, fastening unbreakable golden collars on women who can channel and leashing them to women called sul’dam who claim to be able to manipulate the use of the Power without dirtying their hands by touching the True Source. To the Seanchan, there is no distinction between an untrained channeler who believes she’s merely “listening to the wind” and an Aes Sedai, or between channelers of their land and another; there are only damane (those who have been collared) and marath’damane (those who will be collared).

Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor in The Wheel Of Time, standing with his hands folded in a room with fancily decorated walls. He is wearing a high-collared, long-sleeved dark red coat with golden herons in flight embroidered around the cuffs and collar, over a red vest and dark brown trousers. His head is shaven.
Rand al’Thor | winteriscoming.net

The Seanchan claim the first major casualty of the season, fan-favorite Uno (Guy Roberts), who dies gorily but not without dignity, spitting at the feet of High Lady Suroth (Karima McAdams) – or as close to her feet as he can aim from the bottom of her pyramid – uttering The Wheel Of Time‘s first F-bomb, and having a large curved spike driven through his mouth shortly thereafter as an incentive for Perrin and the other Shienarans to swear the Seanchan oaths of fealty without further complaint. They wisely decide that mumbling something about obeying, awaiting, and serving is preferable to choking on a tusk, but instead of letting them go, Suroth has her new subjects chained and shipped off to Falme, the first major city captured by the Seanchan. Perrin is able to slip away from the convoy with Elyas Machera (Gary Beadle) and his wolf-pack, but what waits for him in the wilderness maybe worse than what’s behind, if Ishamael (Fares Fares), the Dark One’s right-hand man, is to be believed when he tells Perrin that his wolf-senses are derived from the Dark. It may seem counterintuitive to let Perrin escape, given that Ishamael is already posing as Suroth’s advisor, but he seems to care about letting people come to the Dark through their own choices, not through force.

It’s a more carefree version of Perrin who inhabits the mirror-world where Nynaeve found herself, and he’s not the only one of the Two Rivers folk for whom the ter’angreal has created something more pleasant than reality. Mat is a lord, by the looks of it, and quite dashing. Egwene is already an Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah. Nynaeve herself has returned to the Two Rivers, married Lan, and given birth to a daughter. Lan has grown out his hair (it looks terrible) and put down his sword. There’s no sign of Moiraine, conveniently, and the Last Battle must not have happened (yet), because everyone is happy. The highlight of this comforting sequence is seeing Rutherford and Finn play Perrin and Mat as two fun, dorky uncles to Nynaeve’s adorable daughter, and I’d be down for more exploration of mirror-worlds in the future if it allows the other actors to let loose a bit and play around with what might be – which is, fittingly, the title of the episode.

But this is The Wheel Of Time, and as I explained in my review of the previous episode, the titular Wheel doesn’t give many options to ta’veren, individuals like Nynaeve who are spun out into the Pattern to hold it intact. And the mirror-worlds are reflections for a reason – they may seem serene, some of them, but they are the versions of the world that the Wheel cannot allow to exist, where something went wrong: usually because someone made a choice that cannot happen in the real world without weakening the integrity of the Pattern, as I understand it. Nynaeve is meant to pass the Trial of the Arches and become Accepted, because she is meant to do…all of the things that she does later in the books that I won’t spoil here, but she can’t do any of them if she leaves the Tower now.

That doesn’t necessarily mean every version of the world where she leaves ends as this one does, with a horde of ravening Trollocs slaughtering Nynaeve’s friends and family before her eyes while she watches on, powerless to stop the carnage, but there’s no version of that world that results in the “official” triumph of the Light over the Dark at the Last Battle that the Wheel is turning towards in the real world, however it may have seemed to her in the Two Rivers. Already, she was hearing rumblings that Egwene was taking Aes Sedai north to the Borderlands to deal with incursions from the Blight. That version of Egwene will likely die and Trollocs will overrun the world without her, Nynaeve, Perrin, Mat, or Lan around to stop it. The people of that mirror-world could still conceivably defeat the Dark One – after all, they should still have a version of Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) hanging about somewhere – but it will be a bleak and miserable world by the end, hardly worth saving.

Real world Rand, if you’re wondering, is busy tracking down an expensive bottle of red wine to bribe Logain Ablar (Álvaro Morte) into teaching him how to wield the One Power without going mad, which turns out to be a pointless endeavor because Logain is – surprise – already mad. The anticlimax is intentional and intriguing, though there were likely more effective methods by which we could have reached the same low-point in Rand’s arc where he feels time slipping through his fingers without us having to necessarily share the sentiment. At least there’s some fun to be gotten out of this slight diversion – Rand and Selene (Natasha O’Keefe) posing as outland lords to sneak into a fancy party; Rand unwittingly causing a commotion by throwing out invitation-letters from the great Houses of Cairhien; the subtle introduction of Moiraine’s younger sister Anvaere Damodred (Lindsey Duncan); and a fireworks-display, courtesy of Aludra and the Illuminators Guild. Rand isn’t enjoying any of it, however, and he leaves Selene to watch the fireworks by herself, which earns him an aggressive, sexually charged scolding later that night.

If there’s a version of Rand in Nynaeve’s picture-perfect mirror-world who’s any happier than the real world’s Rand (unlikely, seeing as he would still be the Dragon there, which pretty much guarantees that he’s traumatized and depressed), Nynaeve never met him and will never get the chance. Overcome with grief and rage unlike anything she’s felt before, she channels the One Power – something that is supposed to be impossible within the Arches – and wills the portal back into existence, years after it vanished. She can’t explain how she did it, Robert Jordan couldn’t explain how she did it when something similar happened in the books, and nor can I. Suffice it to say that Nynaeve is a force of nature, and although you’ve probably heard her referred to as “the strongest channeler the Tower’s seen in a thousand years” about as many times, it bears repeating. With her raw power and her determination to protect people, she can do the impossible, which is why breaking her block is crucial. If she can’t bring herself to channel until she’s angry or extremely sad, chances are someone she loves is going to have to die or get hurt in front of her before she can do anything to help.

And despite escaping the mirror-world, Nynaeve endures another terrible loss on the way back – that of her daughter, who survived the Trolloc attack only to disappear as Nynaeve staggered through the silver arches holding her close to her chest…the only trace of her a fresh bloodstain on the front of Nynaeve’s dress. Robins portrays the unimaginable horror and agony of this situation without reservation, her body contorting around the empty space that used to be her child, haunting screams issuing from her mouth while her eyes remain fixed on something ahead of her, something gone and soon to be forgotten. Memories of the mirror-world visited in the Arches fade quickly, like dreams, and the years Nynaeve spent in the Two Rivers with Lan, raising her daughter, will blur together. In time, she’ll only remember with certainty that she once remembered something more.

A sul'dam and damane from The Wheel Of Time. The damane, a young woman with intricately braided blonde hair and dark makeup around her eyes, wears a golden collar over a long-sleeved gray gown, with a golden gag in her mouth. The sul'dam, standing behind her, has long dark hair in two braids falling down her chest, and wears brown leather armor over a teal-blue dress with a golden gauntlet on her right arm. They are walking down a long line of women in dirty white gowns, whose eyes are downcast.
Sul’dam and Damane | nerdist.com

As The Wheel Of Time inches closer to adapting the lengthy sections of the source material that feature very little of either Pike or Henney’s characters, it is an encouraging sign for the series’ future that the ensemble cast surrounding them are now not only capable of carrying episodes on their own, but that a few like Robins and Fleetwood have been hailed as the season’s shining stars. The outstanding performances they deliver may not earn them any Emmy nominations, because awards show voters tend to overlook the fantasy genre entirely unless it has the Game Of Thrones title attached (and even House Of The Dragon received fewer nominations than were arguably warranted), but they have accomplished something greater than any trophy could honor, bringing The Wheel Of Time‘s most iconic characters to life. “It was about them all”, reads a famous and enduring quote from the books. That has never felt more true of the show than it is now.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10