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April 30, 2021

“Shadow And Bone” Episode 8 Review!

**SPOILERS FOR SHADOW AND BONE AHEAD!**

Like calls to like.

Although surprisingly never used in the first season of Shadow And Bone, not even as an episode subtitle, that seemingly simple phrase is a guiding principle of the Grisha in Leigh Bardugo’s original novels. All Grisha are born with the ability to manipulate matter, but their own individual qualities, both good and bad (and in the Grishaverse, defined as “Etovost”, the “thatness” of a thing that makes it unique) help pull them in the direction of a specific type of matter: whether it be water, for Tidemakers; or wind, for Squallers; or blood, for Heartrenders. What determines this connection is sometimes pretty mysterious, so being a Grisha is like living a Buzzfeed personality quiz.

But what makes a Sun-Summoner?

That’s a big question, and the finale of Shadow And Bone‘s first season isn’t able to fully answer it in the amount of time it has to wrap up everybody’s current stories while starting a bunch of new ones. But if “like calls to like”, then what about Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li) makes her and her alone naturally compelled towards light? Is it her ability to selflessly fight for a world that’s never fought for her, or the courage it takes to finally start fighting for and believing in herself? There’s several options, each in my opinion valid, but it would be nice to have a specific thing to point to during the climactic moment in the finale when Alina rises to her feet and rejects The Darkling (Ben Barnes) with a single line: “This is what I am.”

In that brief shining moment, Alina is answering to no one – not The Darkling, and not Mal Oretsev (Archie Renaux). Some fans are angry that this scene didn’t play out as in the books, with Mal being thrown off The Darkling’s skiff in the Shadow-Fold, and Alina literally jumping overboard to follow him into the darkness, thereby abandoning everyone on the skiff to the Volcra. But apart from the fact that there are now several other major characters on the skiff in this version who kind of need to survive into season two, that scene in the books is exemplary of everything I dislike about the original Grisha Trilogy. It doesn’t empower Alina: it merely solidifies “apathy towards everyone except Mal” as her defining character trait.

That being said, there are other, better, ways to inject some internal darkness back into Alina’s character over the course of Shadow And Bone – and I hope showrunner Eric Heisserer (who made the right choice not to have her massacre a literal boatload of people for Mal) will do just that. It doesn’t ever have to be to that level of carnage and certainly not for the same reasons, but villainy can be pretty empowering too when it feels earned and organic.

Shadow And Bone‘s season finale spotlights several forms of empowerment, and the battle in the Shadow-Fold isn’t simply an epic and thrilling set-piece (though it is very much that too) but also a great way to bring the characters’ personalities into the forefront as they clash onscreen, their strengths and weaknesses playing off each other cleverly. Of course, being in the Fold means the resulting melee is a bit dark, but on a scale of one to Game Of Thrones’ The Long Night, this is a “dark-enough-for-monsters-to-jump-out-unexpectedly-but-not-so-dark-you-can’t-tell-who’s-who” kind of dark.

Alina’s big hero moment is more of an introspective epiphany than a feat of physical strength – although, upon receiving a vision of Morozova’s Stag and realizing that the animal rewarded her mercy in episode seven by bestowing its powers upon her, she does take one of Inej Ghafa (Amita Suman)’s knives and thrust it upwards into The Darkling’s palm, cutting the piece of the Stag’s antlers from his flesh and breaking his control over her. It’s a triumphant moment that finally frees up Alina to be more powerful than ever before – not that we get to see any of that power, mind you, since The Darkling’s loyal Heartrender Ivan (Simon Sears) defeats her a few moments later.

And despite no longer abandoning them all to chase after Mal, Alina is too late to save either the group of foreign dignitaries onboard the skiff (Ivan mows them down instead), or the West Ravkan city of Novokribirsk; which gets consumed by the Shadow-Fold as a warning from The Darkling to the rest of the world that he’s not afraid to kill hundreds of thousands of his own civilians to protect Ravkan interests. General Zlatan (Tom Weston-Jones) and the West Ravkan independence movement come to an untimely end, as does – presumably – Zoya Nazyalensky (Sujaya Dasgupta)’s aunt and extended family, whom she had just been talking about wanting to visit earlier in the episode.

Zoya, who happens to be standing on the skiff watching this all unfold in horror, wastes no time joining forces with Alina and the Crows to bring down The Darkling (and he has the audacity to act surprised). She and Inej share a few epic fight scenes, combining Inej’s skill for hand-to-hand combat and knife-throwing with Zoya’s ability to control the wind. That the two women are also Shadow And Bone‘s most prominent characters of South Asian descent (in-universe, their heritage is Suli) adds another layer to their awe-inspiring team up.

In a battle where some of the highlights include Inej stabbing The Darkling, Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter) attacking a Volcra with his cane, and Jesper Fahey (Kit Young) shooting Ivan dead and scolding himself for being slightly attracted to the villainous Heartrender, I think the wrestling-match between Mal and The Darkling was supposed to stand out more than it did. But The Darkling can slice people in half with a blade of shadow, so stooping to Mal’s level is a choice that needed to be justified somehow…particularly since Mal – who admits earlier in the episode that he’s not the “smart one” of the team – ends up outwitting the Grisha, distracting him while a Volcra sneaks up on him from behind.

Viewers new to Shadow And Bone who have undoubtedly heard the phrase “Six Of Crows” tossed around a lot in coverage of the series might be quick to assume that the six characters who stumble out of the Shadow-Fold together are the titular “Six” – and I’d be interested to see how that alternate-universe version of the team would work – but Zoya soon departs on her own, explaining that she has a personal duty to her family to search for their remains, even if it means re-entering the Fold. You’ll want to read Six Of Crows if only to better understand Kaz Brekker’s warning to Zoya not to linger too long with the dead.

Everyone else ends up on a ship bound for Ketterdam, including Nina Zenik (Danielle Galligan) and Matthias Helvar (Calahan Skogman), whose story finally catches up chronologically and geographically with that of the Crows in a sequence remarkably similar to the books – the only major difference being that it’s an established character, the no-longer-lovable Heartrender Fedyor (Julian Kostov), who confronts Nina and Matthias in a seaside tavern (interrupting a perfectly good meal of waffles) and forces Nina to make a choice that will haunt her for a long time. To save Matthias from the Grisha, she pretends he’s a slaver and turns him over to a group of Kerch bounty-hunters instead, hitching a ride with them as a “witness” and promising Matthias she’ll drop the charges in court once they reach Ketterdam.

The novelty of watching storylines from different corners of the Grishaverse converge is one that Shadow And Bone can sustain well into season two – depending on how long Alina and Mal stay in Ketterdam alongside our beloved Crows, and what kind of devious plan Kaz has concocted to deal with Pekka Rollins and their mysterious mustachioed client that apparently requires the services of a Grisha Heartrender (one of whom, Nina herself, just happens to be sitting within earshot). With Inej being noncommittal about staying with the Crows (and honestly, good for her; but the pain on Kaz’s face broke my heart) and Malina still being platonic for the moment, there’s a lot of directions Shadow And Bone could take to keep things fresh and exciting.

But one plot point that hasn’t been changed from the books (and why would it be?) is The Darkling’s return. I mean, you didn’t think the Volcra really ate him, did you? Alina may not be strong enough yet to tear down that Fold, even with an Amplifier, but The Darkling’s control of merzost has allowed him to stagger back from the brink of death covered in scars and stronger than before, with the power to create giant demonic warriors of pure shadow called Nichevo’ya that obey his every command.

If “like calls to like”, then it’s pretty clear what qualities The Darkling possesses.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10

April 28, 2021April 29, 2021

“Shadow And Bone” Episode 6 Review!

**SPOILERS FOR SHADOW AND BONE AHEAD!**

“Malina” should be platonic soulmates. That’s it, that’s the review in a nutshell; you can go home now, folks. Glad you’ve enjoyed my Shadow And Bone coverage, but we’re done here (just kidding: please stick around for my final two episode reviews).

But I’m serious about Malina. Because this episode finally reunites Mal Oretsev (Archie Renaux) and Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), who have been on separate paths since Alina blew up inside the Shadow-Fold: and while the writing is clearly working overtime to convince us that these two have strong romantic chemistry, I feel like Shadow And Bone would save itself a lot of trouble (not to mention backlash from “Darklina” stans, who are not to be messed with) if it diverged from the exact plot of the Grisha trilogy with as much boldness and confidence as when it devised an entirely original subplot for the characters from Six Of Crows. Because Malina doesn’t have to be romantic to work, and it might be a lot more interesting if it weren’t.

I’ve found that the word “platonic” usually only gets tossed around whenever fandoms are discussing two characters of the same gender, and trying to make a case for why they’re just really close friends, how their bond is too sacred to be sexual in any way (grossly equating queer sexuality with immorality), and why depicting them as LGBTQ+ is “forced”. I find the exact opposite to be true most of the time: LGBTQ+ characters often accidentally have more chemistry than the heteronormative couples Hollywood shoves down our throats. Yet the people who complain that same-sex pairings should remain strictly platonic rarely say the same about opposite-sex pairings (almost like they’re just homophobes or something…)

Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with either platonic or romantic relationships: both simply require good writing that allows us to see for ourselves what type of chemistry the characters have when they interact. But in the process of boosting Mal and Alina’s personalities, Shadow And Bone has – unintentionally, I think – written the beginnings to a stronger platonic relationship between the two than a romantic one, one in which introducing romantic feelings threatens to roll back some of the progress that’s been made with them individually.

One of the biggest criticisms of Malina in the books (where Mal, to be fair, is also manipulative, possessive, and just a nasty, unlikeable, human being in general) is that Alina rarely has a chance to stand on her own apart from the men in her life, particularly with Mal acting as her “protector” – a role he starts to assume in this very episode, which concerns me greatly. Forcing a romance isn’t simply unfair to Alina: it enforces the fact that, in the books, Mal’s entire story revolves around Alina, and apart from her he barely has a personality, much less an entire subplot. There’s no room for them to be separate, because fate has plans for them.

And I don’t know about you, but characters bound by fate to be romantically linked to each other is a predictable and slightly problematic trope I wish we could put behind us in 2021. But characters whose shared experiences bring them closer together while not automatically ensuring they’ll fall madly in love with each other? Characters who are always there for each other because they value each other’s company and friendship more than a need for romantic affection, or worse, sexual gratification? Characters who are platonic soulmates? Those are tropes I can get behind. And those are all modern tropes that feel more in line with where Shadow And Bone wants to go anyway.

There’s still time. By the end of the season, Mal and Alina have not professed any feelings of romantic attraction for each other, something I actually suspected would happen in this episode, where they’re certainly offered plenty of chances to do so. But showrunner Eric Heisserer revealed in an interview today that the only reason Malina didn’t share a kiss in season one is because other members of the show’s creative team stopped him (whoever those people are: you are my platonic soulmates, all of you) from including one, and that he intends to get his way with season two…that he wants “a lot of kissing” for Malina. Excuse me while I go scream.

People are now going to think I’m a hardcore Darklina shipper, which to be clear, I’m not. But I’m also not behind this attempt to force a romance that was proven to be extremely unpopular in the books, for a number of the same reasons I don’t ship Darklina. And it annoys me especially because this attitude of extreme fidelity to the books is not being applied to the writing of the Crows, yet the single worst element of the Grisha Trilogy gets carried over into the adaptation unaltered?

Anyway, I’ve ranted longer about this than I would have liked, but apparently I’m not done: because episode six also features the first stirrings of romantic attraction between Nina Zenik (Danielle Galligan) and Matthias Helvar (Calahan Skogman), another pairing I don’t personally ship for numerous reasons – starting with the fact that Matthias doesn’t view Nina as a human being when they first meet on the literal slave-ship where Matthias is employed to help transport Grisha to their deaths in his home country of Fjerda. When the ship is lost at sea, leaving Nina and Matthias as the only survivors, the two are forced to work together to survive in the frigid environment where they find themselves lost.

And unfortunately, every sequence they share feels like it’s robbing other characters of screentime while contributing little to nothing to the overall story – which is a shame, given how vividly Leigh Bardugo described this part of Nina’s backstory in Six Of Crows. It’s no fault of Galligan or Skogman (though Skogman’s exaggerated Scandinavian accent leaves much to be desired, and it hurts his performance), nor even the painfully obvious soundstage and green-screen used in the shipwreck itself. But the hardships they endure never feel quite harrowing enough to sell the bond of trust and reluctant love they’re supposed to be building in these crucial scenes.

Matthias’ casual misogyny and bigoted opinions towards Grisha are also never explored or deconstructed thoroughly, or at all really – he comes to begrudgingly like Nina for her sassy humor and sex-positive attitude, but Shadow And Bone seems to think he’s a “himbo” (an archetypal big, sweet, attractive, unintelligent, male character), and portrays him as such; forgetting that himbos are likeable because of their sweetness more so than their lack of intelligence. Also, respecting women (even being in awe of women) is kind of a big part of the himbo formula…and that’s, like, the opposite of Matthias. A himbo is what Mal could be, if all that kissing with Alina wasn’t apparently imminent.

You might say this episode is just too romantic for me…but I’m actually a big fan of romance, and when I ship characters, I ship them hard because I’m usually invested in both of them separately just as much as I am in seeing how they collide, and then try to awkwardly sort out their feelings for each other. This is why Kanej is the superior ship, and why, as a result, the Crows still save this episode of Shadow And Bone for me.

Kanej – the popular pairing of Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter) and Inej Ghafa (Amita Suman), two of our beloved Crows – has always worked for me because Kaz and Inej help each other heal from a lifetime of trust issues and trauma while never requiring their partner to sacrifice any part of themselves. They’re allowed to be wholly different people with dissimilar outlooks on life. That comes into play in this episode: Kaz is still wary of all his Crows and fighting back against his feelings for Inej because he’s afraid of giving himself a weakness, but only because he doesn’t realize yet that she’s his strength, and…ugh, I adore them. Could you tell?

Inej’s faith in Alina Starkov is what drives Kaz to the end of his rope: for him, religious faith is as much a weakness of character as feelings of affection, and he only knows how to exploit it to his advantage – for instance, kidnapping a saint and collecting the reward. When that backfires, and Inej allows Alina to escape from Kaz’s clutches because she genuinely believes in her, he lashes out; accidentally opening up to Inej about the risky deal he struck with Tante Heleen in order to have her on his team in the first place. Trying to make his crush mad by unintentionally revealing that he’d do anything for her? Yep, sounds like Kaz.

Alina runs off into the woods and meets Mal, leaving the Crows to deal with her pursuer, The Darkling (Ben Barnes), and his small army of Grisha. But as anyone who’s read the books knows, the Crows do their best thinking when they’re ambushed and backed into a corner by much stronger opponents – so as Jesper Fahey (Kit Young) takes off in one direction followed by a Heartrender, Inej lures a vengeful Inferni into a location better suited to her unique skillset, and Kaz simply disappears into the night with a flourish, it’s pretty clear to Crows fans like myself who’s going to come out on top. None of the Crows fight fair, and that’s what makes them so fun.

Inej’s fight is the swiftest and the most brutal, and the only one that ends with a Grisha casualty – as she plunges one of her knives deep into the Inferni’s chest, and cautions her wounded opponent to abandon the fight and seek a Healer, warning her that removing the blade will cause her to bleed out in thirty seconds. The Inferni promises to haunt Inej for the rest of her days, and to kill everyone she loves: at which point, Inej delivers probably the most epic line of all time – “In that case, I’ll take back my knife” – and leaves the Inferni to die.

Jesper, meanwhile, faces off against Ivan (Simon Sears); using his sharpshooting skills to consistently hit the Heartrender in the same spot, eventually wearing down his bulletproof kefta and bringing the dangerous Grisha to his knees, wheezing for breath. Jesper’s impossibly accurate aim in the dark leads Ivan to a shocking revelation about the Crow, although Jesper cuts him off with a well-timed swipe of his pistol before he can say it aloud. I didn’t even catch this brief moment on my first watch, but it is indeed a hint that, as in the books, Jesper is a Grisha Fabrikator who’s been concealing his powers his entire life.

As for Kaz, he encounters The Darkling himself. This duel of great minds has proven a bit controversial in fandom: yes, it’s definitely a ridiculous amount of fan-service to pack into under two minutes, but it’s also so much fun. I think what saves the moment is that Kaz doesn’t defeat The Darkling by any means – he throws a grenade and gets the hell out of there, because he knows he’s overpowered and he doesn’t have any honor he needs to preserve, nor any shame over fleeing. It’s a classic move for the Bastard of the Barrel: he gives The Darkling some information to chew on (confirmation that Alina ran from the Little Palace on her own, rather than being kidnapped), and survives to fight another day.

So does Shadow And Bone‘s heavy-handed romantic meddling drag down the episode a bit? Yeah, not gonna lie, it does – and I’d encourage Eric Heisserer to think twice before trying to push forward with Malina in season two, because the show doesn’t need it. Shadow And Bone is better than the sum total of all its current romantic subplots combined, with the sole exception of Kanej, and that’s the tea, folks. Rant over.

Episode Rating: 9/10

April 26, 2021April 29, 2021

“Shadow And Bone” Episode 4 Review!

**SPOILERS FOR SHADOW AND BONE AHEAD!**

Although Shadow And Bone never pauses to translate the intimidating subtitle of its fourth episode, Otkazat’sya isn’t merely a full mouthful of syllables – it’s also the Ravkan term for any human not gifted with the Grisha ability to manipulate matter. And thus, it’s only fair that this episode shines the spotlight on the best and worst of regular human behavior: our endurance, our ingenuity, our capacity for heroic deeds and unforgivable cruelty (ahem, Matthias). Even though Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li) is still the main character, her arc in this episode is masterfully counterbalanced by that of her best friend, Mal Oretsev (Archie Renaux), himself an otkazat’sya.

Yes, this is the episode where the earnestness and humility of Renaux’s performance, combined with some excellent screenwriting, actually forced me to like Mal…the same character I swore up and down I’d hate simply because of how awful he was in the books.

It’s not even that Mal shares equal screentime with Alina, because he doesn’t – but as The Darkling (Ben Barnes) bends his will and effort toward seducing Alina and wrapping her ever more tightly around his finger, who Mal is and what he represents takes clearer shape in both her mind and ours’. The episode does a good job of leading Alina to the reasonable conclusion that Mal has abandoned her, without losing her any audience sympathy in the process even though we can see for ourselves that Mal has been fighting to get back to her in any way he can, and that he would never have intended to hold back her power because he never feared her strength – an impactful deviation from the books.

Mal, in fact, spends the entire episode tracking down the legendary beast known as Morozova’s Stag – a living Amplifier, which can dramatically enhance and focus the power of any Grisha who kills it and possesses its impressive rack of antlers. Shadow And Bone could perhaps have done a better job of portraying Alina’s lifelong spiritual connection to the Stag (it pops up in her dreams and childhood drawings a few times), not to mention Mal’s awareness of that fact, but he only ends up on the Stag’s trail after The Darkling issues an order to find the creature and bring it to the Little Palace – where Alina needs all the help she can get to tap into her Sun-Summoner abilities.

The episode works genuinely hard to show the difficulty of Alina’s training – and, importantly, the ease with which she embraces her power any time she’s near The Darkling, himself a living Amplifier (a fact that was revealed to Alina on the previous episode, only increasing her confusion over what’s a result of her emerging feelings for The Darkling, and what’s entirely his doing). Her entire training with Baghra (Zoë Wanamaker) could easily have been summed up into a single montage, but is wisely spread out over the course of the episode, allowing it to play a more integral part in Alina’s character development as Baghra coaxes her power out of her wholly removed from the influence of either The Darkling or Mal, strengthening her confidence.

But as Baghra’s training intensifies, so too does the irresistible force of The Darkling – who strategically opens up to Alina about his own (mostly falsified) lived experience of oppression; even revealing his true name, Aleksander. The “Darklina” scenes in this episode are brilliantly written, though they wouldn’t work half as well as they do if it weren’t for Mei Li and Barnes’ chemistry, and the undercurrent of romantic – and to an even larger degree, purely sexual – tension that ripples beneath the surface of all their interactions.

By the end of the episode, when Alina sneaks from her room to speak with Aleksander in the map room, and the two come dangerously close to sharing a first passionate kiss, you’ll find yourself rooting for Alina to make her move even as you simultaneously acknowledge that Mal is probably a better option in the long run (something I’d never say of book Mal, who is every bit as possessive and emotionally manipulative as The Darkling). Ben Barnes had fascinating things to say about how much of The Darkling’s attraction to Alina was real, but handling the subject in future seasons of Shadow And Bone is sure to be a tricky tightrope act.

And speaking of tightropes (I promise this will make sense)…let’s turn our attention over to the Crows, who represent what I described earlier in this post as the best of human ingenuity. Without Nina Zenik (Danielle Galligan) around to help them infiltrate the Little Palace, Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter) is forced to quickly devise a backup plan that involves breaking into the Ravkan Archives: a little warmup for the team’s future heists, the biggest and most daring of which are being reserved for later seasons. Kaz’s teammates Jesper Fahey (Kit Young) and Inej Ghafa (Amita Suman) both get to play a critical role in the heist, particularly Inej – who displays the quiet tenacity and flexibility (both literally and figuratively) that makes her so valuable to the team.

Fans of Six Of Crows know that the popular fan-pairing known as “Kanej” is destined for future seasons of Shadow And Bone, but there are unmistakable hints of the bond between Kaz and Inej in the way they share a deep understanding of the other’s exact movements and motions, acquired from a long partnership on the streets of Ketterdam. In Shadow And Bone, much is made out of their differences – particularly Inej’s reliance on her religious faith to help her cope with trauma and Kaz’s lack of faith because of his trauma – but that only helps to make their shared experiences a more powerful link between the two.

Inej isn’t defined by her pain, however, which is very important: and we see more aspects of her character emerge in this episode. When Kaz decides to infiltrate a traveling circus troupe to get into the Little Palace, Inej is called upon to play the part of a high-flying acrobatic dancer – a clever callback, which casual viewers might miss, to her backstory as a tightrope-walker (told you that reference would make sense) in the books. Jesper adds his sharpshooting precision to the mix, and two of the Crows have themselves an act worthy of Ravka’s upcoming winter fête. Kaz, the drama queen that he is, decides to make his own way to the Palace – brilliantly establishing his distaste for any theatrics but his own.

Beginning to edge towards the outskirts of the story and the limits of my interest, Nina Zenik reappears – only briefly, in the grand scheme of things, but the sequence in which she confronts her captor Matthias Helvar (Calahan Skogman) seems excruciatingly long. The worst of human behavior is on display here, as Matthias trots out the vicious (and these days, all too familiar) rhetoric of a bigoted ideology that’s been brainwashed into him. Shadow And Bone seems like it wants to depict Matthias as conflicted and sympathetic, but his and Nina’s subplot never has enough screentime to achieve that.

But if Shadow And Bone pulled off the impossible and made me like Mal Oretsev, I want to give the showrunners (and Skogman too, though I still don’t think his acting is on the same level as many of his costars) the chance to do the same with Matthias Helvar, as difficult as it may be. All the more reason to officially greenlight season two right about now, Netflix…

Episode Rating: 9/10

April 25, 2021

“Shadow And Bone” Episode 3 Review!

**SPOILERS FOR SHADOW AND BONE AHEAD!**

Despite leaving Ketterdam and the home-turf of our Crows behind, Shadow And Bone‘s third episode is the first to feel like it splits focus almost evenly between the series’ two main storylines, and even slightly favors the Crows: whom we catch up with in West Ravka as they race to kidnap Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li) before someone else does and reaps the benefit – while Alina herself basically just wanders around the Little Palace, getting acquainted with various Grisha and having other characters exposit information to her that will be important later in the season.

Alina’s sequences are also nearly identical to the corresponding chunk of Shadow And Bone, the book on which the series is based – which should give you some idea of why that particular book is my least-favorite of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse novels. They’re far more entertaining in the series thanks to Mei Li’s performance and the lavish production design on display in the Little Palace, but still could have benefited from a little trimming here and there.

Immediately, we start out with Alina narrating a letter to her best friend Mal Oretsev (Archie Renaux), whom she hasn’t had a chance to properly talk to since before entering the Shadow-Fold in episode one. Thankfully, the narration doesn’t completely halt the action in its tracks, but instead bleeds over a montage of Alina being prepared for her audience with the royal family of Ravka by the queen’s small army of servants – helmed by the fan-favorite Tailor, Genya Safin (Daisy Head). Shadow And Bone made the right choice by not explaining every Grisha’s powers upfront – allowing each one to make a big impression when they finally arrive, as Genya so undeniably does with her unique skillset.

Tailors have the ability to subtly alter or “modify” the human body, and Shadow And Bone‘s writing team seem well-aware of how easily that ability could cross over into the realm of problematic beauty standards and social commentary, based on how sparingly and precisely Genya’s powers are actually used – at first only to clean up Alina’s scars and bruises. Her physical appearance is never changed, an arrangement Alina insists upon after one of Genya’s maids makes a racist comment about Alina’s eyes that I feel would be irresponsible of me not to mention, given that some viewers of Asian descent have legitimate problems with this line and other instances of racism against Alina in the series.

As previously noted, the production design is absolutely stunning in all of the Little Palace sequences – many of which were filmed in real-life palaces and museums scattered around Budapest. The distinctive “Tzarpunk” flavor of Bardugo’s novels is on full display during the audience with Ravka’s royal family, whom Alina and The Darkling (Ben Barnes) are called upon to bedazzle with a light-show that’s ultimately more of the pompous pageantry they’re forced to partake in at the king’s behest.

I can’t not mention the fact that, during this sequence, in which Alina is finally welcomed into the ranks of the Grisha and instructed to make herself at home, the camera lingers on her embrace with an unnamed Grisha who is none other than Shadow And Bone‘s author Leigh Bardugo, fittingly appearing in the bright purple kefta of a Grisha Fabrikator – a creator and inventor. As a writer myself, I know it’s every author’s dream to someday experience even a fraction of the joy and wonderment Bardugo must have been feeling in that moment, witnessing her stories and characters come to life so vividly.

Alina’s story then starts to meander a bit. We’re whisked away to Grisha training, which is actually the one thing I’d have liked to see more of – but an embarrassingly quick fight sequence between Alina and Zoya Nazyalensky (Sujaya Dasgupta), her rival for The Darkling’s affection, ends with everyone realizing it would make more sense for Alina to practice using her powers rather than her fists. So she’s transported to another part of the palace grounds, to go meet a mysterious old woman named Baghra (Zoë Wanamaker), who almost immediately dismisses her with a warning to work past her self-doubt and insecurities. Then she goes to dinner, and the Grisha lecture her about not training enough.

Apart from just not being all that interesting, Alina’s story in this episode also interrupts the far more compelling Six Of Crows subplot at extremely awkward moments – leading to some dizzying tonal shifts as we jump from epic Volcra battles in the Shadow-Fold to more slow, uncomfortable, palatial plotting. Landing in West Ravka on the wrong side of the Fold and following the guidance of the suspicious Conductor (Howard Charles), Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter) and his gang nearly come face-to-face with a character whom they’ll only finally meet in the finale, and who – if the books are to be trusted – will play a major part in all their future storylines: the Irish-accented Grisha Heartrender Nina Zenik (Danielle Galligan), who is supposed to meet them at the edge of the Fold and help them infiltrate the Little Palace.

But although fate intervenes to send Kaz and Nina’s storylines spiraling in opposite directions before they get a chance to meet, we as the audience get to follow both of them simultaneously – as Nina meets and forms a connection with her captor, Fjerdan Matthias Helvar (Calahan Skogman), who will one day become the sixth member of the Crows. Nina’s subplot, unfortunately, is never really given the time and attention it needs to feel essential rather than distracting (and, no offense to Skogman, but I’ve never liked Matthias and Skogman’s performance does nothing to change that) but it’s Nina’s introductory scene – in which she uses her Heartrender abilities to persuade her landlord to let her evade rent for what is clearly not the first time – that gives me hope her role in season two will reflect more of her charismatic personality from the books.

Shadow And Bone, luckily, has fan-favorites to go around: and this is the episode where I think we all fell even deeper in love with Jesper Fahey (Kit Young) – for me, this is the episode where I discovered what I was missing all those times I felt annoyed or even bored by some of his chapters in the Six Of Crows duology. But did Six Of Crows ever feature Jesper effortlessly slaughtering an entire pack of Volcra in the Shadow-Fold while clinging for dear life to an emotional support goat named Milo (unnamed goat)? No, I didn’t think so.

Out of all the fan-favorites introduced or prominently featured in this episode, from Genya to Jesper to Leigh Bardugo herself, it’s Milo who gets the last bleat, because the fandom has already embraced him as an honorary seventh member of the Crows – and honestly, given what we see of our actual sixth member in this episode, I’d be willing to leave open a slot for Milo on the team.

Episode Rating: 8/10