I appreciate that after forcing the entire Grishaverse fandom to wait on an official renewal of Shadow And Bone for over a month, Netflix finally dropped the hotly-anticipated announcement into the opening minutes of their Geeked Week fandom event as a sweet surprise for fans. Well, I say “surprise”, but let’s be honest, this was pretty much the worst kept secret at the streaming service. As Netflix confirmed today alongside the renewal, Shadow And Bone‘s first season was viewed by more than 55 million households in its first 28 days, making it a huge hit for the studio. Obviously, all those times I left the show playing in the background so it would boost streaming numbers actually worked.
Shadow And Bone | geekgirlauthority.com
There’s not much official information about Shadow And Bone‘s second season just yet, apart from confirmation that it will be eight episodes in length like the first (still too short, if you ask me, but whatever), and that the writer’s room has wrapped, with showrunner Eric Heisserer presiding (hurrah, I guess). Grishaverse author Leigh Bardugo will continue to be involved in her capacity as consultant and executive producer. And all of the main cast will return, including Jessie Mei Li, Freddy Carter, Ben Barnes, Amita Suman, Archie Renaux, and Kit Young, while Danielle Galligan and Calahan Skogman have been upgraded to series regulars in preparation for their greatly expanded roles next season. All good stuff.
But the reason Shadow And Bone exploded into the trending section of Twitter after the official announcement was because fans of Bardugo’s novels (including myself) are hyped for a bunch of new characters who will be joining the second season, if the show follows the books: Wylan Van Eck, the surprisingly formidable wayward son of a wealthy merchant who specializes in demolition while sustaining an adorable romance with the series’ resident bicon, Jesper Fahey; Nikolai Lantsov, the charismatic younger prince of Ravka who has his eyes set on the crown and an alliance with the Sun Summoner herself; and Tolya and Tamar, secretive twin mercenaries from Shu Han in league with a pirate. All of these characters come with their own fans, and Wylan in particular is extremely popular: as evidenced by the fact that he is still trending on Twitter as of this writing.
Shadow And Bone | hitc.com
Obviously, these and other major casting announcements can be expected in the near future – given that Geeked Week will continue for a few more days, and that day three is devoted specifically to fantasy, we might even get some new information then. But this reveal on its own is very exciting, and allows me to continue wildly theorizing and speculating about season two, with the assurance that season two is actually happening. There’s no word yet on when season two will begin filming or potentially debut on Netflix, although there’s no reason why, with the scripts already completed, it couldn’t go into production soon and be ready for release by the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023.
But while we wait, you can expect me to keep covering the show extensively (I may or may not be in the process of writing an entire breakdown of the top ten Six Of Crows scenes in Shadow And Bone‘s first season…), as well as pushing the show’s production team to address and fix mistakes made on the first season. I haven’t forgotten that someone behind-the-scenes (most likely the show’s stunt coordinator, based on what I’ve learned about the casting process) signed off on a white stunt double being hired for Amita Suman and then painted brown to match the Desi actress’ skin color. Eric Heisserer, who claims he was completely unaware of this, apologized on a Reddit forum to fans and to Suman: whether you accept his apology or not is up to you, but there’s clearly much more work to be done making sure the show’s inclusive messages are applied behind-the-scenes as well.
Kaz Brekker and Milo | nerdist.com
But what are you most excited to see when Shadow And Bone returns? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!
After months of anxious waiting, with only a thirteen second clip to assuage our hunger for new Eternals content, a full-length trailer for Academy Award winner Chloé Zhao’s upcoming Marvel blockbuster has finally been released, offering audiences a proper look into the sprawling, colorful, world that Zhao has designed within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Salma Hayek as Ajak | cbr.com
The confines of that universe are nearly limitless, but the Eternals are outsiders regardless – a group of immortal beings appointed by the Celestials to watch over Earth for thousands of years, and determine impartially whether the human race and their planet is worth saving. The twist, of course, is that many of the Eternals end up falling in love with Earth, and start subtly manipulating the flow of human history to guide humans towards a more desirable outcome for everyone…something which will presumably result in chaos, although there’s no official indication yet of the film’s main villain. Unofficially, thanks to toy leaks, we know that the unearthly Deviants, led by a Lovecraftian entity named Kro, will be battling the Eternals.
But thematically, the primary antagonists in this conflict are humanity’s darkest impulses and urges – constantly thwarting the Eternals’ well-intentioned efforts at every turn, and leading the planet into further turmoil. The trailer starts out with a recreation of idyllic rural life in prehistoric times and at the dawn of civilization in the Fertile Crescent, gradually building to the construction of the first walled settlements and cities, including ancient Babylon. There’s plenty here for history buffs to mull over, including the implication that it was the Eternal sorceress named Sersi who gifted an early human one of the famous ceremonial golden daggers found in the tomb of Meskalamdug in the Mesopotamian city of Ur.
But it’s not long before we see humans turning on each other, the gifted dagger being only a prelude for greater and more terrible weapons to come. One scene in the trailer appears to depict the fall of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan to Spanish colonizers, with the supernaturally fast Eternal Makkari helping Aztec civilians to escape while Salma Hayek’s Ajak prepares for battle with the conquistadors. We catch a glimpse of the youngest Eternal, the mischievous Sprite, wandering through the wreckage left in the wake of a volcanic eruption. The trauma and dawning realization in her eyes that this fate awaits the entire world if the Eternals don’t act is clearly a turning point in her character arc.
Richard Madden as Ikaris | variety.com
But in the meantime, while Skeeter Davis’ “The End Of The World” plays hauntingly in the background, many of the other Eternals simply abandon their mission and enjoy themselves while they still can. The film teases several sequences of extraordinary beauty, including an Indian wedding ceremony for Sersi and the Eternal Ikaris, concluding literal millennia of flirting and courtship; a sprawling Bollywood dance number for Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo (who has become a popular celebrity, and is constantly followed around by a camera crew documenting his interactions with the other Eternals); and karaoke night with Sprite. I’d have loved to have seen even a single shot of Phastos joined by his mortal husband (with whom he apparently shares the MCU’s first gay kiss), but alas, nothing just yet.
Crucially, there’s one other thing that we don’t get to see in this trailer – and that’s the Celestials, at least one of whom will presumably arrive in the film’s climax to judge the fate of the world. And I’m talking about the real Celestials, not whatever the heck Ego the Living Planet was supposed to be in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. A Celestial is clearly inbound for Earth based on a shot of the skies darkening with storm-clouds and alien lightning while Sersi and her mortal boyfriend, Dane Whitman, stand hand-in-hand to face the apocalyptic sight. It’s a classic “time-to-get-the-team-back-together” scenario.
But getting the team back together, in this case, has a very literal meaning. The Eternals all have the ability to sync their minds and bodies through something known as the Uni-Mind, which Chloé Zhao depicts through luminous ribbons of golden energy connecting the characters as they levitate above a cliffside in the Canary Islands. Zhao’s use of light – particularly natural light – has become one of the hallmarks of her style, and Eternals provides her with a chance to turn that up to an eleven with the CGI budget now at her disposal.
Ikaris and Sersi | indiewire.com
Of course, this is still a Marvel trailer, so it still has to end with a humorous stinger to remind general audiences why they should go see it (since apparently Chloé Zhao’s name alone and the potential for Marvel’s second serious Best Picture contender isn’t enough for some). But the humor between the Eternals feels natural and easygoing – Ikaris jokes that he should take over the Avengers in the absence of Iron Man and Captain America (whom the Eternals refer to as Captain Rogers, further evidence of their attempted impartiality), and his fellow space gods laugh at him. It’s a cute little moment, made even more endearing by the fact that Angelina Jolie is sitting at one end of the table, cheerfully swigging from a beer mug.
It’s a good year to be a fantasy nerd. Shadow And Bone just dropped on Netflix, a second season of The Witcher is deep into post-production, The House Of The Dragon is dropping set photos left and right, and Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings series is…well, it’s coming, it’s just taking its sweet time. Despite being literally the most expensive TV show ever filmed, and capitalizing on a built-in fanbase of millions around the world, The Lord Of The Rings hasn’t quite captured the attention of mainstream media just yet, or gotten people chattering outside of the Tolkienverse fandom.
Charlotte Brandstrom | m.imdb.com
That’s going to change soon, though. The first season is set to wrap post-production in early August, and before then we’ll likely see an official still from the set, maybe even a brief teaser. At this point, a title reveal would be nice. But until then, we have the exciting news that Charlotte Brändström has indeed joined the series’ production team as a director on two episodes of the first season, becoming the first woman to helm a piece of official Tolkienverse media (an important distinction from Fran Walsh directing key scenes in Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, something for which she does not get enough credit).
I want to give a shoutout to Fellowship Of Fans, a YouTube channel specializing in frequent and reliable updates on Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings series, including exclusive reporting based on admirable sleuth work. Fellowship Of Fans broke the news that Brändström was probably involved in the Amazon series some time ago, and their reporting has once again been proven accurate. With the prevailing trend in Tolkien fandom these days being to wildly exaggerate and hyperbolize any potential scoop (I’m not naming names, but…you know), Fellowship Of Fans’ high quality of reporting is extremely important.
But today, it’s been made official by Amazon themselves. Brändström is working on two episodes of The Lord Of The Rings, and multiple cast members – including Nazanin Boniadi and Ismael Cruz Córdova – have already congratulated her on social media. She joins J.A. Bayona and Wayne Che Yip as confirmed directors on the series, although we still don’t know for sure which episodes she’s directing.
The Witcher | pinterest.co.uk
Brändström, a Swedish-French director with an International Emmy Award nomination to her name, has had a long career in the TV industry, spanning multiple studios – but she’s probably best known for directing two episodes of The Witcher, something that bodes well for her work on The Lord Of The Rings. She has also directed episodes of The Man In The High Castle and Counterpart for Amazon, Outlander, Grey’s Anatomy, Arrow, and, most recently, Jupiter’s Legacy for Netflix (which I am very slowly making my way through, by the way. It’s not a very good show, but since I haven’t gotten up to either of Brändström’s episodes yet, I don’t really have anything to say about it that has any impact on the conversation at hand. But at this point, I’m continuing solely because I want to get a broader idea of her work.
The significance of a woman working to bring this new iteration of Middle-earth to life can’t be understated. The backbone of the Tolkien fandom has always been women, and it’s been kept alive this long by women, by people of color (particularly women of color), and by LGBTQ+ people – but that makes it all the more important that we acknowledge that this is only a small step in the right direction. A certain group of people will wring their hands about how a white cisgender woman directing two episodes of a Lord Of The Rings series is proof that “wokeness” is ruining Tolkien, but the truth is there’s not enough diversity behind the scenes yet, and I will continue to push Amazon to do better, especially when it comes to hiring Black people and people of color for leadership positions where their input can’t be ignored or sidelined.
Beyond that, there’s not much else to say. The announcement of Brändström’s involvement was accompanied by a photo of her standing in a mountainous environment in New Zealand, but it’d be pretty cool to see something substantial at this point – like a title logo, maybe? Please, Amazon? Anything so that I don’t have to keep calling it The Lord Of The Rings and then backtracking every five seconds to explain that it’s not actually The Lord Of The Rings!
The Lord Of The Rings | denofgeek.com
So what do you think? Where have you experienced Brändström’s work before, and what qualities do you foresee her bringing to the series? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!
SPOILERS FOR SHADOW AND BONE AND THE GRISHAVERSE NOVELS AHEAD!
No fantasy adaptation can just be simple these days – something that’s alternately exciting and worrying for fans of the source material, and exhausting for any reviewer trying to write coherently about said fantasy adaptations. If it’s not Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings prequel series being pieced together from mostly contradictory notes, it’s The Witcher‘s first season playing chronological guessing-games with the audience – and then there’s Shadow And Bone, which perhaps takes the cake (or should I say, waffle) in this competition of complexity.
Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, and Jesper Fahey | polygon.com
The Netflix show isn’t a straight-up adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s debut novel, Shadow And Bone, although it will presumably continue to bear that book’s title. It also includes characters from Bardugo’s fourth Grishaverse novel, Six Of Crows, which is set a few years after her first trilogy, in a different region of the Grishaverse. But rather than follow two timelines simultaneously, Shadow And Bone (the show) imagines an original scenario where these Crows characters and their storylines overlapped with the events of Shadow And Bone (the book) sometime between their canonical backstories and the events of Six Of Crows. The end of season one roughly matches up with the beginning of Six Of Crows.
Or at least, so we thought. Shadow And Bone‘s showrunner, Eric Heisserer recently declared that the plot of Six Of Crows can’t happen until after The Darkling is dead, a statement he reiterated in an interview with Variety where he suggested that, while the Crows offer a clear path forward for the show “once you get to the end of Alina’s storyline”, in the meantime their arcs will continue to interweave with Alina’s, “without really disturbing too much of the separate storylines that they’re on.” Heisserer’s reasoning is that the central premise of Six Of Crows – that a mysterious new drug named jurda parem has appeared in the Grishaverse, giving Grisha heightened abilities – would break the world’s established magic system too soon.
Obviously, this begs the question of why it was necessary to introduce the Crows this early, if the events of their own book won’t occur onscreen until after Alina’s journey is complete and they won’t substantially impact her arc in the meantime, but the real question we should be asking is what the Crows will do in season two now that the Ice Court heist is apparently off the table and jurda parem can’t yet be introduced. Put on your theorizing hats, people: we’re about to dive down a deep lore rabbit-hole.
First thing’s first, the Crows will have to deal with their mysterious client Dreesen once they return to Ketterdam in season two without a Sun-Summoner. That’s a given whether or not Dreesen is involved in the creation of jurda parem, as I had speculated (and still believe, although I no longer think it’ll be anything more than an undercurrent of a storyline in season two). But Dreesen doesn’t seem wily enough to handle Kaz Brekker on his own, so I’m sure he’ll turn to Pekka Rollins for protection from the Crows – positioning Pekka as a main antagonist in season two, and allowing for flashbacks to Kaz’s history with the ruthless gang leader.
The details of Kaz’s plan to defeat both men simultaneously are still unclear, although he informs his Crows that, for it to work, they’ll need to hire a Heartrender whom neither Dreesen nor Pekka are familiar with – and that’s where Nina Zenik comes into the picture. At the end of season one, Nina is on her way to Ketterdam alongside the Crows, and overhears them discussing Kaz’s plan – but we don’t see her actually join the team, so it’s possible that season two will find her loyalties divided for a number of reasons.
A peculiar plotline left dangling after the finale was the matter of Nina being a spy for The Darkling, and even being personally assigned by him to infiltrate a trio of rogues from Ketterdam who intended to capture Alina Starkov. It’s a significant alteration from the books, especially since it would have been easy enough to keep her canon backstory, but it doesn’t pay off…yet. If Nina joins the Crows, it’ll only be a matter of time before she realizes they’re the same scoundrels she was supposed to hand over to The Darkling, and that could be exactly the right kind of crisis to drive her into the hands of Pekka Rollins – taking a plot-point from Six Of Crows and giving it a fresh twist.
In the books, Nina is alone in Ketterdam and out of options when Pekka’s people find her and bring her to the Emerald Palace, where Pekka offers her a job at one of his pleasure houses. But Kaz sends Inej Ghafa to scale the six-story building at night in the pouring rain with his own counteroffer – a moment too cinematic to miss out on, in my opinion. Besides, returning to the Emerald Palace would give us an opportunity to check up on Poppy, an original character and breakout star from season one who would be a great foil for Nina’s humor.
Another source of conflict between Nina and the Crows could be Matthias Helvar, the Fjerdan witch-hunter whom Nina loves. Shadow And Bone dramatized a key scene from Six Of Crows in which Nina was forced to accuse Matthias of being a slave-trader and have him put in prison in order to save him from a team of Grisha who would have killed him otherwise – but now, with Matthias headed for Ketterdam’s notorious Hellgate prison, Nina will do anything in her power to free him and clear his name; and she might use him as a bargaining chip in her dealings with Kaz. The Hellgate prison break could be a pretty awesome set-piece, even if it would lead to complications with Matthias joining the Crows much earlier than in the books.
Then there’s Tante Heleen, who still has in her possession the deed for Kaz’s precious Crow Club – not only his primary source of revenue, but his headquarters and the capital of his sprawling criminal empire. I highly doubt the monstrous Heleen will hand it over without a fight, and she’s capable of prolonging that fight thanks to her resources and connections. But one thing she doesn’t have anymore is a Wraith, and Inej Ghafa knows her weaknesses and how to exploit them almost as well as Heleen knows hers. This storyline could also help Inej get closer to learning the truth about her family, from whom she was separated as a child by slave-traders who sold her to Heleen.
Kaz Brekker and Inej Ghafa | buzzfeed.com
Shadow And Bone made the deliberate choice to give Inej a brother – despite her being an only child in the books – and indicated that her brother was also sold off somewhere, although where is a mystery even to Inej. Heleen won’t know either, most likely, but she’ll know the identities of the slave-traders who captured both children, and Inej will track them down: of that I have no doubt. Her desire to fight the slave-trade is a major part of her character arc in the books, and the way she memorized every detail about her captors’ physical appearances and advocates for the other girls indentured by Heleen suggests it’s no different in the show.
Inej’s dream of owning a ship from which to launch this valiant crusade is something she only properly formulates in Six Of Crows during a powerful epiphany in an incinerator shaft (long story), but Shadow And Bone can plant the seeds of this dream if Inej encounters Nikolai Lantsov, the charismatic and flirtatious Ravkan prince who first appears in the Grisha trilogy disguised as a privateer named Sturmhond. In the books, Nikolai seeks to redeem Alina Starkov’s image with the Ravkan population by having her pose as his bride-to-be – but to avoid a massive geographical division in the show, he could announce their “engagement” in Ketterdam. I’m brainstorming here, but some kind of plot to assassinate the prince could make for rather compelling television.
Who would be pulling the strings behind such a scheme? Well, a few candidates come to mind. Obviously, The Darkling is one of those, but another could be Jan Van Eck, the Crows’ nemesis from the books. Since we know Eric Heisserer intends to introduce Van Eck’s son Wylan in season two, it stands to reason that Van Eck himself will also make an appearance, and it wouldn’t even be that much of a spoiler to establish him as a villainous or antagonistic character this early, as long as he’s working with the Kerch Merchant Council on his plots.
Assuming we’re lucky enough to get a third season of Shadow And Bone, which would presumably cover the events of Ruin And Rising, the final book in the Grisha trilogy, we’d have to do this all over again with another original plotline for the Crows to fill the gap between now and Six Of Crows. But the books provide something in this case – something that could unlock a whole new corner of the Grishaverse, fix a major problem with season one, and seamlessly interconnect with Alina’s ongoing character arc.
Alina and Mal’s storyline in Ruin And Rising is heavily focused around returning to their place of origin, which in the books is the orphanage at Keramzin. But Shadow And Bone changed Alina and Mal’s ethnicities, making them both biracial – and establishing Alina very clearly as being half-Shu (Mal is possibly of Suli descent, based on actor Archie Renaux’s Desi heritage, which raises the way-too-complicated-to-get-into-in-this-post question of whether he’s Inej’s long lost brother). There’s a lot of valid criticism of the way Shadow And Bone uses Alina’s biracial identity as shorthand for a tragic backstory, subjecting her to a constant string of micro-aggressions, abuse, insults, and racist attacks, without ever bothering to show Shu Han culture except through racist war propaganda, or allowing Alina an opportunity to explore her culture.
That’s something that could change at anytime, but season three offers a tantalizing opportunity for both Alina and Mal to journey further into their past than the orphanage at Keramzin – which could mean traveling to Shu Han at roughly the same time that the Shu scientist Bo Yul-Bayur and his young son Kuwei will be perfecting the formula for jurda parem. At this point in the show, The Darkling will be on his way out, and Jan Van Eck will have already been introduced – all that’s needed is for the Crows to somehow end up in Shu Han. And Six Of Crows provides a precedent, in a Kerch-funded mission to the Shu capital of Ahmrat Jen that takes place shortly before the book opens. The aim of the mission is to capture Yul-Bayur, but he is accidentally killed in the crossfire without the Kerch ever finding out – and Kuwei is captured by a Fjerdan team who take him to the impenetrable Ice Court.
This mission would also allow Inej to meet her most notable opponent from the books, a Ravkan assassin named Dunyasha who was trained in Ahmrat Jen. Inej’s Suli region adheres that a person’s sum total of sins and crimes add up to become that person’s evil doppelganger, or “Shadow”, who will one day face them in battle – and Dunyasha is Inej’s Shadow. With Inej’s arc being heavily focused on her faith, it makes sense to introduce this concept as soon as possible and begin foreshadowing their duel.
Kaz Brekker | marvelousgeeksmedia.com
But if I’m rambling at this point, it’s only because I love my Crows deeply, and I want them all to have fulfilling character arcs while we wait for the Ice Court heist. Is that really too much to ask? Eric Heisserer got himself into this mess by insisting that the Crows had to be part of Alina’s storyline as his pitch to Netflix – now we have to hope his writers room actually has a plan for them beyond the initial “wow” factor of the Crows trying to kidnap the Sun-Summoner in season one.
