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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

April 17, 2021

Get Ready For Shadow And Bone With Only 6 Days Left To Go!

A lot of people are going to be rushing to Netflix next Friday to binge-watch the entire first season of Shadow And Bone as soon as it drops, but only a portion of that audience will have a chance to read or even page-skim through the entirety of the series’ literary source-material in the six days we have left before the hotly-anticipated premiere. But that’s okay, because I’m here to give you the rundown of everything you need to know about the world of Leigh Bardugo’s twin series’ of fantasy novels, the Shadow And Bone trilogy and the Six Of Crows duology, and the premise of the Netflix show, which will draw inspiration from the first books of both series’.

The expansive world of Bardugo’s novels, dubbed the “Grishaverse” by fans and author alike, is largely similar to the Europe and West Asia of our own, but for the most part grounded in the aesthetics, societal norms, and steam and gas-powered technology, of the late 1800’s. Some might call this steampunk, but Bardugo coined the more unique term “Tzarpunk” to describe the setting of her debut novel, Shadow And Bone, and its direct sequels, which take place in the northerly region of Ravka – unmistakably influenced by Russia under the final Tzars, from the opulent lifestyle of the country’s royalty all the way down to the brutal oppression of the working class. If history is doomed to repeat itself even in fantasy, then Ravka is in for a communist revolution any day now.

But while Ravka is a straight-up monarchy, the true power lies in the hands of the Grisha – an elite, militarized order of humans gifted with the ability to manipulate or alter matter. And although the Grisha describe their “magic” as being scientific in nature (and a bunch of them are employed only for their ability to de-age Ravka’s upper class), the misconception that they’re a coven of evil witches persists among the general population, and they are widely hated and feared. Nonetheless, they make up a small but deadly faction of Ravka’s army, and they get to live in a palace near the capital.

The Grisha are also quartered off into numerous subdivisions, something I hope the Netflix adaptation explores in-depth – because J.K. Rowling ruined Hogwarts Houses for a lot of people, so we need a new method of separating personality types by way of pop culture references…and “Heartrender” sounds a lot cooler than Hufflepuff anyway, I’m just saying. But there’s one person in a category of her own, and that’s Alina Starkov, Shadow And Bone‘s protagonist. The only Sun-Summoner in the world, Starkov has the ability to control light – a power-set that might seem of limited use until you remember that Ravka is split down the middle by a literal ink-stain on the map, a wall of darkness named the Shadow-Fold.

Blocking most trade between Ravka’s coast and its more densely-populated interior, the Shadow-Fold can only be traversed by tiny skiffs that must pass through the wall and avoid encountering the horrific winged demons that roam in the darkness, known as Volcra. Shadow And Bone kicks off with Alina Starkov, still just a humble mapmaker conscripted into Ravka’s non-Grisha army, joining one of these routine trips through the Fold: and when she discovers that she’s a sentient nightlight that could potentially eradicate the Shadow-Fold entirely, well, things happen. This post is free of any major spoilers about the books, so I’ll refrain from saying what those “things” are, but come on, the show’s only six days away, people! Be patient!

Just a few years after the events of Shadow And Bone and its sequels, Six Of Crows picks up the story in a vastly different corner of the Grishaverse, in the bustling, grimy, canal-laced port-city of Ketterdam, separated from Ravka by many miles and an entire ocean. Modeled off of Amsterdam at the peak of Dutch imperialism in the 1600’s but with a bit of Bardugo’s signature Tzarpunk mixed in, Ketterdam is home to several street-gangs which fight for control over the flow of imports and exports through the city’s docks, trade-districts, and markets.

When Six Of Crows opens, the gang known as the Dregs (who operate out of the infamous Crow Club) are already a feared and respected force in Ketterdam’s criminal underworld, thanks to the strategizing skills of their highest-ranking member, Kaz Brekker. To account for the time-gap between Bardugo’s two series’, the first season of Netflix’s Shadow And Bone won’t be adapting Six Of Crows, but will instead follow the founding members of the gang prior to the events of their book – or at least, so Netflix says. A recent trailer (my breakdown linked below, but watch out for spoilers!) revealed that Netflix is basically just using the plot of Six Of Crows but weaving it into the events of Shadow And Bone in a bold and risky move that I hope pays off.

In the books, the strongest link between the two series’ is the character of Nina Zenik, a Grisha from Ravka who gets taken captive by her nation’s unfriendly neighbors to the north, the Fjerdans – specifically by a group of Fjerdan religious zealots named the drüskelle, who despise the Grisha. Nina’s interactions with them lead to her eventually finding refuge in Ketterdam and joining the Dregs, and her knowledge of Fjerda helps the gang when they take on their most dangerous mission ever as a team – to break into a heavily-fortified Fjerdan palace and abduct a valuable prisoner. A waffle-loving bisexual style icon, Nina unfortunately seems to only play a small part in Shadow And Bone‘s first season.

Sure, there’s a couple of world-building details I’ve left out, but that’s essentially all you need to know about the Grishaverse before watching Netflix’s Shadow And Bone. I mean, technically, you shouldn’t even need to know anything because a good adaptation allows even the most casual viewer to ease into the story, but hey – if I can exploit the fact that very few adaptations remember that golden rule, I will absolutely continue to do so because I have fun writing these breakdowns, and they drive traffic to my blog (*prides himself on his Kaz Brekker-like business savvy and exits, pursued by disgruntled readers*).

January 27, 2021January 27, 2021

“Shadow And Bone” 1st Look Images Highlight Fan-Favorites

The crown jewel in Netflix’s treasure-chest of fantasy properties is undeniably The Witcher. Even in its temporary absence, they’ve filled the fantasy void with…well, news of other Witcher spinoffs, for the most part. But as much as we all love the grimdark franchise and want to keep tossing our coins to Geralt of Rivia, let’s be real for a moment: Shadow And Bone is right there. Just a few months out from release, and Netflix has barely even begun marketing the upcoming fantasy series based on Leigh Bardugo’s bestselling novels and starring Ben Barnes. An aesthetically-pleasing but light-on-substance teaser trailer debuted in December, and accumulated over a million views on YouTube: proving there’s an audience for this series. So where’s the promo, Netflix?

On its way, I guess. Today’s drop of first-look images (shared exclusively with Entertainment Weekly) and character posters (which I won’t talk about as much in this post, because although they feature better costumes overall than the images, they don’t shed much light about plot details) certainly gives the impression that Netflix is going to bless us with a real trailer in the coming days or weeks, and not wait until a month before the series premiere to start their marketing campaign, as has been customary for them with their more niche originals. Shadow And Bone has the potential to appeal to many demographics, including fantasy fans still waiting for all those Witcher spinoffs and prequels to materialize, and I’m glad the streaming service recognizes that.

The big question about the series – which the new images and accompanying interview with EW do not adequately answer, in my opinion – is how much of a balancing act it will be, as Netflix tries to intertwine two of Bardugo’s Grishaverse stories into one cohesive whole. On the one hand, we have the saga of Alina Starkov and The Darkling, which plays out in Bardugo’s Grisha Trilogy (the first installment of which is also titled Shadow And Bone). It’s trope-filled, but still enjoyable, and The Darkling’s controversial popularity should make any and all discourse about the series…lively, to say the least. On the other hand, there’s the more uniquely compelling Six Of Crows duology, which takes place several decades after the events of the Grisha Trilogy and follows a group of young criminals plotting and carrying out an epic heist. With the two stories distanced by time and space, and sharing very few elements besides Grisha magicians, there’s no word yet on how they’ll be narratively or thematically connected…though showrunner Eric Heisserer teased a “very exciting” link.

I was under the impression that, while Alina’s story would be the overwhelming focus of season one, we would also be introduced to the various future members of the Six Of Crows gang during their formative years, and only see them properly team up in the finale: since it seems that the main events of Six Of Crows won’t be covered until Shadow And Bone‘s second season at the earliest. But one of the new images (the best of the bunch, to be honest) reveals Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, and Jesper Fahey already working as a trio…so who knows how this will all work out. I suppose they’ll have a completely original subplot in this season, which both alarms and intrigues me.

Out of all the Crows, only Inej Ghafa gets her own character-specific image – promising a larger role for the fascinating anti-heroine, and a breakout performance from Nepalese actress Amita Suman. Just based on Suman’s quiet confidence and lethal poise, it looks like Inej, one of my favorite characters in the Grishaverse, is receiving the kind of faithful page-to-screen adaptation that fans of other book series’ would kill for – and speaking of killing, Inej comes armed with at least 14 knives, and gymnastic agility. Dubbed “The Wraith”, she’s perfect at moving undetected through the grungy streets of Ketterdam, hunting Kaz Brekker’s enemies with terrifying efficiency.

Alongside Suman’s Inej, I’m afraid Freddy Carter’s Kaz Brekker doesn’t stand out nearly as much as he should. That could be attributed to his dark and dull attire, and the fact that neither his sleek black gloves nor weaponized cane are visible in the image, but it’s an underwhelming first look at such a commanding and stylish character from the books (Kaz’s poster does slightly better in this regard, but still doesn’t quite capture the antihero’s essence, in my opinion). I have a similar nitpick with Kit Young’s Jesper Fahey, whom I would have liked to see introduced in a more characteristically colorful outfit and haphazardly wielding his twin pistols. And don’t even get me started on Nina Zenik, whose barely visible behind her boyfriend Matthias Helvar, bundled up in a nondescript shawl.

Even Mal, Alina’s on-and-off love interest and one of the most widely hated characters in the Grishaverse fandom, has a more stylistically and visually interesting first-look image than Nina. There is no universe, real or fictional, in which that should be possible (but actor Archie Renaux nonetheless deserves credit for pulling it off).

Jessie Mei Li looks like a great Alina, and hopefully brings enough charisma to the role to make the character interesting. But I’m afraid she’ll be both literally and figuratively overshadowed by The Darkling, her nemesis, occasional love interest, and the series’ big bad, at least for now. Ben Barnes’ Darkling has the palpable seductive qualities one would would expect from a man who can manipulate shadows, and he’s the series’ star power – like Henry Cavill’s Geralt in The Witcher, Barnes will be front and center in all of Shadow And Bone‘s marketing, whenever that gets off the ground: possibly to the detriment of his less well-known costars.

So what do you think of the new images for Shadow And Bone? If you’re a Grishaverse reader as well as potential viewer, which character are you most excited to see in live-action? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

December 17, 2020

“Shadow And Bone” 1st Trailer Hypes Up The Epic Dark Fantasy!

It’s been a long time since we got any news from the set of Shadow And Bone, one of the myriad of upcoming fantasy series’ in Netflix’s seemingly endless catalogue. The cast looked pretty good when they were revealed last year, and filming wrapped just prior to the start of the coronavirus pandemic, luckily, but in the months since then all we’ve really seen (or rather heard) was a snippet of the series’ melancholy, ominous score – which was admittedly quite beautiful. But now, to accompany the news that Shadow And Bone has been set for a fast-approaching April 2021 release date, Netflix has generously dropped a new teaser trailer.

A mere forty seconds long, the teaser doesn’t provide any actual footage (and only a single line of dialogue), but instead sets up the series’ general atmosphere: dark, wintry, and mystical. Shadow And Bone will combine storylines from Leigh Bardugo’s two separate book series’ set in the Grishaverse world: the Grisha trilogy, which follows Alina Starkov as she becomes the prophesized Sun-Summoner and battles The Darkling for control of her homeland; and its more popular successor, the Six Of Crows duology, which takes place many years after the original trilogy and explores life in the criminal underworld of the city of Ketterdam, where a thief named Kaz Brekker and his gang of social outcasts stage a daring heist to win a fortune. The books are very good, and I highly recommend reading them, but suffice it to say that the Grishaverse is kind of like a gritty Narnia with overtones of The Witcher. It stands out from the crowd of young adult fantasy stories thanks to its mature themes and elegant writing style. I’m pretty typical/boring in that I prefer Six Of Crows to the Grisha trilogy, but I have a feeling Netflix might finally make me care about the characters of Alina Starkov and The Darkling (nothing they can do will ever get me to spare an ounce of interest in Alina’s love interest, Mal, one of the most detestable and annoying characters I’ve ever read).

The first season of the Netflix adaptation will tackle the events of the first Grisha trilogy book – itself titled Shadow And Bone – and, it seems, the backstories of most of the main characters in Six Of Crows. Whether or not these two story threads will interweave organically or not is still a mystery: in the books, there isn’t much crossover between the two until Six Of Crows‘ sequel, but that may change for the series. It’s possible we’ll follow two storylines unfolding in a non-linear fashion – but The Witcher just did that, and got criticized for confusing viewers. I suspect there’s a chance, then, that the events of the two series’ will occur simultaneously for the Netflix show’s purposes…despite the plot-holes that could case, if done sloppily. The clearest link between the two, which I hope Shadow And Bone will exploit, is the character of Nina, who (in the books) is a crucial member of Kaz Brekker’s gang, but hails from Alina Starkov’s home country of Ravka, where she was a young but powerful Grisha mage before being abducted.

Anyway. Elements from both series’ are incorporated into the imagery used in the teaser – from a crow (the emblem of Brekker’s gang) soaring past, to the white Morozova’s Stag whose intricate, frosted, antlers command attention before being transformed (via CGI wizardry) into a ball of radiant, fluid, sunlight clasped between two silhouetted hands. In the books, the mythical Stag’s antlers are similarly used to amplify Alina’s magic powers, which manifest as the ability to conjure and control light. I especially love how Alina’s hands fold against her chest, snuffing out the light as darkness encroaches around her. Before the title card is illuminated by one of her outbursts of magic, we hear from Alina’s nemesis and love interest, The Darkling himself, whose power to manipulate shadows pits the two against each other throughout the book series: in his gentle yet firm voice, he tells her that “You and I are going to change the world”. Fans have long been hyped to see Ben Barnes as The Darkling – it would have been nice to get a first look at his costume.

And of course, the whole visual masterpiece is complimented by the aforementioned theme, composed by Joseph Trapanese and well-suited to a dark fantasy epic like this. Although there’s not much to go on yet, the vibe I’m getting from the show is really good so far. And Netflix’s track-record when it comes to creating addictive content is pretty spotless: I unironically loved The Witcher, and I believe Shadow And Bone will probably be another bingeworthy hit for the streaming service.

Trailer Rating: 8/10