Here is my review of The Wheel of Time S2 Episode 4 and I have to say this was another good episode from my point of view. Before I get into it, bit of background. I have read all the books and enjoyed them, so that’s the angle I am coming from when I review the show. Secondly, I am keeping SPOILER FREE on this one folks. I will mention one or two things for books fans at the end, but non-book readers won’t understand it and it does not spoil anything for the series ahead.

As you’d expect given where we started with the first three episodes, events are still happening differently than they did in the books. I know there will always be ‘bookcloaks’ as we call them who want a word for word adaptation. However unless you’re a billionaire and can finance your own fan version that just cannot, and will not ever happen. No one is making a 14 season straight adaptation because the only people who watch it are the book fans. You’d also know every scene before it happens and have a lot of silence around why characters are doing what they’re doing. Fans often forget no one wants to watch a show where we hear all the character’s thoughts constantly like you do in a book.

Fessing up, I also think there are some of Jordan’s books which could have done with some tightening up. Some of them are electric, others can go in directions which are not always central to the main story threads.

Daughter of the Night

So far I’m impressed, and I can start to see little details being added in that will pay off down the line and prevent having to go over old ground when we get to those points in later seasons. Whereas, in Season 1 I felt like there were details added in which didn’t add anything, and there was no need to revisit farther down the line. There were also a few downright lore issues

We have already seen Ishamael freeing one of his fellow Forsaken in the trailers and promo’s for Season 2. I guess Episode 4 would be best summed up as the one where we find out a little more about that. However that’s only one corner of the story, and I won’t mention which one as yet.

Our central characters are all where you’d expect after Episode 3. Nynaeve is shaken and in the White Tower, now an Accepted and we spend some more time there with her Egwene and Elayne. Perrin and Elyas have escaped with the wolves and Min and Matt are in a bar. Meanwhile Rand is trying to rebuild Selene’s tavern after burning it down by accident. Moiraine is looking for Rand and Lan… Lan is kinda moping around.

I liked how Nynaeve is still reeling from that experience. However, I’m also glad we don’t have a full episode of her feeling sorry for herself. Sure, it would take some time to recover from that, certainly longer than one of those dreams you think is real you wake up from. However, events force a change in Nyn and the distraction is a useful plot device to move her ahead.

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I really liked the story that was devised for Moiraine this week. The lore here is all book accurate (mostly), but we really didn’t get to see any of this in the books themselves. Some may argue that this is wasted time we could be spending on the other story-lines, but I disagree. I really enjoyed this plot string being pulled on a little more. However, I can’t say the same for Lan. It kinda felt like no one knew what to do with Lan this week, but he needed to be there because Alana had to discover something. Therefore, he kinda just mopes around a little. It’s not awful, but it could have been reduced a little in my mind.

The story-lines that get most attention this week would be Rand’s and Moiraine’s. Both of these plot threads, which revolve around one another, worked well. We go a different direction from the books, but the end result remains the same, as does the characters states of mind.

Perrin and Matt are hardly there at all this week. However, I liked both scenes they were in for different reasons. For Matt, it’s a bit of foreshadowing of the future, book readers will chuckle. For Perrin, I was just pleased to see how the show would handle communication with wolves and this worked. Especially given Perrin is on the first step of a ladder, it was a nice visual representation. However, now I’m going to talk a little directly to the bookcloaks on this last part. There’s no actual spoilers here you’ll understand or get annoyed by. However, If you just want to skip this section, go right ahead. Here is my overall grade for Episode 4

GRADE: A –

So, I’ve seen a lot of book fans the show has changed a major piece of lore on bringing people back from the dead. How it should not be that easy for the Dark One to do it in the show. Let’s clear this up, the character in question which I won’t spoil was not dead. You do not die instantly from those wounds if you are as powerful as the person was. You could see that the ‘True Power’ was being used by the Sa in the eyes. There’s your clues, and despite another characters line about how the Forsaken cannot be killed we know that to only be true from a certain point of view. That character who said the words does not know that at this point.

I’ll say no more, if you’ve watched Episode 4 that will make some sense to you without spoiling the future. If you read the books, then you know what I’m talking about.

Also, The Dragon Reviewed is back folks, we record tomorrow for your viewing pleasure. Once again Kyle and Christine Malone will join me as non-book readers to tell you what they think of Season 2 so far. Also, what their theories are for where the story is going? Want to see what we thought of Episodes 1-2? Click Here.

Let me know what you think of my review of The Wheel of Time S2 Episode 4? Leave your own review below, or don’t. The pattern will see it turns out right.

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