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Opinion: Wider TV trends helped kill a show that was starting to live up to its promise. Moiraine contemplates The Blight. Credit: Amazon Studios Late on Friday, Amazon announced that it was canceling its TV adaptation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, after several uncomfortable weeks of silence that followed the show’s third season finale. Fans of the series can take some cold comfort in the fact that it apparently wasn’t an easy decision to make. But as we speculated in our write-up of what ended up being the show’s series finale, an expensive show with a huge cast, tons of complicated costuming and effects, and extensive location shooting only makes mathematical sense if it’s a megahit, and The Wheel of Time was never a megahit. Adapting the unadaptable I was sad about the cancellation announcement because I believe this season was the one where the show found its footing, both as an adaptation of a complex book series and as a fun TV show in its own right. But I wasn't surprised by it. The only thing I found surprising was that it took this long to happen. Two things conspired to make it impossible for this Wheel of Time show to ever reach the Last Battle. One has to do with the source material itself; the other has to do with the way the TV business has changed since Game of Thrones premiered in 2011. The Wheel of Time actively resists adaptation. It's a sprawling 14-book series spanning dozens of named point-of-view characters and impossibly dense politics. And it even spans multiple eras stylistically—the early books were more Tolkien-esque in their focus on small bands of adventurers and a limited number of perspectives, where later books could go for multiple chapters without putting you in the head of one of the series' half-dozen-ish main protagonists. And even among the series' die-hard fans, most will admit that there are storylines, characters, or entire books that feel inessential or annoying or repetitive or sloggy or wheel-spinning. Any adaptation would need to find a way to stay true to the story that the books were telling and to marry the tone and pacing of the early, middle, and late-series books while wrestling with the realities of a different medium (in particular, you cannot realistically pay for infinite episodes or pay infinite cast members, especially for a live-action show). By season 3, the show had become adept at translating big book moments for the screen. That high degree of difficulty was surely one reason why it took someone so long to decide to tackle The Wheel of Time, even in the post-Peter Jackson, post-Harry Potter, post-Marvel Cinematic Universe, post-Game of Thrones creative landscape where nerd-coded sci-fi and fantasy were suddenly cool, where multi-part book adaptations were drawing dollars and eyeballs, and where convoluted interconnected stories could be billion-dollar businesses. The only stab anyone took at an adaptation before Amazon happened a full decade ago, when a fly-by-night production company aired a hastily shot adaptation of the first book's prologue in an apparent attempt to keep the TV rights from expiring. It's also what makes the cancellation news so much more frustrating—over three seasons, showrunner Rafe Judkins and the cast and crew of the show became adept at adapting the unadaptable. Yes, the story and the characters had changed in a lot of major ways. Yes, the short eight-episode seasons made for frenetic pacing and overstuffed episodes. But if you grit your teeth a bit and push through the show's mess of a first season, you hit a series that seemed to know what must-hit scenes needed to be shown; which parts of the books were skippable or could be combined with other moments; which parts of later books to pull forward to streamline the story without making those moments feel rushed or unearned. It was imperfect, but it was a true adaptation—a reworking of a story for a much different medium that seemed to know how to keep the essence of the story intact. Ambition meets reality Like Rand al'Thor struggling with the One Power, The Wheel of Time struggled against the realities of the current TV landscape. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios The thing that doomed this particular Wheel of Time production from the start was the sky-high expectations that Amazon had for it. Both Wheel of Time and the heartbreakingly bland Rings of Power were born of Jeff Bezos' desire to find his own Game of Thrones, which became an unexpected smash-hit success that dominated the cultural conversation through the 2010s. Most TV shows either launch strongly before slowly fading, or they build an audience over a few seasons and then fade after reaching their peak. Game of Thrones defied these trends, and each new season drew a larger and larger viewership even as the show's quality (arguably) dipped over time. Asking Wheel of Time to replicate that success would be a tall order for any television show in any era—pop culture is littered with shows that have tried and failed to clone another network's successful formula. But it's an especially difficult hurdle to clear in the fractured 2020s TV landscape. Streaming TV's blank-check era—which ran roughly from Netflix's introduction of its first original shows in 2013 to 2022, when Netflix reported its first big dip in subscribers just as a long era of low-interest lending was coming to an end—used to give shows a ton of runway and plenty of seasons to tell their stories. Shows like Orange Is the New Black or BoJack Horseman that found some modicum of critical acclaim and ratings success tended to get renewed multiple times, and six or seven-season runs were common. A commitment to reviving old, critically beloved bubble shows like Arrested Development, Community, Futurama, and Gilmore Girls also sent a message: Freed from the restrictive economics of the Old TV Model and fueled by the promise of infinite growth, we can make whatever TV we want! Those days are mostly gone now (except perhaps at Apple TV+, which continues to leverage its parent company's deep pockets to throw gobs of money at any actor or IP with a moderately recognizable name). In the two years since TV streamers began cutting back in earnest, industry analysts have observed a consistent trend toward shorter seasons of fewer episodes and fewer renewals for existing shows. Those trends hit at the exact wrong moment for The Wheel of Time, which was constantly straining against the bonds of its eight-episode seasons. It's impossible to say empirically whether longer seasons would have made for a better show, and whether that "better show" could have achieved the kind of word-of-mouth success it would have needed to meet Amazon's expectations. But speaking anecdotally as someone who was just beginning to recommend the show to people who weren't hardcore book readers, the density and pacing were two major barriers to entry. And even the most truncated possible version of the story would have needed at least six or seven seasons to wrap up in anything resembling a satisfactory way, based on the pace that was set in the first three seasons. The end of Time Wheel of Time fans didn't get to see everything translated from book to screen. But we did get to see a lot of things. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Tellingly, the Wheel of Time's creative team hasn't released faux-optimistic boilerplate statements about trying to shop the show to other networks, the kind of statements you sometimes see after a show is canceled before its creators are done with it. The same economics that made Amazon drop the show also make it nearly impossible to sell to anyone else. And so The Wheel of Time joins TV's long list of unfinished stories. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But this is an ending. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

With one episode left in the season, the screws tighten hard on our poor characters. Lord Goldeneyes! Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode and second season episode of Amazon's WoT TV series. Now we're back in the saddle for season 3—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory. These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We'll do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you. New episodes of The Wheel of Time season 3 will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Thursday. This write-up covers episode seven, "Goldeneyes," which was released on April 10. Lee: Welcome back—and that was nuts. There’s a ton to talk about—the Battle of the Two Rivers! Lord Goldeneyes!—but uh, I feel like there’s something massive we need to address right from the jump, so to speak: LOIAL! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! That was some out-of-left-field Game of Thrones-ing right there. My wife and I have both been frantically talking about how Loial’s death might or might not change the shape of things to come. What do you think—is everybody’s favorite Ogier dead-dead, or is this just a fake-out? NOOOOOOOOO Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: Standard sci-fi/fantasy storytelling rules apply here as far as I'm concerned—if you don't see a corpse, they can always reappear (cf. Thom Merrillin, The Wheel of Time season 3, episode 6). For example! When the Cauthon sisters fricassee Eamon Valda to avenge their mother and Alanna laughs joyfully at the sight of his charred corpse? That's a death you ain't coming back from. Even assuming that Loial's plot armor has fallen off, the way we've seen the show shift and consolidate storylines means it's impossible to say how the presence or absence of one character or another couple ripple outward. This episode alone introduces a bunch of fairly major shifts that could play out in unpredictable ways next season. But let's back up! The show takes a break from its usual hopping and skipping to focus entirely on one plot thread this week: Perrin's adventures in the Two Rivers. This is a Big Book Moment; how do you think it landed? Fain seems to be leading the combined Darkfriend/Trolloc army. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Lee: I would call the Battle of the Two Rivers one of the most important events that happens in the front half of the series. It is certainly a defining moment for Perrin’s character, where he grows up and becomes a Man-with-a-capital-M. It is possibly done better in the books, but only because the book has the advantage of being staged in our imaginations; I’ll always see it as bigger and more impactful than anything a show or movie could give us. Though it was a hell of a battle, yeah. The improvements in pulling off large set pieces continues to scale from season to season—comparing this battle to the Bel Tine fight back in the first bits of season 1 shows not just better visual effects or whatever, but just flat-out better composition and clearer storytelling. The show continues to prove that it has found its footing. Did the reprise of the Manetheren song work for you? This has been sticky for me—I want to like it. I see what the writers are trying to do, and I see how “this is a song we all just kind of grew up singing” is given new meaning when it springs from characters’ bloody lips on the battlefield. But it just… doesn’t work for me. It makes me feel cringey, and I wish it didn’t. It’s probably the only bit in the entire episode that I felt was a swing and a miss. Darkfriends and Trollocs pour into Emond's Field. Andrew: Forgive me in advance for what I think is about to be a short essay but it is worth talking about when evaluating the show as an adaptation of the original work. Part of the point of the Two Rivers section in The Shadow Rising is that it helps to back up something we've seen in our Two Rivers expats over the course of the first books in the series—that there is a hidden strength in this mostly ignored backwater of Randland. To the extent that the books are concerned with Themes, the two big overarching ones are that strength and resilience come from unexpected places and that heroism is what happens when regular, flawed, scared people step up and Do What Needs To Be Done under terrible circumstances. (This is pure Tolkien, and that's the difference between The Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice and Fire—WoT wants to build on LotR's themes and ASoIaF is mainly focused on subverting them.) But to get back to what didn't work for you about this, the strength of the Two Rivers is meant to be more impressive and unexpected because these people all view themselves, mostly, as quiet farmers and hunters, not as the exiled heirs to some legendary kingdom (a la Malkier). They don't go around singing songs about How Virtuous And Bold Was Manetheren Of Old, or whatever. Manetheren is as distant to them as the Roman Empire, and those stories don't put food on the table. So yeah, it worked for me as an in-the-moment plot device. The show had already played the "Perrin Rallies His Homeland With A Rousing Speech" card once or twice, and you want to mix things up. I doubt it was even a blip for non-book-readers. But it is a case, as with the Cauthon sisters' Healing talents, where the show has to take what feels like too short a shortcut. Lee: That’s a good set of points, yeah. And I don’t hate it—it’s just not the way I would have done it. (Though, hah, that’s a terribly easy thing to say from behind the keyboard here, without having to own the actual creative responsibility of dragging this story into the light.) In amongst the big moments were a bunch of nice little character bits, too—the kinds of things that keep me coming back to the show. Perrin’s glowering, teeth-gritted exchange with Whitecloak commander Dain Bornhald was great, though my favorite bit was the almost-throwaway moment where Perrin catches up with the Cauthon sisters and gives them an update on Mat. The two kids absolutely kill it, transforming from sober and traumatized young people into giggling little sisters immediately at the sight of their older brother’s sketch. Not even blowing the Horn of Valere can save you from being made fun of by your sisters. (The other thing that scene highlighted was that Perrin, seated, is about the same height as Faile standing. She’s tiny!) We also close the loop a bit on the Tinkers, who, after being present in flashback a couple of episodes ago, finally show back up on screen—complete with Aram, who has somewhat of a troubling role in the books. The guy seems to have a destiny that will take him away from his family, and that destiny grabs firmly ahold of him here. Perrin is tall. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: Yeah, I think the show is leaving the door open for Aram to have a happier ending than he has in the books, where being ejected from his own community makes him single-mindedly obsessed with protecting Perrin in a way that eventually curdles. Here, he might at least find community among good Two Rivers folk. We'll see. The entire Whitecloak subplot is something that stretches out interminably in the books, as many side-plots do. Valda lasts until Book 11 (!). Dain Bornhald holds his grudge against Perrin (still unresolved here, but on a path toward resolution) until Book 14. The show has jumped around before, but I think this is the first time we've seen it pull something forward from that late, which it almost certainly needs to do more of if it hopes to get to the end in whatever time is allotted to it (we're still waiting for a season 4 renewal). Lee: Part of that, I think, is the Zeno’s Paradox-esque time-stretching that occurs as the series gets further on—we’ll keep this free of specific spoilers, of course, but it’s not really a spoiler to say that as the books go on, less time passes per book. My unrefreshed off-the-top-of-my-head recollection is that there are, like, four, possibly five, books—written across almost a decade of real time—that cover like a month or two of in-universe time passing. This gets into the area of time that book readers commonly refer to as “The Slog,” which slogs at maximum slogginess around book 10 (which basically retreads all the events of book nine and shows us what all the second-string characters were up to while the starting players were off doing big world-changing things). Without doing any more criticizing than the implicit criticizing I’ve already done, The Slog is something I’m hoping that the show obviates or otherwise does away with, and I think we’re seeing the ways in which such slogginess will be shed. There are a few other things to wrap up here, I think, but this episode being so focused on a giant battle—and doing that battle well!—doesn’t leave us with a tremendous amount to recap. Do we want to get into Bain and Chiad trying to steal kisses from Loial? It’s not in the book—at least, I don’t think it was!—but it feels 100 percent in character for all involved. (Loial, of course, would never kiss outside of marriage.) A calm moment before battle. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: All the Bain and Chiad in this episode is great—I appreciate when the show decides to subtitle the Maiden Of The Spear hand-talk and when it lets context and facial expressions convey the meaning. All of the Alanna/Maksim stuff is great. Alanna calling in a storm that rains spikes of ice on all their enemies is cool. Daise Congar throwing away her flask after touching the One Power for the first time was a weird vaudevillian comic beat that still made me laugh (and you do get a bit more, in here, that shows why people who haven't formally learned how to channel generally shouldn't try it). There's a thread in the books where everyone in the Two Rivers starts referring to Perrin as a lord, which he hates and which is deployed a whole bunch of times here. I find myself starting each of these episodes by taking fairly detailed notes, and by the middle of the episode I catch myself having not written anything for minutes at a time because I am just enjoying watching the show. On the topic of structure and pacing, I will say that these episodes that make time to focus on a single thread also make more room for quiet character moments. On the rare occasions that we get a less-than-frenetic episode I just wish we could have more of them. Lee: I find that I’m running out of things to say here—not because this episode is lacking, but because like an arrow loosed from a Two Rivers longbow, this episode hurtles us toward the upcoming season finale. We’ve swept the board clean of all the Perrin stuff, and I don’t believe we’re going to get any more of it next week. Next week—and at least so far, I haven’t cheated and watched the final screener!—feels like we’re going to resolve Tanchico and, more importantly, Rand’s situation out in the Aiel Waste. But Loial’s unexpected death (if indeed death it was) gives me pause. Are we simply killing folks off left and right, Game of Thrones style? Has certain characters’ plot armor been removed? Are, shall we say, alternative solutions to old narrative problems suddenly on the table in this new turning of the Wheel? I’m excited to see where this takes us—though I truly hope we’re not going to have to say goodbye to anyone else who matters. Closing thoughts, Andrew? Any moments you’d like to see? Things you’re afraid of? Perrin being led off by Bornhald. Things didn't exactly work out like this in the book! Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: For better or worse, Game of Thrones did help to create this reality where Who Dies This Week? was a major driver of the cultural conversation and the main reason to stay caught up. I'll never forget having the Red Wedding casually ruined for me by another Ars staffer because I was a next-day watcher and not a day-of GoT viewer. One way to keep the perspectives and plotlines from endlessly proliferating and recreating The Slog is simply to kill some of those people so they can't be around to slow things down. I am not saying one way or the other whether I think that's actually a series wrap on Loial, Son Of Arent, Son Of Halan, May His Name Sing In Our Ears, but we do probably have to come to terms with the fact that not all fan-favorite septenary Wheel of Time characters are going to make it to the end. As for fears, mainly I'm afraid of not getting another season at this point. The show is getting good enough at showing me big book moments that now I want to see a few more of them, y'know? But Economic Uncertainty + Huge Cast + International Shooting Locations + No More Unlimited Cash For Streaming Shows feels like an equation that is eventually going to stop adding up for this production. I really hope I'm wrong! But who am I to question the turning of the Wheel? Credit: WoT Wiki Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of March): 1,357 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Perrin broods, Sea Folk sail, and Aes Sedai plot as we jump into episode five. Egwene walks the dream. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode and second season episode of Amazon's WoT TV series. Now we're back in the saddle for season 3—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory. These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We'll do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you. New episodes of The Wheel of Time season three will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Thursday. This write-up covers episode five, "Tel'Aran'Rhiod," which was released on March 27. Andrew: Three seasons in I think we have discerned a pattern to the Wheel of Time's portrayal of the Pattern: a mid-season peak in episode four, followed by a handful of more table-setting-y episodes that run up to a big finale. And so it is in Tel'aran'rhiod, which is a not-entirely-unwelcome slowdown after last week's intense character-defining journey into Rhuidean. The show introduces or expands a bunch of book plotlines as it hops between perspectives this week. Which are you the most interested in picking apart, Lee? Anything the show is tending to here that you wish we were skipping? "Let it go, let it goooooo..." A Sea Folk Windfinder, doing her thing. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Lee: Yes, this was a good old-fashioned move-the-pieces-into-place episode, and you gotta have at least one or two of those. I think, if I were coming into this having not read the books, the most puzzling bits might have been what’s going on in the White Tower this episode, with the who-is-the-darkfriend hide-n-seek game the Aes Sedai are playing. And it turns out that in spite of the Sisters’ best attempts at a fake-out, Shohreh Aghdashloo’s Elaida is in fact not it. (And Elaida gets the crap stabbed out of her by another Gray Man for her troubles, too. Ouch. Fortunately, healing is nearby. Nobody has to die in this show unless the plot really demands it.) I was a little taken aback at the casualness with which Elaida takes lives—her execution of Black Ajah sister Amico Nagoyin was pretty off-handed. I don’t recall her being quite that blasé about death in the books, but it has been a while. Regardless, while she’s not capital-E EEEEEVIL, she’s clearly not a good person. We do get our first glimpse of the Sea Folk, though it felt a bit ham-fisted—like they spent both more time than they needed to tee them up, and much less time than was needed to actually establish WTF this new group of people is. (Though I guess the name “Sea Folk” is pretty explanatory—it does what it says on the tin, as it were.) My eyes see Elaida Sedai, but my ears and heart hear Chrisjen Avasarala saying "Sometimes I f—ing hate being right." Andrew: Our first glimpse of show-Elaida is an advisor to a new queen who casually murders her former political opponents, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that she just straight-up executes someone she thinks is of no further use. The show is also happy to just quickly kill tertiary or... sextiary (??) characters to streamline the story. There are lots of those to go around in the books. There's a lot of Aiel and Sea Folk stuff where the show is just kind of asking you to take things at face value, even if book-readers are aware of more depth. One of the big running plotlines in the book is that the White Tower has weakened itself by being too doctrinaire about the way it absorbs the channelers of other cultures, totally taking them away from their families and societies and subjecting them to all kinds of weird inflexible discipline. This is why there are so many Aiel and Sea Folk channelers running around that the White Tower doesn't know about, and the show has nodded toward it but hasn't had a lot of room to communicate the significance of it. Lee: That’s a point that Alanna Sedai comments on in this episode, and the reason she’s in the Two Rivers: The Tower has been too selective, too closed-minded, and—somewhat ironically—too parochial in its approach to accepting and training channelers. Further, there’s some worry that by spending thousands of years finding and gentling (or executing) male channelers, humanity has begun to self-select channeling out of the gene pool. This doesn’t seem to be the case, though, as we see by the sheer number of channelers popping up everywhere, and Alanna’s hypothesis proves correct: the old blood of Manetheren runs true and strong, spilling out in ta’veren and channelers and other pattern-twisting craziness all over the place. Alanna has her own challenges to face, but first, I want to hear your take on the Aiel in this post-Rhuidean episode, and especially of Cold Rocks Hold—a place that I know a subset of fans have been imagining for decades. What did you think? Alanna Sedai's intuition is right on the money. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: Rocks! It's all rocks. Which makes sense for a desert, I suppose. The show does a solid job of showing us what day-to-day Aiel society looks like through just a handful of characters, including Rhuarc's other wife Lian and his granddaughter Alsera. It's an economy of storytelling that is forced upon the show by budget and low episode count but usually you don't feel it. We're also getting our very first look at the awe and discomfort that Rand is going to inspire, as the prophesied Aiel chief-of-chiefs. Clan leaders are already telling tales of him to their children. But not everyone is going to have an easy time accepting him, something we'll probably start to pick apart in future episodes. Alanna is definitely in the running for my favorite overhauled show character. She's visible from very early on as a background character and loose ally of the Two Rivers crew in the books, but the show is giving her more of a personality and a purpose, and a wider view than Book-Alanna (who was usually sulking somewhere about her inability to take any of the Two Rivers boys as a Warder, if memory serves). In the show she and her Warder Maksim are fleshed-out characters who are dealing with their relationship and the Last Battle in their own way, and it's fun to get something unexpected and new in amongst all of the "how are they going to portray Book Event X" stuff. Lee: Book-Alanna by this point has made some... let’s call them questionable choices, and her reworking into someone a bit less deserving of being grabbed by the throat and choked is excellent. (Another character with a similar reworking is Faile, who so far I actually quite like and do not at all want to throttle!) I think you’ve hit upon the main overarching change from the books, bigger than all other changes: The show has made an effort to make these characters into people with relatable problems, rather than a pack of ill-tempered, nuance-deaf ding-dongs who make bad choices and then have to dig themselves out. Well, except maybe for Elayne. I do still kind of want to shake her a bit. Hey, it's Faile, and I don't hate her! Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: Yes! But with show-Elayne at least you get the sense that a bit of her showy know-it-all-ness is being played up on purpose. And she is right to be studying up on their destination and trying to respect the agreement they made with the Sea Folk when they came on board. She's just right in a way that makes you wish she wasn't, a personality type I think we've all run into at least once or twice in our own lives. In terms of Big Book Things that are happening, let's talk about Egwene briefly. Obviously she's beginning to hone her skills in the World of Dreams—Tel'aran'rhiod, which gives the episode its name—and she's already using it to facilitate faster communication between far-flung characters and to check in on her friends. Two other, minor things: We're starting to see Rand and Egwene drift apart romantically, something the books had already dispensed with by this point. And this was the first time I noted an Aiel referring to her as "Egwene Sedai." I assume this has already happened and this is just the first time I've noticed, but Egwene/Nynaeve/Elayne playing at being full Aes Sedai despite not being is a plot thread the books pull at a lot here in the middle of the series. Lee: Right, I seem to remember the dissembling about Egwene’s Sedai-ishness resulting in some kind of extended spanking session, that being the punishment the Book Wise Ones (and the Book Aes Sedai) were most likely to hand out. I think the characters’ pretending to be full Sisters and all the wacky hijinks that ensue are being dispensed with, and I am pretty okay with that. The Sea Folk wear tops! Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: That's the thing, I'm not sure the characters pretending to be full Sisters is being dispensed with. The show's just dropping breadcrumbs so that they're there later, if/when they want to make a Big Deal out of them. We'll see whether they make the time or not. Lee: Regardless, Eggy’s growth into a dream-walker is fortunately not being dispensed with, and as in the books, she does a lot of things she’s not supposed to do (or at least not until she’s got more than a single afternoon’s worth of dreamwalker training under her belt). She sort of heeds the Wise Ones’ directive to stay out of Tel’aran’rhiod and instead just skips around between her various friends’ dreams, before finally landing in Rand’s, where she finds him having sexytimes with, uh oh, an actual-for-real Forsaken. Perhaps this is why one shouldn’t just barge into someone’s dreams uninvited! And on the subject of dreams—or at least visions—I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t check in on the continuing bro-adventures of Min and Mat (which my cousin described as “a lesbian and her gay best friend hanging out, and it’s unclear which is which”). The show once again takes the opportunity to remind us of Min’s visions—especially the one of Mat being hanged. Foreshadowing! The buddy comedy we didn't know we needed. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: Honestly of all the plotlines going on right now I'm the most curious to see how Elayne/Nynaeve/Mat/Min get along in Tanchico, just because these characters have gotten so many minor little tweaks that I find interesting. Mat and Min are more friendly, and their plots are more intertwined in the show than they were in the books, and having a version of Nynaeve and a version of Mat that don't openly dislike each other has a lot of fun story potential for me. I am a little worried that we only have three episodes left, since we've got the party split up into four or five groups, and most of those groups already have little sub-groups inside of them who are doing their own thing. I do trust the show a lot at this point, but the splitting and re-splitting of plotlines is what eventually gets the books stuck in the mud, and we've already seen that dynamic play out on TV in, say, mid-to-late-series Game of Thrones. I just hope we can keep things snappy without making the show totally overwhelming, as it is already in danger of being sometimes. There are constant reminders that Mat may be heading toward a dark fate. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Lee: I seem to remember the time in Tanchico stretching across several books, though I may be getting that mixed up with whatever the hell the characters do in Far Madding much later (that’s not really a spoiler, I don’t think—it’s just the name of another city-state where readers are forced to spend an interminable amount of time). I’m reasonably sure our crew will find what they need to find in Tanchico by season’s end, at least—and, if it follows the books, things’ll get a little spicy. Let’s see—for closing points, the one I had on my notepad that I wanted to hit was that for me, this episode reinforces that this show is at its best when it focuses on its characters and lets them work. Episode four with Rhuidean was a rare epic hit; most of the times the show has attempted to reach for grandeur or epic-ness, it has missed. The cinematography falls flat, or the sets look like styrofoam and carelessness, or the editing fails to present a coherent through-line for the action, or the writing whiffs it. But up close, locked in a ship or sitting on a mountainside or hanging out in a blacksmith’s dream, the actors know what they’re doing, and they have begun consistently delivering. Andrew: There are a whole lot of "the crew spends a bunch of time in a city you've never seen before, accomplishing little-to-nothing" plotlines I think you're conflating. Tanchico is a Book 4 thing, and it's also mostly resolved in Book 4; the interminable one you are probably thinking of is Ebou Dar, where characters spend three or four increasingly tedious books. Far Madding is later and at least has the benefit of being brief-ish. Perrin dreams of peaceful times—and of hanging out with Hopper! Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Lee: Ahhh, yes, you are absolutely correct! My Randland mental map is a bit tattered these days. So many city-states. So many flags. So many import and export crops to keep track of. Andrew: But yes I agree that there's usually at least something that goes a bit goofy when the show attempts spectacle. The big battle that ended the first season is probably the most egregious example, but I also remember the Horn of Valere moment in the season 2 finale as looking "uh fine I guess." But the talking parts are good! The smaller fights, including the cool Alanna-Whitecloak stuff we get in this episode, are all compelling. There's some crowd-fight stuff coming in the next few episodes, if we stick to Book 4 as our source material, so we'll see what the show does and doesn't manage to pull off. But in terms of this episode, I don't have much more to say. We're scooting pieces around the board in service of larger confrontations later on. It remains a very dense show, which is what I think will keep it from ever achieving a Game of Thrones level of cultural currency. But I'm still having fun. Anything else you want to highlight? Shoes you're waiting to drop? Egwene, entering the "finding out" phase of her ill-advised nighttime adventures. Credit: Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Lee: Almost all of the books (at least in the front half of the series, before the Slog) tend to end in a giant spectacle of some sort, and I think I can see which spectacle—or spectacles, plural—we're angling at for this one. The situation in the Two Rivers is clearly barreling toward violence, and Rand's got them dragons on his sleeves. I'd say buckle up, folks, because my bet is we're about to hit the gas. Until next week, dear readers—beware the shadows, and guard yourselves. I hear Lanfear walks the dream world this night. Credit: WoT Wiki Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of February): 874 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Two WoT book readers dive back into Amazon's increasingly divergent adaptation. Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor and Daniel Henney as Lan Mandragoran. Credit: Courtesy of Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode and second season episode of Amazon's WoT TV series. Now we're back in the saddle for season three—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory. These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We'll do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you. New episodes of The Wheel of Time season three will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Thursday. This write-up covers the entire three-episode season premiere, which was released on March 13. Lee: Welcome back! Holy crap, has it only been 18 months since we left our broken and battered heroes standing in tableaux, with the sign of the Dragon flaming above Falme? Because it feels like it’s been about ten thousand years. Andrew: Yeah, I'm not saying I want to return to the days when every drama on TV had 26 hour-long episodes per season, but when you're doing one eight-episode run every year-and-a-half-to-two-years, you really feel those gaps. And maybe it's just [waves arms vaguely at The World], but I am genuinely happy to have this show back. This season's premiere simply whips, balancing big action set-pieces and smaller character moments in between. But the whole production seems to be hitting a confident stride. The cast has gelled; they know what book stuff they're choosing to adapt and what they're going to skip. I'm sure there will still be grumbles, but the show does finally feel like it's become its own thing. Rosamund Pike returns as as Moiraine Damodred. Credit: Courtesy of Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Lee: Oh yeah. The first episode hits the ground running, with explosions and blood and stolen ter’angreal. And we’ve got more than one episode to talk about—the gods of production at Amazon have given us a truly gigantic three-episode premiere, with each episode lasting more than an hour. Our content cup runneth over! Trying to straight-up recap three hours of TV isn’t going to happen in the space we have available, so we’ll probably bounce around a bit. What I wanted to talk about first was exactly what you mentioned: unlike seasons one and two, this time, the show seems to have found itself and locked right in. To me, it feels kind of like Star Trek: The Next Generation’s third season versus its first two. Andrew: That's a good point of comparison. I feel like a lot of TV shows fall into one of two buckets: either it starts with a great first season and gradually falls off, or it gets off to a rocky start and finds itself over time. Fewer shows get to take the second path because a "show with a rocky start" often becomes a "canceled show," but they can be more satisfying to watch. The one Big Overarching Plot Thing to know for book readers is that they're basically doing book 4 (The Shadow Rising) this season, with other odds and ends tucked in. So even if it gets canceled after this, at least they will have gotten to do what I think is probably the series' high point. Lee: Yep, we find out in our very first episode this season that we’re going to be heading to the Aiel Waste rather than the southern city of Tear, which is a significant re-ordering of events from the books. But unlike some of the previous seasons’ changes that feel like they were forced upon the show by outside factors (COVID, actors leaving, and so on), this one feels like it serves a genuine narrative purpose. Rand is reciting the Prophesies of the Dragon to himself and he knows he needs the “People of the Dragon” to guarantee success in Tear, and while he’s not exactly sure who the "People of the Dragon" might be, it’s obvious that Rand has no army as of yet. Maybe the Aiel can help? Rand is doing all of this because both the angel and the devil on Rand’s shoulders—that’s the Aes Sedai Moiraine Damodred with cute blue angel wings and the Forsaken Lanfear in fancy black leather BDSM gear—want him wielding Callandor, The Sword That is Not a Sword (as poor Mat Cauthon explains in the Old Tongue). This powerful sa’angreal is located in the heart of the Stone of Tear (it’s the sword in the stone, get it?!), and its removal from the Stone is a major prophetic sign that the Dragon has indeed come again. Book three is dedicated to showing how all that happens—but, like you said, we’re not in book three anymore. We’re gonna eat our book 4 dessert before our book 3 broccoli! Natasha O’Keeffe as Lanfear. Credit: Courtesy of Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: I like book 4 a lot (and I'd include 5 and 6 here too) because I think it's when Robert Jordan was doing his best work balancing his worldbuilding and politicking with the early books' action-adventure stuff, and including multiple character perspectives without spreading the story so thin that it could barely move forward. Book 3 was a stepping stone to this because the first two books had mainly been Rand's, and we spend almost no time in Rand's head in book 3. But you can't do that in a TV show! So they're mixing it up. Good! I am completely OK with this. Lee:What did you think of Queen Morgase’s flashback introduction where we see how she won the Lion Throne of Andor (flanked by a pair of giant lions that I’m pretty sure came straight from Pier One Imports)? It certainly seemed a bit… evil. Andrew: One of the bigger swerves that the show has taken with an established book character, I think! And well before she can claim to have been under the control of a Forsaken. (The other swerves I want to keep tabs on: Moiraine actively making frenemies with Lanfear to direct Rand, and Lan being the kind of guy who would ask Rand if he "wants to talk about it" when Rand is struggling emotionally. That one broke my brain, the books would be half as long as they are if men could openly talk to literally any other men about their states of mind.) But I am totally willing to accept that Morgase change because the alternative is chapters and chapters of people yapping about consolidating political support and daes dae'mar and on and on. Bo-ring! But speaking of Morgase and Forsaken, we're starting to spend a little time with all the new baddies who got released at the end of last season. How do you feel about the ones we've met so far? I know we were generally supportive of the fact that the show is just choosing to have fewer of them in the first place. Lee: Hah, I loved the contrast with Book Lan, who appears to only be capable of feeling stereotypically manly feelings (like rage, shame, or the German word for when duty is heavier than a mountain, which I’m pretty sure is something like “Bergpflichtenschwerengesellschaften”). It continues to feel like all of our main characters have grown up significantly from their portrayals on the page—they have sex, they use their words effectively, and they emotionally support each other like real people do in real life. I’m very much here for that particular change. But yes, the Forsaken. We know from season two that we’re going to be seeing fewer than in the books—I believe we’ve got eight of them to deal with, and we meet almost all of them in our three-episode opening blast. I’m very much enjoying Moghedien’s portrayal by Laia Costa, but of course Lanfear is stealing the show and chewing all the scenery. It will be fascinating to see how the show lets the others loose—we know from the books that every one of the Forsaken has a role to play (including one specific Forsaken whose existence has yet to be confirmed but who figures heavily into Rand learning more about how the One Power works), and while some of those roles can be dropped without impacting the story, several definitely cannot. And although Elaida isn’t exactly a Forsaken, it was awesome to see Shohreh Aghdashloo bombing around the White Tower looking fabulous as hell. Chrisjen Avasarala would be proud. The boys, communicating and using their words like grown-ups. Credit: Courtesy of Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: Maybe I'm exaggerating but I think Shohreh Aghdashloo's actual voice goes deeper than Hammed Animashaun's lowered-in-post-production voice for Loial. It's an incredible instrument. Meeting Morgase in these early episodes means we also meet Gaebril, and the show only fakes viewers out for a few scenes before revealing what book-readers know: that he's the Forsaken Rahvin. But I really love how these scenes play, particularly his with Elayne. After one weird, brief look, they fall into a completely convincing chummy, comfortable stepdad-stepdaughter relationship, and right after that, you find out that, oops, nope, he's been there for like 15 minutes and has successfully One Power'd everyone into believing he's been in their lives for decades. It's something that we're mostly told-not-shown in the books, and it really sells how powerful and amoral and manipulative all these characters are. Trust is extremely hard to come by in Randland, and this is why. Lee: I very much liked the way Gaebril’s/Rahvin’s crazy compulsion comes off, and I also like the way Nuno Lopes is playing Gaebril. He seems perhaps a little bumbling, and perhaps a little self-effacing—truly, a lovable uncle kind of guy. The kind of guy who would say “thank you” to a servant and smile at children playing. All while, you know, plotting the downfall of the kingdom. In what is becoming a refrain, it’s a fun change from the books. And along the lines of unassuming folks, we get our first look at a Gray Man and the hella creepy mechanism by which they’re created. I can’t recall in the books if Moghedien is explicitly mentioned as being able to fashion the things, but she definitely can in the show! (And it looks uncomfortable as hell. "Never accept an agreement that involves the forcible removal of one’s soul" is an axiom I try to live by.) Olivia Williams as Queen Morgase Trakand and Shohreh Aghdashloo as Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan. Credit: Courtesy of Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: It's just one of quite a few book things that these first few episodes speedrun. Mat has weird voices in his head and speaks in tongues! Egwene and Elayne pass the Accepted test! (Having spent most of an episode on Nynaeve's Accepted test last season, the show yada-yadas this a bit, showing us just a snippet of Egwene's Rand-related trials and none of Elayne's test at all.) Elayne's brothers Gawyn and Galad show up, and everyone thinks they're very hot, and Mat kicks their asses! The Black Ajah reveals itself in explosive fashion, and Siuan can only trust Elayne and Nynaeve to try and root them out! Min is here! Elayne and Aviendha kiss, making more of the books' homosexual subtext into actual text! But for the rest of the season, we split the party in basically three ways: Rand, Egwene, Moiraine and company head with Aviendha to the Waste, so that Rand can make allies of the Aiel. Perrin and a few companions head home to the Two Rivers and find that things are not as they left them. Nynaeve and Elayne are both dealing with White Tower intrigue. There are other threads, but I think this sets up most of what we'll be paying attention to this season. As we try to wind down this talk about three very busy episodes, is there anything you aren't currently vibing with? I feel like Josha Stradowski's Rand is getting lost in the shuffle a bit, despite this nominally being his story. Lee: I agree about Rand—but, hey, the same de-centering of Rand happened in the books, so at least there is symmetry. I think the things I’m not vibing with are at this point just personal dislikes. The sets still feel cheap. The costumes are great, but the Great Serpent rings are still ludicrously large and impractical. I’m overjoyed the show is unafraid to shine a spotlight on queer characters, and I’m also desperately glad that we aren’t being held hostage by Robert Jordan’s kinks—like, we haven’t seen a single Novice or Accepted get spanked, women don’t peel off their tops in private meetings to prove that they’re women, and rather than titillation or weirdly uncomfortable innuendo, these characters are just straight-up screwing. (The Amyrlin even notes that she’s not sure the Novices “will ever recover” after Gawyn and Galad come to—and all over—town.) If I had to pick a moment that I enjoyed the most out of the premiere, it would probably be the entire first episode—which in spite of its length kept me riveted the entire time. I love the momentum, the feeling of finally getting the show that I’d always hoped we might get rather than the feeling of having to settle. How about you? Dislikes? Loves? Ceara Coveney as Elayne Trakand and Ayoola Smart as Aviendha, and they're thinking about exactly what you think they're thinking about. Credit: Courtesy of Prime/Amazon MGM Studios Andrew: Not a ton of dislikes, I am pretty in the tank for this at this point. But I do agree that some of the prop work is weird. The Horn of Valere in particular looks less like a legendary artifact and more like a decorative pitcher from a Crate & Barrel. There were two particular scenes/moments that I really enjoyed. Rand and Perrin and Mat just hang out, as friends, for a while in the first episode, and it's very charming. We're told in the books constantly that these three boys are lifelong pals, but (to the point about Unavailable Men we were talking about earlier) we almost never get to see actual evidence of this, either because they're physically split up or because they're so wrapped up in their own stuff that they barely want to speak to each other. I also really liked that brief moment in the first episode where a Black Ajah Aes Sedai's Warder dies, and she's like, "hell yeah, this feels awesome, this is making me horny because of how evil I am." Sometimes you don't want shades of gray—sometimes you just need some cartoonishly unambiguous villainy. Lee: I thought the Black Ajah getting excited over death was just the right mix of of cartoonishness and actual-for-real creepiness, yeah. These people have sold their eternal souls to the Shadow, and it probably takes a certain type. (Though, as book readers know, there are some surprising Black Ajah reveals yet to be had!) We close out our three-episode extravaganza with Mat having his famous stick fight with Zoolander-esque male models Gawyn and Galad, Liandrin and the Black Ajah setting up shop (and tying off some loose ends) in Tanchico, Perrin meeting Faile and Lord Luc in the Two Rivers, and Rand in the Aiel Waste, preparing to do—well, something important, one can be sure. We’ll leave things here for now. Expect us back next Friday to talk about episode four, which, based on the preview trailers already showing up online, will involve a certain city in the desert, wherein deep secrets will be revealed. Mia dovienya nesodhin soende, Andrew! Andrew: The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. Credit: WoT Wiki Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of February): 874 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Amazon’s new Batman show is a jazzy blend of style, substance, and nostalgia. In an era that was flush with cartoons fighting for children’s attention, Batman: The Animated Series stood out by using its timeless take on Gotham City to tell stories that were as stylish and zany as they were serious. The show gave birth to some of DC’s most iconic characters and set a high bar for animated comic book adaptations that many of Warner Bros.’ newer series have struggled to reach. Amazon’s Batman: Caped Crusader from cocreators J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves, and Bruce Timm feels like a project created with a deep love for The Animated Series and an understanding of what made it fascinating to watch back in the ’90s. And as often as playing to fans’ nostalgia tends to derail modern superhero stories, Caped Crusader’s approach to paying homage to The Animated Series is a big part of what makes it work so well. Set in a vision of the 1940s where everyone still speaks like Golden Age comics characters, Batman: Caped Crusader tells a familiar tale of how Bruce Wayne (Hamish Linklater) secretly leads the charge to deal with Gotham’s ever-growing population of costumed supercriminals. Whereas The Animated Series — which Timm cocreated with Paul Dini — introduced Batman as a well-seasoned vigilante with some experience under his high-tech utility belt, Caped Crusader’s Bruce is new to the hero game and is still learning how to wield his status as a shadowy urban legend. Rather than fancy gadgets and a gaggle of wards, Bruce’s old-fashioned sleuthing skills and ability to take punches as well as he throws them are what make him so effective at keeping Gotham’s ne’er-do-wells scared. But when most of the city’s cops are as crooked as the criminals they’re supposed to book, there’s seldom a night when Batman isn’t busy dealing with the problems that police commissioner Jim Gordon (Eric Morgan Stuart) and his prosecutor daughter Barbara (Krystal Joy Brown) can’t keep up with. Aesthetically and sonically, Caped Crusader feels almost like it could be The Animated Series’ prequel as it opens on Gotham in the midst of a simmering gang war that has the city’s residents on edge. But as hard as the new show works to establish itself as a story unfolding in the distant past, there’s a pronounced streak of modernity running through it that’s reflected in the way it reworks a number of its supporting characters. Here, the Gordons are Black, and psychiatrist Harleen Quinzel (Jamie Chung) is an Asian woman who has far more interesting secrets to keep than the fact that she’s queer. Batman: Caped Crusader presents these facets of its reality with a matter-of-factness that helps illustrate the beauty of DC’s Elseworlds — comic stories set in alternate universes that play with the established canon. The show’s changes to classic characters work to highlight aspects of their identities that Caped Crusader leaves untouched, like the way detective Renee Montoya’s (Michelle C. Bonilla) commitment to justice makes her simultaneously untrusting of and grateful for Batman’s presence. Rather than aiming for the accuracy of previous comics or series, Caped Crusader feels like it’s trying to tap into the essence of its heroes and villains as they become entangled in one another’s lives. This, coupled with the show’s art direction and its score from composer Frederik Wiedmann, helps make Caped Crusader’s first season feel like classic animated Batman storytelling that emphasizes how well the Dark Knight works as a simple detective chasing down other costumed weirdos. Though Caped Crusader’s being yet another Batman vehicle might exhaust some viewers, the show’s simplicity and more measured plays to nostalgia immediately set it apart from Warner Bros.’ other recent iterations on the character. And while its pacing might leave some viewers wishing things moved more briskly, Amazon seems to know it’s got a good thing with Batman: Caped Crusader that’s primed to get better with time. (A second season is already on the way.) Batman: Caped Crusader also stars Christina Ricci, Diedrich Bader, Bumper Robinson, Jason Watkins, John DiMaggio, Mckenna Grace, Tom Kenny, Haley Joel Osment, Paul Scheer, Reid Scott, and Toby Stephens. The show’s first season hits Amazon Prime on August 1st. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of June): 2,839 news posts

Recap: The season ends with fire and spectacle, but some expectations are subverted. "Dovie'andi se tovya sagain!" Yes, Mat, it finally is. Amazon Studios Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode of Amazon's new WoT TV series. Now they're doing it again for season two—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory. These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We're going to do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you. New episodes of The Wheel of Time season two will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Friday. This write-up covers episode eight, the season finale, which was released on October 6. Andrew: The Wheel of Time turns and delivers us another overpacked season finale that needs to wrap up a dozen character arcs while also setting us up for next season. I found this year's finale more followable and satisfying than last year's, though I suspect it may be a breaking point for people who are earnestly upset about how different the show is from the works that are being adapted. Most of the episode is actually focused on Ishamael, our main Forsaken—we get a short Age of Legends prologue where he tries to convince former friend and original Dragon Lews Therin Telamon to help him break the Wheel and end the continuous cycle of birth and death and rebirth. He's still after that goal thousands of years later, and this episode explains a bit more about what he's been doing all season and why. Lee: Many of the Aes Sedai with Lews Therin—and Lews Therin himself—have those little three-finger ring things that Ishamael and Lanfear have been wearing. I was thinking maybe they were some artifact tied to the True Power, but clearly not if Lews Therin has one. I suppose they're either some kind of focus, or perhaps a kind of angreal issued to all Aes Sedai, like a police officer being issued a service weapon. Or maybe they're just the Age of Legends version of Aes Sedai rings. (Though if so, I wouldn't think Ishy or Lanfear would still be wearing them, given how eager the Forsaken all seemed to be to cast off any associations with the Aes Sedai.) We're shown this scene for a few reasons, but I think one of them is to emphasize that the Forsaken were all sealed away in individual prisons, which take the form of giant disks of unbreakable Cuendillar. This is definitely a different tack than the books, but it definitely simplifies things. I did find it a little weird that Ishamael had all six of the remaining seals propped up in his room, like he was hanging out with them or something—but I guess "weird" doesn't really apply when we're talking about the behavior of millennia-dead superhuman wizard people. Ishy shows off his Forsaken feng shui skills to Lanfear. Amazon Studios Andrew: Yeah, for book readers who haven't been back in a while, there was never any kind of 1:1 seal-to-Forsaken relationship. The seals were just different locks on a single door, and the Forsaken gradually freed themselves and started running around because they were sealed up near the door but not behind it. The way the show handles it makes it more narratively manageable: to just have a pair of Forsaken running around in the first couple seasons and then unleashing the free-for-all once we know a little more about these people and what they're capable of. Having eight Forsaken instead of 13 (plus various reincarnated clones, territory the show may or may not decide to cover) is part of the show's modus operandi for making Jordan's world more manageable. How many scary villains do we really need running around at once, especially when quite a few of them are basically just Generic Bad Guys? Why does Rand need a pair of unhealable holes in his gut, when one hole that has properties of both will do? Based on how Mat's arc this season wraps up, it also seems pretty likely that we end up skipping or condensing at least some of the Rhuidean-Aiel-testing-ground stuff from book four. All of these tweaks have major narrative implications, but so many of these things pay off so far down the line in the book version of the story that it's simply not possible to guess how the show might handle them. The show doesn't seem to feel like it "needs" to hit any given plot point from the books—sometimes, as in one scene this episode, it seems to relish subverting book readers' expectations. And while I'm having fun with the show's increasingly unique riff on this story, I can see why people hoping for "an adaptation of The Wheel of Time" might be frustrated with it. Lee: Indeed—I think in order to stick with the show after this season, one has to simply accept that things will be different. We're not going to stop talking about how different, but accepting that this is an adaptation and that those differences do not in and of themselves automatically mean the show sucks is just kind of a mental block that stragglers are going to have to get over. Right, so, this episode brings us to kind of the fruition of Lanfear's plan, to the detriment of poor Ishamael. Ishy has—had!—a formal plan to bind the Dragon and his ta'veren friends. It involved moving them around on the chessboard of Randland, manipulating them into falling into the shadow, and then getting Rand to choose darkness to save them. (This also puts some more context around Mat's tea-driven vision quest last episode.) Lanfear gives no effs. Lanfear's like a honey badger, and Lews Therin Telamon is the honey. She cares about Ishamael's plan only inasmuch as it gives her the opportunity to force Rand to proclaim himself, embrace his destiny, recall his past lives, fall back in love with her, and live evilly ever after. Anything else can burn. You'd mentioned previously that the Forsaken often work at cross-purposes, and hoo boy, were they ever here. Classic Lanfear. Lanfear, rocking a David Bowie pantsuit from the Age of Legends. Amazon Studios Andrew: Classic Lanfear! And also, classic Ishamael, because he realizes he's being played and breaks the other six seals before his confrontation with Rand. The only one we meet is Moghedien (Laia Costa), whose nickname ("the spider") originally came from her penchant for spinning figurative webs of deceit. Perhaps predictably, the show makes these webs literal; Moghedien is definitely the Forsaken with the most Hot Topic Nightmare Before Christmas merch in her bedroom. Anyway. From Moghedien, one gets the sense that the other Forsaken don't like Lanfear much, because they (completely understandably and justifiably!) think she's just a bit too close to the goody-goody Dragon to be trustworthy. The show has gotten a lot of mileage out of Lanfear-as-frenemy this season, and it seems like we can expect that to continue for at least a while longer. Early in the episode, Lanfear puts the "enemy" in "frenemy" by separating Moiraine and Lan from Rand in the Ways, dumping them out on a beach some distance from Falme so that they can't get directly involved in most of the fighting. This also gives the two of them the space to Talk It Out, re-forming the Warder bond Moiraine broke at the beginning of the season (still fuzzy on the mechanics of that) and rededicating themselves to the support of the Dragon Reborn. What's everyone else doing? Lee: I wish Moiraine and Lan had used their words a little earlier, but honestly, having two characters do drastic dumb things when they could in fact have talked things out is a running theme in the books. Verisimilitude! Everyone else is running around in Falme, and the Whitecloaks show up and kick off the giant battle. Geofram Bornhald (Stuart Graham) isn't necessarily a bad fellow—as he points out, the Children of the Light are in Falme to save people from the Seanchan invaders, and they proceed along that track with alacrity. But Bornhald is the classic Paladin archetype—he and his Children are incapable of bending the rules. See evil, must kill. And "evil" is whatever they say it is. Aviendha, Bain, and Chiad roll up with Perrin and Hopper in tow, so they get added into the mix of battle. After that, we variously get a bunch of happy (if rushed) reunions between our prime characters, some of whom haven't seen each other in months. The episode is an absolute symphony of reunions, all over the place. One of those reunions is Mat and village peddler/ultra-darkfriend Padan Fain—and, hey, there's the Shadar Logoth dagger! I don't think Mat is aware that Fain is a darkfriend at first, but him showing up and producing the dagger probably goes a long way to getting that message across. And then, Mat makes a…well, it's not exactly an ashandarei, but it is kind of a, like, knifey-stick. And it cuts through things like a lightsaber! Does he keep it? Does he trade it in? … is it time to talk about Mat? There's so much Mat to talk about. This freaking guy. Amazon Studios Andrew: The thing that bothers me the most about the Mat storyline is that "a knife tied to the end of a stick" is not going to stay tied to the stick securely enough to withstand being waved around and shoved through multiple heavily armored torsos. I don't care how magical your knife is. In terms of the Mat storyline, the character currently seems to be somewhere toward the middle of book four as far as his development goes. He has found and blown the Horn of Valere, which (as in the books) summons a bunch of dead heroes to fight alongside the blower. But for Mat, it also seems to give him the memory of his past lives that Ishamael's weird tea promised last episode. So he kind of has his Signature Weapon, and he has picked up most of his character's Signature Traits. It's just Not The Way It Is In The Books. You seem to have more Mat feelings you want to dig into, how are you feeling about all of this? Lee: Yeah, Mat has gotten a significant early upgrade on his power level, if that is indeed what is going on—including a jump up to actual Hero of the Horn status, which is not from the books. Though before I go on about Mat, I want to gush just a moment about seeing Guy Roberts back as Uno, who apparently kicked so much ass in life that upon death he was instantly upgraded to Hero of the Horn. Given that Guy Roberts is a self-professed fan who first read the series in the ‘90s, it gave me a lot of joy to see him get to inhabit the role of Uno with such obvious scene-stealing relish, and to know that he's living the actor's dream of bringing to life a character that he loves. Artur Hawkwing (Adrian Bouchet) delivers some lines to Mat that he originally delivered to Rand in the book, which—well, I suppose it's all part of the new path the showrunners have put Mat on. The destination is getting a little clearer, but I'm still wondering if he's going to keep his knifey-stick, or if it's going to get upgraded at one point—after all, fully separating him from the dagger and its influence is a major deal in the first few books, and keeping it will have consequences. We have our first on-screen utterance of Mat's "it's time to toss the dice" in the Old Tongue, and it's great. Show-Mat deserves it. After two seasons of grim purposelessness, he's finally given something good—and it's so good. The Sounding of the Horn leaves book readers with more questions about Mat than answers—but my guess is these are questions that will be tackled in the front half of the next season. For non-readers, leading the charge of the Heroes of the Horn is a wonderful bow to tie around his two-season journey through crap. Hell, if I have a complaint about Mat's sounding of the Horn, it's that budget and cost of production necessarily limits what should be a Helms Deep-scale routing of the bad guys by a horde of legendary warriors whose deeds have elevated them to immortal demigod status. Whew, okay. Any more Mat feelings from you? Uno plays the ultimate reverse card. Amazon Studios Andrew: No, I'm just glad to have more characters back in the same place again. Though I'm sure the show will be enough like the books that this reunion doesn't last long. Egwene's capture and torment by the Seanchan is transformational for her in the books as in the show—it massively increases her strength and aptitude with the One Power, and it gives her a deep hatred of the Seanchan and everything about them. That hatred occasionally gets a little dark, as it does when Egwene collars, briefly torments, and then kills her sul'dam, making good on her promise from last week. And despite continuing to resist her sul'dam earlier in the battle while still being used as a damane, she quite willingly takes a shot at her former Whitecloak captor Eamon Valda when she spots him from the ramparts. The White Tower women have all followed their book arcs to this point a bit more closely than our Two Rivers boys, but I expect this dark (vengeful, even!) streak in Egwene could distinguish her a bit from book-Egwene. If Nynaeve gets some of the best and most substantial plotlines early in the season, she and Elayne continue to feel underutilized in these last couple episodes; Nynaeve is still having trouble channeling, and despite their work with the a'dam collars neither of them get anywhere near close enough to Egwene or any of the other captive Aes Sedai to free any of them. Not that it matters, because in the show it sure seems like the only surefire way to get the collar off is to die while you're wearing it. Nynaeve and Elayne spend most of the episode huddled in an alley after Elayne takes an arrow to the knee, but they get to the top of the tower in Falme in time to help Rand, whose first glimpse of Elayne is very dreamy and romantic (probably doesn't hurt that she's saving him from bleeding out). So it seems like that relationship is going to become an element of the third season, for sure. "Remember, Renna, when I promised to kill you last? I lied." Amazon Studios Lee: I thought that Nynaeve had figured out her block by this point in the show, but apparently not—she's still flailing around with frustration but without the necessary anger to bust through it. To fix Elayne's knee, she has to fall back on her Wisdom skills (though even I know that you're supposed to break the arrow's shaft off before pulling it through, so you don't drag the fletching through your gaping puncture wound—get your head in the game, Nynaeve!). Definitely agree with Elayne being underutilized—though as you say, healing Rand was a nice way to facilitate an introduction. The only problem is that Elayne is crap at healing. Don't expect her patch job to hold very long or very well. Moiraine will likely have harsh words for her later. Okay, so—I greatly enjoyed almost everything about this episode, but there were two major book events we didn't get. The first was the blademaster fight with High Lord Turak, which in the books is used to shove Rand further along the path of getting used to channeling and embracing the One Power. However, given the Raiders of the Lost Ark fashion in which Rand sidesteps the fight, I just can't be mad. I literally laughed out loud. But the other thing we're missing is much harder to overlook: the oft-teased proclamation of the Dragon in the sky above Falme. In the books, this is a giant epic flaming sword fight between Ishamael and Rand, projected like a Pink Floyd laser light show onto the clouds above Falme. In the show, Moiraine does a Final Fantasy VII-style summoning and calls up a large fiery dragon, which curls around the tower and makes some dragon noises and disappears. I'm disappointed. It's fine, I guess, but it's not what I was hoping for. Artist's impression of Rand fighting High Lord Turak. Paramount Pictures Andrew: And the thing about how it happens in the books is you don't really understand how or why it's happening, as a reader, in a way that does make it seem like it has been divinely inspired. Channeling a huge dragon seems more like something anyone could have done, under the right circumstances, to set up any false Dragon. The show has been teasing a sky-vision for a while now, and I agree that I wanted more. There is also a lot of hand-waviness going on here with respect to how strong Moiraine is, since she can't take on Lanfear directly but can single-handedly sink an entire Seanchan fleet and have enough leftover to make a big fire dragon besides. The show downplaying Rand's sword skills and amping up his channeling skill is the same kind of early power-up that Mat is getting (to borrow your phrasing). You get all the way to book four or five before you see Rand doing anything that resembles enthusiastic or competent channeling, but show Rand is already casually raining fire bullets down on his enemies. The only one of our three boys who is still kind of muddling through with respect to his new Chosen One Abilities is Perrin, who gets very mad when his wolf friend goes down in battle but still hasn't manifested much by way of superpowers. If season three is being set up as an adaptation of book three and/or four, we'll hopefully see Perrin get a little more attention, since both books are Perrin-heavy. Moiraine doing her thing. I wonder if she's got an angreal stashed somewhere. Amazon Studios Lee: If there's anything positive to be found in the oh-my-God-what-did-I-just-watch death of Hopper, it's—well, it's that those things are spoilers about the World of Dreams, and we'll learn more about them as Perrin figures out a little more about what it means to be a Wolfbrother. As you correctly point out, we should be getting a whole lot of him in the next season. Oh, and speaking of people to keep an eye on—book readers know this, but non-readers may not: shortly before Mat sounds the Horn, during the little reunion on the streets of Falme between our main characters, Perrin makes it a point to give a quick hug to the other Shienaran present—a gentleman he calls Masema (Arnas Fedaravicius). We then see Masema again near the end, staring at the Dragon atop the tower. Remember Masema. He was introduced at the end of season one, and this will not be the last time we see him. Alright, we're down to the last little bits here. Season two ends with Lanfear encountering Moghedien, spinner of webs and plots. She seems… creepy. Masema seems super-impressed with Rand's fulfillment of prophecy. Amazon Studios Andrew: Creepy vibes! We have met three of the eight: Ishamael, Lanfear, and Moghedien. Two more have been mentioned by name: the vain sex-obsessed Graendal, and Sammael (who I vaguely recall as being humorless and uptight, but they do kind of run together). In an earlier conversation with Ishamael, Lanfear mentions Moghedien, Graendal, and "the boys," suggesting but not decisively confirming that the other five are male. I have guesses about who's left, but am I missing other dropped hints? Lee: Time to play Forsaken bingo, I suppose! Out of the original book list, there are eight remaining Forsaken that have yet to appear or be mentioned in the show. If "the boys" can be taken to mean that all the remaining unnamed Forsaken are male, we can drop the two remaining Forsaken who are female. That leaves us with six candidates for our last three spots: Aginor, Asmodean, Balthamel, Be'lal, Demandred, and Rahvin. We can dump Aginor and Balthamel immediately, as they were killed in the book version of The Eye of the World and didn't appear in the show. I'd also propose we can drop Demandred, given what he's doing in the books and how it works out—I think the show is going to nix his entire plot. And that neatly leaves us with three dudes left, and my picks for the remaining Forsaken: Rahvin, Asmodean, and Be'lal. And out of those three, my guess is that we meet Asmodean first, in a manner similar to how he shows up in the books. What do you think? Andrew: I am on the record as thinking Asmodean is toast because Logain is taking his main story-function as Rand's channeling teacher, now that the show is focusing more on people learning weaves and growing more powerful. People can just kind of toss up giant shields and shoot fire bullets when they need to do it for story reasons. Of the men who are left, Rahvin seems like the most obvious choice, since his activities also impact Elayne pretty directly. I agree Aginor and Balthamel can be discounted. They are part of a group of three or four Nothing Forsaken who exist mostly as canon fodder. And it does seem like Demandred is pretty far away from the action the show is focusing on, though this read does assume that the show will stick with the books' version of events, and the show has been hard to predict on that score. I'd tend to include Be'lal among the Nothing Forsaken, too, since "ruler of [redacted city] who gets smoked by Rand at their first encounter" doesn't leave the show much personality to work with. Maybe cannon fodder is what the show needs, though, especially if we're still doing the Callandor storyline next year. I do wonder if "the boys" thing isn't a red herring; Lanfear is disparaging the Forsaken she mentions in that conversation, and maybe there's one woman in the group she respects enough not to insult. Eight Forsaken also gives the show a chance to harp on some thematic One Power symmetry (also: casting symmetry!) by keeping four men and four women (remember, there are only two genders in the world of The Wheel of Time, and the books' only arguably trans character was basically created by the Dark One as a joke). Anyway, I think my list is Rahvin, Be'lal, and the sadistic Semirhage. But you're the most sure about seeing the character I think we're least likely to see, so clearly there's lots of room for interpretation here. This is Moghedien. She enjoys long walks in Tel'aran'rhiod, spiders, and manipulating people. Amazon Studios Lee: There is room for all eventualities in the turning of the Wheel. And so, dear readers, we arrive at the end of our time together—but fear not, because we'll be back here doing this again for season three. Will Perrin come to terms with the wolves? Will Egwene be able to deal with her trauma? Will Mat avoid accidentally poking anyone with his evil toxic dagger-on-a-stick? Will Nynaeve ever figure out how the hell to channel properly? And what will the fallout be of the Dragon Reborn's public proclamation at Falme? How will Randland react, knowing that the Dragon is foretold to save the world—but also to break it anew? We know the book answers to these questions, but folks, we are heading into uncharted territory with our Two Rivers TV show crew and their rapidly expanding list of friends. Unexpected things no doubt await us in season three. Any final thoughts, Andrew? Andrew: Is this a great show? Not usually. But it continues to be better than it has any right to be, given its un-adaptable source material. See you next season! Lee: There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time—but this is an ending. Life is a dream from which we must all wake, and we wish you a pleasant dreaming until next season! Source

Yet another streaming service is going to hit its customers with a price hike, in the latest case of what's being called "streamflation". This time, it will affect subscribers of Amazon Prime who want to sign up to use the Amazon Music Unlimited services. The Hollywood Reporter states that Prime members who decide to use the premium music streaming service will now have to pay an extra $1 a month. Individual plans will be switching from $8.99 to $9.99 a month, and annual plans will go up from $89 to $99. Also, the Family plans for Amazon Music Unlimited, which lets users share up to six accounts at once, will go up from $15.99 to $16.99 a month for Prime members. The annual plans will also be going up from $159 to $169. New subscribers will get these price increases immediately, and current Prime subscribers will see these price hikes on September 19. Amazon Music Unlimited offers over 100 million songs to stream ad-free with some songs supporting higher audio files like Ultra HD and Spatial audio. Prime members get access to Amazon Music Prime at no additional cost, but it doesn't offer on-demand music, nor access to premium audio support. This is just the latest example of higher streaming subscription prices as media companies try to actually make money rather than just concentrate on getting more subscribers. Last week, Disney announced major price increases for its ad-free plans on Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. Peacock also announced price increases for both its Premium and Premium Plus plans in July. YouTube Premium prices went up by $2 a month to $13.99 a month in July as well. Even the Spotify music streaming service decided in July to hike its prices for the first time since the service launched, with its Spotify Premium plan switching from $9.99 to $10.99 a month. Source

Amazon just announced that it is going to increase the price of Amazon Prime in several European countries in September 2022. The price for an Amazon Prime membership in Europe's five biggest markets increases by up to 43% as a consequence. Amazon informed its customers about the upcoming price increase in an email. The annual price for Prime increases by £16 in the UK to £95 per year, which is a 20% increase. In , the price goes up €20.90 to €89.90, which equates a 30% increase. Italian and Spanish Amazon Prime customers paid about half the price of German and British Amazon Prime customers up until now. Prime in Italy and Spain increases from €36 per year to €49.90, an increase of 39%. In , the cost of a Prime subscription goes up from €49 to €69.90, an increase of 43%. The cost is still comparatively low when compared to the UK, German and US price. Monthly Amazon Prime subscriptions go up as well in the countries, so that a yearly Prime membership is still cheaper than a monthly one. The pricing is still lower than that of Prime in the United States, where customers pay $139 per year or $14.99 per month. The change takes effect on September 15, 2022. Amazon is citing "increased inflation and operating costs" according to Reuters. What you may do about it With costs of living exploding in many regions of the world, many may want to cut expenses. Some Amazon Prime customers may extend the membership by another year for the current price, but this depends on a number of factors: New customers or customers not subscribed to Prime may sign-up on September 14, 2022 to get the old price for an entire year. Existing customers who pay monthly may switch to a yearly plan in September to benefit from this as well. Existing customers whose subscription expires before September 2022 may also renew for the lower price. Others may ask themselves whether Amazon Prime is worth it after September 2022. The answer depends on usage but also on whether you are prepared to make some changes. One example: Amazon Prime customers get free shipping for most of the goods sold by Amazon. While that is excellent, especially if you make small purchases, non-Amazon Prime customers may get free shipping as well. Here in , orders of €29 or more do get free shipping usually. You could combine orders to reach that amount, unless something is time critical. There may also be options to make purchases elsewhere, including buying local whenever possible. Amazon Prime Video is another major part of a subscription. You get access to TV shows and movies that you may stream for free. The question that you may ask yourself is, whether it is really necessary to be subscribed to Amazon Prime for the entire year. Content on streaming services such as Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, or Netflix is limited. The offered catalog of shows and movies is finite, and most subscribers will eventually reach a point of saturation. One of the better options to deal with these streaming services is to subscribe to any of these services for a month or two each year. In the case of Amazon, that would also give you the opportunity to be a Prime member during Amazon Prime Day or during the Holiday season, provided that this is something that you are interested in. A single month Amazon Prime subscription has a price of £8.99 in the UK after the price increase in September. A two-month subscription would be £19 roughly, which leaves a lot of cash for other streaming services or even paying shipping and handling on some items. Now You: are you an Amazon Prime customer? What is your take on the price increase? Opinion: it is time to drop your Amazon Prime subscription

In an email to customers, Amazon announced that it would increase the price of its annual Prime subscription in September by up to 43% in Europe. Amazon’s announcement comes two days before its Q2 earnings results. The changes take effect from September 15 in European markets. Amazon has told Reuters that the price increase is due to multiple factors, including inflation, operating costs, faster delivery, and more content to stream. Earlier this year, the e-commerce giant increased its Prime subscription price to $139, up from $119. However, the price hike in Europe is not equal everywhere in the region. In the United Kingdom, the Prime subscription has gone from £79 to £95, effective from September. In Italy and , customers will face a 36% and 43% increase, respectively. In , the price has gone from 69 euros to 89.90, while in Italy, the Prime subscription will now cost 49.90 euros, up from 36 euros. These are the annual Amazon Prime price increases across Europe: UK – £79 to £95, a 20 percent increase – €49 to €69.90, a 43 percent increase – €69 to €89.90, a 30 percent increase Italy – €36 to €49.90, a 39 percent increase Spain – €36 to €49.90, a 39 percent increase Apart from the annual subscription charge, the new price increase will also impact the monthly subscription plan. The monthly cost will also increase by £1 or 1 euro per month in European markets. An Amazon Prime subscription brings with it several benefits, including free one-day shipping on purchases, access to Prime Video, Prime Music, and other Amazon digital platforms and services. And now, those who get a Prime subscription or renew their existing one in Europe on the said date will have to pay more to enjoy these benefits. If you are based in Europe, what do you think about the price increase in your region? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Amazon to increase Prime membership fees in Europe

The free delivery subscription normally costs $9.99 a month Amazon Prime subscribers in the US are getting a new benefit as part of their subscription, the company has announced. Today, they’ll be able to redeem a free year of Grubhub Plus, the monthly subscription service that offers free food delivery on orders over $12 from participating restaurants. Grubhub Plus normally costs $9.99 a month. According to Amazon, free deliveries associated with Grubhub Plus are available from hundreds of thousands of restaurants across over 4,000 cities in the US. After the year is up, Grubhub will automatically start charging $9.99 a month for continued access. Existing Grubhub Plus subscribers can still make use of the promotion, which will be applied at the start of their next billing cycle. Canceling Prime automatically cancels Grubhub Plus. The deal comes just a few short years after Amazon shut down Amazon Restaurants, its own attempt to compete in the takeout delivery market. The service was live between 2015 and 2019 but faced stiff competition from the likes of Uber Eats and DoorDash. Since then, the e-commerce giant has mainly focused on grocery deliveries but has kept a toe in the takeout delivery market through partnerships with other firms. It announced an investment in Europe-focused Deliveroo in 2019 and started offering access to its Deliveroo Plus subscription service as an additional perk for Prime members in the UK last year. As part of the deal announced today Amazon has warrants that it could exercise in the future to take a two percent stake in Grubhub, a stake that could increase to 15 percent over time. “Amazon has redefined convenience with Prime and we’re confident this offering will expose many new diners to the value of Grubhub Plus while driving more business to our restaurant partners and drivers,” Grubhub CEO Adam DeWitt said in a statement. The company, which is owned by Just Eat Takeaway.com, says it expects Grubhub Plus subscriptions to rise as a result of the deal. GrubHub Plus isn’t the only additional benefit Amazon is announcing for Prime members today. The e-commerce giant is also making a short teaser trailer for its upcoming TV show, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, available exclusively to Prime subscribers for 48 hours. Members can watch the teaser over on the show’s Amazon page. The trailer ends by promising yet another teaser is coming on July 14th ahead of the release of the series on September 2nd. Update July 6th, 5:55AM ET: Updated to note Amazon’s two percent stake in Grubhub. Correction July 7th, 8:07PM ET: The Financial Times previously reported Amazon is taking a two percent stake in Grubhub as a part of this deal. In fact, as this press release states, Amazon will receive warrants exercisable for a two percent stake, as well as additional warrants exercisable over up to 13 percent more. Amazon Prime subscribers now get Grubhub Plus free for a year