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I’m not sure if it was Mat unlocking the dagger that unleashed this onto everyone or if it shows up at night anyway. A mysterious shadow lurks around the city at night and devours everything in its path, leading everyone to escape quickly. Exposition driven history lessons inform us how the people of this city isolated themselves from the rest of the world and became their own undoing. Ultimately, humans are their own worst enemy, as we learn in the fascinating, deserted city of Shador Logoth. Their appearance and interactions with Pike’s Moiraine were far more frightening and tensed than any chases with the Trollocs could be. Essentially, these Whitecloaks (referred to as such due to their always spotless-white attire) are the Ku Klux Klan of Robert Jordan’s fantasy series, with a hatred for the Sedai instead. The cold open where Abdul Salis burns down a Sedai over a pyre is chilling to watch. It’s more nuanced than I’m making it sound but essentially, a brainwashed belief system that’s left unchecked for over 1000 years has led their ideology to spiral dangerously out of control.

Garbed in pristine white cloaks, the Children of the Light hunt down Aes Sedai who they believe are witches who gain their power as a result of siding with the Dark One.

Speaking of which, this is a new cult we’re introduced to. We see Moiraine a lot more vulnerable in the second episode itself: her wounds haven’t healed as Aes Sedai can’t heal themselves, her energy is depleted and she expresses a tremendous fear of the Children of the Light who are out there for the likes of her. It’s important background information but also serves to educate us about the limits of the Aes Sedai’s powers: using them excessively hurts, which could play nicely into limiting Moiraine’s abilities in key battle sequences. There’s a good bit of exposition here involved about the city of Maranthen with Moiraine delivering a lengthy piece of history detailing how the city fell to the Trolloc wars due to lack of help and how, the queen, on losing her king, was driven to rage and channeled so much energy to trigger a massive attack wave that it killed her. We also encounter a mysterious creature dubbed the Fade who leads the pack of Trollocs it was spotted in Episode 1 as well for a brief moment. In that choice, the Trollocs actually appear smarter than their human prey. They also retain an element of fear like their human counterparts, as is evident in their fear of water and refusal to enter Shadar Logoth. The Trollocs are painted as relentless in their pursuit of the Dragon Reborn, as though that were the sole reason for their existence. They navigate dangerous forests and have to fend off another pack of Trollocs. We pick up right after Moiraine takes the four potentials with her. While the second episode carries over some of those issues, it definitely gets better as it nears its end. That likely explains why some of the initial episodes may have wonky pacing.

Instead, we got 8 episodes of an hour each. Some behind-the-scenes digging makes this a bit more clear: apparently the original plan was for Season 1 to have 10 episodes, with Rafe even requesting for a 2 hour pilot. One of the lingering criticisms of the first episode was that it crammed too much, resulting in an abrupt pacing that switched from moments of solitude to action-adventure mode too quickly. Amid all this frenzy though, showrunner Rafe Judkins and his team of writers and directors are feeling the pressure of trying to ensure they get this right. And Amazon is hoping that this will do to their streaming platform what Game of Thrones did to HBO. Newbies are looking for a fun, entertaining show to watch and return to every year. Fans want a true-to-the-book adaptation that’s nothing less than exceptional in the quality of storytelling and the scope of effects. Everyone from fans, newbies and studio executives are looking forward to how this will turn out for their own reasons. The Wheel of Time is a hugely anticipated show no doubt.