Adam’s Review
Guess who’s back? Back again… TWOT is back. No one tells their friends. It’s unfortunate this show is failing to find a solid footing because A Taste of Solitude is a decent episode to start off Season 2.
After a five month time jump, our heroes from last season are now scattered across the world. Due to some changes last season, they are fractured even more than the source material had them. I mean this both literally and figuratively. Mat has been sent to the tower earlier than the books. Rand’s decision to pretend he was dead and wander away thinking he had won The Last Battle has him miles away as well. This gives us FIVE narrative threads to follow to start the season, and that’s me being nice about it.
The White Tower is the strongest part of the show. Perrin looks and feels like he’s coming into his own as this character and with the arrival of Elyas Machera, he may grow into his Wolfbrother powers. Mat is being tormented and remains largely uninteresting, only serving as a vehicle to remind us that Liandrin is mean. Rand is… alive. Which isn’t a reveal at all since we knew that. Besides that, he’s almost entirely absent from this episode.
Moiraine and Lan? Well Moiraine is still trying to put the pieces together of what’s happening in the world. This departure from her book character is a holdover from the end of last season, making her dumb as a box of rocks instead of our omniscient that keeps the plot moving forward. Lan is a shell of the character he was meant to be and acts childlike for most of the episode. He actually has to have someone explain how Moiraine feels to him, despite having spent every day of the past 20 years with her. She runs off from their villa and faces down three fades, only to have Lan arrive in the nick of time to… lose yet another fight and get saved by someone else.
The show does its best when it stays close to the source material. The further it deviates, the more it becomes clear the writers and showrunner have no fucking clue who these characters are or what they’re doing with the story.
It was okay as far as episodes go. The potential for being great is there, but the show is closer to the garbage pile than the trophy case.
Rating: On a scale of Aginor and Balthamel to The Green Man, this episode was Elaida. You’d get that reference if the show gave a fuck about doing it’s job. )
Garrett’s Review
I liked it! It was a stronger season opener than season 1 probably due to not needing to introduce everything from the ground up. I just wish we had more axe murders.
Rating: On a scale of BW3’s sauces ranked by FLAVOR, this is Spicy Garlic
Fei’s Review
I admit, the title is a bit harsh. I actually really enjoyed this episode with its development of Nynaeve and Egwene in the White Tower as well as Perrin and Loial on their Hunt for the Horn.
I loved seeing the inside of the White Tower and the very Hogwards/Light Academia feel it has. (I’m not a Light Academia aesthetic whore, you are!) The episode does a great job of establishing Nynaeve’s power that is currently being affected by her “block.” Liandrin is also becoming a great character in her own right—much more so than in the books.
The reason for the title of this review is that I have no idea what the show is trying to do with Moraine or Lan. Not to be book police, but Moraine does not get “stilled” or “shielded” (whichever this is supposed to be) in the books and continues to guide the others from the Two Rivers through their journey. It’s a very strange decision to take away her channeling and to introduce a rift between Moraine and Lan because I’m not sure how this helps either of their character development. Are they trying to separate Moraine and Lan for some weird purpose? Are they trying to show that Moraine doesn’t need her powers to be a cool, conniving Aes Sedai? Very unclear at this point, but what this change currently is doing is 1) make Lan look like an idiot, and 2) make Moraine’s predicament seem very woe-is-me.
I just want my hottie-thottie-with-a-body (and a brain) Lan back. Is that too much to ask?
Rating: On a scale of Taylor Swift Eras, this is evermore. And yeah, I get it. This is Rafe trying.