roThe Pattern turns, and Season 3 of The Wheel of Time begins. Prime Video hits us with three episodes first (WOT S3 is eight eps total), and if you aren’t a head for Robert Jordan’s lengthy series of high fantasy novels and the vast world they conceive, then maybe you need a refresher on the One Power, the Aes Sedai, Moraine, Egwene, Nynaeve, and Rand al’Thor – or the Dragon Reborn, as he proclaimed himself in Season 2. Or maybe just leap back in? Why not be as bold as this series often aims to be? It’s what the Heroes of the Horn would want you to do.
Opening Shot: Siuan Sanche (Sophie Okonedo), leader of the Aes Sedai – known as “mother” to her followers, the women who wield the One Power – gazes at the city of Tar Valon and its white brick environs.
The Gist: Season 2 of Wheel of Time culminated with the fiery whoosh of a magic dragon in the sky above Falme, heralding fulfillment of the prophecy embodied in Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski). Once just a shepherd from the sticks, Rand had come to realize his important connection to forces of reincarnation and untold power, with the attendant risk of his being inevitably cursed. Which is a lot to live up to! And as WOT season 3 begins, Rand and his friends – Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden), Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins), Mat Cauthon (Dónal Finn), and Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) – are considering next steps. The realization of his power gives Rand more autonomy from Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), a wise Blue Ajah. But it has also made him the personal project of the intriguing, meddlesome Lanfear (Natasha O’Keeffe), one of the Forsaken, who covet control of the Dragon Reborn for their own evil ends.
And it’s not just Rand who has been transformed. From the vicious mental and magical torture endured by Egwene and Nynaeve’s journey as a healer with the Aes Sedai, to Mat with his consequential blowing of the Horn of Valere and Perrin avenging the death of his wolfbrother Hopper, life experience has brought these pals new challenges, which now pull them in different directions. “Safe is not possible,” Rand tells his crew. As the Forsaken continue their pursuit – there is Lanfear, but also the emerging threat of Moghedien (Laia Costa) – Wheel of Time opens its third season with a spectacular clash of magic and belief systems. It’s bloody chaos in the White Tower of the Aes Sedai when Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) challenges Siuan’s leadership with a Black Ajah power grab. Liandrin and her allies serve the darkness of The Shadow, which just spells more trouble for Rand, his bffs, royal heir and formidable One Power channeler Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney), Moraine, and her dedicated swordsman companion al’Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney).
The sprawl of Wheel of Time can get pretty involved. Its large cast of characters, and the factions and beliefs they each represent, not to mention pressure on the series to realize the descriptive scope of the books on which it’s based. And Season 3 will only add more characters and locations. But the world building of WOT is ambitious, its quests are noble and/or deliciously evil, and there are new twists that focus its breadth on all of the mounting tension. Like early on, when Egwene awakens to find herself being strangled by Rand.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? A third season of House of the Dragon is on the way. But HBO is also working on other spinoffs from the Game of Thrones universe. And speaking of third seasons, Prime has officially renewed its other big fantasy play, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Our Take: Dualism defines the center of The Wheel of Time. Light over Shadow. The One Power against The Dark One. The ability of friendship to transcend discord. These are weighty themes, and in its attempt to represent it all, the series has at times felt a little too stretched out. But as things have moved along, particularly through the second half of last season, the occasional superficiality of WOT has largely been supplanted by increased purchase. Better footholds for the characters in this world, but greater investment from us, too. We know them now, and are drawn to their individual struggles and personalities, as well as the unknowns of where they intersect. And not just those who represent as good. While the reputational and dogmatic disputes have become a saga within the Aes Sedai itself, Wheel of Time also upholds, promotes, and explores the will of individuals who love to be bad. Would Lanfear wish to be Rand’s ruler? His destroyer? His lover? All of the above? In WOT, she and her associates in the Forsaken are not one-dimensionally evil, and that’s extremely cool and watchable.
Also: quests. Quests! What is the fantasy genre without quests. And with the knowledge of what they’re up against, all of the magic and machinations, watching the core group of Wheel of Time try to find their way – together and individually – is driving our anticipation for what Season 3 has in store.
Sex and Skin: Only a bit of safe-for-television intimacy. Of more interest in this category is the manifestation of a romantic connection crucial to Wheel of Time lore as it exists in the book series.
Parting Shot: Just like at the very end of WOT season 2, the lead episode of season 3 concludes with a terribly tantalizing note of foreboding. While we know the Forsaken are out there, still on the hunt for the Dragon Reborn, what is the real shape of their grand plan? Softy, softly, in the shadows…
Sleeper Star: In a giant cast, and in a show with lots and lots going on, Natasha O’Keeffe stands alone. O’Keeffe is so captivating as the Forsaken Lanfear, so deft at balancing the character’s outright villainy with an emotional depth, it makes Lanfear as likeable – even as able to root for – as she is dangerous and unpredictable.
Most Pilot-y Line: “You still think it matters, what you intend? Before he declared himself, Rand was under your care and control. But now you have to cede all that. Trust his decisions. I know you believe in the Dragon Reborn, Moraine. Can you believe in Rand al’Thor?”
Our Call: Stream It! Dualities of light and dark and more fantasy battle action are on offer as The Wheel of Time returns. The series is only getting more ambitious as it moves into season 3, which rewards the viewer with greater stakes for core characters we’ve come to know. The good ones and the bad ones!
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.
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