TV Review: "The Wheel of Time: He Who Comes with the Dawn" (S3, Ep. 7)
The Amazon fantasy series ends its third season on a triumphant, if slightly rushed, note, setting the stage for an even more explosive season four.
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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode, and for the Wheel of Time book series, follow.
Well, dear fellow fans of The Wheel of Time, we’re here. The finale of the third season. It’s been a wild ride this season, and for the most part I adored what Rafe Lee Judkins and his team have given us. The finale is everything I could have hoped for in a conclusion to this third season and, while it did at times feel a bit rushed and chaotic–and while not every story paid off with quite as much intensity as I might have liked–on the whole I loved it. It brought the story forward in some important ways while also paving the way for some very big story developments to come in future seasons.
Given that the previous episode exclusively focused on Perrin and his attempt to save the Two Rivers from Padan Fain and his army of Darkfriends and Shadowspawn, it makes sense that we now focus on the other characters we love. Rand and Moiraine have some important bonding moments before he goes to declare himself to the rest of the Aiel, while she steels herself to confront Lanfear. Meanwhile, in Tanchico, Mat, Nynaeve, Thom, Min, and Elayne set out to find the Domination Band, leading to some fateful confrontations both within and outside of the Panarch’s Palace. And, in the White Tower, the long-brewing confrontation between Siuan and Elaida comes to its tragic, violent conclusion.
We’ll start with the Tanchico storyline. Among other things, we have a nice bonding moment between Thom and Elayne–even though it does strain credulity to think that he’d realize Gaebril is a Forsaken so quickly–and some nice moments between Min and Mat. The latter is particularly meaningful, as it gives Min a chance to save Mat from the noose that she saw earlier in the season. Mat’s experience with the fox-like Eelfinn in the twisted ter’angreal was particularly well-done, with a heavy creep factor due to the creature and sound design. I’m looking forward to seeing what the show does with Mat’s storyline going forward, particularly since it’s clear there’s a lot more to his bond with Min than was the case in the books.
Watching Elayne unleash balefire was truly a terrifying experience, particularly for those of us who are aware of what it entails. If you don’t know, being struck by balefire results in the person in question being burned out of the Pattern entirely. In the books, it ends up being a bit of a plot crutch, since Jordan uses it to both dispatch some key Forsaken and also to undo the actions taken by characters that prove inconvenient (or devastating). It remains to be seen whether the show will give it such an impact, but it’s clear from the look on Elayne’s and Thom’s faces that they are just as shocked by what just took place.
Arguably the most important element of the Tanchico storyline was the fateful encounter between Nynaeve and Liandrin, a confrontation that leads to Nynaeve finally being able to break through her block. Both Zoë Robins and Kate Fleetwood are terrific here, as they’ve been all season, and it’s clear that Liandrin has fully embraced the darkness inside her. The show has intertwined these two from the jump, so it’s perhaps fitting that Liandrin decides to throw Nynaeve into the canal, taking the most powerful channeler off the board.
Unfortunately for her, Nynaeve at last finds her way past her own block, thanks to her memory of the daughter that she met during her time testing for Accepted back in season two. I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long, and it certainly packs a punch. Robins as always does so much with her characterization and, as a result, watching her come into her own is a true vision. When she emerges from the water wrapped in the transcendent glow of saidar, you can’t help but cheer. Nothing is ever going to be the same, for Nynaeve, for Liandrin, or for Moghedien. This whole sequence, along with Liandrin’s little bargain with Moghedien, sets the stage for some explosive confrontations between the three of them in season four. Nynaeve is about to come into her own, and I am absolutely here for it.
Over in the White Tower, meanwhile, things take a similarly explosive turn. The cold open shows us the circumstances that led to Siuan besting Elaida for the Amyrlin, and as always it’s a pleasure to watch Sophie and Shohreh strike sparks off each other. In the present, Elaida has clearly not let up in her pursuit of the Seat, forging anew her alliance with Alviarin, and it all leads to a closed-door session of the Hall–with the barest number of Sitters present for a quorum–leading to Siuan’s deposition, stilling, and eventual execution. While I found Siuan’s final speech quite moving and intense (and from the look on Elaida’s face, she does too), the whole sequence feels a bit rushed. For all that we’ve gotten to spend a lot of time in the Tower this season, it feels like some important connective tissue was left out, which makes this whole thing feel more rushed than it should. Even so, hats off to both Shohreh and Sophie, who act the hell out of their scenes together and show us why these two characters remain so beloved and reviled.
I’ve suspected for quite a while that Siuan wasn’t going to make it to the Last Battle, and to be honest, I’m relieved that we got to say goodbye to her in this episode rather than further down the line. I’ve always hated the way that her story ended in the books–she falls in love with Gareth Bryne of Andor and then the two of them end up perishing in the Last Battle–and so this send-off seems more powerful and poignant, if also more gruesome. I mean, the last shot we have of her is of her headless corpse sprawled on the floor of the Hall, a gruesome trophy for Elaida in her pursuit of absolute power.
Some have criticized this whole sequence for feeling unearned, but I strongly disagree. Obviously, I would have liked to see more of Elaida’s machinations and Siuan’s stumbles, but what we do get shows that each of them is driven by their own sense of their own rightness. Moreover, the brutality of Siuan’s fall is not only visually impactful–seeing her body sprawled in the Hall will forever be seared into my mind’s eye–but also key to Elaida’s own eventual downfall. For all that she prides herself on being a political genius and as being more worthy of the Seat than the lowborn Siuan, the truth is that she is sowing the seeds of her own demise. Just as her time as the leader of the Aes Sedai has been born in blood, so her end will be as devastating.
Would I have liked to see Siuan reunite with Moiraine? Yes, of course. Theirs is a romance for all of the Ages but, when Moiraine visited Siuan in her dreams, she made it clear that there was going to be no reunion between the two of them. Their paths had diverged to such an extent that they were never going to be able to have what they did before. It’s thus fitting that Siuan, in her last moments alive, defiantly spat in Elaida’s face, showing that she, the daughter of a fisherman, had more pride, dignity, and bravery than her Red replacement could ever dream of having. Elaida might have draped herself in all of the gaudy regalia of her position, but she’ll never match Siuan Sanche.
For her part, Moiraine continues to pursue her goal: of protecting Rand and making sure that he makes it to the Last Battle. Their last conversation features some truly remarkable performances from both Pike and Stradowski, as each inhabits their characters’ fraught emotional space. For Rand, this entails grappling with the fact that, like it or not, Moiraine has never been anything but honest with him and that, as a result, she might just be the only person that he can really trust. For Moiraine, on the other hand, this means that she is staring death in the face. As she forthrightly tells him, she is going to keep him safe from Lanfear’s clutches or she is going to die trying. As events will prove, it ends up being a bit of both, for though, with Lan’s help, she manages to deliver a pretty devastating blow to Lanfear, she doesn’t manage to kill her. I love the poignancy of this moment, and I think it is probably my favorite scene in this season and perhaps the series as a whole.
Sammael’s demise felt a bit rushed to me, particularly since we’ve only gotten to see him in fits and starts this season. I did enjoy the moment he has with Moiraine, in which she again shows that she is quite ruthless in her desire to make sure that Rand is well and truly battle-trained and ready for the travails of the Last Battle. It was also quite chilling to see him speak so openly of the fact that he rediscovered the arts of war, since it suggests that, for him, being an evil bastard really is a choice, and a terrible one at that. While it’s fitting that he has his body turned into a gruesome work of art by the ever-sneaky Moghedien, it does make me wonder whether they’re going to include the Forsaken-training-Rand storyline at all, or whether it’s going to end up being cut. Either way, it’s fitting that the brutish Sammael gets an ending that’s just as abrupt as that in the books.
Then there’s the final scene. There’s a nice parallelism between Rand’s acclamation–by some of the Aiel, at least–as the Car’a’carn and his similar acclamation as the Dragon in the second season finale. In both cases, it marks a key moment in which he feels the duties of his position weighing down on him. It’s exhilarating, to be sure, and I personally loved the way it was staged, with the Aiel waiting with baited breath to see just how his conflict with Couladin will play out. And yet, at the same time, the episode’s final shot–which shows him either unwilling or unable to release his hold on saidin–grants this whole sequence a sinister undercurrent that cannot be denied. It’s clear that his conflict with Lanfear isn’t the only thing he’ll have to contend with in subsequent seasons; he’ll also have to deal with Egwene. For all that some like to claim that the show has sidelined Rand in favor of the other characters, a claim I find to be quite silly, this last moment, sinister and exciting as it is, shows that he is still the axis around which the rest of the cast revolves. This will surely only become ever more true as the show proceeds.
While I enjoyed many aspects of the finale, it did feel very rushed, which has been my fear from the beginning. I’m a bit flummoxed by the fact that Lanfear decides to flee, which robs her story of any sort of satisfaction or closure, despite all of the pyrotechnics of it. Likewise, I would have liked to see Nynaeve have something more to do once she gains her full powers. I thus agree with those who said that this feels a bit like a mid-season finale rather than the ending of the season.
However, I honestly don’t know how this could have been avoided, given that Amazon–like every other streamer–seems determined to kneecap its own series by not giving it enough episodes to really do justice to the material. Given the challenges they continue to face, I’d say Judkins and company are doing a truly fantastic job, and I don’t think anyone could have bested them. Exacerbating all of this is the fact that Amazon has yet to renew the show for a fourth season which, aside from causing the production all sorts of headaches, also leaves us as fans even less inclined to be forgiving of any missteps, since this might be the last we see of our beloved characters.
Hopefully a renewal will be announced soon, so that we can at least rest easy that this isn’t the end of the road for Rand and the others. It’s clear that the storytelling is only going to expand in forthcoming seasons, and I really do hope that we get a chance to see just what happens to Rand as he continues his ascent to the power of the Dragon Reborn, with all of the peril and possibility that entails.