WoT S2E2: Strangers and Friends

[canyonwalker]

Season 2 Episode 2 of Wheel of Time, "Strangers and Friends", continues with tracking multiple storylines where the main protagonists have been split up. That aspect of the story is in keeping with the books— the story often flips back and forth between multiple viewpoint characters in different places from chapter to chapter or even within a chapter— though the TV writers continue diverging from the books on who's with whom and doing what.

Here are Five Things from this episode:

1. Mat's in the Tower

Instead of being out on the hunt with Rand and Perrin, Mat's in the Tower... and it's not good for him. He's being held prisoner by Liandrin Sedai. Her motives with him are unclear at this point, though folks who've read even a few books ahead from this point know that Liandrin is Black Ajah— a darkfriend Aes Sedai! She was the Aes Sedai in disguise at the Darkfriend Social in the previous episode. And orders from the Dark One through Ishamael are to capture, not kill, the ta'veren from Emond's Field. ...Has the TV show defined ta'veren? They're people who are influential in changing the Pattern, who can kind of control fate even if they're not aware of it. The shadow has plans to use any/all ta'veren to its advantage to destroy the Pattern.

So Liandrin is basically sitting on Mat until further instructions arrive. She's not literally sitting on him, though. She only checks on him maybe twice a day. And she follows a predictable schedule, which Mat has figured out. He uses the long gaps in her attention to try digging his way out, Shawshank Redemption style.

2. Min's in the Tower, Too

Mat's digging doesn't lead to his escape. It only leads him to another prison cell. Mat's next door neighbor is... Min Farshaw! Mat and Min know each other by this point in the books and are friends and allies. With how the TV series has switched around subplots and character threads, though, here they're strangers. (TV-Min met the other protagonists in S1E7, which was after TV-Mat had already bugged out and ditched the group.) But they find quick camaraderie through their shared imprisonment. It's like they were fated to meet regardless of what Liandrin Sedai or a team of TV writers want. Mat's a bloody ta'veren!

3. Rand's in Cairhien... with Selene. Also, "Randland"?

Rand, on his own (unlike in the books at this point), pops up in Cairhien, one of the biggest cities in Randland. ...Wait, they don't actually call it Randland in the TV series. We book fans gave it that name countless years ago because the characters in the story didn't have a name for the land where they lived. They just call it "the land" or something like that. Like, how can all these people not have a collective demonym for where they live? Like, not even an old-language version of "the land". Just the land. TV writers fixed that by having standardizing on names like The Westlands.

So anyway, Rand's in Cairhien. It's one of the biggest cities in The Westlands. He's shacking up with this mysterious chick named Selene who's kind of clingy but says really stupid things about how she always thinks of her ex when she's having sex with Rand. Seriously, she says that. I'm like, "Dude...." Rand's clearly young, horny, and desperate, because this chick's totally damaged goods and he's not even hearing it when she's saying the quiet part out loud.

Of course, book readers who've gotten through at least the end of Book 2 know that Selene is Lanfear, one of the Forsaken. In the books she spent a lot of Book 2 appearing to Rand in his dreams— she considered Tel'aran'rhiod her domain—trying to tempt him toward the shadow by appealing to his both his chivalry and his young male horniness. Only many books later did we readers see that she was also vain and deluded and an emotional dumpster fire. That part the TV writers seem to have brought to the front.

4. Rand would Kill for a Promotion... to Senior Bedpan Changer

Rand isn't just boning Selene in Cairhien. That desperate shrew is actually charging him for a room at her room house. Really, she's so desperate she should be paying him. So he works. He's got a job as an orderly at an insane asylum. Yup, here's the Dragon Reborn, changing bedpans while addled old farts shake and scream about things that aren't real.

And Rand is such a genial bedpan changer. While the other orderlies enjoy making fun of their charges when their backs are turned, Rand befriends a mentally wounded old soldier. Apparently he's learning sword forms from the guy, who attained the rank of Blademaster in the Aiel War 20 years earlier. But Rand has his eye on an even better bedpan filler to learn from....

One night Rand tails a fellow orderly who's been bullying him at work. He goes to rough the guy up, the fight gets a bit out of hand— Rand gets an unexpected surge of the One Power— and the guy is grievously wounded. Rand leaves him for dead. Apparently people get left for dead often enough in the rough parts of Cairhien. Probably there's another team of orderlies who clean up that sort of thing.

The next morning, at the asylum, the head nurse informs Rand of his promotion to senior bedpan changer. And with that promotion comes a new charge... Logain.

5. The Seanchan Arrive... On Camera

The Seanchan are major players in the story. They're the people from the land far to the west. Gee, maybe that's why people in the books just called their continent "the land" instead of naming it The Westlands... because there's something west of the Westlands! Their attack on the Westlands was shown briefly in a tag ending at the end of season 1. Here their invasion is brought on-camera— by which I mean it's witnessed by main characters instead of being something that happens in the background and gets related clumsily.

 

Of course, the main characters don't just witness the invasion, they get curb-stomped by it. Perrin, Loial, and the Shienaran group led by Lord Ingtar are attacked one night in a small port town. The Shienarans fight fiercely and start to turn back the raid, overcoming the advantage the attackers had by attacking them in their sleep. But then the damane arrive. They're the enslaved channelers the Seanchan use as war weapons. The damane channel and it's lights out for the good guys. Next thing they know they're waking up, it's morning, and they've all been taken prisoner.

This part is off script from the books— like so much of the rest of the TV series— but here it seems like it will be a real improvement rather than a "WTF are they doing?" thing. Moving more of the Seanchan invasion on-camera is an improvement. It means we viewers don't have to piece it together from various small flashbacks scattered across the next 3,000 pages.