The following contains spoilers for The Wheel of Time’s eighth episode, “The Eye of the World,” which aired on Amazon on Dec. 24. For more, check out a review of last week’s episode.
The vast ambition and resources behind Amazon’s adaptation of The Wheel of Time is on full display in the show’s dramatic Season 1 finale, in which a battle with the scope of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is just a side plot. The writers aren’t afraid to lean into high fantasy and big emotions while delivering a ludicrous level of spectacle that ends the season with a bang and provides a terrifying glimpse of what’s to come.
“The Eye of the World” starts with a flashback to Lews Therin Telamon planning the assault on the Dark One that would lead to the Breaking of the World. There’s a lot of exposition, but the best part of the scene is the brief look at the Age of Legends, a time more of science fantasy than the medieval high fantasy of the show’s present day. It’s an impressive visual reminder of how much was lost the last time the Dragon failed to stop the Dark One and thus how much the world stands to lose again should Rand fail.
Look closely and you can see Lews Therin is wearing the same odd multi-finger gold ring that Ishamael is sporting when he goes into his human form and lets everyone refer to him as the Dark One. It’s possible this is the Ring of Tamyrlin. I’m sure more will be revealed in later flashbacks to the War of Power.
The Blight didn’t look nearly so imposing from the outside as it does when the characters are in the thick of it. The writers, set designers, and special effects team have done a fantastic job showing how destructive this corruption is from the extremely unfortunate young man feeding mushrooms, to the decayed Seven Towers, to the unsettling nightmare where the grass is growing into Rand. It feels oppressive, and Rosamund Pike and Josha Stradowski sell the mental and physical toll traveling through it takes.
Back in Fal Dara, everyone’s freaking out about Rand running off with Moiraine to go be a hero, though they do pretty much take at face value that she’s right when she says anyone who isn’t the Dragon who goes to the Eye of the World will die. That turned out to not be true given that she herself survived, but she was stilled, which is arguably a fate worse than death, so it’s probably for the best that no one else was in that scene.
The romance between Nynaeve and Lan continues to be sweet, a relationship complicated by their devotion to other people. But Nynaeve has seemingly accepted that she will be an Aes Sedai and presumably have her own Warder who isn’t Lan. This is another great episode for Nynaeve who continues to make braid tugging, one of the weirdest quirks in Robert Jordan’s writing, into something meaningful — a way of finding comfort in a culture that embraces female strength.
It’s a very good move for the show to give Ishamael a human face, which he uses to pretty expertly try to win Rand to his side. These scenes are some of the best of the episode, combining with Padan Fain’s monologue and the darkfriend who almost captured Rand in episode 3 to show just how persuasive the agents of the Dark One can be. They prey on doubt and despair, pointing out that the world is broken and that the forces trying to fix things seem very ill-equipped to change anything. Who wouldn’t want to be on the winning team?
Speaking of, you have to appreciate Min’s decision to get out of dodge once she has a vision of what’s to come. Of course, our heroes stay to help rather than fleeing themselves. The defenders of Fal Dara leave a lot to be desired, with Agelmar Jagad falling almost instantly to a Trolloc. The fight is pretty impressive in scope even if the special effects don’t always look good in closeup, which is probably why they needed to rely on darkness and torches to obscure the army.
Luckily Agelmar’s sister Amalisa Jaga does better in uniting Egwene, Nynaeve, and two random doomed channelers for a display of absurd power. It’s a great way to show just how impressive multiple channelers working in concert can be, even if they’re weak or untrained. It also demonstrates that it’s not just men who can go mad with power.
Moiraine’s ruthlessness is impressive to the last as, deprived of her magic, she holds a dagger to Rand’s neck, prepared to slit his throat should he make the wrong choice. This whole season has put a distinctly feminist spin on the already women-centric The Wheel of Time, so it’s fitting that the real test of Rand’s goodness comes down to him accepting Egwene’s ambition rather than creating a version of her devoted only to him. That selflessness also shows in Rand’s decision to go off on his own to avoid potentially hurting the people he loves. The show is significantly departing from the books, but it seems like he might be heading towards the Aiel Waste to find answers about his parentage.
I don’t believe Loial is actually dead, but the fact that Nynaeve gets back up and he doesn’t could mean the end for the charming ogier. Perrin’s arc has been mixed, but this episode does cut to the key conflict he faces throughout the book series when it comes to how he uses the ax. It makes for a great scene with Padan Fain smugly pointing out how quickly he’ll turn to the dark when he feels threatened.
The theft of the Horn of Valere sets up the events of the second book, The Great Hunt, as does the appearance of the Seanchan at the very end. Their fleet looks terrifying and I can’t wait to see more of one of the most fascinating and horrifying factions in the series next season.
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