We’re just under halfway through the sophomore season of The Wheel of Time, and the stakes have already been cranked up in a big way. With Perrin having been rescued by Elyas and his pack of wolves, Nynaeve rejecting her opportunity to become an Aes Sedai, Rand having lost control of the One Power, and Egwene finding the aforementioned Wisdom of Emond’s Field back in his arms, everyone looks to be hurtling towards their destinies at a more rapid pace than ever before.
And when it comes to dancing with destiny, there’s usually a fair shake of hardship and hurdles involved, and given the fact that the main players have abandoned their homeward desires and taken up arms in the path of fate, it won’t be smooth sailing for either their mortal essences or audiences nerves from here on out.
One of these players, Marcus Rutherford (the talent behind blacksmith-turned-once-possible-chosen one Perrin Aybara), considers this more intense curve to be a marked boon for the second season, noting in a recent interview with Collider how the creative team set a new standard with this more mature tone, and how the new trajectory of each of the main characters further necessitated the shift.
The show in itself, Sharon [Gilham] who does costume, Davina [Lamont] – hair and makeup, Thomas [Napper] who came in to direct the first block, set a new standard and set a precedent that the show needed to be bigger, a bit darker and a bit more mature in its time as well. As we come into Season 2, the characters are a bit older, a bit wiser, and that naivety of, “We just want to go back home,” is gone. They’ve kind of accepted their place in this prophecy.
And with five episodes to go, there’s still plenty of time to see how this new Wheel of Time angle unfolds in full, and whatever final form it takes, it’s safe to say that it will go a long way in continuing to carve out the series as one of Prime Video’s premiere fantasy heavyweights.
The Wheel of Time is available to stream on Prime Video.