After a brief flashback to Nynaeve’s capture by the trolloc, episode 3 picks up where the previous episode left off, with Nynaeve’s knife at Lan’s throat and the four villagers on the run from the sentient evil of Shadar Logoth. Once they get past their initial hostilities, Lan convinces Nynaeve to help treat Moiraine’s infected wound. Perrin and Egwene encounter a pack of wolves who chase them toward a group of travelers. Mat and Rand find a mining town with an inn, where they have some educational encounters.
Recap
Before the opening credits we jump back to the trolloc battle in Two Rivers, moments after Nynaeve (Zoë Robins) was taken. As a trolloc drags the Wisdom out of the village by her impressive braid, Egwene can be heard crying for her in the background. Nynaeve’s captor drops her on the ground while he stops to brutally murder and cannibalize a wounded trolloc comrade.
I’m sure it was a mercy killing.
Nynaeve uses the trolloc’s distraction to escape. She runs to the sacred pool in the cave where Moiraine asked about her age in episode 1 and hides in the water. The trolloc figures out where she is and climbs in the pool, using his staff (spear?) to poke various spots, hoping to hit her.
She was submerged behind him and against the side. When she comes up for air, she steals his dagger and stabs him through the chest as hard as she can, with no hesitation. She keeps hold of the dagger as he throws himself underwater, taking her with him. A bloody red stain in the shape of the dragon’s fang forms in the milky blue water before Nynaeve triumphantly emerges, more determined than ever.
Hopefully the dragon’s fang, which signifies evil or the presence of a curse, only applies to the trolloc. Nynaeve is my new hero. Finally, a female fighter who gets the job done and takes no prisoners.
After the credits, we flash forward to the end of episode 2, with Nynaeve’s trolloc knife on Lan’s throat. She tells him she won’t keep asking- where are the four youths from her village?
Lan (Daniel Henney) is Moiraine’s Warder and Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) is dying. Warders feel what their Aes Sedai feel and are responsible for keeping them safe. I’m going to cut him some slack right now for some stupid responses in this conversation because he hasn’t slept much and he must be in terrible shape, between his own feelings and what he’s getting from Moiraine. He’s still stoic on the outside, but I suspect he’s screaming in agony on the inside. 😱
Lan: “They are not here. How did you find me?”
Really? After telling her he’s lost her surrogate children, his next thought is to suggest the lady with the knife at his throat shouldn’t be good enough at tracking to have followed him?
Nynaeve: “What did she do to them?”
Lan, slowly standing: “You think you know this world. You know nothing. The Dark One is coming for your friends. And Moiraine has fought his forces with everything she has.”
A warning wrapped in insults instead of a straight answer to her question. He’s desperately trying to intimidate her into handing power back over to him, but he also needs her help, so she will retain power no matter what.
Nynaeve was able to kill a trolloc, avoid the Fade and its army and catch up to him without him hearing her coming, all without fancy Aes Sedai training. Think of what that implies about her intelligence and latent abilities. She’s not going to be easily fooled or intimidated. Deep down Lan must know it, but he’s still going to treat her like she’s an idiot.
The Aes Sedai might make more friends in this world if they weren’t so classist about their training. But, as we have seen and will continue to see, they aren’t the only ones who make dismissive snap judgements about others who they actually know little or nothing about. It’s a running theme with those who think they’re worldly wise. Lan, for example, has no idea where Nynaeve has been, what she’s seen or lived through. He has no idea what she’s capable of, either. He’s taking Moiraine’s dismissal of her as “not the Dragon Reborn and therefore of no interest” at face value.
In this speech, he’s actually asking Nynaeve to help save Moiraine. He’s just so out of practice that he’s really bad at it. He almost never asks for something directly anyway- remember how he asked Moiraine to heat up the bath water by repeatedly saying it could be warmer? He’s hoping Nynaeve will be motivated to save Moiraine so she can continue to protect the people Nynaeve cares about.
Taking in how close Moiraine is to death and the fact that she’s lost track of her charges, Nynaeve isn’t exactly sold on her protection skills. But the Wisdom is a healer and a compassionate person who’s inclined to help those in need.
Nynaeve: “If she cares about them, then why did she leave them?”
Lan: “She didn’t. I did. She can’t move, let alone find them in her condition. You’re a healer.”
Lan is an honorable man, so he accepts responsibility for the disastrous trip to Shadar Logoth, but it isn’t really anyone’s fault. He found a way to lose the trollocs when Moiraine grew too weak to protect them. Though that came with a price, they all made it out alive. He was off his game in Shadar Logoth and so didn’t take into account that Rand and Mat were never going to sit still and follow orders, which means something was bound to go wrong. But just like Nynaeve, the four villagers aren’t without their own resources and can fend for themselves until they are all reunited.
Nynaeve: “You think I’m going to help her?”
She still has the knife at his throat. He finishes spelling out what he wants. But he hasn’t understood her part of this conversation any more than she understands him.
Lan: “You will if you want to help your friends.”
They both grow more serious. Lan leans in, pressing the knife to his skin. She tells him not to move.
Lan: “We both know that you won’t.”
She lunges for him, but she doesn’t have the element of surprise that she did with the trolloc and he easily gets her in a chokehold.
Lan: “Ooh, you actually tried to kill me.”
She tells him to let her go, then bites his arm as hard as she can. She’s not fooling around. He knocks her out.
Mat and Rand are on a rocky slope above the water, calling for Egwene and Perrin, until Mat realizes they might be endangering themselves by making so much noise. He suggests they head home and hope to find their friends before they get there. Rand tells him their friends won’t go back to Two Rivers because they won’t want to draw the trollocs back to town. Egwene will go to the White Tower, like Moiraine planned. Mat still wants to go home, but Rand thinks it won’t be home without Egwene and Perrin. He figures they should keep heading East for now. Mat gives in and follows him.
Mat has the most compelling reason to go back home, since he has young sisters he’s legitimately worried about. Rand, Egwene and Perrin didn’t leave behind anyone who was dependent on them the way Mat did. Rand, Egwene and Perrin are each also actively avoiding the sadness of their particular situations- losing the possibility of marriage to Egwene, losing Nynaeve to the trollocs, and Laila’s accidental death.
Egwene and Perrin trudge through a barren, frozen valley with wolves howling in the distance. When they find a barrier made of sticks, they rest behind it and build a fire to keep the wolves away and get warm. Perrin uses his knife and a flint to create sparks, but the wind blows them out before the kindling catches. Egwene channels the One Power to give his efforts a boost and the fire ignites.
Perrin figures out what she did and jokes about it. They worry about Mat and Rand. Egwene thinks Rand will go back to Two Rivers, but Perrin convinces her that he’ll go where she goes. Plus, they all know they’ll endanger the village if they go home. Then Perrin tells her to sleep while he keeps watch. They cuddle up together in front of the fire.
Totally shipping these two now. How did I miss the earlier signs that Perrin is into her?
Lan is finally showing Nynaeve proper respect for her abilities by gagging her and thoroughly tying her to a large tree. He’s failing at doing anything useful to help Moiraine though. Her breathing is labored and her skin has a grayish cast. Nynaeve looks worried for her, but still stares daggers at Lan when he brings a canteen over.
Lan lets her drink some water, then asks if she’s ready to help. Nynaeve says Moiraine had better answer her questions in return.
Lan: “Are you really in a position to be making demands?”
Nynaeve: “It’s not a demand, it’s a threat.”
Good for her. First he treats her like a fool, then he tries to force her to save Moiraine. A healer deserves respect. This behavior, right here, along with the slippery definition of the truth, is why the Old Wisdom taught Nynaeve not to trust the Aes Sedai.
In a softer voice, Nynaeve points out that Moiraine is dying and she’s the only healer around. Lan has no choice but to cooperate with her. He cuts her loose, but watches her every move as she forages in the forest for the flowers, herbs, barks and such that she’ll use to treat Moiraine. She eventually tells him to go ahead and ask the question he’s got on his mind. He asks again how she tracked him all the way from Two Rivers to Shadar Logoth. “Said you could ask, not that I’d answer.”
He continues to watch closely as she prepares her concoction, then looms over her as she works directly on Moiraine. The wound is inflamed and swollen. Nynaeve pauses and tells Lan that the bond between him and Moiraine will make this painful for him as well. Then she squeezes open the sore and drains the infection. Next she covers the wound with her salve and lets Lan take his place next to the patient. Now they wait.
Perrin dreams that he wakes up in his bedroom behind the blacksmith shop in Two Rivers. He searches for Laila, since she wasn’t in bed. As he walks toward the forge, he becomes the figure with the glowing eyes for a moment. Is the Dark One directing these dreams? When he gets to the forge, he finds a wolf eating Laila’s body. Laila turns and looks at him, her eyes zombie white.
Egwene wakes Perrin up- real wolves are getting too close and they need to run. Snarling wolves chase them through a thicket, but then stop at the edge. Not taking any chances, Perrin and Egwene keep running.
Mat and Rand continue walking through craggy, frozen mountains. Mat, who is wearing ragged clothing and a thin cloth coat, suggests they switch off wearing Rand’s heavy sheepskin coat. Rand, who is wearing high quality, warm clothing underneath his warm coat and has probably never known more than slight discomfort a day in his life, laughs at Mat for complaining about being “a little chilly.”
They are relieved to reach the small mining town of Breen’s Spring. On the way into town they are greeted by an executed corpse displayed in a gibbet as a warning. Rand tells Mat to be on his best behavior. Mat notices a gemstone carried by the corpse.
They choose a tavern, The Four Kings, and order soup. Rand asks if anyone fitting Egwene and Perrin’s description has come through town. The barmaid, Dana (Izuka Hoyle), tells them the only newcomer in town recently is the gleeman, Thom Merrilin (Alexandre Willaume), who’s about to sing another song.
Everyone quiets down as the gleeman takes a seat on an old barrel. He sings a sad song about about a tortured soul that sounds like it’s both about Lews Therin Telamon, the legendary Dragon, and the tragedy of every man since who’s channeled the One Power, gone mad and had to be gentled. The men in the tavern instinctively relate to it.
It’s an insidious reversal of the terror, pain and emptiness women feel by simply existing in male supremacy.
Dana breaks the silence with a quip and the bar returns to normal just as a pickpocket bumps into Mat and Rand. Thom collects tips- “donations for the gleeman”- as he leaves the stage. He also bumps into the pickpocket, then asks Mat and Rand for a donation. Mat says they’re too depressed to donate. Thom tells them to give it a try if they think they could do better than him. Dana brings their food and says no one is allowed to sing at the tavern but Thom.
When she asks them to pay the bill for their food, Mat discovers he’s been robbed. Thom shows that he has Mat’s purse, though he gestures toward the pickpocket who originally stole it, telling them they shouldn’t trust anyone. When Mat reaches for his money, Thom laughs at him and jumps out of the way, saying it’s a donation for the gleeman and payment for the life lesson. He walks out.
Rand sticks up for Mat, but he wasn’t robbed. The bigger, stronger, obviously wealthier young man was left alone by the first and second pickpockets. That’s my issue with Thom here- he wasn’t teaching Mat a lesson and he knows it. He was taking advantage of the person who could least afford to lose what little he had, someone who’s already spent his life being taught this lesson.
Thom left Rand alone, just in case there was an opportunity for the wealthy man to become a patron someday. Also, if either pickpocket was caught in the act, Rand was more likely to physically harm them than Mat.
The two actors play their roles well. Rand (Josha Stradowski) is physically imposing, with muscles coiled and a quick temper you can sense across the room. You’d think twice before crossing him. Mat (Barney Harris) curls in on himself and disappears a little, always sure the worst of a situation is going to fall on him. He’s the whipping boy.
Wolves continue to follow Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) and Egwene (Madeleine Madden), but keep their distance. After continuing across open grasslands they come upon deep wagon tracks. Perrin says the wagons hold many people. They could be traders or Whitecloaks. Egwene thinks it’s as if the wolves led them straight to the tracks. Perrin suggests they follow the wagons at a distance until they figure out who they belong to.
Mat asks Rand if they have enough money left to pay for a room for the night. Rand says HE has enough money, emphasizing that Mat got robbed. They ask Dana if they can work to pay for a room or if they can sleep outside under a tarp for free or cheap. Dana says they can split firewood to pay for a room. Rand agrees.
He’s a well fed farm boy and experienced at chopping wood. Mat comes from a very different background and has different skills. The show presents this as laziness, in the same way that not being athletic is typically presented as a flaw rather than a difference.
Personally, I’m shocked Mat hasn’t found passive aggressive ways to sabotage Rand already. Instead, he propped up the kid who has everything, every time he whined that Moiraine was in charge and the world wasn’t revolving around him for once in his life. Now that they’ve ditched the Aes Sedai, Rand is happy again, but dominating and putting Mat down every chance he gets.
Which is why Mat ditches the wood chopping and Rand’s company as fast as he can. But first, he tells Rand that Egwene and Perrin are probably dead and if they are alive, they wouldn’t go to the White Tower. Rand acts like he’s a martyr who always does all the work anyway.
Pretty sure this is the first work we’ve seen Rand do. Egwene washed the dishes in episode 1, while he pouted. Mat has done unrecognized emotional labor in each episode to support his family and friends, in addition to raising his little sisters and hustling to make money to help financially support his impoverished family. Rand can be a generous, compassionate friend, usually after someone else prompts him. But he can also be an insensitive, entitled idiot who has no idea how easy his life has been compared to most people’s.
Mat goes back inside and tells Dana that Rand is a woodsman and capable of chopping the wood himself. They banter back and forth as she offers him unpalatable work and he claims to be a horse trader, an obvious lie. He accepts her final offer of waiting tables and turns out to be pretty good at entertaining the customers while he hands out beer. He explains that he needs to earn passage back home. Dana is from Breen’s Spring and dreams of leaving, musing that when you travel you can become anyone you want, since no one knows you. Mat takes that in, but says he has people who need him at home, so he has to come up with the money somehow.
Nynaeve’s salve isn’t working as well as she’d hoped. The poison is too strong. Lan tells Nynaeve to keep Moiraine safe while he’s gone, jumps on his horse and rides away. Nynaeve tries to remind him that she can’t be trusted, but he’s already on his way.
He can probably feel that Moiraine is dying but Nynaeve’s medicine gave her a little time. He couldn’t leave her alone before, but now he has someone to watch her while he searches for stronger help. And he knows a Wisdom can actually be trusted.
Perrin and Egwene follow the road to a forest shrouded in mist. Perrin wants to go in alone to make sure it’s safe. Egwene insists that he doesn’t have to protect her and shouldn’t feel guilty about Laila’s death, still assuming the trollocs killed her. He continues to feel guilty for his wife’s death without admitting to the truth out loud, that he accidentally killed her in the frenzy of battle.
Inside the forest, they run into a band of travelers who ask them if they know the Song. They don’t understand the question. One of the travelers, Aram (Daryl McCormack), tells them the appropriate ritual answer is, “Your welcome warms our spirit as your fires warm the flesh, but we do not know the Song.” Perrin and Egwene repeat the answer. Ila (Maria Doyle Kennedy), the leader of the travelers, gives the ritual response in return, “Then we seek still. As it was, so shall it be, if we but remember, seek and find.”
The travelers, known as the Tuatha’an, Traveling People or Tinkers, welcome Egwene and Perrin into their camp. They offer them food and blankets in front of a warm fire and explain that their fires are open to all who need them. Their people have the reputation of being thieves and troublemakers but tell the young villagers it isn’t true.
Dana tells Gaston Rand he’s chopped enough wood to last at least a year, then brings him into the room she’s chosen for him and Mat. He really wants to sleep outside under a tarp, but she insists, telling him he and Mat can be as loud as they want while they make up from their lovers spat and no one will bother them. Rand tells her they’re just friends, despite the intense argument. He says if he wanted a man, he could do better than Mat.
🤯 🤯 🤯 Wow. With that kind of loyalty in front of a stranger, it’s hard to imagine why Egwene chose the single life and her magic over him. Plus, I’d take Mat/Barney Harris and his devotion to his family through hard times in a second over this egotistical jerk.
Dana sets down a pitcher of beer for him and Mat, then gets up to leave. Rand suggests they drink it together, since Mat hasn’t earned a treat, in his humble opinion.
Dude, you can pick up girls without throwing your friend under the bus. She approached you. It’s not that hard.
Lan rides to a vantage point on a high cliff face and scans the surrounding terrain. He returns to Moiraine and Nynaeve and tells them he’s found what Moiraine needs. Nynaeve says her medicines will give Moiraine the energy to ride for a few hours, no more.

After dark, Mat walks back to the edge of town, where the dead man swings in the gibbet. As he stares at the body (and the pink gemstone the man wore at his hip), Thom the gleeman comes up from behind and asks what he’s doing. They threaten each other with their daggers. Mat tells Thom he didn’t survive trollocs only to be killed by a singer. Thom says he’s there to bury the dead man. Then he questions how a farm boy from Two Rivers has met a trolloc and describes exactly how he knows Mat’s from Two Rivers.
He’s definitely met trollocs and is not a farm boy though, so Thom should probably observe people a little more closely and do less judging at first sight. Guess word of the trollocs’ rampage through the Two Rivers region hasn’t spread yet.
As Tom lowers the body, Mat asks what his crime was. Tom says the dead man didn’t commit a crime. He was killed because he was an Aiel and the townspeople were scared of him.
Tom: “Not many things outside accent and dress that can tell you where a person’s from. But it is rare to see that color of hair outside the Aiel Waste.” His hair is bright red, the exact shade of Rand’s hair.
Mat has heard that the Aiel are as evil as trollocs. Thom explains that they’re fighters, but they’re only aggressive when they wear their veil over their faces. “That’s when you’re as good as dead.” The dead man wasn’t veiled, so he posed no threat.
Thom asks for the second time what Mat is doing at the gibbet, as if he has some sort of authority in town. Mat admits that he needs money, so he was going to rob the body. Thom is appalled, but turns away while Mat checks the dead man for valuables.
Let’s recall that though Thom had just received the coins tavern patrons are forced to tip him, earlier in the day he robbed Mat, a living impoverished person, of all the money he had in the world. He has no right to take the moral high ground here. As Mat pointed out, anything of value on the body was going to be wasted when Thom buried it with him. Why shouldn’t Mat, who is in need, use it instead? Maybe because Thom also planned to rob the body?
Mat takes the pink gemstone and an animal figurine, then apologizes to the dead Aielman. Thom tells him he should help bury bodies he steals from. Mat looks back toward the inn, probably trying to figure out if he can get Rand to dig the grave. 😉
Earlier, Mat told Dana he’s from Baerlon. Now, she asks if Rand is from there too, and continues asking questions about his plans. He tells her it’s complicated. She offers to help him and Mat, since she hears the miners and travelers talk about all sorts of places. She’d love to see the places she’s heard about, such as the Stone of Tear, the Lion Throne of Caemlyn or an Ogier Stedding. Maybe even a trolloc. But the Wheel hasn’t allowed her to make it out of Breen’s Spring to see anything.
Rand: “You know what’s funny? I never gave much thought to the Wheel before all this. I’ve just always done what I thought was right, then moved on to the next thing and tried to do right again. But now, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s right. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know sh*t really.”
Sounds like someone is ready for a major turning point in his life.
Dana leans forward to kiss him, but he pulls away. She apologizes for coming on too strong, then locks them both in the room. She wonders if braiding her hair made her look too much like Egwene. Rand senses that something has gone wrong and tries to leave. They scuffle for weapons, ending with Dana pointing the heron blade at Rand. She explains that they need to wait for Mat. She feels a little bad, because she didn’t think Rand would be so nice. Rand pounds on the door, screaming.
Dana must not know many actual nice guys. And Rand is woefully unskilled in fighting (and life). He just told us he has no sense of strategy, only instinct.
Once they’ve buried the body, Thom says a few words, “Rest, warrior of the threefold land. May your soul find water and shade.” He and Mat exchange names. Mat asks for his money back, now that they’re acquaintances. Thom pretends he was going to give it back anyway. Then he says goodbye, cautioning Mat that he hopes he won’t find his body in a cage someday.
Thom Merrillin, king of the gaslighters.
Rand pounds on the door, trying to escape. Dana tells him it’s useless, because the door is made of ironwood so strong that three men couldn’t break it down. And in this room, no one can hear you scream. Rand knocks the door down anyway.
The man just never listens.😉
He runs into the street and sees Mat. Dana chases them through town, Rand’s sword in hand. She takes a short cut and heads them off.
Dana: “I see you. At night, in my dreams. All five of you. But only one of you matters. Only one of you can be it.”
Mat, who pays attention and lives by his wits: “Five?”
Rand, who gets by on his good looks and physical strength: “Be what?”
Dana: “The Dragon.”
They ask who she is. She tells them what matters is that she’s going to be the one who brings the Dragon to the Dark One. “The last time someone brought the Dragon to the Dark One, we still remember his name 3,000 years on. Ishamael.”
Rand asks if she’ll let the Dark One kill them. She tells him that’s not what the Dark One wants- it’s what the Aes Sedai want. The Dark One wants the Dragon to save the world by breaking the Wheel so that all of the pain will stop.
Rand tells her they’re going to leave. She says she called one of the Eyeless (a Fade). It’ll be there soon. Suddenly, a knife pierces her neck from behind. As she falls down, Thom appears from the shadows, telling them that Dana is a Darkfriend, sworn to the Dark One. They need to leave town now. Rand and Mat are understandably hesitant to leave town with him. He’s awfully good with that blade for a musician.
Thom removes his blade from Dana’s neck. Mat asks what direction he’ll travel in. East. Since they also need to head east, Mat stares at Rand until he agrees that they might as well travel together. Rand takes his heron blade back from Dana- does this count as stealing from the dead? She bleeds out, her blood a mix of bright red and black.
Lan, Nynaeve and Moiraine travel on the road southwest for 3 hours, eventually meeting Liandrin Sedai (Kate Fleetwood), the Aes Sedai from the Red Ajah we met early in episode 1. She tells them that they’ve captured a man who claims to be the Dragon Reborn. They’re transporting him in a cage, surrounded by Aes Sedai and Warders.
Commentary
Trollocs are apparently habitual cannibals.
There is a bonus video about Ogier Steddings at the Amazon website. It’s under the Explore tab, then Origin Stories, episode 6- An Ogier’s Longing. There is a bonus video about the Dragon Reborn featuring Logain under the Explore tab, then Begin Your Journey. Or scroll down to the bottom half of the list on the episodes page, where the Look Inside and Origin Stories videos are also listed.
When Thom warned Mat that he didn’t want to find him in a cage someday, he was referring to a gibbet but also, more importantly, a cage like the one Liandrin keeps the potential Dragon Reborn in.
I’m super excited for episode 4. Liandrin and Logain, the man in the cage, are favorite characters played by compelling actors.
As Mat watches Dana, Rand comments that he thought Moiraine was more Mat’s speed. I totally missed whatever was supposed to hint at Mat’s attraction to Moiraine, other than Mat trying to calm Rand down when he was being a jerk. Or does Rand mean he thinks that Mat would prefer a wealthier woman to a poor barmaid?
Mat’s actions in this episode seem understandable to me, despite the negative slant the narrative puts on them. Why is Mat evil for questioning and disobeying Moiraine now, but Rand wasn’t evil for questioning and disobeying her in episode 2? Among the 3 guys in the Two Rivers 5, Mat is the smart one who can’t catch a break, which can make a person angry and sarcastic on the surface. Rand and Perrin can afford to be nice, since they don’t have to be scrappy.
By the same token, no matter how we are meant to perceive Thom, in reality he comes off as an arrogant criminal. Mat and Rand are right to question his motives- he could easily be a Darkfriend and he’s certainly a bit of a con artist. For example, he could have planned to rob the Aiel man’s body, but Mat got there first. Thom didn’t want to draw the town’s attention to what they were up to and Mat had a bigger weapon, so this time he couldn’t easily take advantage of the younger man. Which would also be why he gave Mat his money back.
This show has a bad habit of showing relationships starting out with one person taking advantage of, dismissing and/or lying to the other person. Or maybe Thom also recognized right away that there was something special about Rand and Mat. Maybe Lan knew Nynaeve was special even though he tied her up. Maybe Rand knew Egwene was more than the peasant girl who’d have his children. Maybe Moiraine knew at the sacred pool that Nynaeve is powerful, despite her dismissive attitude. But I doubt that’s true in every case- it’s more likely that the original author relied on this trope too often.
We’re shown that Rand has superhuman strength and stamina through the woodchopping incident and Dana’s reaction to it, then via his ability to break through the super strong door at the inn. Not to mention his general stamina throughout the first three episodes- how many times did he walk up and down that mountain over the course of one day in the pilot? In this episode, after hours of exposure from hiking across a cold, rocky mountain and so long without food or rest, his expectations of Mat are unreasonable, but now there’s no one else around to tell him he’s wrong. It’s the high born kid vs the low born kid and class prejudice dictates that Rand is right.
One of Nynaeve’s skirts is yellow, the color of the Aes Sedai healing Ajah.
According to showrunner Rafe Judkins, the lyrics of Thom’s song will have more resonance as the season progresses:
The colors of his morning, the darkness of his night
Little graves that gave no warning, a sun that brought no light
He saw his whole world breaking, that tortured soul I met
In a prison of his making, the man who can’t forget
I can still hear the way that he cried for the ones he was missing
I can still hear the way that he cried for the ones he had lost
He saw them in the rivers, he felt them in the rain, in dreams he heard them whisper the truth that is his pain
He caused the whole world’s breaking, that tortured soul I met
In a prison of his making, the man who can’t forget
Some of the Trivia notes from the Amazon Prime X-Ray tab:

Images courtesy of Amazon Prime Video.
Hello Metacrone!
I started reading your reviews/recaps after I started watching Travelers. I knew something about the show bothered me and reading your reviews helped me figure out what the issue was (everything about the lead, really).
I was so happy to see you review Wheel of Time! I’ve gotten better at identifying underlying messages or interactions but still really enjoy how you break things down–and your sense of humor 🙂
Just wanted to send a note to say, thanks! (And, because you mentioned knowing what readers were interested in helped you prioritize which shows to review.)
Hope you are well and thanks again, Autumn
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Hi Autumn! I do take reader interest into account, so your feedback is welcome. There’s so much out there already about Wheel of Time that I wasn’t sure I had anything different to add.
Ah, Travelers! I still write reboots in my head starring the younger team members. A spin off showing the future or another timeline (or adult Alexander or the faction or more about the Director or the development of consciousness shifting or…) could be a great HBOMax show.
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