The Wheel of Time season 3 episode titles revealed — with a caveat

Earlier this month, the third season of Prime Video's fantasy show The Wheel of Time wrapped filming. Based on the beloved book series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, The Wheel of Time is a sweeping epic fantasy series which has captured the imaginations of readers for decades; now, the show is poised to do the same with television viewers. Season 3 will adapt The Shadow Rising, the fourth book in the series, which is widely regarded as one of the best of the bunch and features a few extremely important moments of the saga. It's going to be surreal to see them on screen more than 30 years after the novel was first published in 1992.

Reliable Wheel of Time scoop site WoTseries has unearthed some of the episode titles for season, and they're loaded with implications. According to their report, here are the known episode titles for season 3, as well as the writers credited with scripting them:

• 301 — "To Race the Shadow" — Justine Juel Gillmer
• 302 — "A Question of Crimson" ˆ— Katherine B. McKenna
• 307 — "Goldeneyes" — Dave Hill
• 308 — "He Who Comes With The Dawn" — Justine Juel Gillmer

In terms of writers, the biggest takeaway is that executive producer Justine Juel Gillmer is credited with both the premiere and the finale. Showrunner Rafe Judkins scripted the finale for both season 1 and season 2, so this would be the first time he didn't contribute a writing credit on the final episode. Personally, I find this more exciting than worrisome; Gillmer has done amazing work on the series, and I'd love to see her do more. She wrote Episode 106, which focused on Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) and Siuan Sanche's (Sophie Okonedo) relationship, as well as Episode 207, which saw the Aes Sedai descend on Cairhien in hopes of capturing Rand al'Thor (Josha Stradowski). I'd be excited to see what Gillmer does with the season 3 finale.

That's especially true considering those episode titles. The title of Episode 308, the season finale, "He Who Comes With The Dawn," is drawn from a chapter title in The Shadow Rising, and is a reference to the Dragon Reborn. Without going super deep into spoilers, that book details Rand's journey into the Aiel Waste, where he uncovers some shocking truths about the desert warrior culture and his connection to it. If season 3 climaxes with similar events to The Shadow Rising, then "He Who Comes With The Dawn" is a perfect fit for the finale.

Meanwhile, Episode 307, "Goldeneyes," will reportedly cover the Battle of the Two Rivers, another large event from the book. The battle is a major turning point for Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford), so again, the title makes sense. This title is also drawn from a chapter in The Shadow Rising.

Things get a little murkier for the early episode titles, however. The title for Episode 302, "A Question of Crimson" is drawn from the fifth Wheel of Time book, The Fires of Heaven, and is relevant to a storyline where Nynaeve al'Meara (Zoë Robins) and Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney) join a traveling circus in order to lay low from the dark forces chasing them. It gives Nynaeve and Elayne time to bond as they travel the world.

Considering that season 3 is expected to see both Elayne and Nynaeve go to Tanchico — a very important story arc for them — I'd be surprised to see the full circus storyline adapted as well. Perhaps The Wheel of Time will combine elements from both the Tanchico and circus arcs for them next season?

Specifically, "A Question of Crimson" refers to a red dress Nynaeve is urged to wear during the chapter as part of her circus act where she stands blindfolded while gleeman Thom Merrilin throws knives at various objects she's holding. We've also heard that Thom (Alexandre Willaume) and Mat Cauthon (Dónal Finn) were on set for some scenes in Tanchico. Maybe the show will keep the dress and some sort of shennanigans with Thom and Nynaeve?

As for the title to the season 3 premiere, "To Race the Shadow," that one we covered a while back. The title is drawn from a chapter in book 3, The Dragon Reborn, where Mat is in the city of Caemlyn. It's unlikely we'll see the exact events from that chapter play out, so my guess is that the title is being repurposed similar to the way the season 2 premiere title, "A Taste of Solitude," was drawn from the sixth book but still fit thematically with what was going on in the episode.

The Wheel of Time season 3 Episode titles are not yet set in stone

I just did quite a bit of speculating above about the episodes. Without concrete information about season 3 from Amazon, there's plenty of room for us to guess and theorize about what we be.

However, it's important to take it all with a grain of salt until we hear from the official source. In response to the news about these episode titles, The Wheel of Time show's resident book expert Sarah Nakamura took to TikTok to temper fan expectations.

"Okay, so I don't want to be a debbie downer here...however because there has been discussion about potential episode titles I do want to point something out, which is that occasionally we will use placeholders in the name of the episode or what the episode might be called. Especially because we do know how incredible our fans are at finding publicly available information," Nakamura said. "And so just throwing it out there, just because it's currently listed doesn't mean that it'll stay that way. So don't want to burst any bubbles, but it's just...that's something that occasionally can happen."

So while these titles all are currently listed in official channels like the WGA website, it's important to note that it's still very possible they may change by the time the show actually airs. I'm personally inclined to think "He Who Comes With The Dawn" at least will stick, but time will tell.

One last interesting takeaway from the WoTseries report is the amount of time it took to actually shoot season 3: 176 days, as opposed to 145 and 156 days for season 1 and 2 respectively. As the series grows ever larger and more ambitious, it's no surprise that the amount of time it takes to make it is increasing. You don't get to the Last Battle by taking the easy road, after all.

The Wheel of Time season 3 wrapped filming earlier this month and is currently in post-production. We imagine that it'll probably grace our TV screens sometime in 2025.

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