It's been a winding road, but we've arrived at the season finale for The Wheel of Time. Across its third season, Prime Video's epic fantasy show has captured our hearts and blown our minds with its drama, action, ambition, romance and scope. We began in the city of Tar Valon, where the Black Ajah made a bloody escape and our young heroes from Emond's Field went their separate ways. From there we went to the deserts of the Aiel Waste, the forests of the Two Rivers, and the hills of Tanchico. It's been quite a ride, and it's all led to this.
"He Who Comes With The Dawn" is a powerful finale, but it's also the episode I've been anticipating will most divide fans, especially those who have read Robert Jordan's books. Because while this is a rock solid hour of television, it makes bold choices.
Beware FULL SPOILERS for The Wheel of Time season 3 Episode 8 beyond this point.
A trap in Tel'aran'rhiod
At an hour and eight minutes long, this season finale is so packed with important events that it's hard to even know where to begin. Considering that last week's episode, "Goldeneyes," was entirely focused on the Two Rivers, it should come as no surprise that we don't see Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) at all this week. He had his big moment, and now it's time for The Wheel of Time to tie up loose ends for everyone else.
The first to be neatly tied off is the relationship between Rand (Josha Stradowski) and the Forsaken Lanfear (Natasha O'Keeffe. Back in Episode 306, Egwene (Madeleine Madden) revealed to Rand that Lanfear had been torturing her in her dreams. Rand could put up with a lot of evil stuff from his Forsaken crush, but not that. He finally calls it off, telling Lanfear he recognizes her for the monster she is. This causes her to channel a dark goop that we're going to see a lot more of this episode: that's the True Power, a source of magic usable by both men and women that is drawn directly from the Dark One. Remember back in Rand's Rhuidean flashbacks when Lanfear (then called Mierin Sedai) said she thought she'd discovered a new source of magic which could bring about a utopia? Yeah, it was that black goopy stuff. Not quite as nice as she imagined.
But before Lanfear can make her move, Egwene pops into Rand's dream and ejects the Forsaken out of it. We then learn this was all a ruse to lure Lanfear into a confrontation at the Aiel settlement of Cold Rocks Hold, where Rand's allies Moiraine (Rosamund Pike), Lan (Daniel Henney), and Aviendha (Ayoola Smart) are all waiting, along with the Wise Ones and Rhuarc's (Björn Landberg) warriors.
Alas, Lanfear does not take the bait, and our heroes have to scramble to leave the hold and head to Alcair Dal, where Rand can be formally declared Car'a'carn before all the clans of the Aiel. Before they head out, we get a few important scenes, like Rand grieving the death of the little girl he accidentally killed and Lanfear calling in her debt on Melindhra (Synnøve Macody Lund). Yes, Melindhra is a Darkfriend. We'll talk more about her shortly.
Another important development that happens before Rand leaves Cold Rocks Hold is that we find out the Forsaken who attacked him in Episode 306, Sammael (Cameron Jack), is still alive. Moiraine has tied off a weave around him which blocks him from accessing the One Power, which is yet another way my least favorite plotline from season 2 has paid off in the long-run. This is a cool conversation and I'm always glad to get more time with a Forsaken, even if this particular conversation does serve as a huge fakeout for a book plotline that the show has presumably cut. Moiraine tells Sammael he will train Rand to better control his magic; in the book it's the Forsaken Asmoden who fulfills this role.
But Sammael won't even get that far, because by the end of the episode, his fellow Forsaken Moghedien (Laia Costa) comes around to murder him while he's defenseless. It's a little weird that Moiraine and the rest of the Aiel just left a Forsaken back at Cold Rocks when they took all the Aiel warriors away to Alcair Dal, especially since Moiraine knew she was going to be launching herself into mortal peril.
The Panarch's Palace
Now let's hop over to Tanchico, where Nynaeve (Zoë Robins), Mat (Dónal Finn), Elayne (Ceara Coveney), Min (Kae Alexander), and Thom Merrilin (Alexandre Willaume) are hot on the trail of the Black Ajah. After Moghedien gives Liandrin (Kate Fleetwood) the Domination Band she stole from Nynaeve and Elayne in Episode 306, our group of undercover heroes follow Liandrin and her fellow Darkfriend Aes Sedai to the Panarch's Palace, where they're searching for the matching collar which will let them take control of a man who channel, namely Rand.
The trip to the Panarch's Palace is appropriately nerve-wracking, and I like how the dark, moody palette of the scenes makes them stand apart from the brightly lit Aiel Waste or the tropical exteriors of Tanchico. The group splits up, which serves as a convenient way for each of them to have their own big scenes.
Obviously, we need to talk about Mat and Min first because there's an Eelfinn! Some of Mat's most iconic scenes in The Shadow Rising revolve around him going through several twisted red doorframe ter'angreal, where he encounters the Aelfinn and Eelfinn — snake and fox people, respectively — who make deadly bargains with him. Since Mat didn't go with Rand to Rhuidean, where he has his run-in with the Eelfinn in the books, it's been an open question of how the show would include this crucial plotline. Here at last we know: Mat goes through a doorframe at the Panarch's Palace, and comes face-to-face with a very intense Eelfinn (played by Robert Strange). Okay, the Eelfinn looks a little like he's from the musical Cats, but his spooky throat shrieks and intense air still make this a standout scene.
The Eelfinn gives Mat a fox head pendant which will make him immune to the One Power and seemingly takes his past life memories, but when it ejects him out of its pocket dimension he's hanging by his throat, fulfilling the vision Min saw of Mat's death. Fortunately, Min manages to save him in the nick of time, knocking out a member of the Black Ajah in the process. It was thrilling to see this scene play out onscreen.
While Mat and Min get through their dangerous encounter, Elayne and Thom are having their own with Jeanie Caide (Olivia Popica), who has a Balefire rod. Balefire is an extremely dangerous form of magic, and here we get a glimpse at what it does when Elayne takes the rod from Jeanie and then blasts her into oblivion with it. When someone is struck with Balefire it not only kills them, but erases their presence backward in time through the Pattern. In other words, it becomes as if they never existed, at least to a point; how far back a person is erased depends on how strong the blast of Balefire was that killed them. In Jeanie's case, it was just strong enough to fix the ceiling she blew up and erase some of her conversation with Thom, as we see her silhouette mumble some words before dissipating.
Balefire is an extremely important bit of magic from The Wheel of Time books, and it's crucial to a scene I'm expecting to see in season 4. Thus it was important for the show to establish what it does. Is it a little convenient that Jeanie blasted one bit of ceiling just for the purpose? Perhaps, but I think this was a really effective way of getting across the meaning of a fairly convoluted bit of magic lore. Toss in Thom and Elayne bonding, and Thom hitting Elayne with the revelation that Lord Gaebril (Nuno Lopes) isn't who he says he is, and this was another really solid part of the adventure in the Panarch's Palace.
That brings us to Nynaeve, whose part in this sequence was my least favorite. After hiding from Liandrin, Nynaeve happens to find the collar they're all looking for in a jewelry box that the Black Ajah sister threw on the ground. She then runs out of the palace, but stops short of leaving her friends behind. Instead she waits. Bhen Liandrin comes out, takes the collar, wraps Nynaeve in chains and then tosses her in the water to drown. But lo! Before she can drown, Nynaeve finally breaks through her block and walks Moses-style out of the water.
On the surface, this was a really powerful scene. I think readers and show-only viewers alike have been waiting for Nynaeve to start accessing her magic, and this was a really beautiful way to do that which also nods to a scene later in the book series where she finds herself trapped underwater. Robins and Fleetwood are always compelling onscreen, and this was their only real scene of dialogue together this entire season. The music during Nynaeve's triumphant moment was also spectacular.
However, there is a very major scene from the books which the show cut here involving Nynaeve and Moghedien, arguably one of Nynaeve's most iconic in the entire series. I imagine there will be a lot of uproar about it. Even after seeing this episode multiple times, I'm still grappling with my feelings about it. But I don't think it's a coincidence that of everyone in the Tanchico crew, Nynaeve was the farthest off-book, and that her scenes were some of the weakest conceptually.
We close out on Tanchico with a major loss for the Light. Liandrin takes the Domination Bands and matching collar and links up with Moghedien, whom she debases herself before to stay in the Forsaken's good graces. We also learn Liandrin's ultimate goal: to become a Forsaken in her own right, the first of a new era of lieutenants for the Dark One. Meanwhile, Nynaeve's party leaves the city by boat. Dark clouds brew on the horizon from the direction of the Aiel Waste, where Rand is off fulfilling prophecies.
Tragedy in the White Tower
The very first scene we see in "He Who Comes With The Dawn" is a flashback which shows how Elaida (Shohreh Aghdashloo) visited the Aelfinn through a twisted redstone doorway in order to get reassurance that she'll become the Amyrlin Seat, only to lose out to Siuan Sanche (Sophie Okonedo) hours later. This lays the groundwork for the tragedy which comes later in the episode, when Elaida outfoxes Siuan by tricking Verin (Meera Syal) and a bunch of her supporters into leaving the tower so that Siuan can be deposed in a barely legal meeting of the White Tower's most powerful remaining leaders. Elaida is raised as the new Amyrlin in her place.
Before Siuan can even defend the accusation that she's a Darkfriend who has been hiding the Dragon Reborn, Elaida has her stilled — cut off permanently from the One Power. This is a horribly sad scene, but also a crucial one for the overall arc of Robert Jordan's books. The show does a good job of twisting the knife by having Siuan blindly worsen her own situation, sending out letters declaring the tower's support for the Dragon Reborn without consulting the rest of her sisters. This makes it even easier for Elaida to depose her, and Elaida takes petty glee in this act.
Okonedo is always excellent, but this is probably one of her strongest episodes as an actor on the series. Too bad it's also her last, because Elaida immediately has Siuan put to death, even after she gives a rousing speech explaining how she and Moiraine were secretly tasked with guiding the Dragon Reborn and that she's only ever served the Light. Siuan's death is brutal, and just like the loss of Nynaeve's showdown with Moghedien, I am really not sure how I feel about it. Just like Loial's death in last week's episode, this marks a major deviation from the source material. Siuan survives the coup in the books, and goes on to play an important role in the rest of the series. Perhaps the show will give more of that material to her Keeper of the Chronicles, Leane (Jennifer Cheon Garcia), but still, I'm torn. Murdering Siuan in this fashion — especially because she is not a Darkfriend — is just gut-churning.
The Wheel of Time has a sprawling cast. Perhaps some actors needed to leave to make room for more, or contracts couldn't be negotiated to keep them on or something. I can only speculate about why The Wheel of Time killed off Siuan, making this already tragic part of the story even worse. But there is one very clear reason that it gave her the axe, and it unfortunately recalls one of the weakest deaths of the series: Perrin's wife Laila in the series premiere. I hesitate to say Siuan was fridged, because she's had a large arc on the series and I don't want to undervalue that...but also, Siuan's death seems primarily like a way to give Moiraine an extra boost of energy just in time to save her from her own mortal struggle at Alcair Dal.
A breaking in the Three-Fold Land
While the power structure of the White Tower crumbles, so too does the way of life for the Aiel. Rand and the rest of the Taardad Aiel arrive at Alcair Dal, a sacred meeting place where the Car'a'carn can be declared before all the various clans. Only when they get there, they find that Couladin (Set Sjöstrand) is already claiming that he's the Car'a'carn, and that he has his own dragon tattoos (given to him by Lanfear). But Couladin doesn't know the dark secret of Rhuidean: that the Aiel once followed the Way of the Leaf and broke their oaths.
Despite Rhuarc's pleas, Rand reveals this truth before all the assembled Aiel, proving that he underwent the trial while Couladin did not. This leads to a fight between the Shaido and Taardad, as they grapple with this difficult truth and the messy confrontation between Rand and Couladin. But the chiefs and Wise Ones know Rand speaks the truth.
While Rand tries to sway the Aiel, Moiraine sets up in the desert to try and shield the proceedings with the Sakarnen so that Lanfear can't interfere, unaware that Lanfear already played her hand there by propping up Couladin and trying to force Melindhra to assassinate Lan. Fortunately, Melindhra can't bring herself to murder the last living king of Malkier, and breaks her oath to the Dark One. She's immediately killed as the oath tears out of her, showing just how high the stakes are for those who are sworn to the Shadow to disobey their master.
Lanfear then makes her move, trying to kill Moiraine in the middle of the desert. We saw this exact scene play out in Moiraine's Rhuidean visions, with a bunch of different variations of Lanfear killing her. Even though Lan comes to Moiraine's aid, it's not enough; Lanfear runs Moiraine through with Lan's sword.
Fans have been waiting for a fatal confrontation between these two characters, and I thought for sure this was going to be it. But just when all seems lost for Moiraine, she feels the oath that Siuan placed upon her with the Oathrod vanish, letting her know that thousands of miles away, Siuan had died. Moiraine tears the sword out of her own stomach, and then uses it to slit Lanfear's throat. Lanfear barely manages to escape, while Moiraine collapses sobbing into Lan's arms.
This battle between Moiraine and Lanfear does not feature in the books, but I really enjoyed it in the TV show (minus the semi-fridging of Siuan). Rosamund Pike, Natasha O'Keeffe, and Daniel Henney all went really hard in the acting department, the stunts were cool, and the magical special effects were epic. We also saw more of Lanfear using the True Power. It had me on the edge of my seat, and I like that it played off reader expectations by making us think this could be Moiraine's final hour, only to pull her back from the brink.
Despite the magical duel being the most dangerous moment of the episode, it does not get the final bow. Instead, the focus shifts (rightly) back to Rand, where he cements his status as Car'a'carn in the eyes of the Aiel by using the One Power to make it rain in the desert. I thought this was a perfect way to end this season. Yes, it left a cold pit in my stomach to see Rand so disconnected and surrounded by the tainted darkness of saidin, but that's how it should be. This is not a triumphant victory for our heroes, but a darker turn for the story into uncharted territory. Hopefully Amazon renews the show soon, so we can start getting hyped for what comes next.
The Bullet Points of Time
- At the start of the episode, Alviarin says that Elaida visited the Aelfinn, not the Eelfinn. So the show does have both of them. Hopefully we see the Aelfinn at some point in the future.
- We get a brief glimpse of Faile, Bain and Chiad during the ending montage, where they're spying on a Whitecloak camp from the mountain slopes above. Presumably Perrin's down there. We'll see what happens to him next season!
- The final shot of this season, with Rand holding the One Power and Egwene shouting for him to "let go" parallels the season premiere, where there is a very similar moment after Rand destroys the mirror men. Except this time Rand doesn't let go.
- This finale set up a few important pieces from The Fires of Heaven, the fifth book in The Wheel of Time series. Presumably that means Rahvin/Lord Gaebril is going to get a much bigger spotlight next season, which I am all for since The Fires of Heaven has one of my favorite endings in the series.
- I'm really not sure how to feel about Sammael getting killed. Aside from the fakeout about him teaching Rand, this also closes off several plotlines the Forsaken has later in the book series.
- Black dots swam across Lanfear's eyes when she was channeling the True Power. Yes, we got a reference to saa, the name of that black-eyed phenomenon in the books. Essentially it happens to someone as they use the True Power more.
Verdict
"He Who Comes With The Dawn" is a big, daring episode of The Wheel of Time, with major moments for just about every main character and some spectacular scenes. This was a darker finale than season 2 had, which fits with the changing tone of the series as Rand slips closer to madness and the Shadow rises. It also made a lot of really bold deviations from the books, some of which I expect will have readers in an uproar.
But by this point, The Wheel of Time has proven that it deserves trust. It's an epic capstone to an epic season, and I can't wait to see where the show goes next.
Episode grade: A-
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