The upcoming third season of The Wheel of Time is based on The Shadow Rising, considered by fans to be one of the best books in author Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series. This season, Rand al'Thor (Josha Stradowski) will travel to the Aiel Waste to try and win over the war-like Aiel people to his side. Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) will go with him. They're make separate journeys to Rhuidean, a sacred city where many truths will be revealed. Rand's time there is a highlight from The Shadow Rising. And while the books only tell us that Moiraine made a pilgrimage there, the series will show us what she sees.
Looking at the trailer for the new season, the Rhuidean sequence looks wild beyond words. And when we spoke to Josha Stradowski and Rosamund Pike about the sequence, they could barely contain their excitement. "Oh, we long to talk about Rhuidean," Pike told us.
"The pivotal episode for us, it's coming in Episode 4. We can't wait for you to see it, it's the point around which the whole season turns for us. It's experimental, psychedelic...[showrunner] Rafe Judkins has done a brilliant transferring of these ideas from page to screen, and [director] Thomas Napper just took it away somewhere really incredible."
So there you go: Rand and Moiraine will visit Rhuidean in Episode 4. There will be eight episodes in the season total, and if Prime Video sticks to tradition, the first three will drop all at once, with the remaining five coming out once per week. So we'll be watching the visit to Rhuidean pretty soon.
"Josha plays seven different characters extraordinarily," Pike continued. "I mean it's just gamechanging in its breadth and scope, and for Moiraine, who she sees visions of the future, all possible futures coming crashing in on top of her. Nightmares, possible harmony, discordant hellscapes...and she has to kind of puzzle that out and work out how life can move forward after what she's seen."
Stradowski is psyched for people to see the sequence, as well. "It's the most fun I've ever had on set in my life, Episode 4," he told us. "And nature was mystical while we were filming it. We had days and sunsets and dawns that were biblical in scope, and kind of all the mysticism of Rhuidean was conjured by nature for us."
The third season of The Wheel of Time will premiere on Prime Video on Thursday, March 13. In my opinion, the second season was a solid step up from the first. If that momentum continues, the third season could help the show break out in a big way. The show could use that kind of success. The Shadow Rising is only the fourth book in a series of 14, so if Prime Video is going to pony up the pony for the cast and crew to tell the whole story, the show will have to post numbers.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.