A time of consequences…

After the tumultuous events of episode 4 the Aes Sedai and their allies pick themselves up, mourn their losses and head home.

As they do so each of the friends also wend their way towards Tar Valon.

It is fair to say that consequences are top of the agenda. Consequences of an Aes Sedai death, consequences for Matt’s theft from Shadar Logoth. Consequences for Egwene and Perrin’s travelling companions.

For me, where the show gets it right is in focusing on the emotional hit of suffering. It’s not manipulative – there are clear lines between where these characters have come from and where they’re arriving. In addition, there is a sense, especially around the actions of the Tinkers and the ceremonial response of the Aes Sedai to the loss of their own, that brings a depth to the proceedings missing from the first three episodes.

Tar Valon (and the White Tower) suffers a little from being too small. Both of these places are monumental in and of themselves and with respect to their place in the story, yet I couldn’t help but feel I was seeing the same little rooms again and again. While they were very pretty indeed they didn’t feel part of a greater whole and didn’t give us a sense of just how large these places are supposed to be. For reference Tar Valon is eight miles long.

I wanted to be awed by Tar Valon, to feel the depth of politics around the White Tower. Instead I felt like they weren’t much more than a few people struggling at a parish council meeting. If that’s harsh,  think about the House of Commons in the UK – where there are literally thousands of people working all day long and the politics is exactly what is supposed to be on show among the Aes Sedai. The White Tower had none of this sense of bustle and busyness.

The two most powerful elements of this episode, and I think it’s a cracking episode, focus on the Warders and Egwene and Perrin.

The death of an Aes Sedai leaves her Warder, a quasi-husband and certainly life long partner, alone in a world he’s chosen to abandon for his Aes Sedai’s sake. If there’s an example of Plato’s idea that all people are two halves of a whole then the Aes Sedai and their Warder is it. So when one dies the other is bereft and it’s explored here all the way through to its conclusion in scenes that had me gripped and feeling the grief in my bones. The presentation of grief here provides the first real sense of a grander world, with its own traditions, its own beliefs and a line of history that is only ever experienced through communal rites such as funerals. There’s something raw about these scenes and Daniel Henney’s portrayal of Lan in this episode is masterful, powerful and everything I wanted. I felt Lan’s loss and knew it as my own.

The other side of this is Perrin and Egwene’s ordeal at the hands of the White Cloaks. Found again, captured despite the valiant efforts of the Tinker’s to keep them safe, they are tortured by the kind of person who only has one right answer in mind and it doesn’t coincide with the truth.

The comeuppance of the White Cloaks felt righteous and it’s a testament to how they were established as ruthless and cruel as to how much I, in turn, wanted to cheer when they got a taste of their own medicine. This ordeal is also contrasted with the joy Perrin and Egwene experience in their own journey to the White Tower.

If the show can find space for more scenes like these then it’s got a long future ahead of it and, five episodes in, I’m willing to suggest it’s going to be something I’m talking about a long time from now. I have everything crossed that it can continue to build on the quality it’s found in the last two episodes as we head towards the season’s culmination.

My only dislike? Nynaeve. I can see what they’re trying to get at with her character but she comes across as an idiot, an angry idiot at that, and, in other circumstances, as a bully. There’s a common thing that Rand is irritating in the Eye of the World. Yet he’s entirely ordinary and earnest in this whereas Nynaeve feels like she’s ungrateful, rude and downright stupid because her comments cut right across the experiences she’s having. I wanted to shout at her to stop using her mouth and to start thinking and using her eyes because the world appears to be going to shit and all she’s bothered about are how annoyed she is with the people who’ve repeatedly saved her life. I hope they find a balance for her through her arc because right now I’m ready to hand her over to the Fade wrapped up with a ribbon.

Some of the above is the character for sure and to that extent – bravo to the writers and Zoë Robbins who plays her. Yet enough of it is a character being given bad material that I dislike her when she’s on screen. Like I say, we’ll see if they manage that balance where my shouting at the screen is entirely at the character rather than at the plumbing.

Verdict: Episode 5 builds on the step up that was episode 4. I have high hopes now for the rest of the season.

Rating? 9 grief stricken Warders out of 10

Stewart Hotston