The Wheel of Time has always been a favorite, and season two has been an improvement, but this episode knocked it out of the park.
The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 6 proved to be a tense, jam-packed episode with incredible performances, plot development, and new information.
We can confidently say that Eyes Without Pity is the best episode of the entire series.
At the beginning of the Wheel of Time Season 2, we often complained about the lack of coherency in the storyline and the overall feeling of an incomplete plot.
With this being the third to last episode of the season, we had hoped things would start to pick up, and they certainly did!
So many things happened over the course of this hour-plus episode, but they all made for a brilliant story (albeit a sad one, but more on that toward the end).
We often praise Kate Fleetwood’s portrayal of Liandrin Sedai, and her brief appearances during this hour were wonderful, but all performance credit for this episode goes to Madeleine Madden as Egwene Al’Vere.
Egwene got collared by a Sul’dam at the end of The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 5, and this segment showcased her being slowly broken by her Sul’dam as a Damane.
Egwene slowly deteriorated in the cell, and Madden’s performance often made us feel the pain with her. Her screams felt so painful and so real.
Madden managed to portray her disorientedness extremely well, all while still showing Egwene’s strength of will. Her performance (alongside the makeup and hairstyling) really stood out throughout the episode.
She spent the entire episode in her cell, slowly being broken down by the woman in charge of her. Her only ray of hope was a woman in a cell next to her she could hear mumbling and a tree outside.
The woman in the cell next to her was a surprise reveal, as it’s a character we haven’t seen since The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 6: Maigan, a member of the Blue Ajah.
A blue Ajah’s capture was hinted at by Ryma Sedai (played wonderfully by Nyokabi Gethaiga), the Aes Sedai that saved Nynaeve and Elayne.
Maigan appeared briefly in the first season as a sitter of the Blue Ajah and tried to convince Moiraine to settle in the tower on The Wheel of Time Season 1.
Seeing her in a cell, broken next to Egwene was a fantastic twist. It’s not someone we would question the whereabouts of, but it’s someone we’ve met on the show before that we recognize.
Sadly, Egwene eventually breaks and performs her first task as a Damane, but Maigan reveals that she lasted longer than herself.
Don’t cry. You lasted longer than I did child, and I was a sitter of the Blue Ajah.
Maigan
Another devastating blow at the end of the episode involved the Aes Sedai helping Nynaeve and Elayne, Ryma.
The three women tried to figure out how to get a collar off of a Damane and determined that it was impossible, but Nynaeve accidentally summoned too much power, alerting the Seanchan to their location.
In a valiant effort, Ryma sacrificed herself for the novices, giving her ring to Nynaeve, and taking a few of the Seanchan women down with her. Sadly, she wanted to die but ended up getting collared and became a Damane (and her warder was killed, which prompted a brief, but powerful mourning scene).
Other than Madden’s performance, Gethaiga managed to steal all of the scenes she was in, and we hope we get to see more of her in the final two episodes to come!
We also finally got an update on Mat and Min’s adventures together, and Min got another visit from Ishamael.
This time, he gave her one final task: to make sure Mat and Rand leave Cairhein together.
She immediately thought back to her vision from The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 2 of Mat killing Rand with the dark knife.
Luckily, Min finally did the right thing, but at what cost? Did we just lose the great on-screen pairing of Mat and Min?
Min told Mat the truth, that she saw Mat kill Rand with the knife, which led Mat to figure out that she’d been working against him the entire time. She advised him not to head to Falme with Rand, and he listened.
Even though the two men reunited, Mat ended up not traveling with Rand to Falme, choosing to stay in Cairhein. Hopefully, that means that we’ll see more of Mat and Min together (even with the betrayal).
We don’t even ship them, we just enjoyed their friendship along with Kae Alexander’s (Min) and Donal Finn’s (Mat) chemistry.
We also got an update on Loial and Ingtar’s lives as slaves of the Seanchan (called Da’covale), specifically of Lady Suroth.
Their update revealed that Loial has the ability to Treesing, which stimulated the growth of a tree. We hoped to receive more from the two, but just seeing Loial made us hopeful that everyone would reunite soon.
Moiraine also made strides in her own mental health, but everything got stunted at the end when Alanna forced Lan to tell her the truth about finding the Dragon Reborn.
This caused The Amyrlin Seat Siuan Sance (Sophie Okonedo) to pay Moiraine a visit at her sister’s place, along with 14 Aes Sedai (Liandrin included).
We haven’t seen the Amrylin Seat since The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 6.
However, the episode cuts off before we know if her visit is related to the Dragon Reborn, or about Moiraine being stilled. Only time will tell!
We also need to know why Lan, Alanna, and her warders stopped Rand from leaving Cairhein. There’s so much to speculate about!
Sadly, we can’t give it a perfect 5 stars because we didn’t get any updates on Perrin and Aviendha.
We want to know what happens with them! With over an hour in the episode, they could have easily fit in one scene where they have a short conversation, maybe even tying it into Rand. But it didn’t happen.
Aviendha was a force to be reckoned with when we got introduced to her, so not including her and Perrin seems like an odd choice.
We also only got small updates on Liandrin, and only in the form of Lanfear killing her son. We still don’t know Liandrin’s endgame or how the death of her only child will affect her.
Luckily, even though this season is wrapping up SUPER fast, we can relax knowing that The Wheel of Time has already been renewed for a third season.
So when we receive the inevitable cliffhanger at the end of this season (there’s just too much to wrap up), at least we know there will be more to come!
So Fanatics, what did you think of this week’s episode?
With only two episodes left of the season, we wonder how this season is going to end. What are your predictions? Please, limit the book spoilers for our readers who are not up to date on the books!
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
The Wheel of Time airs on Fridays on Prime Video.
Michael Stack is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
