EFFECTIVE:

• The show def made a Choice w/ that cold open 😲 It was effective..but uff..

• Egwene-Renna arc 😭 Also:

  • I hope Madeleine Madden had an on-set therapist, physio & other supports available to her. (She does seem fine in S2 interviews, so I'm assuming she had what she needed..)
  • Ditto for Xelia Mendes-Jones, who was also amazing & terrifying as Renna. They'll have at least one more major scene w/ Egwene, which I'm already anticipating w/ dread 😅
  • The forced tree-burning somehow made me sicker than 'Pour the water' 💀

• Ryma-Basan arc destroyed me 😭

  • when Ryma showed up still free in ep5, I did suspect she would be captured at some point soon. But the capture happens 'off-screen' in the books, so I wasn't expecting to see the full thing here, ahhh 😭
  • It was also pretty brutal to put her capture in the same episode as Egwene's torture 😱 but it was effective dramatically & thematically..
  • (side note: Ryma's weaves tho 👀😲)

• Nynaeve & Elayne odd couple, we love to see it! 🥰

• Loial treesong 🥰 (albeit under duress)

• Mat & Rand reunion 🥲

• Mat finding out about Min's betrayal, then sort-of abandoning Rand again. Brutal. (Altho I suspect Mat will still go to Falme - hope we get some portal stone-like visions too?)

• Moiraine & House Damodred drama

• Moiraine writing to Siuan, kill me 💔😭

QUESTIONABLE:

• I do wish the show had included a brief trigger warning at the top of the episode

  • Book readers knew what was coming, so we could at least 'prepare' ourselves a little (insofar as that was even possible)
  • But I'm really not sure that non-readers would've understood exactly what was coming their way.. And I imagine that anyone w/ e.g. PTSD related to past trauma or abuse would not have responded well to anything in this episode.

• Alanna & her warders confronting Lan w/ the accusation of being a Darkfriend. I kind of see where it came from from a S2 logic perspective..but something still didn't quite work for me here? Maybe we just needed more of a transition b/w ep4 & ep6?

  • (also I have q's about how Alanna was able to bind Lan when he wasn't trying outright trying to kill them at that point? I mean, I guess he was willing to fight her warders to get past them..but this was still stretching things a bit.. 🤔)

THANKS, I HATE IT:

• Lanfear-Liandrin scene was not on my bingo card 👀 (also, holy s---, Lanfear! cold blooded mercy kill)
• I have a very bad feeling about where House Damodred is going..which is a pity, b/c I've enjoyed watching M & Anvaere this season. That's definitely not going in a good direction tho 😬

[2/4]

@nachtlied
> also I have q's about how Alanna was able to bind Lan when he wasn't trying outright trying to kill them at that point? I mean, I guess he was willing to fight her warders to get past them..but this was still stretching things a bit..

Using the One Power to bind is not using the One Power as a weapon IMO. But if it were, Darkfriends have a carve-out in the third oath, so if she truly believed...