In Review: The Wheel of Time (S2 – EP7) – Daes Dae’Mar

Synopsis: In Daes Dae’Mar, A familiar face foils Moiraine and Rand’s plans. Ishamael has captured Mat.

The Story

The Amyrlin has captured Rand and proceeds to cage him. However, this goes against a plan that Moiraine has plotted with Amylin Sanche years prior. Sanche justifies her choice to keep The Dragon (Rand) caged by pointing out that Moiraine being unable to weave her magic has changed matters. In response to this Lan aided by Alanna Mosvani and Verin Mathwin concoct a plan to rescue The Dragon and Moiraine.

Elsewhere, Egwene is still being kept as a slave by Renna and the Seanchan and is forced to take part in an attack on their enemies. After this Egwene threatens Renna and says that she will kill her. Meanwhile,  Nynaeve and Elayne set about putting their rescue plan into action.

The Acting

Rosamund Pike and Sophie Okonedo are outstanding in this episode as we see a few flashbacks of Moiraine and Sanche from when they were starting out in the  Aes Sedai. The Flashback scenes foreshadow the feelings of betrayal that both women have toward each other as we see Sanche backtrack on the plan that both women made when it concerned the Dragon. Once again we get a solid performance from Madeleine Madden and  Xelia Mendes-Jones. The scene where Egwene tells Renna that she will kill her is brilliantly done.

Overall

Daes Dae’Mar gradually brings all the plot threads together that have been building up in previous episodes. The acting performances throughout were solid and we got quite a lot of payoff in terms of the various character arcs. The weakest aspects of the series to date have been the character arcs for Perrin and Mat, which have been tediously slow to develop when compared to everything that has been happening with Moiraine, Rand, Egwene, and the other characters.

However, it is obvious that this season’s finale could wind up being a bigger finale than we had in the first season as events that have played out thus far have some pretty big implications for all the characters.

Overall. I’m looking forward to seeing how some of these plot threads will pay off in the next couple of weeks.