In Review: The Wheel of Time (S2 – EP8) – What Was Meant To Be

Synopsis: In What Was Meant To Be, Fate leads Rand and the others to an inevitable showdown with their most formidable enemies yet.

The Story

In this season finale. Everything that the series has been building to comes to a head as we see a pretty epic battle take place between the forces of light and darkness as The Dragon announces himself in Falme. However, the journey to that announcement sees a series of loose alliances being made as well as Lanfear having to betray Ishamael, which enables Moiraine with some help from Lan to do what she can to help Rand in the battle. 

To say that this is a show that has many moving parts in terms of character and story arcs would be a massive understatement, but somehow the writers manage to cram quite a lot into this finale, which sees Rand and the gang manage to win the day. But what will the cost of this victory be to them in the longer term and what will happen to Lanfear given that she betrayed Ishamael and the Forsaken, which played a pretty big part in enabling Rand to announce himself as The Dragon?

In short. There’s an awful lot to process here.

The Acting

Rosamund Pike once again puts in a solid performance as we see Moiraine and Lan rekindle their bond for the greater good. The scene in which Lan (Daniel Henney) Moiraine out on her crap is nicely played out. We also get another great performance from Madeleine Madden as we see Egwene break free of  Renna and the Seanchan and ultimately help Rand in his fight with Ishamael.

To sum up. What Was Meant To Be has a lot of strong acting performances as we see quite a few character arcs get played out.

Overall

A pretty good season finale that highlights both this shows strengths and weaknesses.