Shadow and bone s2 spoilery thoughts. Major spoilers for the changes from book-to-show.
For context I've read through the entire book series about twice.
Unsurprisingly, the actors were great. The sets, costumes, and creature design were awesome.
Choices on moving storylines were...interesting.
Didn't realize until part way into ep 2 that this season covered the last 2 books of the main trilogy, as well as some events in SoC.
Really emphasizes how long Mathias was in Hellgate, but also because he's now only interacted with 1 character from the main cast in 2 seasons, it feels weird and disconnected.
The script was...interesting, to say the least. They took Jesper's unaffected demeanor and made him so goofy, and 4th wall break-y, it wasn't funny (most horrendous line was the 5 of crows line, since it emphasizes both this and the last point). Meanwhile there were parts that could have been filled in with better dialogue that underlines relationships and connections.
It feels like story line choices about what plot threads to place where we're more for "how riled up can we get the fanbase to demand a season 3?" Instead of serving the story.
I wish they would have set up the structure clearer. It's a huge ensemble cast, with a lot of material to cover, but it felt like 90% of the tome we see the crows, they're scrambling to justify why they're still interacting with the Alina side of the story, so they take half the plot from this fan favorite book, and half ass the story beats so it undercuts scenes like Kas's revenge, and fighting all of the Dregs.
Kaz's story should have been told in 1 solid flashback the first time he was triggered, then refrenced when he's reminded of it, the viewers stay in his emotional headspace instead of trying to figure out what happened every time. Telling the story but by bit works in a book, but it was jarring and confusing to speed through.
Nikolai really got the short end of the stick when it came to smashing the 2 books together. We don't get enough Sturmhond, his identity reveal is undercut without the tailoring changes, and he just comes up super fast and there doesn't seem to be that underlying comrodery that Alina has with him in the books. They don't make each other better, they're just two morally good people in bad circumstances, existing in the same room. Now it seems they're going to try and extend Malina's story into s3, it's going to crowd the Kos and RoW stories.
Changing the entire seawhipe story probably is the most upsetting thing. Why don't we get to hear about his lore? Alina kills him with a sunburst during a fight with the seawhip- not in a fight between the darkling and sturmhond's crew. We don't get the weight of the action that every step closer to achieving her goal, Alina is killing magical folk tale creatures. We don't get the sense that as she's more powerful, she's loosing her humanity to that power. I think what they were going for was the idea of "the stag gave Alina power, but she took it from the sea whip so his scales aren't powerful enough" but I could be wrong?
What happened to the collar????
The last ep of s1 is no mourners, s2's last ep is no funerals. But they hold a funeral, with a speech given by the king before the funeral pyre while the main cast reflects on what the darkling, and his fold had done to their lives.
Pushing the Apperate's story/sun summoner cult off made the ending anticlimactic. One of the best things about the original trilogy is that it really could have stopped there, and it had an appropriate amount of catharsis. Alina makes the choice to surrender herself to an unknown power to stop the darkling- and she looses that power to do so. Now we have a defeated BBEG, but without the narrative weight. Again, I can see how they'll tie the missing elements into the end of RoW- but because they've taken the property and made some genuinely bad choices on story/script, I don't know if they'll get the demand for s3.
They wouldn't commit to fully fleshing out the plot of Six of Crows to dangle that over the fans. The more I think about it, the clearer that is to me. Which I feel like is going to rush the miracle plot line, and the plot in Fjerda down the road. They also rushed Jesper and Wylan a little, but I can forgive that because we don't need additional queer based trauma.
What I can't forgive is revealing Jesper's powers so quickly and unimportantly.
For the most part the directing served its purpose, but it was nothing to write home about. I am a little tired of action cam/slow mo so we can see and appreciate every landed punch, especially during the entire moat sequence.
I can see where someone said "let's tone down the love triangle angle." But then they took out Alina's internal conflicts that don't have to do directly with someone romantically inclined towards her. Taking out the pressure from the cult, and the betrayel of finding out the twins were apart of it, toning down her connection and care for Genya leaves her with only trying to brute force shut down the fold, and trying to keep Mal alive.
The entire 3rd act has me so messed up with what plots actually happened where, I'm rereading the series to reassure that it was well written.
Skipping Alina's frustration of being underground for months, being indebted to the apparate, and Nikolai's disappearance lowered the stakes of the final battle. It underplays Zoya stepping up to join the main cast. The desperation and feeling like the world may indeed run out of Grisha isn't there.
There should be been a more concerted effort to show the fact the twins are Alina's guards, specifically. They felt really useless. Especially when the Darkling attacks and Tamar looses Alina. That doesn't read Saint protector to me.
I get not every production company wants to attack the topic of child soldiers but that was supposed to be a defining line between the darkling and Alina. Again, messed up because the took another of the pressure book!Alina has and just never addressed it.
I liked the addition of the Zemeni helping Mal and Alina escape- but I feel there were ways to show it where Malina still got found by selling her hair pins.
The entire library scene kicks the story off in a poor way. They have the Zemani librarian use her powers to open a drawer that's 5 inches away and it feels unnatural. This library magicly has the exact right map Alina needs with invisible ink she found, that was apperently waiting for a sun summoner? Why wasn't holding it up to the sun working???
Overall I'm bummed. I wish netflix just initially green lit the original trilogy and shot the plot for what it was, and once they saw s1 work out, approve the SoC/CK spin off, or maybe approve s1 for shadow and bone and s1 for SoC, and schedule those to premiere 6 months apart. So then the 2 year wait for s2 of the main trilogy doesn't feel so long. They even could have teased it the way they dropped 2 extra eps on the sandman or stranger things last season. 1 month after the premiere, drop a SoC episode that is the backdoor pilot for the crows.
There's stuff I've listed that I'm sure probably happened that way in the book and I'm misremembering or totally misread it. I just feel the way I perceived s&b was more compelling than the s2 that we ended up with. Like I said before, I'm rereading now to figure it out.
gummygunk
dailybridgerton
stormborns
annaxmalina
turnnoffyourmind
