The Kingfisher Flashes Above the Pond
WHEEL OF TIME – Season 1 Episode 8 – SPOILERS
Lady Amalisa Jagad
It opens with a flashback to three thousand years ago and an argument between Lews Theron Telamon (Alexander Karim) and Latra Posae Decume (Katie Brayben), the Amyrlin Seat. Telamon is the leader of the male Aes Sedai, and his title is The Dragon Reborn (note the insignia on his jacket). The most important part of the argument is when Decume refuses to help the Dragon with his plan to cage The Dark One. She tells him: “When you and I became Aes Sedai, we swore an oath to serve all. What you plan to do serves only your pride.” Unmoved, Telamon says goodbye to his infant daughter and heads out, presumably to break the world. In a glance out the window, and we see delta-winged aircraft flying over a walled city that contains some very phallic architecture. It seems likely that this city was somewhere near where the Eye of the World is currently located. (The place where Rand meets The Dark One is a circular courtyard with a large yin/yang symbol in the middle, and it is structured in a way similar to the White Tower, as though it is a version of that designed to accommodate both male and female Aes Sedai.)
Padan Fain suggests to Perrin that the world needs a balance between light and dark.
As a Trolloc army approaches Fal Dara, the best scene of the episode happens when Lady Amalisa (Sandra Yi Sencindiver) and Lord Agelmar (Thomas Chaanhing) have a discussion amazingly similar to the one at the start of things between The Dragon Reborn and the Amyrlin Seat. Amalisa keeps telling her brother that the gap won’t hold, and he keeps ignoring her. Then she suggests that he should wear his father’s armour, which had protected all its wearers effectively in many previous battles. Agelmar petulantly insists upon wearing his own armour, and further insists that the men should try to hold the gap while the women stay behind to hold the city in case they fail, as it has been done “for a thousand years”.
The gap is breached in a matter of hours, and all the men are killed. Egwene (Madeleine Madden), Lady Amalisa, Nynaeve (Zoรซ Robins), and two other women join together to use the One Power to destroy the Trollocs. It would have been a much better strategy to put these five at the gap, keeping the men in the city to avoid having Padan Fain (Johann Myers) and his infiltrators capture the Horn of Valere (which is what happened). Lady Amalisa is very powerful, but she was rejected by the White Tower and we find out why. Once the Trollocs are destroyed, she cannot turn off the power, and because of that, she and those with her die, except for Egwene. (Nynaeve seems to die after drawing the power flow from Egwene into herself.) Unable to accept this result, Egwene heals her friend.
Ishmael (Fares Fares) and (right) Lews Theron Telamon (Alexander Karim) — Karim is also Dr. Sigur Johansen in the German TV series THE SWARM, based on the novel by Frank Schรคtzing.
When Perrin begins to question the Way of the Leaf and is looking for some way to help in the battle, Loial (Hammad Animashaun) explains that there are always options other than violence, and then delivers the best line of the episode: “In my own experience, if you want to help but don’t know how, all you need to do is ask.” Perrin finds out where he is needed, and assists in digging out the Horn of Valere (an artifact that will likely be important next season) from its hiding place under the throne. Then Fain and his infiltrators attack, and Loial is stabbed several times.
Padan Fain has a chat with Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) before he leaves the city with the Horn, and puts forward the notion that the Dark is needed for balance in the world (shades of THE CHARMED ONES). Fain also predicts that some, if not all, of the Five from Two Rivers will turn to the Dark.
Min Farshaw (Kae Alexander) leaves Fal Dara before the battle, on the back of a wagon . She foresaw the death of Nynaeve but told no one.
Rand (Josha Stradowski) encounters a personification of The Dark One (Ishmael, played by Fares Fares) at the Eye of the World and is shown a bucolic version of reality which includes a domesticated version of Egwene (what Ishmael thinks Rand really wants). Then Ishmael explains to Rand how much power he actually has: “Did no one tell you what you can do? About the power inside you? You can remake the world in your image. Make it whatever you want it to be.”
Rand pretends to succumb to temptation, allowing himself to be instructed in the use of the One Power, and then focuses his channeling into an amplifying artifact given to him by Moiraine (Rosamund Pike). He directs a blast at Ishmael and apparently sends him somewhere. Rand believes that The Dark One has been permanently vanquished, but, in an effort to avoid harming others when the inevitable madness takes him over, he tells Moiraine that he is leaving for parts unknown and she should let others believe he has died.
Lan’s adoptive family (played by Michael D’cruze and Madiana Day) greets him in Fal Dara (Episode 1.7). The unnamed Malkieri woman on the right (played by Dรฉrancie Baรฏtoukou) is also one of the five women who destroy the Trolloc army in the season finale.
When Lan (Daniel Henney), who learned from Nynaeve how to track Moiraine, arrives at the Eye, she explains that Ishmael has made her unable to touch The Source. (Moiraine has been either shielded, stilled, or both.) She voices her fear that this was not the last battle, but the first.
The episode closes with the arrival on the far western coast of at least thirty ships with red sails and elaborately carved prows. The women on board are wearing some sort of war paint, and speak a foreign language. With all ships working in unison, they channel the sea in front of them into a giant wave that is sure to overwhelm the shoreline. One lone, unthreatening girl stands on the beach. The wave should cause the ships to run aground.