In the opinion of myself and many many others the pacing of episode 2 was far to fast, it carry’s on from episode 1 in that it doesn’t really help you engage with the main characters, yes you understand white cloaks are bad, yes you get the rules but did the uninformed viewer really learn enough to start getting invested in our hero’s. It doesn’t help that the group travel for days on end without making that clear, you see them spend 2 nights before shadar with no mention that they have been traveling much longer. 
 

Matts finding of the dagger is also awkward to explain, I watched the episode with 3 people who have never read the books and that one scene instantly made them laugh at the stupidity of it, he just happened to find a dagger and take it despite the warning not 30 seconds before. 
 

Personally I also would have liked to have seen more of Fain in this episode, for the sake of a few mins you could have shown him amongst the Trollocs (as he is in the books at this point in time). That could then have led at the end to seeing him exit the city the sounds of Trollocs slowly dwindling as one by one they are killed, he looks back and walks off into the dark. The audience understand then that he is a bad guy and important. 
 

These first 2 “pilot” episodes make WOT feel like a low budget Sci Fi channel series and not the crown jewel of Amazons play list. In this day and age when streaming services are delivering quality content like See, The Boys, the Expanse and Foundation that come out of the gates running hard this is unforgivable. If Season one had a 15 episode count then we could forgive an opening couple of episodes that driver poor pacing, dialogue and effects (some of the Trolloc outfits look like a guy in a gorilla suit). But we don’t, one quarter of the season has instead been eaten up by this poor start, this feels very much like John Carter of Mars as opposed to Star Wars right now.

I thoroughly enjoyed episode 1 and I liked episode 2 even better. With episode 1, we see that Mat stole a gold bracelet so that he could buy laterns for his sisters. We see that Mat and his family is poor and he is a gambler. In Shadar Logoth, Mat leaves the building where Moiraine and Lan are resting after Rand and Egwene go exploring. 

A shadow of Madashar lures Mat into another building when he goes exploring. That shadow lure leads Mat to the ruby dagger. So seeing how the show has set up Mat's character, it fits his character that he is tempted to leave Perrin, Lan, and Moiraine. 

My biggest pet peeve is that a white cloak recomends going to an Aes Sedai for healing, just after we see them killing Aes Sedais for no obvious reason.

The severity of the wond could have been presented to the viewers by Lan, or one of the emonds fielders question.

8 hours ago, GanoesParan said:

I thoroughly enjoyed episode 1 and I liked episode 2 even better. With episode 1, we see that Mat stole a gold bracelet so that he could buy laterns for his sisters. We see that Mat and his family is poor and he is a gambler. In Shadar Logoth, Mat leaves the building where Moiraine and Lan are resting after Rand and Egwene go exploring. 

A shadow of Madashar lures Mat into another building when he goes exploring. That shadow lure leads Mat to the ruby dagger. So seeing how the show has set up Mat's character, it fits his character that he is tempted to leave Perrin, Lan, and Moiraine. 

In the show there is no shadow luring Matt he just finds the dagger 

There are a number of things wrong with this episode’s portrayal of our favorite series. One of the biggest is Bornhold telling Moiraine to seek Aes Sedai assistance. Never in a million years would he do that. If the reviewer believes they did this to display the conflict between the Questioners and the Whitecloaks, I believe this could have been accomplished with as simple a thing as Geofram condemning the way Eamon killed the Yellow. A quick “why are you wasting our time with these elaborate executions? just kill the witch and let us be on our way” while Valda scowled at the back of a retreating Bornhold, would have established the same thing without destroying the essence of the Whitecloaks.  Second is Moiraine’s feigned deferential attitude towards the Whitecloaks. In the series Moiraine did not invite unnecessary attention or danger upon the group but neither did she EVER cower or stoop below the standards befitting her station as an Aes Sedai.  I disagree with the reviewers comment regarding toxic masculinity. One of the things that I love about this series and which makes it enjoyable to read repeatedly is the fact that Jordan had ridiculously strong female leads. He portrayed women in a way that demonstrated not only their capacity for kindness and nurturing. But also their intelligence, cunning, ruthlessness and raw power. While reading the series I never once got the impression that the women were any less…well anything than the men. But this series tries to pander to the whims of our current time by making the women boastfully stronger and more prevalent then the men.  In the books Jordan used Lan to “lead” the party out of the Two Rivers with his actions and his words. But it was always clear whose bidding he was doing and who was really in control. That silence, the idea that mundane trivial matters were beneath her efforts, is what made Moiraine (and subsequent Aes Sedai) such strong and effective characters. So far in this series I believe Rosamund Pike is asserting her influence to place herself too far into the spotlight and is accomplishing nothing but alienating the audience. I did however enjoy the Shadar Logoth sequence. With not having Nynaeve and Thom in the scenes, the way it played out did not seem bad to me. I believe this Matt would totally have stolen the dagger despite the warning “not 30 seconds ago”. Because he is a thieving scoundrel. The real Matt never stole a thing.  But apparently this Matt does. ??‍♂️?

6 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

In the show there is no shadow luring Matt he just finds the dagger 

I believe if you watch that scene again that you will see a shadowy figure for just a second. 

3 hours ago, GanoesParan said:

I believe if you watch that scene again that you will see a shadowy figure for just a second. 

It really should have been made clearer, I watched the episode with 3 people who have not read the books and all 3 of them scoffed at Matt simply wandering off despite Lans warning and stumbling across a box with a knife in it, and then picking it up. I actually had to pause the show and explain what happens in the book to try and give them some context, they all agreed that it wouldn't have taken much to replicate that in the show, so no the shadow wasn't obvious.

6 hours ago, FanofKnotai said:

There are a number of things wrong with this episode’s portrayal of our favorite series. One of the biggest is Bornhold telling Moiraine to seek Aes Sedai assistance. Never in a million years would he do that. If the reviewer believes they did this to display the conflict between the Questioners and the Whitecloaks, I believe this could have been accomplished with as simple a thing as Geofram condemning the way Eamon killed the Yellow. A quick “why are you wasting our time with these elaborate executions? just kill the witch and let us be on our way” while Valda scowled at the back of a retreating Bornhold, would have established the same thing without destroying the essence of the Whitecloaks.  Second is Moiraine’s feigned deferential attitude towards the Whitecloaks. In the series Moiraine did not invite unnecessary attention or danger upon the group but neither did she EVER cower or stoop below the standards befitting her station as an Aes Sedai.  I disagree with the reviewers comment regarding toxic masculinity. One of the things that I love about this series and which makes it enjoyable to read repeatedly is the fact that Jordan had ridiculously strong female leads. He portrayed women in a way that demonstrated not only their capacity for kindness and nurturing. But also their intelligence, cunning, ruthlessness and raw power. While reading the series I never once got the impression that the women were any less…well anything than the men. But this series tries to pander to the whims of our current time by making the women boastfully stronger and more prevalent then the men.  In the books Jordan used Lan to “lead” the party out of the Two Rivers with his actions and his words. But it was always clear whose bidding he was doing and who was really in control. That silence, the idea that mundane trivial matters were beneath her efforts, is what made Moiraine (and subsequent Aes Sedai) such strong and effective characters. So far in this series I believe Rosamund Pike is asserting her influence to place herself too far into the spotlight and is accomplishing nothing but alienating the audience. I did however enjoy the Shadar Logoth sequence. With not having Nynaeve and Thom in the scenes, the way it played out did not seem bad to me. I believe this Matt would totally have stolen the dagger despite the warning “not 30 seconds ago”. Because he is a thieving scoundrel. The real Matt never stole a thing.  But apparently this Matt does. ??‍♂️?

I don't think this is Rosamund Pike, I think this is all Rafe and his creative decisions 

Whitecloaks in the books were Not a unit to be underestimated.  They were pieces of shit but could kill anyone they wanted except aes sedai that were on guard.  I mean they could only hang 1 amyrlin seat because she was already dead by arrows.  It isn’t until gawains half brother kills the lord commander and finally takes over the whitecloaks that they actually became a military threat to the dark one!

On 11/21/2021 at 7:49 AM, Sir_Charrid said:

In the show there is no shadow luring Matt he just finds the dagger 

Go watch again and you will see the shadow getting his attention and leading him away. 

Characters continue to act out of character and the plot wanders further from the actual story.

Why can’t the OP reviewer give an actual critical review instead of this baseless praise?