The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 5 Review: Damane

Moiraine and Rand flee from Lanfear, a dangerous forsaken.

The Wheel of Time continuously hints at all of the characters coming together, and The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 5 proved no different.

Now some of our heroes are still in (and headed to) Cairhien, while some are in (and headed to) Falme.

Moiraine and Rand thankfully led Lanfear in the wrong direction, but Moiraine revealed one of the powerful Forsaken’s powers: Tel’aran’rhiod.

She can enter their dreams while they sleep, and do as much damage to them there as she could in the physical world.

Entering someone’s dreams while they sleep, and potentially harming them sounds terrifying, and apparently, Lanfear is super powerful.

We got a hint of her power when she entered Ishamael’s dream later on in the hour, and they discussed their plans and why Ishamael revived her.

Meanwhile, the novices are taken by Liandrin to some familiar enemies this season: The Seanchan Empire.

She revealed that she is also working with Ishamael, but she and the head general of the Seanchan army do not get along. Before Liandrin left, she secretly used the One Power to free Nynaeve from her binds, and woke the girls up.

We now know a lot more about Liandrin than we did on The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 4, as do a few of our main characters.

While Nynaeve and Elayne got away, Egwene did not manage to run fast enough and got captured by the powerful Seanchan summoners.

Nynaeve and Elayne found themselves in Falme, which excited Nynaeve (because supposedly that was where Loial and Perrin were), but Elayne kept her head, making sure they didn’t get caught.

But they did get caught. A man grabbed the two girls, knocking them out and taking them with him.

When they awoke, we were grateful to find out that an Aes Sedai’s warder grabbed them, and kept them safe in their home.

Sadly, Egwene got collared by the Seanchan.

While we aren’t exactly sure what the collars do, we know they affect the power of someone who can channel.

Egwene was put in pain by the collar, with her power being controlled by someone. We don’t know exactly what these collars do, but either way, we felt awful for Egwene.

We know that the Seanchan take channelers seriously, and only let the strongest and best ones live, so Egwene will have her work cut out for her if she wants to survive.

We know she’s a powerful woman, so hopefully, she manages to hold her own against the cruel invaders.

We also know Nynaeve is nearby and won’t lie down quietly, and another Two Rivers friend is on his way.

Perrin continued traveling with Elyas before he realized that Elyas was taking him the wrong way on purpose.

Perrin got angry and stormed off, and ended up in the town that the Seanchan attacked that now got taken over by the White Cloaks.

We haven’t seen the White Cloaks since The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 5, and even though they are the “children of light,” they always creeped us out.

One of the White Cloaks helped Perrin a bit and told him to stay away from the dead bodies and the living girl in the cage, but Perrin wanted to help the woman.

He freed the woman, named Aviendha, and the white Cloaks attacked them. Luckily, Aviendha is a hardcore badass and took care of most of the White Cloaks, with Perrin assisting.

They started traveling together toward Falme, and while we liked her because of her badass skills, we couldn’t help but feel that Perrin trusted her way too quickly.

This is a world where he’d get hunted for being a Wolfbrother and has been separated from his friends for the entire season thus far.

Trusting a random woman who just took out a large group of armed men may prove to be a good thing, or she may turn on him. Only time will tell (although, if he’s headed to Falme, he may need someone super strong on his side).

Falme is crawling with the warriors and soldiers of the Seanchan, and anyone who goes against them really has their work cut out.

Verin, someone most likely working for Moiraine, came out of retirement to return to the tower, and most likely be Moiraine’s eyes.

Her light snooping in the Tower led her to find out quickly that someone in the White Tower swore their allegiance to the dark side, with one of her friends determining that the Black Ajah was real.

Verin: Do you think it might look like this if a weave of compulsion was being used?Yassica: Compulsion? But that would break the three oaths! It would mean that someone in the tower has sworn to the dark. That Black Ajah really exists.

While they didn’t know who the darkfriend was, Verin had a hunch that it was Liandrin (and we know the truth, Liandrin is dark, we just don’t know how far she’ll go as a darkfriend yet).

Liandrin’s plan worked, and her cover story seemed believable, but we don’t think that her story is going to last long.

We really love to hate her, though, because as mentioned, she’s seriously been a highlight of The Wheel of Time Season 2, so while she did put the other girls in danger, she had to have a good reason, right?

The only thing missing from this episode was an update on Mat and Min.

With the story jumping around to all of the different characters’ storylines, someone always seems to get left out.

This go around Mat and Min got the short end of the stick with no update on their journey to Cairhien. We want to know what’s going to happen!

We’ve had the issue of scattered storylines with limited updates since the beginning of the season, and our big complaint from The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 1 was the limited screen time for each character.

We understand the scope of the story but also feel that there must have been a more productive way to tell the stories this season.

The scattered plots can become super frustrating, especially when there’s not enough time for all the different characters to get an update.

So Fanatics, what did you think of the episode?

Can you believe that there are only three episodes left in the season?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

The Wheel of Time airs on Fridays on Prime Video.

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Michael Stack is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.