Review- Shadow and Bone Season 2

 

There’s definitely a different feel to this second season not least the episode specific episode openings. Shadow and Bone doesn’t really seem to have a title theme but each instalment shows a differently designed logo. The gets off to an exhilarating start compared to the slow manner in which the first season began. It looks like the production has more of a handle on the best way to present the material with a fluidity of narrative and more interesting locales. By part two we’re already hunting a creature called a Sea Whip in a thrilling underwater cavern sequence. Like some mythical sea monster from one of those old maps it proves a formidable foe and a visual powerhouse in what is the best encounter of the whole series to that  point. Everything looks promising.

 

There are some additional characters this season to add variety while others have been rebooted. Foremost amongst them is Danielle Galagan’s Zena who spent much of last season either tied up in a swaying boat or traipsing across wintry hills with her former captor Matthias. Freed of such restraints she is the key to making the Crows really take flight. As mentioned before the idea of a series with them is something to be encouraged but though they keep out of the main action early on their quest for revenge on the vicious Pekka Rollins ( Dean Lennox Kelly being superbly unlikeable) is tangibly fierce and more than enough to hang a series on. Ducking and diving in the steampunk Victoriana of the city of Ketterdam the band’s travails are unpredictable, clever and very  watchable. So much so that is’ almost a shame when we have to go back to the main storyline though even this is heating up.

With Kirigan mostly confined to brooding in the company of flickering candles, cowering acolytes and super scary shadow monsters, we find Alina and Mal on their mission to find another Amplifier to boost her powers . They soon run into a self styled privateer sporting bright green togs and the cavalier attitude of Errol Flynn in his heyday. Patrick Gibson makes what could be a clichéd role into something much more. While the character s no pushover the excitement with which he approaches adventure is straight from the films of another age and a refreshing change. Amusingly in part here we learn of his true identity as Prince Nikolai which explains why his privateer guise has been so hyper. His presence allows the narrative to pick up from the default brooding setting it’s thus far been in. This swashbuckling approach is further unfurled in a third episode which features a flying boat and its in this unlikely vessel which heads straight into the Fold in the sort of sequence you might expect in a finale. Needless to say even with two amplifiers Alina is still unable to overcome this phenomena.

I get a sense that this season is pitching towards a slightly older audience. The awkwardness of potential romance between some characters is largely kept to one side in favour of harder hitting action. In this episode we get two fabulously staged dust ups, both homages to filmic tradition. One brawl is a high octane take on the standard Western trope of a stranger walking into a bar and picking a fight but this is a rougher, rowdier one than you ever saw in those old films. Brekker’s cane proves to be quite the weapon. The other draws from martial arts movies as Inej gymnastically defends herself.

The plot finds a more absorbing arc for Kirigan whose affected by his survival and the presence of the huge monsters. I feel more could have been made of this later on. The Crows’ feud with Rollins reaches a peak especailly when Brekker’s reasons for hating Rollins so much (well apart from the fact he is a complete thug) are revealed. Brekker is a difficult character to like which is the idea I suppose. What the story seems to be saying is that only someone as violent as Rollins can bring him down. It does unbalance the series though in that Rollins is a far more terrifying character than Kirigan for all his powers. Rollins is the sort of person we are more likely to meet in real life. Episode four appears to wind up the Rollins vendetta for now with something of a pleasing victory for the Crows and equal comedown for Rollins himself. The tense confrontation is works well and clearly Brekker’s constitution is more robust than it looks given the hammering he gets before his victory.

The episode’s other set piece is a chaotic attack on the day of Nikolai and Alina’s strategic wedding. They’re not in love, well they’re not supposed to be anyway, but this will unite the realms in true feudal fashion. Because Nikolai’s idiot brother invites too many people Kriigna finds out and sends his monsters. Its basically your average chaotic wedding with added shadow monsters chucking people about. Very effectively assembled the sequence highlights the visual strengths of the creatures which resemble moving fog and have a nasty roar. Like many a fantasy creature their power does vary depending on the exigencies of the plot so they can pop up or, wander through walls at one point yet later can’t negotiate some collapsed masonry.

So far so good but something odd happens with episode five which seems like it is a truncation of two scripts that for some reason had to be spliced together. Each of the developments that occur happen out of the blue sometimes as if whole scenes are missing. Mal‘s return happens without proper explanation and nobody, not even he, seems bothered. Yet his being poleaxed and bundled off for a trial seemed was a major cliffhanger last episode and we see nothing of what happened before he pops off again. Likewise, Inej is out of the Crows and then back in after a couple of conversations while Jesper and Wylan’s fall out is so perfunctory and happens in the middle of other events. We also have Rollins in prison becoming top dog in a record five minutes in a sequence that we’ve seen before in many a prison drama and it just seems a little old and unlikely. What hold does he have on all these people? That’s not to say that fast moving drama is a bad thing, it just feels like either we’re missing out on some crucial material or there was trouble fitting everything in.

Conversely the episode also contains are some of the strongest scenes the show has yet offered. Mal and Alina’s argument is the most heartfelt and raw we’ve yet seen between them showing what the actors can do if given strong enough material. It is honestly the first time I’ve really understood what Mal is about, what drives him. There’s some equally good stuff between prince Nikolai and his mother which paints some of the darker side of what everyone is supposed to see as an idyllic  monarchy and shows the things he will have to do to rebuild it.

Another of those surreal Alina and Kirigan encounters is one of the best too feeling as if we are getting somewhere. Always good, Jessie Mei Li is really growing into the role of Alina now offering a lot of light and shade to a character torn between the extraordinary and ordinary. Its pleasing that Zoe Wanamaker is getting more to do and she adds a practical feistiness to a character that could easily be either too regretful or too crazy. She and the writers pitch her in between and she is always an actor who delivers.

With the Grisha hiding in catacombs lit by torches, the shadowy mental encounters between Alina and Kiriigan and the Crow’s night time raid the overall feel of the episode is atmospheric and often in semi darkness. The whole looks of the place tye Crows target to find a magical sword that can cut through shadows is rather too obviously Japanese whereas other places we’ve visited are a bit more of a cultural mix and match. The raid suggests the Crows are either very unlucky or bad planners because once again it all goes pear shaped leaving them trapped in an effective cliffhanger.

Part six is extremely well assembled starting slowly and unravelling towards a crescendo that reveals some interesting developments loosely based around the theme of what we do for love. As the Crows lie unconscious from the poison each has visions of love and harmony, a contrast to the parlous condition they are in. Their means of rescue has to be one of the more original in any series and chimes with the senses of nature. That it comes from Wylan, a character who usually blows things up is even more interesting. The resolution is an intellectual idea for sure and if its action you want that, too, is just around the corner when they are back awake and have to face the woman we (and they) assumed was the Discipline. The reveal of the truth of scenario playa out somewhat poignantly into the earlier theme. Though these experiences open up Jesper and Wylan’s relationship, Kaz and Inej remain in denial.  Really though, his dourness and her inscrutability- they are made for each other! I can’t imagine after dinner chat would be very loquacious.

Elsewhere the quest for the Firebird has even more unusual twists to it so that by the episode’s end Zoe Wannamaker’s Baghra is gone for good (and what an asset she has been to the show) but not before dropping a humdinger as to the identity of the third Amplifier. Its Mel.  Yes, I did gasp. Only because the series has done a good job hiding this where a lot of them would take the character into a corner and he’d here voices or someone would babble to him about his destiny. There are probably several clues a second watch would reveal and of course I realised later its obvious if you look at the promotional poster where he appears to be sporting golden wings which is a spoiler in plain sight. It sets up a potentially tragic scenario as Alina needs to kill the Firebird to gain enough power to overcome Kirigan and the Fold. Everyone brings their A game to this episode and even if you find all the familial connections a tad unlikely you can’t deny that tying things together the way they have makes the prospect for the remaining two episodes very juicy indeed.

Episode seven is a tremendous action piece as the opposing forces finally meet. This is always a rewarding part of any series after the villains have been saying what they will do and the protagonists making plans to stop them it is great when they all get into it. This is an especially fine example of how to maximise the action without sacrificing the characters because by this stage there are a lot of them. The direction is lean and fluid- one sequence sees the camera gliding through multiple fights – while inventive use is made of the location. The action is given added import by Kirigan moving the Fold so that those creatures get involved as well. The best scene takes place in a darkened courtyard lit only by a hazy blue shadow as people are picked off. All told this episode really delivers what you’d expect from a series packed with people who can wield elemental powers.

Of course they- and we- are waiting for the Crows to turn up with that sword and its only when they do that the tables are turned on Kirigan’s amplified cohorts in a sequence not without humour despite the grimness of what’s happened. For the finale we are , naturally, back inside the Fold and though you can guess what will happen when Alina and Mel try to use his amplification to make her stronger without killing him as she’s supposed to, it still offers a good cliffhanger for the finale.

Episode eight gets the main business out of the way in the first half hour with a powerful resolution that sees the apparent final end of Kirigan and the demolition of the Fold. Even Mel gets brought back to life which rather undermines last week’s tension but with this denouement there also comes the realization there’s still about forty minutes to go.

So what they do is basically play out what is like the start of a third season, setting up plotlines, moving people around and so on. I’m not sure of the wisdom of that especially as a third season does not at tme of writing seem very likely thanks to Netlfix being more ruthless than Pekka Rollins. Even if it was after a gap people will probably have forgotten much of this. It makes the episode somewhat unbalanced as well with an opening sequence that is exciting followed by a lengthy series of goodbyes and summing up and then a shock climax. Readers of the novels seem less satisfied with this second season whereas for the viewer with no knowledge of the books like myself it seems mostly better constructed and definitely more exciting.