The Wheel of Time Season 2 Trailer Teases Selene, Elayne and Epic ‘Last Battle’ — Here’s Our Deep Dive
It’s been nearly 19 months since the Season 1 finale of Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time, based on Robert Jordan’s fantasy series. With Season 2 set to premiere on Friday, Sept. 1 (a release pattern has yet to be revealed), we until now only seen a few photos and a brief teaser of what’s to come.
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But the first trailer for Season 2 arrived on Wednesday morning (press play above), and with it comes a whole host of revelations for fans to chew on….
Showrunner Rafe Judkins has already made it clear that the only way to realistically adapt 14 long books into a single TV series is to consolidate a lot of the story material across Robert Jordan’s expansive saga. So even though Season 1 focused mostly on The Eye of the World, the first book in the series, Season 2 will mainly focus on the second and third book. We finally get to see characters who should’ve been introduced in Season 1 but were saved for subsequent seasons due to time constraints and thematic pacing. Most notably, perhaps, is our brief glimpse of Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney), the plucky princess of Andor turned Aes Sedai apprentice, who shows up alongside Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) in what is probably the White Tower of Tar Valon.
Additionally, the trailer emphasizes the threat of the Seanchan and their sinister method of channeling the One Power through enslaved Aes Sedai. We also get what might be our first official look at Selene (Natasha O’Keeffe), a major character introduced in Book 2, The Great Hunt. Selene will certainly be integral to the perilous, ongoing journey of Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski), also known as the Dragon Reborn. The man who will either save the world or destroy it. And that angst is clear to see from several shots of the trailer, where Rand looks determined, but quite uneasy about all the battles he’s about to face now that word of his existence has begun to spread.
‘Everyone has a choice, and every choice has a consequence.‘
Of course, it’s no surprise to see the trailer kick off with Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), who will likely receive an expanded role in the adaptation compared to what her character was up to in the books at this point. Her passionate romance with Siuan Sanche (Sophie Okonedo), leader of the Aes Sedai, gets further attention as we see in a quick shot. And we also see her riding off into the night and arguing with her trusted Warder, Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney) about how “the only thing that matters” is “protecting” and “guiding” Rand. That’ll be hard to do since last we left her, she had mysteriously lost her powers.
The trailer also gives us an extended look at what our central cast — the Emond’s Field Five — will have to endure this season.
Rand appears to be training his newfound abilities and encountering some dangerous enemies and friends. Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) is off on his own adventure discovering more about his wolf side. Egwene and Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins) are continuing their training in Tar Valon, and we actually see them confronting one of the key trials all Aes Sedai novices must face in order to progress. And Mat Cauthon (recast this season with Dónal Finn) appears only briefly in a few shots. We see him apparently still trying to shake off the dagger that cursed him, and in another rapid cut we see him using a quarterstaff against an unseen enemy — perhaps a moment straight out of Book 3?
‘Together, we face the impossible.‘
Despite the ta’veren gang being split up at the start, we at least know that Rand will confront Siuan Sanche at the White Tower, hinting a possible reunion with Egwene, Nynaeve, and maybe also Moiraine and Lan. Though it’s also conceivable that he will go here later in the season, while Egwene and Nynaeve are in Toman Head, far to the western coast, in order to save the Aes Sedai who’ve been captured by the Seanchan.
Speaking of which, we also see one of their leaders, possibly High Lord Turak, earlier in the trailer examining something that must be extraordinary, perhaps the powerful Horn of Valere.
Naturally, the big bad of the series gets his due as well. Moiraine mentions that in the previous season, they “didn’t defeat the Dark One,” also known as Ba’alzamon (Fares Fares), they “set him free.” And in the trailer we see him showing off his enormous power and apparently building influence with the Seanchan.
Additionally, we see Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood), the prickly Red Ajah, up to something almost certainly horrible. Rand, likely at the White Tower, converses about wanting to control his power with Logain Ablar (Álvaro Morte), the man who previously believed he was the Dragon Reborn before getting captured by the Aes Sedai and losing his ability to channel. And what would a Wheel of Time trailer be without at least one look at a Fade?
‘The Last Battle’s coming.‘
When Rand speaks with Siuan at the end of the trailer, it’s a pivotal moment. The leader of the Aes Sedai emphasizes how Rand is not a “spoke” on the metaphorical “wheel” symbolizing this world’s cycle of destruction and rebirth. He is the “water that turns the wheel itself.” We see him simultaneously flowing between what are likely visions of his turmoil — at one point he’s even strapped to a literal wheel in the middle of nowhere — and a true facedown with who we presume to be Turak and his army. So there’s no question that this season’s building up to an absolutely bombastic climax that will probably surprise everyone, even some longtime readers.
It’ll be interesting to see if Judkins and his team have saved a lot of the major plot of The Dragon Reborn for the second half of Season 2, and we’re mainly seeing the first section so far. It’s also possible that they’re letting Book 2 have the climax and giving Book 3 more of a soft adaptation of Rand’s general struggle with accepting his fate. Either way, we’ll have to wait until Sept. 1 to find out.
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