Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 53

 Going to the mountains to find a demon.

Last time on X-Man: The Animated Series, Scott had a western adventure. He traveled out to Skull Mesa, a Mutant sanctuary built by his and Charles’ friend Dr. Taylor Prescott. He was going there to both drop off a statue made for him by two of Prescott’s former students and to check up on him as the man suddenly disappeared two weeks ago. He’s shot down by a man named Watchdog working for Braddock, a crime boss that had taken over Skull Mesa. Scott survived but discovered that his powers weren’t working. He made it to town with the help of Dr. Darelle Tanaka. Once there he finds Skull Mesa to be a very inhospitable place and seems to be stalked by Braddock and his henchmen Chet and Toad. He asks one too many questions and is kidnapped by them, where Braddock reveals he's the one that took Prescott in order to take over the town and it’s goldmine. Scott escapes mostly because Braddock, or Solarr as he goes by from then on, doesn’t consider him a threat. Scott tries to get the townies to help him but they’re all too scared to move against Solarr and his people. He’s eventually caught again and taken to be execute at noon by Solarr. During the preamble to the execution, Scott finally gets the people to rally against Solarr, several of them free and defend him long enough for Darelle to use his power to make Scott immune to Watchdog’s, who’s power was blocking Scotts. With his optic blasts back, Scott makes quick work of Solarr and Watchdog changes teams and frees Prescott. Scott offers to see Solarr and his cronies taken to jail but Prescott insists that they be tried locally, and that Scott get some ice cream with him while they wait for the X-Men to pick him up. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open on a small German village during a thunderstorm. The townsfolk are whipping up a mob so they can track down and kill this ‘horrible monster’ with fangs and claws. We see a creature bamf onto the local Abbey building and crawl around in the dark of night to get a better look. A woman sees him and screams, causing everyone to try to attack this… crawler of the night. … Ya, it’s Kurt Wager, the incredible Nightcrawler. Kurt get’s knocked from the building as they shoot at him, but easily evades the mob, leaping and tumbling through the air just out of their reach. They almost catch him in an alley but then he teleports away to hide on a roof. Despite the fact he wasn’t in any real danger, he seems shaken up by the experience and quotes that bible verse about not judging people for they know not what they do.

 

The next day we cut to a ski resort where Gambit is complaining to Rogue about the trip. Not that they’re on it, exactly, but because he was under the impression this was going to be a more… romantic outing, but Rogue invited Logan around too. He claims not to be happy about it either as he likes skiing, not sitting in a hotel drinking coco and getting funny looks from rich people. Rogue storms off, saying that they can plan their own vacations next time and Gambit goes to soothe her, telling Logan that he hopes he’s happy. Logan mutters that he doesn’t know the meaning of the word when he hears some other guests talking about a ‘demon’ being sighted in town. The guests don’t believe it, but Logan is drawn over and asks to hear more. Meanwhile, Gambit tries to convince Rogue to run away with him to Monte Carlo so he can make it up to her about being a grump earlier. Logan interrupts, dropping some cash at the bar. Rogue asks where he’s going, and he says ‘Demon Hunting, wanna come?’

 

That evening we see Rogue and Logan skiing across the snow, Rogue eventually asking how far “Neuherzl” is. Logan says it’s only a few more miles. Rogue suggests maybe she should fly them, but Logan snorts and asks if she really wants to ruin Gumbo’s fun. Gambit then skis over, stumbling the whole way before landing at their feet and saying that they didn’t do much skiing on the bayou. Rogue offers to help him up, but Gambit says he’s got this, right before sliding down the hill backwards. Rogue and Logan try to follow him, but Gambit hits a tree and then accidentally charges it and blows it up. The explosion knocks Logan and Rogue to the ground. Rogue flies over to help him as Logan trudges through the snow, muttering how ludicrous it is that Gambit can face off against Magneto or Apocalypse but not a damn pine tree. And then he notices the wall of snow hurtling towards them because of course this caused an avalanche. Rogue flies over and grabs him but can’t get clear before the snow hits and buries them. Thankfully she got them high enough that Logan could just dig them out. He sees a Abbey in the distance.

 

Sometime later, Rogue wakes up to a Catholic monk telling her not to worry. They’re in the Neuherzl Abbey, which is home to 20 monks, and the monk is Brother Michael. He says they minister to lots of ski accident victims. Logan arrives and Rogue asks how Remy is. Logan says he’ll be hurting a while but he’ll be fine. He sniffs out someone spying on them and calls the guy out, Michael saying this is Brother Reinhard. He asks Reinhard to take them to the visiting rooms. Reinhard asks if it’s a ‘good time’ to have guests, but Michael insists they help those in need. Rogue points out that as this is a Abbey, she’s likely the only woman here. Michael confirms this and asks if she’d be alright trading her shredding ski suit for something a little… less eye catching, to which she agrees. As they’re led off, we see Kurt watching from the rafters.

 

After Rogue changes into some monk’s robes, we cut into the dining hall where Michael warns his guests to be careful of which doors they open as some of the upper-level ones open onto thin air, a side effect of it being damaged during the war. Rogue asks another Monk, Johann what monks do besides praying and ministering. Johann says that this Abbey is focused on doing good works and give shelter and comfort for travelers. Michael says that they also provide a place for folks to renew their faith with the Lord. Logan is a little less interested in spiritual enlightenment and asks about the demon he’s heard rumors of, causing Reinhard to drop several plates he'd been carrying. Michael claims that it’s just a rumor from the town below and he’s personally never seen a demon. Rogue says she needs to check on Gambit.

 

We find Gambit asleep when a monk comes in and grabs some kind of chemical from a closet and prepares to use it on Gambit. Rogue comes in and interrupts him. The monk, throws the jar at her, causing a smokescreen and runs. Rogue chases after him, throwing off her robe and flying when it’s clear she can’t keep up. She follows the monk into the dangerous section of the Abbey, Reinhard seeing and saying that she must be in league with the demon. She opens the door and nearly stumbles into the open air. Dangerous for most people but only a minor inconvenience for her. The monk doesn’t know this and grabs her, causing them both to fall over the side. The monk teleports them, disappearing in a cloud of smoke in a bamf. They reappear on the roof and Rogue sees his face. She gasps at his blue furry mug, but he tells her not to panic. Logan attacks the monk, slashing at him despite Kurt not wanting to fight and saying as much. After Logan nearly skewers him, Kurt asks if they can just talk. Logan takes his proffered hand and throws him against a wall, knocking him out. He goes to finish the demon, but Michael steps in and asks him not to hurt Kurt, who is his brother.

 

We return to Gambit’s room where Michael explains that Kurt is a monk and thus is Michael’s Ecclesiastical brother. Also, they refer to him exclusively as “Brother Nightcrawler” but… come on, it’s Kurt Wagner. I did 50 episodes of X-Men: Evolution referring to him by his name, I’m not switching to his codename now. Kurt apologizes for startling Rogue, she accepts the apology. After some comments about Monte Carlo from an awakened Gambit, and confirming that Kurt wasn’t the monk from the start of the altercation in Gambit’s room, Logan demands to know if Kurt is the demon. Kurt says yes… technically. Reinhard, who was listening from the hall, gasps at that admission. He is the creature the townsfolk are spreading rumors about, but he isn’t a demon, he’s a Mutant. But unlike most Mutants, his condition was obvious from his birth. We flashback to when he was born, his father and a maid gasping at his blue skin and three fingered hands. He says that the villagers drove his mother away for bearing a freak. He never knew her name, but the show lets us see his red haired otherwise normal looking mother shapeshift back into Mystique’s iconic blue look. Mystique took him into the wilderness and Mosesed him down a river. He was found by the Wagner Family Circus and adopted, becoming Nightcrawler. He was their star attraction, as his demonic look and natural agility made him a born acrobat. He had his fun, but his looks kept people at bay when the shows were over. While he’s sad that so many people can’t look beyond his appearance, he found peace with his lot in life upon opening his heart to God and being led to the monastery. He says the monks care about the character of his heart not his appearances. This seems to infuriate Logan, who, ya know, has some justifiable anger towards the big man upstairs. He says that as Mutants, God gave up on them a long time ago. Kurt tries to tell him that God doesn’t give up on His children regardless of their birth, but Logan angrily says to not give him that easy answer garbage. He says that he doesn’t need a sermon and storms off. Kurt apologizes and says he didn’t mean to upset anyone. Gambit then asks the big question, if Kurt wasn’t the one that tried to kill him, who was?

 

We cut to the village where Reinhard, obviously, sells out Kurt, telling the townsfolk the monster they seek is in the Abbey and that he can no longer hide their sacrilege. The villagers don’t believe him at first but he insists that the ‘evil one’ must be destroyed.

 

Logan wanders into the chapel and Kurt finds him there, asking if Logan was looking for him. Logan says he was just trying to find a place to think alone. Kurt says that they’re a lot alike, as they’re both angry at the world and themselves for how they’re treated. Kurt says that his anger ultimately drove him to the church, while Logan’s drove him away. Logan snarls at him to not talk to him about God, as what sort of God would let people experiment on him like the Weapon X project did. Kurt gives the standard ‘the lord works in mysterious ways’ speech but adding that they need to take comfort in the limitlessness of God’s love. Logan admits that he used to believe that, but he’s suffered too much and done too much harm to believe that now. Kurt tries to comfort him, saying that hardship is universal, they both know that better than most, but despite that pain, people of every faith believe in a loving God and how could so many people be wrong? He asks Logan to try to open his heart and see the world with different eyes. Their theological discussion is interrupted by a monk running in to warn Kurt about the approaching mob. Logan asks what’s God’s plan for sending a mob to rip him to pieces. Kurt suggests that as Neuzherl is an isolated community, maybe he was sent there to teach them about Mutants. He thinks that maybe he should leave to keep anyone from being hurt, and Logan scoffs and asks the preacher if he’s gonna run. Left alone in the chapel, Kurt does fall to his knees and asks God why people must always hate him. The wind blows and we see a bible page turn.

 

Later, Rogue and Logan are preparing to deal with the townsfolk. Rogue tries to get Logan to agree to not hurt anyone, as they’re not evil just scared, but Logan scoffs and asks how two people can handle fifty. Gambit says three, as he’s ready to scrap. Rogue is worried about him but he insists he’s fine, despite clearly still having a concussion. The Monks pray in the chapel while the X-Men ty to defend Kurt. The villages use a battering ram to break into the abbey, Reinhard encouraging them and saying God is with them. They break in but are held off by Logan slashing through their weapons and Rogue tying a bunch of them up in a tapestry. Unfortunately, a pair of the villagers grab her bare arms with their bare hands. They get knocked out, but the memories of their anger and fear cause her to pass out as well. Logan tries to tell them to just stop as he’s trying very hard to not turn them into hamburgers. He escapes by swinging on a chandelier and running off. The monks get cornered by villagers who insist they are in league with the ‘evil one’ and ask where their master is hiding. Kurt reveals himself, saying he’s not hiding and teleporting his brothers to the monastery library. They help Gambit find a place to lay down as his strength is ebbing. Kurt says he’ll surrender to protect the others. He looks into the courtyard and sees Logan fighting alone. Reinhard sneaks up on him and tries to shoot him, but Kurt teleports around him. Reinhard’s wild shots with a blaster cause the abbey to start burning. Kurt tries to turn himself over but they’re not listening to him, Reinhard insists he must purify the place. Another villager shoots at them, breaking the railing and Reinhard almost falling to his death. Kurt grabs him. Reinhard tells him to just drop him and then asks why he’s pausing when he doesn’t. Kurt says it’s not his place to judge others and helps him up, asking how God will judge him. Kurt gestures at the burning library and says that this is the fruit of his labor, not Kurts. Reinhard drops to his knees and sobs about how he was wrong.

 

The next morning, the local fire department gets the blaze under control and Kurt thanks his friends for being a blessing to him. An angry Logan asks how any of this is a blessing, saying that they obviously failed. Kurt looks on the bright side. The villagers now know about him and no longer actively fear him, Reinhard has repented for his actions, and no one died, so it’s overall a good day. Rogue asks about the monastery, and Kurt says it was a tragedy that it was damage but it’s only stone and mortar. The foundation of faith they carry in their hearts. Logan just shakes his head and says he doesn’t get Kurt. Kurt gives him a bible, saying he marked passages that Logan might find enlightening. And asks him to look with different eyes.

 

We cut to the trio finishing their vacation in Paris. Rogue and Gambit enjoy some desert. Gambit likes being in civilization again, but Rogue admits that the monks were starting to grow on her. Gambit shakes his head and says that the monks were nice but delusional, saying that they’re on their own without a greater force guiding them. Rogue shakes her head and leaves him to his food. She walks around town and asks what if Gambit is right about there being nothing else when a newspaper hits her in the face. The front page is about the local church being renovated, the one right in front of her. She goes inside and finds Logan kneeling before the altar and reading verse. This quite moment of her friend opening himself up to God causes a tear to come to Rogue’s eye and she leaves him to it.

 

As a non-practicing Catholic (I’ve really been agnostic since I was about 15 despite being Confirmed), I appreciate a character like Kurt ‘The Incredible Nightcrawler’ Wager. He, to me, represents the best of the faith I grew up in. He’s a man of the cloth, yes, and is a deeply spiritual man, but he isn’t preachy about it, which is weird to say. Like… if you went to Kurt for advice, he’d give it. It would most likely be in the form of scripture, but that’s just because that’s where his life experience is. He doesn’t care what anyone’s faith is, he just wants people to know that from his view, there is a kind and loving God looking out for them. He’s a man that has suffered greatly because of his appearance but chooses to try to put more good in the world than bad regardless of that. Which is why I love him. And I like that the episode included that moment where Kurt fell to his knees and cried about being persecuted yet again for his looks. Because, ya know, living life as Kurt does, choosing to try to see the good and God in all things, that is hard. It’s hard to talk about the good of man, or God’s divine love when everywhere you go people scream or throw things at you. It makes him seem more real than if he just effortlessly preached kindness throughout the episode. And even though he had that self-pitying cry, he at no point went against his convictions. He protected his fellow monks and did no harm to people that were just scared and angry. He forgave his brother monk and did his best to show him back to the right path. He did his best to give Logan spiritual advice because he knew Logan wanted it despite his words to the contrary and never pushed harder than he felt necessary. While I think he’d be pleased to know Logan did start reading the passages he marked, he would have just been content that Logan had kept the bible. Or, to put it another way, if you told him about the ‘sin of empathy’ he’d gasp and ask who hurt you so badly to think that. And I like that he forms attachments to Rogue, Wolverine and Gambit fairly quickly, three characters I know he’s very close with in other media and in later seasons of the show. I just like seeing friends find each other. It’s a shame we only get one more episode of him in this classic, but I’m happy he plays a larger role in X-Men: 97. And that’s all I have to say about that. Have a good night!

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 52

 No shoot out at noon, but close enough.

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, Morph tried to make a comeback. After several months in physical and psychological therapy at Muir Island, Morph was given a clean bill of health and leave to return to active X-Man duty. Though Moira MacTaggart stressed he should try to ease into it. This proved impossible as the first mission he got assigned to, unwittingly, was dealing with Sentinels robbing a robotics factory. The Mutant hunters were gathering parts to build a new body for their Master Mold. The Master Mold ordered its minions to gather witnesses for its rebirth, namely its creator Bolivar Trask, his secret agent partner Henry Peter Gyrich, and Professor Xavier, who threw a plane at it. The Sentinels attack the mansion and steal Charles, Morph took the kidnapping the worst as he panicked and froze mid fight. The others leave him behind, in case Charles tried to contact them. Morph fiddles with a Sentinel head they procured and got the coordinates for their base from it as the X-Men track the Sentinels from Trask and Gyrich’s hidden bungalow. All forces converge in the Sentinel cave base, where the Master Mold announces it’s going to implant a device in Charles’ brain to let it amplify and use Charles’ telepathy, letting them hunt Mutants all the easier. The X-Men attack, Morph coming in at the last minute to help the team rally and ultimately killing the Master Mold himself by dropping a stalagmite on it. The team congradulates him, and he accepts the praise, but then tells the team he’s going back to Muir Island. The mission made it clear to him he wasn’t ready to be in the field again. Logan is bummed at losing his buddy again so soon, but Charles tells him to let Morph go. He’ll always be an X-Man, and their doors will be open for him when he’s ready. Enough Recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open on Scott traveling in a mini-jet somewhere in the southwest of the US. He’s looking up a Dr. Prescott that’s a friend of Charles’ and a fellow human/Mutant relations advocate. He disappeared a short time ago and they’re getting worried about him. He has a flashback to when he first met the Doctor, who preached the same cohabitation ideal that the Professor does. Two of Prescott’s protégées showed off their powers to Charles and a Young Scott, who shows his abilities off as well. Prescott was sure that Charles could handle the… difficult cases, helping Mutants that society would otherwise attack or abandon. We shift flashbacks to when Scott just left the mansion, showing Charles a statue of glass or ice that Prescott’s former students made of him and them for him. Scott mentions that Prescott doesn’t like getting recognition for his work, specifically for building a Mutant community out in Skull Mesa, where he’s headed, to deliver the statue. Charles tells him that Prescott will surely love it. As Scott flies into Skull Mesa airspace, a watch tower raises up and a canine-looking Mutant named Watchdog radios into his commander Braddock that someone is flying in and has thoughts of Dr. Taylor Prescott in his head. Braddock asks if they’re human or Mutant but then decides it doesn’t matter and orders Watchdog to shoot it down. Watchdog does, psychically blasting the mini-jet and causing it to crash. Scott escapes in a parachute but just barely. Braddock, who watched from a handheld device, says scratch one troublemaker.

 

Scott recovers and initially panics when he realizes his glasses got knocked off. I’d think it was odd he wasn’t wearing his visor, as I assume it’s designed to not be knockoff-able in these exact situations, but I guess he wasn’t expecting a fight. To his shock, though, he finds he’s not optic beaming. Something in the area has take his powers! Since this isn’t the first time, he’s had to deal with this, he doesn’t panic. He checks the mini-jet’s phone and finds it destroyed. He grabs a pair of spare shades and mutters to himself about having to guess which mountain range Skull Mesa is behind.

 

He trudges through the desert until a car passes him and he flags it down. This is Darrell Tanaka, and he apologizes for almost leaving Scott in the desert as he doesn’t normally pick up hitchhikers. Scott introduces himself and Darrell asks if he has business in Skull Mesa, which Scott confirms. They pass a sign that says Skull Mesa, Mutants and Humans welcome, but immediately see every person that sees Scott duck away. Darrell explains that Skull Mesa residents aren’t used to strangers. Scott shrugs and says he’s used to it. He has a flashback to when he was playing baseball with some other kids when he accidentally optic blasted it to smithereens. The other kids try to kick his ass for that, Scott runs off and into Prescott, who de-escalates the situation for him. He tells the kids not to pick on Scott because of an accident and tells them to get a new ball and restart the game. Prescott also tells Scott people are just afraid of things that are different and to try to not take it personally. They pull up to Darelle’s house so he can give Scott a checkup. Turns out, he’s the Doctor and Coroner. His comment about being the only doctor and some weird movements like jangling his keys at the open window tip Scott off something weird is going on here. He tries to call out, but the phone doesn’t work, and demands to know where Prescott is. Darrell insists he doesn’t live in Skull Mesa anymore. Scott decides to check out the town himself.

 

Scott walks into town and literally everyone runs from him like he’s wearing a DC shirt to a Marvel convention. He tries to talk to a few people but no one will say a word to him. Until he meets Bill Braddock, who dresses like a cult leader and is flanked by two guards so… This would be slightly more intimidating if his guards didn’t look like a typical farmer and being literally Mortimer Toynbee aka Toad. Braddock mentions hearing about Scott’s crash and makes veiled threats while trying to force him out of town real quick like, always asking his assistant Chet if that’s right. Scott asks Braddock where Prescott is, and Braddock says that he moved and recently left town. Scott says that’s a bit weird for someone that just literally invited him to visit. He asks for directions to Prescott’s last known address, the Chandler place, but they refuse to answer and he walks off. Braddock says that Mr. Summers has worn out his welcome.

 

Scott finds the Prescott’s home and finds it ransacked and covered in slime. Considering one of Braddock’s minions is Toad, the culprit seems pretty obvious to me, but I have metaknowledge and have watched this episode before. Scott rushes back to Darelle’s house and demands to know where Prescott is. Darelle, to his credit, knows when to drop the act and tells Scott no one can help Prescott. He demands to know who shot him down and why the Mutants in town are hiding. Braddock and his gang arrive, Chet phasing in through the wall behind Scott to grab him and let Toad cover him in slimy mucus. Braddock tells Scott he should have left when he had the chance.

 

They take Scott to an old mine and it’s revealed that Braddock is holding Prescott and several other people inside, wrapped in Toad’s mucus. He explains that Toad’s slime keeps them in a vegetative state but they’re alive. Not that it’ll matter to Scott, as Braddock has decided to execute him for standing up to his orders. Scott tries to warn Braddock that he has friends that’ll look for him, and that he’s a Mutant, but Braddock doesn’t care. He doesn’t like things that get in his way. He reveals why he, Chet and Toad set up shop in town, there’s a literal gold mine here that they’ve pressganged the local Mutants into mining for them. Scott tries to get Braddock to stop, but he angrily announces his name is Solarr and blasts Scott with a fiery optic beam. He lets Scott go, saying he can try to find help, but seems confident he won’t get it.

 

Scott stumbles back to Darelle’s house and Darelle brings him inside. Scott tells Darelle that he tried to call for help but the phones are all dead. Darelle explains what’s going on. Prescott made sure that Skull Mesa was as self sufficient as possible, they grow their own food, the powers local, all of that, they only mined enough gold each year to make sure everyone was taken care of. But then Solarr arrived and took over like an old fashioned desperado. He has that fourth minion, Watchdog, who’s powers are also keeping the phones from working. Even with all those powers, I’m not sure I’d be okay with looking like a dog. Scott asks if anyone tried to stand up to Solarr, and Darelle says just Prescott. Scott is outraged that no one tried to help him, but Darelle says he and the others are just normal Mutants, not soldiers. Scott tells him that Prescott and the others are alive, he just needs help freeing them. Darelle says he can’t. Scott asks him how he can call himself a doctor and do nothing, and storms off. And when alone Darelle asks himself the same thing.

 

Scott ends up at the mechanics shop and tries asking the large burly Mutant in charge, Tusk, for help. The man can apparently move engine blocks with his bare hands, so his strength would definitely be an asset. Tusk refuses, as he’s worried about his family and isn’t sure one man could do anything. Scott tries to tell him it always starts with just one man, but Chet phases in to remind him who’s in charge. Scott tries asking a green woman for help, but she refuses, Chet and Toad shadowing him and mocking him for asking for help. The rest of the townies close their doors and lock up. They egg Scott on until he takes a swing at Chet, who phases through him.

 

Scott sits on a mesa and just takes an evening to be frustrated with his situation. He laments being without his powers and being a normal man, like he wanted, at a time when he absolutely needs them. He finds his resolve, though, powers or no powers he’s an X-Man damn it. He refuses to go down without a fight. At dawn the next morning he walks into town again. The townies avoid him and Scott phases off against Solarr in the streets. Scott tries to tell him backdown, but he refuses. He seems to not get what the X-Men are and is sure he’ll be able to buy his way out of trouble. Chet and Toad overpower Scott and drag him to the center of town for his execution.

 

Scott is tied to a statue of Braddock in Toad mucus. Solarr makes a big show for the townies, telling them the usual party line of ‘follow me or die.’ He takes Prescott’s statue and claims it’s a transmitter and that Scott tried to use it to call in his confederates to steal their gold. Scott refuses to take that lie laying down and says that was a gift for Prescott, from kids he helped, just like how he helped many of the townies.  He asks how they could let this mad man destroy his work. Solarr gathers power and says that it was a nice speech but no one was listening. He almost blast’s Scott, but Tusk uses his power to make a little clone of himself from his back and launches it at Solarr to distract him. He goes to free Scott but then gets blasted. The green woman makes the plants grow to give them cover and Darelle runs over and uses his power on Scott. He reveals that Watchdog can suppress Mutant powers, but he can neutralize that effect, and he should have done this to Scott in the beginning. Once Scott Summers has his optic beams back, the fight is pretty much over. Solarr and his thugs are amateurs against a man who has mastered his abilities. And that’s without the townies revolting to help Scott. He blasts Solarr in the back and announces that the people aren’t afraid of him anymore and he lost his town. Scott blasts Solarr back and the green woman traps him in plants. Watchdog comes in with Prescott, saying that he salvaged Scott’s transmitter and called his friends for help. Scott asks why the change of heart and Watchdog admits he saw the situation change and decided to be part of the solution instead of the problem. Darelle wakes up Prescott and Scott is able to give him the statue. He offers to take Solarr and his people with him when the X-Men arrive to make them face justice, but Prescott insists that since they committed their crimes in Skull Mesa, they should pay for them here. Tusk knocks over Solarr’s statue and suggests they could put Prescott’s statue in its place. Scott and Prescott wander off to get ice cream, ending the episode.

 

This was a fun standalone episode. It’s funny, after the long string of multiparters, to have several one-off episodes in a row feels weird. I like the western vibe of this episode, with Scott being the out of towner that rallies the terrified towns folk to throw off the bandits that have enslaved the town. The people that run from Scott’s mere presence, and the fact Tusk, a Mutant that’s clearly super durable, is the only one who is willing to talk to him drives home how high strung the townies are. It’s a simple story but it works well here. Solarr is incredibly creepy looking, but I do kind of wish they’d had him keep the trench coat he wore shut until he announced his name in the mine. I just can’t take a man in bright red and yellow seriously unless they’re a supervillain and until that point they were trying to play him straight, at least a little. His minions are good too, with Chet seeming just normal enough that his phasing power is extra creepy… and Toad is just a good henchman. I will say, having grown up in the era of the movies, X-Men: Evolution and more modern comics, it’s weird seeing Toad in his classic costume. Ya, if you don’t remember my Toad villain profile from ages ago, Toad being… extra gross is a post 90s-character remodel. Before that, while he still threw slime and mucus on occasion his design was more like a court jester than a sideshow attraction. I’ll admit, after a lot of shows and movies where Toad is at least close to Magneto if not working as a direct henchman, it’s WEIRD we went over 50 episodes without seeing him and that he’s not tied into either Magneto or Mystique’s brotherhood. It’s like seeing a single Power Ranger, it’s just wrong on some level. While he was really only an inciting incident in the episode, I do like the idea of Dr. Prescott. Giving examples of humans that are also pushing for Mutant/Human equality is nice, since most media seems to at least imply Charles is the only one pushing for it at times. Well… him and Moira, but that’s another can of worms. So, ya, fun one off. Next time, enter the Nightcrawler. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 51

 Morph's back and so are the Sentinels.

I decided to break up the Wheel of Time marathon into two separate months because, honestly, ten plus pages of episode summary per episode gets to be a bit much day after day after day. ‘Can’t you just try to sum it up more and do less scene-to-scene stuff?” I hear some of you asking. To which I say… No. I honestly can’t. I’ve tried. So, we’re going back to the X-Men: The Animated Series well for a bit. And oh, we’re coming back to a good one.

 

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, the Shadow King returned. Charles Xavier suffered a mild concussion before the episode began and that weakened him to the point where the Shadow King could begin to return. In flashbacks we learn that he was once a crime lord in Cairo and used a young Ororo “Storm” Monroe as a pickpocket. Charles was disgusted to see this man abuse his powers, he’s a powerful telepath as well, as well as harm children. They had a psychic duel which ended with Charles trapping him in the Astral Plane forever. Shadow King was obviously upset at this turn of events and attempted to essentially switch places with Charles when he realized he had this opportunity, hurling Charles’ mind into the Astral Plane and stealing his body. The X-Men took exception to that. Jean sent her mind into the Astral Plane to help Charles and the two psychics together finally overwhelmed Shadow King and pushed him back into oblivion. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We begin on Muir Island with Dr. MacTaggart giving Morph a check-up. He’s been on the island for physical and mental therapy for a while now, he elected to go there after freeing himself from Mr. Sinister’s influence. Moira gives him a clean bill of health, something really highlighted by his slightly redesigned look. They gave him brown hair instead of black and a slightly darker complexion, I think implying he’s getting lots of sun. She says that he’s showing no signs of lingering physical issues but does feel the need to remind him going back to active duty as an X-Man will put an above average strain on his mind again. Morph shows his good humor by cracking jokes about what it takes to be an X-Man, Blue fur (shapeshifts into Beast) or designer eyewear (shifts to Cyclops). She laughs and gives him the go ahead but tells him to try to take it easy for a while. He’s got all the time in the world. There’s a nice scene transition where we see an excited Morph on the plane ride back to the states and we’re off to the races.  

 

Meanwhile, we cut to Zydex industries. They’re working on some kind of robotics project when the facility is attacked by Sentinels. The giant robots bombard the place and steal all of the 80-micron metallic sheeting. I have no idea what they are using it for specifically but when Robots steal metal and other materials, it’s to make more and better robots.

 

We jump over to the X-Mansion where the alarms are blaring and Storm, Scott, Hank and Logan all rush to the War Room to deal with whatever the emergency is. But once they arrive it’s revealed that the Professor just wanted them to rush down to welcome Morph back with a surprise party. Morph comes in and shapeshifts into Logan to show him what his face looks like in the moment. The others greeted him, everyone seemed excited to see him. The moment is ruined, though, when Jean sees a news report about the attack at Zydex. They don’t know Sentinels were involved, so everyone is blaming Mutants, because that’s what you do in an X-Men story. Beast explains that the company is working on a form of plastic sheeting that is as thin as paper but stronger than Steel. Charles also isn’t sure who would steal it but knows that this is a ‘it’s bad if anyone has it’ sort of things. Wolverine volunteers himself and Morph for the mission. Morph is super excited to be on the mission, but Charles gets him to promise to take it easy first.

 

Logan and Morph take a mini-jet to the base and scout the area with a drone. They use Morph’s shapeshifting and Wolverine’s claws into the facility. They almost get spotted by a helicopter but just barely dodge it. Logan takes a moment to tell Morph that he always knew he’d make his way back to the X-Men someday. Morph laughs and asks if Logan’s getting mushy on him, which Logan fervently denies. They investigate the area and find it utterly trashed. Scott tells them that the drone’s cameras are showing increased security, and they should hurry. Logan’s nose picks up on the Sentinel smell, which clearly spooks him. He knows that this’d be a lot for Morph and tries to get them both to run. It almost works but Morph sees the giant footprint of the Sentinels in the dirt outside. He instantly knows Logan was trying to hide this from him and angrily tells his friend to not baby him, saying he’s either on the team or he’s not. Logan sheepishly says to himself that he thought that this would be an easy first mission back.

 

At the Mansion, Storm laments that this was Morph’s first mission back. Beast suggests that he’s not unlike Ahab being forced to come up against Moby Dick, and hopes he’ll have better luck against his white whale. Xavier gives a brief summary of the Sentinels for anyone who may be rusty on them, giant robots, designed to destroy Mutants, and he’d hoped they’d eliminated them last time. He wonders aloud who could have brought them back.

 

We cut to a cave in the mountains where it’s revealed that the Master Mold is leading the Sentinels. The mobile Sentinel factory has been reduced to just a head, but it is still active enough to control its troops. It has had the lesser sentinels build a new body to replace the old one, using the polymer as its indestructible skin. The Master Mold has decided that it likes poetic justice and orders the lesser Sentinels to bring it the right witnesses to it’s rebirth, namely Bolivar Trask, Henry Gyrich, and Xavier. The Sentinels inform it that they aren’t programmed to capture non-Mutants, but the Master Mold overrides and updates their programming to do just that.

 

At the Mansion, Charles tries to advise Morph not to take everyone treating him gently too personally. He reminds Morph that Wolverine took his supposed death hard, so the thought of losing Morph again might mess with him more than most. Morph insists he’s fine, but they’ll never know if he is if they keep babying him. Charles agrees that’s true in theory and agrees in practice, but insists on benching Morph for this. He wants Morph to get his self confidence back, but it is asking a lot to have someone face the thing that literally killed them until a retcon brought him back.

 

The Sentinels make their appearance, spooking Cyclops, Storm, and Jean who are driving on the highway as they fly over. In the War Room, Beast seems to be examining the Master Mold’s schematics when the power cuts off for the hologram projector. He and Wolverine get an alert about multiple inbound hostiles. Beast radios Xavier about the hostiles, he tries to sense for them, but obviously Sentinels don’t have minds to scan. The Sentinels touch down and identify Charles as their target. Wolverine and Beast try to help, but the Sentinels anti-Mutant slow them down. Charles pulls a blaster on them, but it gets knocked out of his hand. They destroy his hover chair and grab him. Wolverine and Beast try to stop them, but the Sentinels escape with Charles. It’s only after things calm down that we cut back to Morph, who is hunched over, cradling the blaster and saying he froze.

 

Using Cerebro, they were able to track Charles to a general southwest location. Unfortunately, they just lost the signal. Jean is trying to reach him telepathically but he’s either unconscious or shielded. Morph is beating himself up for freezing. Wolverine tells him that no one is blaming him, but Morph says that no one has to, he had a shot and he blew it. Scott tells them to shut up and focus. Beast is able to bootup one of the Sentinel heads they… acquired and scan its memory banks. The internal memory was damaged when it was decapitated, but he’s able to pull up two sets of coordinates, one for the mansion and one for another location. They determine the second location to be where Trask and Gyrich are held up, as they assume the gruesome twosome are behind this. Scott tells the team to move out but asks Morph to stay behind in the War Room in case the Professor tries to reach them. Think of a better lie, Summers. The group leaves a dejected Morph behind. As they leave, Morph mutters to himself that he’s not useless.

 

We cut to Gyrich and Trask living in a hut in South America. They’ve been on the run since they tried to kidnap the President and Master Mold turned on them. As they argue who’s fault it is, the Sentinels arrive. Trask tries to get them to power down, but they refuse his orders, saying they only obey the Master Mold now. The X-Men arrive and destroy a few Sentinels, but can’t stop them from grabbing Trask and Gyrich. They’re a bit perplexed that they were just kidnapped by their own machines but do their best to follow.

 

At the Mansion, Morph is tinkering with the Sentinel head, muttering to himself that Beast went easy on it. He overclocks its system, getting the third set of coordinates out of the Sentinel before its head blows. Morph thinks about radioing the others this new information but decides that no, he needs to do this alone.

 

We jump to the Sentinel’s mountain base. The Master Mold decides to do a bit of Monologuing, saying that he’s going to use Trask and Gyrich’s more dexterous hand for his next big project. He wants to become Cerebro. Sort of. He believes they can give Charles an implant that will connect his psychic brain to the Master Mold’s cybernetic one, under its control. He’ll then use Charles’ psychic powers to find all the Mutants and eliminate them. Charles tells the Master Mold that it’s insane, but the machine claims that’s a human failing. The X-Men arrive and start attacking the killer robots. The killer machines and Mutants are close to evenly matched, but the Mutant hunting robots get the upper hand after they start separating the Mutants. Morph arrives and starts shooting at the Sentinels. Master Mold is unimpressed and orders Morph eliminated. Morph gets to show off his powers a little, quickly shapeshifting into Omega Red and using his strength to knock over a pair of Sentinels. He gets grabbed but them morphs into Sasquatch, a buddy of Logan’s and a member of Alpha Flight, to break its grip and rip its head off, and then into Angel to catch Jean and carry her to the ground. He turns into Longshot and uses his super agility to get his gun back, but the Master Mold chases after him on retractable spider legs. Morph shoots at some Stalactites and impales the robot’s head on the rock, destroying it. The X-Men and gruesome twosome run as the building collapses.

 

Everyone congradulates Morph for coming through in the clutch. Morph thanks them for the compliment but admits that he realized that he really wasn’t ready to come back. He came through today but is worried that this might happen again. He elects to return to Muir Island for more therapy and healing. Logan tries to stop him, but Charles tells him to let Morph goes. He trusts Morph’s judgement about his own health and says that he’ll be back when he’s ready. He announces Morph will always be an X-Man as he flies off.

 

This was a nice episode to both catch up with Morph, giving us a status update about him, while also letting us know that he’s not going to be a regular on the show anytime soon. And of all the reasons to keep a minor character written off, I guess recovering from Trauma is one of the better explanations. While it sucks that he had to face off against one of two villains that would cause him to reasonably freeze up (the other being Sinister), I suppose it’s better for it to happen sooner rather than later. If he froze fighting someone who plays for keeps, he’d die a second time for sure. And it was nice that Morph got to work with Wolverine if only for a little of one mission. Everyone who has seen the show knows that Wolverine is fond of Morph, but they really haven’t gotten that much screentime together up to this point. I think it’s just been the first episode before he was killed by the Sentinels and then those times when Logan was one of the ones hunting after him. There is not a lot of time for character interactions when you’re running away from your friend. But they clearly work well together, with Morph being smart and good at improv so they can outsmart some enemies, and Wolverine can brute force any situation that needs more than finesse. It’s a good system.  I liked seeing the Sentinels again. The great thing about evil robots is that you can destroy them over and over again, but it’s totally in the realm of possibility that they get rebuilt to menace the heroes once again. And the Sentinels are great at Mutant menacing. The Master Mold is a great villain even if he has to spend most of the episode hovering because he’s just a disembodied head right now. And I think this is the first episode where the Master Mold doesn’t just ignore its own orders but starts actively rewriting the programming of the other sentinels. Ask Bishop how much fun it is when the machines can start altering their programming whenever they want to. It’s not fun. So ya, fun episode. Next time, Cyclops heads out to the Ol’ West. Should be fun. 

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Viewer Log: Wheel of Time ep 20

 Lets take a stroll down memory lane. 

Last time on The Wheel of Time, the hunt began. Nynaeve and Elayne began investigating where Liandrin and her Black Ajah cohorts ran off to. The two captured and Stilled members gave them two locations, one said Tear to help a Forsaken get Callandor, and the other to Saldea to get to a false Dragon named Mazrim Taim. Not buying either, Nynaeve takes Elayne to the room Liandrin had hidden her son in. They found a symbol drawn on the floor from Tanchico. That coupled with sketches of the stolen items from the 13^th Depository made them believe they ran off to Tanchico to try to find the other half of a Saidin A’dam. Mat ends up joining them as he believes Nynaeve is the only one who can fix his head. And he humbles both of Elayne’s brothers in a 1-v-2 duel, his staff vs their swords. Oh and Min followed them in disguise, wanting to flee the Tower for a lot of reasons but a big one being Elida telling her that she’s engineering the restructuring of the Tower to hunt the Dragon Reborn. Rand and his group traveled the Waste with the Aiel. On the way they find a Tinker band that were killed, assumedly by the Tardaad Aiel’s enemies the Shaido. In his dreams, Lanfear suggests he might be able to find the Sakarnen, the Saidar counterpart to Callandor and they could use the two to kill the Dark One.  The Wise one of the Tardaad, Bair, is a Dreamwalker and promised to teach Egwene to be one as well. Lan meets a Maiden of the Spear named Melindhra who claims to be a Malkieri born woman that wants to help him revive their people. Perrin meets Lord Luc and his second, a woman that initially went by Mandarb but changed it to Faile after hearing that Perrin knows a horse named Mandarb. Perrin begins to rally his people to defend the Two Rivers from the Trollocs themselves and to drive out the Whitecloaks. He also makes plans to free the Cauthons, as he promised Mat he'd look after them. Liandrin and her people arrived in Tanchico, murdered the leadership and effectively took over the city. So, fun times all around. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?  

 

Ep 20: The Road to the Spear

 

We begin the episode with Rand and Lan doing more sword practice while Moiraine watches. When they take a break, we get a bit of a lore dump with Rand explaining to Lan how he can ‘think of nothing’ while fighting. This is a concept well talked about in the books by this point, the mental exercise of the Flame and the Void. One must just picture a flame in their mind, feed their emotions into it, all their fears, passions, worries, and so on until they’re feeling nothing and can be hyper focused on a task. Rand uses it a lot to fight, and it’s the mental state he needs in to access the True Source. Lan realizes that Rand’s dad Tam, who taught him this meditation, was a blademaster. Rand nods though he says he doesn’t know a lot of his dad’s past beyond Tam being a soldier when he was young. Rand admits not feeling connected to any place since leaving the Two Rivers and learning he’s not Tam’s biological son. Lan suggests he could develop a connection to the Waste and the Aiel. Rand uses a metaphor from his Sheepherding days, saying that if an ewe dies while giving birth, they cut the ewe they selected to foster the orphaned lamb and smear its blood on the lamb to trick it into seeing the baby as its own. He says he looks like Aiel, but he’s not Aiel. Lan suggests he could try. They get back to sword training, Lan suggesting he might stop going easy on Rand this time. Egwene joins Moiraine and tells her the proverb about how a watched pot never boils, and Moiraine says if only it was that easy to stop a pot from boiling.

 

Later, Moiraine and Egwene have dinner with Bair and Melaine. Egwene asks if only the Wise Ones have servants and we get a lore dump about Gai’shain. This feeds into the Aiel honor system of Ji’e’Toh, Honor and Obligation. One gains Ji by doing honorable and impressive things and Toh for failing to do things. The most Ji you can gain is by touching an armed opponent without weapons, earning the touched much Toh. To offset this balance, the person can agree to be Gai’shain and serve the other for a year and a day, touching no weapons or fighting in any way in that time period. The Aiel are actually somewhat offended by the idea of professional servants. The funniest example of this the books gave was of a man that had to take his own soon-to-be mother-in-law as Gai’shain because he shoved her over during a raid while she was holding a butcher’s knife. Moiraine says they’re very comfortable answering unimportant questions. She asks how they knew they were coming. The Wise Ones explain that they can see a bit into the future, that it’s easiest to see things just before or right as they’re starting and much harder to see just a random event in the future. They say that they didn’t see Egwene coming, and that there was a 50-50 chance of Rand coming too. Though, had he not arrived, they believe he would have died as would the Aiel. If he survives Rhuidean, some of them could survive. They reveal that Moiraine would have died too if Ran, Lan or herself not come, or if she doesn’t go to Rhuidean. Bair begrudgingly explains there’s a way to see a bit into the future in Rhuidean, and that they wanted Moiraine to decide to head there on her own.

 

As Rand and Lan head into camp, Aviendha stops Rand and tells him she told him not to touch swords. Rand is rather annoyed by this attitude of hers, and says that Aiel doesn’t touch swords, and asks if she can just decide if he is one or not. He tries to brush the stick she held to his chest aside, but she knocks him to the ground and swaps it for a spear. She insists no one holds a sword this close to Rhuidean, the city in the clouds, and turns her spear to Lan and says that it includes him. The two start circling around each other as the other Aiel hoot their approval. Aviendha asks if he’s asking her to dance (the Aiel call combat the dance of spears), and he just unsheathes his sword. They duel. Aviendha is good, but Lan is Aan’allein, the one-man nation (Old Tongue title) and he disarms her a few times in their exchanges. Before they can conclude their duel decisively, the Wise Ones stop them and say that it is time to end this. Turns out, Aviendha has the potential to be a Wise One and they’re insisting now that she begins her training. Training long delayed because of her (gestures at her whole body) this. She tries to refuse but this is not something she can refuse. She hands over her spears to Bair, who breaks them over her knee. She says she also refused when called but eventually learned her duty. They also take her Cadin’sor, her armored clothing, and say her new clothes will be there when she returns. She asks their leave to go to Rhuedean, and they accept, and tell her if she doesn’t return her belongings will be given to her family in remembrance. She claims she’ll be back before they reach the slopes of Chaendar, the mountain outside Rhuedean.  

 

Later, Moiraine asks if Rand intends to go to Rhuedean tomorrow. He doesn’t answer. She says that many men wait weeks on the slopes before going, but Rand isn’t them. He asks her what she wants, and she says she’s just trying to help him. He says she’d never helped him, but she counters that’s all she’s done. She demands he tell her what he’s planning, and Rand tells her he will, if she says to him plainly that she’s not trying to use him for the White Tower or her own gains. She says she won’t stop him from fulfilling his destiny, but she won’t stand by while he puts his head on a chopping block either. Rand says that’s not good enough.

 

The next day, Rand approaches Rhuedean with his squad and Rhuarc. Rand asks Rhuarc if he’s been and Rhuarc confirms all Clan Chiefs and Wise Ones go. Rand asks how the Car’a’Carn will be different from the Clan Chief. Rhuarc pulls up his left sleeve and reveals a tattoo of a golden serpentine dragon with a green eye on it, he says all Clan Chiefs are so marked. Rand realizes that they’re the People of the Dragon, and Rhuarc confirms that’s an old name for the Aiel. He says that the Car’a’Carn will be marked twice. They reach the city, which is shrouded in a perpetual mist. They’re spotted by a group of Shaido, and after a tense moment both sides agree to stick to the peace of Rhuidean. By custom, any who reach the mountain are allowed to return to their holds in peace. They enter the Shaido’s tent. One of their warriors, a real son of a bitch named Couladin, notes that they brought Wetlanders to Rhuedian. They ignore him because Couladin sucks. Rhuarc asks the Shaido Roofmistress Sevanna where her husband is. She says he’s dead, but her new husband, Muradin, his son is in the city and she is sure he’ll return soon as the Shaido’s new chief. Couladin says that he will go in after him, but the Wise Ones tell him to shut up, and that if Muradin doesn’t come back he can then ask permission and Bair and Melaine may give it. Rand steps forward and asks for permission to enter. Bair gives it, but Couladin loudly objects as Couladin sucks. He says that it’s death for outsiders to even be here. Rand says that his mother was Aiel, but Bair corrects him, saying his father was one but his mother was something else. Couladin, again, loudly objects and says he’s presenting himself like a woman. Bair, the badass, tells him to stop putting his nose into Wise One business. If he’s so interested in their work, he can put on a dress and ask to be trained and she’ll consider it. Melaine then gives her approval. Couladin tries to rush Rand, but Bair blocks him with a flow of air, revealing she can channel. She orders everyone other than Rand and Moiraine back to their tents. Egwene tries to go with, but Bair says if she asks she’ll be refused. Rand’s destiny is there, and Egwene’s isn’t there yet. Moiraine officially asks to go. Baer and Melaine are hesitant to allow her to go, as they’ve already disrupted how their visions said this was supposed to go. Moiraine was supposed to ask unprompted. Moiraine asks if that makes a difference, and they say maybe. But they do know she’ll die if she doesn’t go, so they give her permission. They tell her that inside she’ll see three rings. She can step through any one of them and they’ll show her a thousand possible futures. She’ll take some of that knowledge back with her. To Rand, they say he must enter the Glass Columns, where he will see the history of the Aiel through the eyes of his ancestors. They tell them to leave any weapons there to honor the last true Aiel. Rand takes off his sword and Moiraine drops off several knives. They tell them they won’t address them again until they return, as the city is the city of the dead. They say Rand is of the Past and Moiraine the future. Moiraine asks if he’s ready, Rand says no, but they set off anyway.

 

They enter the misty city. Around them are tower statues that don’t strike them as Aiel work. Moiraine comments that the dry fog is weird too, as she can almost see threads of the Pattern woven in them before they vanish. They travel into the city and find Avendesora, the Tree of Life. It’s an old tree, roughly 3000 years old, a product of the Age of Legends. Moiraine says that the Aes Sedai knew the Aiel had it, just not where. Rand says that it feels peaceful underneath it. Moiraine reveals that Cairhien had one like it, given to them from the Aiel as payment for an old debt. Rand says he never saw it in Cairhien, but Moiraine says that her uncle Lamen, King of Cairhien, cut it down to build him a grand throne. This obviously pissed the Aiel off like nothing else could and was what triggered the Aiel War. The Aiel don’t even think of it as a war, the clans that came over the wall were an execution force. They burned their way across the land, until they found and killed him on the slopes of Dragonmount. Rand realizes that’s why his mother was on the mountain, and why he was born there and fulfilled the first prophecy. He realizes that they’ve been tied together since before his birth. She says sometimes fate seems strong, and other times it seems fragile. Rand tells her she shouldn’t have come here before entering the field of Glass Pillars. He sees Muradin in the distance, or who he assumes is Muradin, Frozen in place. He steps after him but gets hit by a blowing wind.

 

In the blink of an eye he’s Janduin, an Aiel warrior in the middle of a battle. He kills several Illian soldiers before being told by another Aiel that they found her. Who is her? Shael, Rand’s mother. Yep, this is the memory of Rand’s biological father. Shael is very dead at this point, but he tells her body that he killed Lamen himself and tries to awaken her. Bael, the other Aiel, says there’s no sign of the baby and Janduin screams in agony.

 

We return to Rand, who is also screaming. He looks at his hands and they’re covered in blood. He takes another step forward, the wind forcing him backward.

 

He sees through the eyes of another ancestor, Mandein, Rhuedean for the first time. He witnesses the fog exploding from the city for the first time. His wife, a dreamer named Sealdre, tells him that an Aes Sedai called Latra called them here and that he must agree with whatever she tells him. He asks if the others will come, and she says some will, but those that don’t will be lost to time. He leaves his spear with her and heads into the city. He finds Latra as she opens a secret knot in Avendesora and takes a glass sphere from it. It’s revealed this is THE Latra Posae Decume, the Tamyrlin Seat that once refused to help Lews Therin with his plan to defeat the Forsaken. The men asks why they were called. Latra says that the true Aiel are dead, and then asks why they don’t carry swords. Mandein says that it’s forbidden, but Latra guesses that he doesn’t know why. She says there’s a lot he doesn’t know. He asks what she will ask of them. Latra tells them that the leaders of the Aiel, Chiefs and Wise Ones must come here and be tested, to learn their history and why they don’t carry swords. She gives them the prophecy of the Car’a’Carn as well, saying he’ll come from Rhuedean at dawn. She channels through the sphere and makes the Crystal Pillars. She tells them to travel through the pillars, to learn their history and know what the Aes Sedai call them Oathbreakers. Mandein is the first to go, saying he doesn’t fear his past and that they’re not oathbreakers.

 

We return to Rand who takes more steps forward and sees the bodies of failed Chiefs. He’s almost to Muradin now. Another step and another jump back.

 

Rand is his ancestor, Lewin, who is looking at a cutting of Avendesora, the Chora tree. He tells his friends that he feels peaceful just holding onto it, but is clearly joking about it. Adan, their Seeker, chases them off, saying that that tree is more precious than any of them. He tells the other they’re headed to the desert to build a city where they’ll plant it. Lewin finds his mother sobbing. She tells him that his sister was taken by bandits. They also took a woman named Colline as well. Lewin wants to go after them, now, but fighting is forbidden to them and Adan orders them back to their wagons. He chants that all will be well as if he believes it. Lewin and his friends refuse to just let them be taken and agree to go after them. They’ll wait until dark, sneak in, and then escape, no violence. Lewin and his friends Alijah and Charlin sneak in at night. They plan to grab the girls and go. Charlin tells them to keep their dust veils up to hide their faces. They head in. Lewin finds another captured girl named Maigran and tries to get her to leave but a bandit awakes and tries to attack him. Charlin tackles the bandit and a fight breaks out. Lewin almost gets killed but he grabs a spear and cuts the man’s throat. His friend Charlin was stabbed when he tackled the bandit and dies.  Alijah grabs the sword, but Lewin tells him to leave it. It’s a weapon and only a weapon, forbidden by the Way of the Leaf. The Spear can do more, it can put food in the pot. They return with the girls and Charlin’s body. They take the girls back, but cast out Lewin and Alijah for breaking from the Way of the Leaf. Adan, who is Lewin’s grandfather, calls them strangers and oathbreakers. His mother tells him to cover his face, saying that she doesn’t know him, but he has the face of her dead son and she doesn’t want to see it on a killer. And this is why I hate Tinkers. Yep, the Aiel an the Tu’athuan used to be the same people, followers of the Way of the Leaf. Alijah asks what they can do, and he says they’ll follow them to protect the true Aiel.

 

Rand returns to his body and takes another step. Muradin literally pulls his eyes from his face as he screams in agony.

 

Meanwhile, Moiraine sees the sand shifting and shaking under the Avendesora. She channels at the great tree, revealing the glass sphere hidden within it. She takes it and stores it in a pocket. She is drawn away and towards the three rings. It’s three rings standing upright and against each other in a triangle shape. She sees Aviendha floating in them and screaming before she joins. She sees her life play out in. She’s a humble fisherwife with Siuan, she’s the Amyrlin Seat and executes Rand, she releases Lan from his bond, she takes Rand as a Warder, she sees Lan before her, she executes Rand again, she kneels to Rand and swears herself to him.

 

Rand takes another step, passing Muradin as he screams.

 

He’s now Adan’s grandfather, Jonai. He wonders the burning remains of his caravan, many of his people dead or injured. Adan joins him and asks where his parents are. Sulwin, another of his people, say they can’t keep going like this. In the old tongue, Jonai says they bury their dead and move on, what else is there? He says the others will meet them at the Spine of the World as his daughter dreamed. Sulwin says that her group is going south. The Aes Sedai has killed the last man who can channel, the earth is settling, they can set up some place safe and sing the song of harvest again. Jonai asks them not to go, but they do. She offers to take Adan with them but he refuses, saying he won’t be an oathbreaker. Jonai says they’ll bury their dead and move on. Later, Jonai says his daughter saw great things in her dreams as they bury her. She saw it, a city in the desert, a place they can be safe. Adan asks where it is, and he says East, toward the dawn. They take their last wagon to carry their Chora cutting, Jonai saying that he was taught to care for his cutting by his grandfather and he’ll teach Adan. Adan asks how they’ll cross the spine, and he says together.

 

Back to Rand. He’s much deeper now. Another step and he’s Rhodric, an Aiel during the Age of Legends. Rhodric meets with Latra Sedai. He tells her that her orders have been followed and they’re sending out 10,000 wagons, each with a Chora cutting. She gives him the glass sphere, her fellow Aes Sedai Solinda wants to stop her, but Latra insists that the Aiel can be trusted with it, they’ve shown courage through their adherence to peace. Solinda asks how she can think of Peace when they’re surrounded by Death. Latra basically tells her to shut up as they need to protect the Glass Sphere from those mad men, for fear of what would happen if they found a woman Aes Sedai who’d agree to work with them and use it. She reminds Solinda that it was a woman Aes Sedai, once called Mierin but now going by Lanfear, who broke into the Dark One’s prison and started all of this. She tells Rhodric that that the sphere is Sakarnen, the women’s equivalent to Callandor. Callandor is protected in a new fortress, so she’s trusting Sakarnen to Rhodric to keep it safe, to find a place where it can be placed where no one comes to harm. He agrees to keep it until they have need of it again. Latra tells them the Aiel to keep to the Way of the Leaf, now and forever. He knees and he and the other Aiel swear to do so. He takes the Sakarnen and places it in a Chora cutting. His partner Comran asks if he’s going to be okay, and Rhodric tells him that all will be well.

 

Rand takes another step. He falls to his knees as he does so, clearly exhausted. He gers up and keeps walking. Behind him Muradin falls dead.

 

He is Charn, an Aiel in the Age of Legends before the Bore. He’s servant to she who would one day be Lanfear, Mieren. She joins him as he watches Aiel gather crops, asking if this is where he’s from. Charn says it is, his family still works out there and bringing in the harvest. Mieren asks why he isn’t down there, and he says today is too important, there’s always tomorrow. She tells him that tomorrow everything changes. He asks what she’s actually doing. Mieren reveals she found a thin patch in the Pattern, and on the other side they detected a great energy source. Like the True Source and the One Power, but much more potent. And, it seems like anyone could use it, and with equal strength. She says that soon even a non-channeler like Charn will be able to use this power to do things like harvest crops without his hands. Charn laughs at this and says some things are good to do by hand. Mieren tells him to go and sing with his family, enjoy the moment. Charn bows and heads out. He stops to ask if she’s sure and she says she is, nothing is more important than the people you love. Charn joins them and starts harvesting. He gets a few cuts in before the giant floating sphere that is Mieren’s lab blows open, dropping rom the sky. A yawning hole of blackness forms in the sky.

 

Rand flashes back through all of the memories back to the present and back again. Among the pillars he falls to the ground at the center. Before his eyes, tattoos form on both his arms, gold dragons forming at the back of his hands and up his forearms.

 

Later, he finds Aviendha passed out on the ground. She sees his markings and is terrified. Rand apologizes to her, saying he apologizes for not understanding about the swords. She incredulously asks if he does now. He says he knows enough to know he’ll never fully understand. He asks if she saw Moiraine, and she says Moiraine is still inside. She gets up to leave, asking if Rand is coming. He says he has to stay for Moiraine. She tells him to do as he wishes as a Wetlander. He passes out under Avendesora.

 

Moiraine is still falling through possibility. She’s in the Ways, surrounded by Forsaken both old and new, in the form of her former charges like Egwene and Nynaeve, Lanfear cuts her throat and throws her into the ways. She’s taken Rand as a lover. She’s taken Lanfear as a lover who tries to strangle her in bed but not in a fun way. She announces that the Tower will never bow to Rand before Lanfear stabs her. Lanfear cuts her throat again and again and again and again and again. Lanfear loves to cut throats, I guess.

 

Back at the camp, Lan and Egwene are waiting up. Egwene says that it’s been seven days since they left. Aviendha came back two days ago. She says they should go in after them. Lan says they wanted them to stay. The sun begins to rise, and Lan starts tearing up. We see Rand leaving the city as it rises, carrying Moiraine in his arms. He passes her off to Lan as Egwene hugs him in relief before the credits roll.

 

This is easily one of the best episodes the show has put out. Seeing the history of the Aiel play out during the fourth book The Shadow Raising, and the show did not disappoint with their depiction. While certain scenes were scaled down slightly, the number of characters reduced mostly, these were all scenes lifted directly from the books. Having Josha Stradowski play all his forefathers in the prime of their lives was a cost saving idea at least a little, it did also show off his range with his ability to disappear into roles. He plays Rand’s biological father Janduin differently from how he does Rand, as he did for Jonai, and for Mandein, and the rest. We see shades of the character of Rand in each man, but each is a little different. Watching this culture shift backwards from proud warriors, to people on the run and growing ever more desperate, to scared but reasonably confident travelers, to the peaceful servants of the Age of Legends was a hell of a whiplash for me when I first experienced the story. Same with the reveal that Rand can trace his ancestry back to the servant of Lanfear was as shocking. Some context is removed from a few scenes that lessen the impact slightly. For example, in the books we do get a POV from Adan, not jumping from Lewin to Jonai. In Adan’s chapter we learn that when Lewin was five, he’d lost literally all of his own children along with his wife. One died of starvation, two from channeling (his daughter had the spark and died because there was no one to train her, while his son ended himself rather than risk hurting his family with the madness) one was taken by raiders and the last died with his wife in the same raid. He still kept to the covenant, to the Way of the Leaf despite living through a life so steeped in misery and despair, I feel like that does inform just how much pain he was in years later when he disowned Lewin for breaking it. The man had to have felt like all of creation was attempting to destroy him in that moment, but he had to go on because what else is there? And I liked how that phrase kept being echoed backwards through time. A number of Rand’s less important ancestors were cut from this version, forefathers who merely witnessed big transitions or minor changes to the Aiel culture, like Lewin’s son who started the tradition of Aiel using short spears, or the original Rhodric, who witnessed the act of kindness that the Cairhien gave his people that spurned the Aiel to give them a Chora cutting years later. Though Rhodric’s name was used as the Aiel that was bid to keep to the way. In the books that was an Aiel named Coumin, I assume to differentiate him from Charn slightly. So ya, the visions were good. Same with Moiraine’s. We see more of hers here than in the books, where we just got a couple word overview of some of the other lives she could have lived, the only one she mentioned in any detail being remembering a possible future where she became Rand’s lover and how that blew up in their faces spectacularly. Having shown them in that weird flipping motion added to the surreal feeling of those possible futures. The fact she seems all but predestined to be killed by Lanfear at some point probably isn’t going to do anything for her nerves, but we’ll have to wait and see. Getting to see Couladin and Sevanna was fun in a frustrating way. They’ll be relevant to the story going forward, but I think my repeated comments about how much Couladin sucks in this write up does hint at how. Calling them future headaches is something of an understatement. Oh, and I liked how Rand chose to wait for Moiraine and how that ultimately made him perform the prophecy of coming with the Dawn. In the books he and Mat (who went with in the books and had his own adventure we’ll get into later) leave basically ASAP. Even if he was unaware of it, Rand choosing to wait for Moiraine is what lead him to fulfil that prophecy and that makes it feel more like he’s choosing this responsibility than being thrust into it. Or so I think. So ya, great episode. Next time we’ll catch up with the others. 

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Viewer Log: Wheel of Time ep 19

 Matrim "Royal Thumping" Cauthon has a nice ring to it.

Last time on The Wheel of Time, Elayne dealt with a family affair. Her mom, Morgase, her brothers Galad and Gawyn, and her mother’s consort Gaebril arrived to demand she return to Andor. Morgase was spooked by Elayne’s disappearance last season and wants her home where she can be protected. This complicated Siuan’s plan to use Elayne and Nynaeve to sus out any remaining Black Ajah sisters in the Tower. Eventually, Elayne confronted her mother about staying and got Morgase to agree to leave her in the Tower, though her brothers stayed to train as Warders and to keep an eye on her. Her mother’s advisor Elida also decided to stay behind, much to Siuan’s annoyance. Perrin made it back to the Two Rivers, only to learn that Whitecloaks had taken over the area as they’re defending the townsfolk from Trolloc raids. Alanna and Maksim were also there for reasons they refused to divulge. Mat tried to distract himself in the Tower, it didn’t go well. He was approached and convinced by Siuan to leave the Horn of Valere in her keeping, to hopefully dissuade anyone from killing him to try to take the Horn for themselves. We also learn that Min is back in the Tower, she’s working as a spy for Verin and her ability to glimpse hints of the future suggest that even more death and destruction is coming to the Tower. Rand and company made for the Aiel Waste. Rand trained with his blade for a bit, much to Aviendha’s annoyance. Aiel have a thing about swords. They’re eventually discovered by Aiel warriors, the woman leading the group recognizing Rand as a candidate for Car’a’Carn. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Ep 19: Seeds of the Shadow

 

We open in the bowels of a castle or so it’s seems. Lord Gaebril is looking about fretfully when he’s joined by… Lanfear? Oh no! A third Forsaken joins them, a fellow named Sammael. Yes, I said third. It’s revealed that Lord Gaebril is in fact Rahvin, another of the Forsaken. Lanfear is impressed when she sees lipstick on his face and realizes he’s already got a queen in his bed. Rahvin has a taste for the finer things in life. It’s revealed that he’s used Compulsion, a forbidden weave that lets you control other people’s minds, to convince Morgase and everyone around her that they’ve been hopelessly in love for a decade, not a month. FYI, that’s why everyone who saw him last episode had that over long pause when meeting him, they were legit trying to figure out who he was until he forced the lie into their minds. Sammael is less impressed by his dalliances and demands to know where the Dragon is. Lanfear says they have more immediate problems than Rand al’Thor. Sammael accuses her of falling into the same trap as last time, falling hopelessly in love with the Dragon. He goes so far as to say she’d lay down at his feet if he said rug. Rahvin scoffs and says that last time the Chosen fought each other more than the Dragon, so can they please focus. Lanfear says they need to talk about Moghedian. She says that Moghedian is a weak coward, but she’s smart. She believes Moghedian will start by attacking either of them, as she claims Rahvin and Sammael are the weakest Chosen on the field right now, and then she’ll work her way up to Lanfear herself and be named Nae’blis. Nae’blis is the title for the leader of the Forsaken. In the books it’s never said out loud this was Ishamael’s place, but it’s heavily implied. Here its flat out stated. Sammael asks why she isn’t Nae’blis already if she’s so confident and why the Dark One isn’t talking to them through her. She says that maybe the Dark One is still mourning Ishamael. Rahvin picks up that she’s looking to form an alliance. He says he’ll pass it onto the others. When she ask what he means, he reveals he contacted two other Chosen, Graendal and Semihrage, and that he’ll pass the information onto them. Lanfear tells him to think about her offer and Gateways away, Sammael following suit. Moghedian then reveals herself, she’d been hiding in the shadows, and was affronted by being called a coward. They banter for a minute before Moghedian says that Lanfear is falling into the same games as last time, but she won’t be doing the same. She won’t be trapped in a cage for 3000 years again. They share a chuckle.

 

We cut to the prison cells at the White Tower. Verin narrates that these two, Amico Nagoyin a ‘Yellow’ and Joiya Byir a ‘Gray’ are both actually Black Ajah sisters that the Amyrlin captured herself. She tells Nynaeve and Elayne that they’ve been Stilled, cut off from the True Source forever, but they’re still not talking about the Black Ajah’s plans. She wants them to try to make progress with them. Nynaeve says they’ll work better on their own, Elayne elaborating that they can lie, which gives them an advantage over the Aes Sedai. They go to talk to Joiya first. Joiya is impressed to see Elayne as Accepted already, saying that Siuan must have shuffled her through the Arches real quickly. No you didn’t miss that scene, they didn’t show it. Joiya doesn’t give them anything so they move onto Amico. Amico is a sobbing wreck after losing her powers. She does explain how the Black Ajah is organized. They’re broken up into three women cells called Hearts. Each Sister in a Heart knows each other, and then each knows one more sister outside of their heart. Amico’s non-Heart contact was Liandrin, but she says Liandrin found out about the rest somehow, hence why she called out to them for aide. She claims to not know anything else. They pretend to contemplate killing Amico and saying Joiya told them as much, and asks her to drop the act. Amico stops Sobbing and says that Liandrin is headed to Tear to help a Forsaken get Callandor. Elayne says only the Dragon can claim it, so Amico shrugs and says they’ve got nothing to fear then. We jump back to their interrogation of Joiya, who claims that Amico can’t be trusted because she spent years as a Yellow and lied to patience faces about them living through their illnesses and laughing when they died. She claims Liandrin is going after Mazrim Taim, another false Dragon. He’s from Saldea in the north. Joiya uses her experience as a Gray, saying she specialized in negotiations and reading people to get them to try to believe her.

 

We jump up to Elaida in her rooms. She seems to be having some kind of fit, her body shaking horribly. She calls out for her servant Alice to help her as she knocks aside some knickknacks from her shelf. Min comes in, saying that Alice left with Morgase and offers to help her. Elaida agrees, saying today is an important day for her.

 

Elayne and Nynaeve try to figure out if they should go to Tear or Saldea. Nynaeve says she doesn’t believe either of them, and that Verin and Siuan were too focused on the two captured Blacks. She is sure that Liandrin is the key. She leads Elayne to the room Liandrin had been using to house her son. The room is empty and bare now, though. Elayne asks if she liked Liandrin. Nynaeve admits that she did, saying that while Liandrin was trying to turn her to the Shadow, she did seem to genuinely trying to help her, and that she seemed to love her son. They see a symbol written in chalk under the bed, they move the bed and have a look.

 

Back in the Tower, Elida finds Verin and Leane talking and butts into their conversation. Joking that Verin must be dealing with a fire in the library or a shortage of honeycakes in the kitchen. She tries to speak with the Amyrlin but the two other sisters stone wall her. Verin says that only a Sitter can ask for a private audience with the Amyrlin and Leane suggesting she go find one before she’ll accept Elida’s petition. Elida tells them both if they cross her now, she’ll never forget it before gliding away. She goes to the Red Ajah and speaks with the Sitters. Tsutama, one of the Sitters for the Red we saw earlier, is revealed to be the Highest, the unofficial head of the Red Ajah. Elida hands her and another Sitter, Galina, bribes to earn their favor. Did I say bribes? I meant gifts. Tsutama tells her to keep the necklace Elida presented to her, saying it’s too gaudy for her. Tsutama asks what she’s hoping to gain here, and Elida states that she wants to return the Red Ajah to its proper place at the Heart of the Tower, like it was when she was the Highest. Tsutama says this isn’t the time for them to be drawing attention to themselves, not after Liandrin but Elida disagrees. The Dragon is Reborn and is a man, and thus the Red Ajah need to be acting. She proposes sending eight sisters to find Rand al’Thor and cage him. Tsutama tells her that they need to work to regain their standing, a situation that Elida is making more difficult and dismisses her. Elida goes, but not before pointing out that Tsutama not fighting for her place in the hall during the incident with Liandrin falls squarely on her head.

 

In the Waste, Lan asks Rhuarc, the Clan Chief of the Tardaad Aiel, how they knew that they were coming. Rhuarc says that’s Wise One business. When Moiraine asks what a Wise One is, he also says that’s also Wise One business. Egwene and Rand are following behind them and Egwene says she swears she saw the Wise One with them, Bair , in her dreams the night before. Bair overhears them and says that no, Egwene was in her dream. The Aiel finds water and spread out to try to claim the water source, Aviendha saying that more blood has been spilled in the waste over water than gold. They found a caravan of Tu’athuan (tinkers) that had been attacked and slaughtered. Egwene asks if Aiel did this, but Rhuarc says it’s forbidden to even approach the ‘lost ones.’ And Avi elaborates saying the only thing less honorable than refusing to defend yourself is killing someone who won’t defend themselves. They examine the bodies and find what they think is a sword, but Lan says that it’s from a spear head shaped to look like a sword. They reason that he Shaido, another Aiel clan that the Tardaad are in a blood feud with, might have done this. The others hurry ahead, Rhuarc staying behind to bury the dead. Oh, and it’s revealed that in this version Bair is Rhuarc’s wife. Rand holds back a bit to ask Rhuarc about Rhuedean and the trial he needs to face there. Rhuarc tells him he knows too much and too little about that.

 

In the Two Rivers, Perrin visits his wife’s grave and buries his broken ring beside her. Alanna joins him and says she never imagined he was a gardener. He says this is actually his family burial plot, the Aybara’s having a tradition of burying their dead with apple seeds in their hands, hence why there’s a grove of apple trees here. He tells Alanna this is Leila’s grave and that he missed her burial due to them running from the Trollocs. He admits that it both hurts and comforts him that her tree has thrived since he left. Alanna says that in her culture, they mix the ashes of the dead with clay to make a face paint that they wear until it fades away. Hence why she and Maksim are wearing the gray face paint. Perrin asks when she’ll start looking for another Warder. Alanna admits she’s buried a lot of Warders through the years but her relationship with her Ihvon and Maksim is different. She says that she and Maksim were the fire and Ihvon knew how to douse that flame. Perrin says that at least she still has Maksim. She says that its different with a trio, that when one of a pair dies there is only one to grieve, but when two are left one of them dominates the grief.

 

Back in the village, Bain and Chiad are bored and try to convince Loial to a game of Maiden’s Kiss. Something the bashful Ogier isn’t super into. He says he must finish this chapter on Maneatharan. The Aiel turn their attention to Maksim who is sharpening his sword. He says no. They say they’ll go easy on him since it’s his first time. Maksim chuckles and asks who said it was his first time? They try to get him to stop playing with his dirty sword, but Maksim reveals it’s not dirt, but the ashes of the only man he ever loved. Before they can continue, Perrin and Alanna return, saying people are in the village that he didn’t recognize. They try to run for the upstairs but a man and his entourage storms in. This is Lord Luc and his second-in-command a woman in black, revealing to Marin al’Vere that Natti Cauthon and her daughters were arrested by the Whitecloaks. The woman in black notices Perrin and Perrin is introduced to them and Lord Luc to him. Perrin asks where the Cauthons are. Luc tries to build up the drama but the woman in black reveals that they’re at the Whitecloak camp at Watch Hill. She asks if he knows the Whitecloaks because they say they know him.

 

We cut to the camp which is being run by Dain Bornhald and Eamon Valda. Valda says they’re wasting good steel on Dain’s cages and that he can just get the information about the Aybaras directly from the Cauthons. Dain says that’s not necessary, the townsfolk saw them arrest the Cauthons, so Perrin will come to them. Valda says there are faster ways to get information but Dain refuses to put the villagers to the Question (torture) as they’ve done nothing wrong. Valda insists that Perrin helped a witch and murdered his father, the land itself has to be tainted to raise such a creature. Dain reveals he sent to the Lord Captain Commander of the Whitecloaks for reinforcement. If they arrive before Perrin does, he’ll let Valda have his way. He goes to examine the Cauthons and Natti Cauthon swears she’ll die before she lets him touch her girls.

 

Back at Tar Valon, Mat is trying to sleep but the sounds of death in his memories is keeping him up. It seems to be causing him agony before he sits up and downs a bunch of water. Min barges into his room and Mat asks to have a lock installed. He tries to brush Min off, but she insists on talking to him. She tells him she gave up her reward from Ishamael to protect him. Ishy had promised to take away her ability to see the future, but she gave that up to protect him. Mat isn’t impressed and says he won’t thank her for it. She storms off, but Mat does try to call her back, so he at least feels bad talking to her like that.

 

Elayne and Nynaeve are looking up the symbol in the library. They find out that the symbol is part of a death ritual from the country of Tanchico. Ya draw the symbol where a person died and where they were born to help ease their passing and speed up their rebirth. They realize that Liandrin is from Tanchico and that she’ll be heading there instead of Tear or Saldea. When Nynaeve says both Black Sisters were lying, Elayne gets the idea that maybe they should focus on what the Black Sisters didn’t talk about, namely the items stolen from the 13^th Depository. Verin had been cataloguing them and they look through the sketches. Nynaeve finds a bracelet that looks a lot like the bracelet half of a Seanchan a’dam, the device Sul’dam use to control Damane. Elayne realizes that Tanchico is near Falme, Falme is where the Seanchan landed… and that maybe that’s where they could find the collar that matches it. Someone shoots at the two of them, Elayne throwing him back with the Power. They go to investigate and find a dead Gray Man like from the inn. Elayne says she didn’t throw him hard enough to do that, but Nynaeve notices a stab wound. Verin join them, smiling, but that disappears when she sees the corpse. They fill her in on what happened and she explains the Gray Man’s lore. They’re Darkfriends that sold their soul to the shadow in exchange for an ability to go unnoticed. You can look right at them and barely register that they’re there. Nynaeve asks what she’s doing up there, and Verin counters that this is the Brown Ajah quarters, so she might ask her the same thing. They ask to go to their rooms and Verin says they can but to lock there doors and to not open them until the Amyrlin comes to debrief them. Nynaeve tells Elayne they’re headed to Tanchico today, as it’s safer there than in the Tower even if it’s a trap. When Elayne asks why, she points out how weird it is that Verin never asked the obvious question. Who stabbed the Grey Man?

 

Liandrin arrives in Tanchico with her crew. The locals are dressed in veils and masks. They interrupt a wedding ceremony in the palace. The groom is a man named Jaq Lounalt. When Liandrin hears that name, we get a bit of her backstory. She assumes Jaq is the great-grandson of her ‘husband.’ Though, that probably isn’t the right word, as Lounalt Sr. didn’t give her a wedding and kept her in a room under the keep as… well, a sex slave. Until she found out she was pregnant at 13. She unveils Lounalt’s bride and sees she’s another child. Jaq tells her not to touch his property. Liandrin turns and channels his heart out of his chest. She tells the others to slaughter the guests. Liandrin calls Nyomi over and has her use Compulsion on the girl’s mind to make her forget what happened today. She has to take a bit more too, but Liandrin thinks that might be for the best. Given the amount of bodies behind them, ya, good call.

 

Back at the Tower, Min brings Elida some dresses she wanted. Elida reveals that she knows Min is a seer and asks her if seeing the future is a burden on her. She reveals she can also see into the future. What Min does is unique to her, her visions are cryptic but always 100% accurate. The Foretelling that an Aes Sedai can do are less frequent and more fickle. She does say every vision is a gift, though. Min asks why, since they can’t change it. Elida reveals that knowing the answer isn’t the real power, the real power is figuring out what leads to that future. She says that in the past she had a vision that the queendom of Andor would be a key part in the last battle, so she made sure she was installed as the advisor to the queen. Min asks if the bracelet that Elida fingers is part of another Foretelling and Elida says it is of a source. She has Min sit, and asks if what she’ll say next can stay between them. Min says yes. Eliada reveals that the Reds will soon call a vote in the Hall that Siuan will lose. This vote will set the Tower on it’s original mission, to find and cage the Dragon Reborn.

 

In the Waste, Bair speaks with Egwene, saying it’s been ages since the Tower produced a Dreamwalker. Dreamwalkers are people who can enter the World of Dreams, Tel’alan’riod. Everyone who sleeps can touch that place but only a few can enter it fully. She says she and another Wise One named Melaine are the only two among the Taardad. She thinks Egwene is one too. When Egwene mentions that she’s been stalked in her dream by a woman that tortured her. It’s revealed that bruises on her neck are a side effect of these dream attacks. Bair promises to show Egwene what she can of defending herself in the dream after they reach Rhuidean.

 

In Rand’s dream, he’s meeting with Lanfear in their room. He says that she needs to stop bringing him here and she suggests he brought her here. She says that he was right not to go to Callandor and apologizes for trying to push him there. She seems legitimately scared, and Rand asks her why. She says that she may be able to escape her oaths, if the Dark One was killed. Rand asks how they could even do that. She claims that there’s a Sa’Angreal for Saidar, a twin to Callandor, called the Sakarnen. She theorizes if used together, they could destroy the Dark One. Rand asks what it’d mean for her if her oaths were gone and she implies they might be together. Rand says they can’t and she teleports away.

 

We shift over to the Aiel Sweat Tent. As water is precious in the Waste, to get clean the Aiel basically go into a sweat lodge, scraping the dirt and grime off their bodies with stones. Moiraine asks what the significance of Rhuidean is and the other Wise One, Melaine asks if the White Tower doesn’t teach manners. Bair explains that it’s where Aiel go to be declared either a Wise One or Clan Chief. If Rand is the Car’a’Carn, he’ll need to go there. Moiraine asks what happens when he is made one, but no one answers. They see an Aiel making eyes at Moiraine and Lan suggests maybe she could use a night or an hour with someone to forget her troubles. Moiraine says she hasn’t been with anyone beside Siuan in years, but Lan laughs and says she didn’t forget how it works. The Aiel comes over and is introduced as Melindhra. After asking Lan if he’d like to join her tonight. When she walks away, they spy a tattoo of a crane on her back. Lan follows her and demands to know what she has the Malkier Golden Crane on her back. Melindhra reveals that she’s actually Malkieri, she ran when the country fell until she was found and adopted by an Aiel Wise One. She says she’s Aiel, but she’d break her spears if Lan asked her to help him take back Malkier. Lan says Malkier is dead, but Melindhra insists it lives in any man that wears a hadori and any woman that wears the kaizen. She says he carries his father’s sword and asks if he still fights the war and he says he does.

 

Back at the Two Rivers, Perrin and the townsfolk have a meeting. Perrin offers to turn himself over to the Whitecloaks to free the Cauthons. Marin says that the whole town has known Perrin all his life and they know he’s not a Darkfriend. Local angry old man Cenn Buie says he’s something, given his eyes, but Daise Congar says to shut up. Perrin still will turn himself in so they can focus on the real problem of the Trollocs. The others won’t let him leave for fear that the Whitecloaks would abandon them to the Trollocks if they have him. She says the Two Rivers defends its own and the meeting disperses. Alanna goes up to talk with Maksim. They have a fight about the bond, Maksim demanding that Alanna turn it off because he’s dying. Not from Alanna’s grief but from her utter lack of grief for Ihvon. Alanna says that she’s controlling her emotions because if she didn’t she’d drown in both of their grief. He insists that if she really felt something they’d be hunting down Liandrin. He wants to know why there in the Two Rivers instead of looking for their lover’s murderer.

 

We jump to the common room of the Winespring when the woman in black comes to speak to Perrin. She says that she’d never seen someone try to turn themselves in and fail. He asks if she’s with Lord Luc and she confirms it, though she says it’s by happenstance. She’s a hunter for the Horn of Valere. She notices him chuckle when he hears that and when she asks he says he’s ‘aware of it.” She says that there’s been much talk about him in his absence. Perrin says that there’s been little talk of her, and that he doesn’t know her name. She introduces herself as Mandarb, which makes Perrin laugh because that’s Lan’s horse’s name. It means Blade in the old tongue. She suggests trying to turn himself in again and storms off. Loial joins Perrin and asks what now. Perrin says he’s going to free the Cauthons, since he promised to protect them Mat.

 

At the Tower, Mat chases down Min and does apologize to her for how he acted. He says he has had troubles of his own lately and that made him act rudely. Min knows its about the memories. He asks how she knew that and she says Mat’s told every Novice and half the Aes Sedai about it, so of course she knows. She suggests that maybe they could use their skills to their advantage, but cuts off when she has a vision. She sees Mat hanging from a tree in a red stone doorway. Mat tries to pull her out of it but tells her he doesn’t want to hear about the vision. Galad saw the commotion and stepped in on Min’s behalf, asking if this lout has been bothering her. Min tells him to piss off and walks off, and Mat calls him a prick. So the average reaction to Galad.

 

Leana enters the Red Quarter to meet with the Red Sitters and Eliada. She’s come to offer them a mission on behalf of the Amyrlin. Siuan had heard the Reds were anxious to do their jobs and so has ordered Tsutama to lead an expedition of 8 sisters to capture Mazrim Taim. Elida says that the Highest can’t leave as an important vote is coming up, but Leane asks if maybe the Reds want to leave their duties to another Ajah, the Blues maybe. Tsutama agrees to go, following Leana so they can meet with the Amyrlin. When alone, Elida asks Galina who will replace Tsutama while she’s gone, as Saldea is on the other side of the world and while Tsutama is gone that means they’d only have two votes in the Hall. Galina agrees they’ll need a temporary replacement.

 

In the Two Rivers, Perrin tries to stop his friend Wil al’Seen from going back to his farm in the night, for fear of Trollocs. Wil isn’t scared, though, and insists they’ll be fine. Perrin is accused of stirring up trouble, but Perrin insists that they need to remember what happened at Bel Tine. The al’Seens ask what to do. Perrin suggests that they all fortify the town to protect themselves from both the Trollocs and Whitecloaks. Everyone agrees that’s a good idea.

 

Meanwhile, Mat is training in the Warder Hall with a quarter staff. Galad and Gawyn arrive and try to intimidate him. They mock his use of a staff and suggest maybe they can show him how to use a real weapon. Mat says he’s fine and that he’ll stick to bows and staves. Nynaeve comes in and says she’s been looking for Mat. She’s come to say goodbye as she and Elayne are heading out. Mat shouts when he hears Liandrin’s name. He refuses to stay behind, as he’s worried for them but rationalizes it as Nynaeve still being the only one he trusts with fixing his head. She tries to leave but he stops her, Galad tries to insert himself into the conversation again and Mat yells at him to take a day off. They tell him to back off, and Mat decides he’s had enough of this and bets them two marks each that he can beat them two on one with his staff. They agree. Mat says his catchphrase from the books ‘dovie’andi se tovya sagain’ It’s time to toss the dice. Mat then singlehandedly humbles the Trakand brothers. His staff whirls around them, easily blocking their strikes and hitting them at the same time, even when they attack together. He beats Gawyn first and then Galad before reminding them they both owe him two marks.

 

The woman in black meets Perrin at the forge, saying that the villagers are staying but she thinks he might not be. She asks what the Cauthons mean to him, and he says they’re friends, family even. She asks him if he has a plan or hope, as he’ll need a plan if he wants to lead these people. Perrin says he doesn’t want to leave, he just wants to save the Cauthons. She starts to walk off, but Perrin calls out to her and asks for her name. She introduces herself as Faile. It means Falcon in the Old Tongue, which means hunting is in her blood.

 

In Tar Valon, Nynaeve, Elayne and Mat prepare to head out to Tanchico. Elayne half scolds Nynaeve for bringing Mat along when she didn’t even mention it to her brothers, but they get underway nonetheless. Not noticing at all that Min is following behind them.

 

In Tanchico, Liandrin completes her son’s burial circle in the catacombs of the castle, sobbing as she remembers his birth and death. She leaves and enters the area the others are working. Nyomi confirms that the bracelet is similar to the a’dam, but older. Saidar weaves don’t affect it, so they presume it’s to control a man. They’re going to look for the collar that matches it so they can collar the Dragon Reborn. We see one of the serving women is Moghedian, who smiles evilly hearing this. She whispers “softly, softly from the Shadow” as she goes.

 

Well, the Black Ajah in control of a small city-state and on the look out for the other half of a Saidin A’dam, that can’t possibly be good. The show has already done a thorough job showing us how much those things suck to have used on you. And that was just Egwene. Slap one on Rand and you can kiss the Wheel goodbye. Oh, and one of the most powerful nations in the world right now is under the control of the Forsaken. Yikes. I already knew Lord Gaebril was Rahvin from the books, but I liked how the last episode kind of hinted at that with everyone that met Gaebril staring at him blankly for just a moment too long before talking to him like they’d known him for years to be normal. In the books he’d had about six to eight months to entrench himself and build a more natural background for himself, but mind controlling those around him to just believe they’ve known him for years is in Rahvin’s style. Of the Forsaken, Graendal uses that evil power the most but Rahvin is a close second if I remember correctly. Obviously, he’s a problem that will need to be handled at some point. The concept of the Nae’blis is introduced a bit early here, but the Forsaken do spend a great deal of time fighting over who gets the job until the Dark One names the new one. The power position comes with unlimited access to the Dark One’s essence, the True Power as it’s known, so they fight hard for the spot. Let the Lord of Chaos rule and all that. I liked seeing the investigation play out, and how Nynaeve and Elayne ultimately discovered where they were going. It is different from the books, but I like how they expanded on the Tanchico culture by inventing this death ritual that Liandrin was basically compelled to do despite it being the thing that got her discovered. In case you were wondering, everything involving her son and her background is show only. If I recall correctly, the most we get about Liandrin’s past was that she was from Tanchico, well the country of Tarabone but Tanchico is the capital so that spot is as likely as any, she grew up in poverty and before she went to the tower she’d figured out a form of Compulsion that is actually one of her go to weaves despite the fact mind control is an Aes Sedai no-no. I think I like this backstory of her being the escaped child bride of a nobleman a bit more, there’s more drama to it, and makes her backstory a bit more complicated than ‘I hate people more powerful than me because I grew up poor.” Perrin’s story is pretty good too. His convincing the Two Rivers folk to fortify the town is from the books, but it takes him significantly longer. There wasn’t a big town meeting for him to use to get most of the people on board, he had to go house to house and convince them one on one. The Cauthons being captured and Perrin’s dedication to save them is also from the books. I like this introduction of Lord Luc and Faile as well. Both are hunters of the Horn, but in the books Luc was in the Two Rivers alone, and Faile actually came with Perrin. By this point in the novels, they were attracted to each other but Perrin was being stubborn about actually pursuing anything with her because he specifically came to the Two Rivers to turn himself over to the Whitecloaks. She didn’t much care for this idea. I will say, her name drop is much less significant here than in the books. In the books, Perrin is warned before meeting her that Min had a viewing about him that involved two birds, a Hawk and a Falcon, perching on his shoulders, that she somehow knows are both female. So, you can imagine he’s somewhat spooked when a strange Hunter of the Horn he met in his travels decided to dub herself Faile (falcon) right in front of him. He insists on referring to her by her birthname of Zarene despite her dislike of the name. Oh, and since Perrin’s wife is show only, there wasn’t a feeling like he was betraying her memory by falling in love again, which is obviously where this plot is going. Luc is going to be important going forward me thinks. It was amazing to finally see Mat get to humble Elayne’s brothers. In the books, he did it in front of a crowd of onlookers, but the women were less than pleased that he bruised up their eye candy. He also beat them two on one, with the Warder’s swordmaster adding the greatest blademaster in history only ever lost one fight, and that was to a farm with a staff. He let the fight go on to remind his students that a blademaster isn’t invincible. Not much to say about Rand’s plot this time but tomorrow is literally all about him so that balances out. Egwene learning and eventually being trained by Wise Ones as a Dreamwalker is good. Though I feel the need to point out that Bair is a composite character. Sort of. They basically took two Wise Ones, took one Wise One named Amys, who was a former Maiden of the Spear, wed to Rhuarc, Wise One of the Tardaad, and gave her Bair’s name. Bair is a Wise One of Shaarad Aiel, and Amys' former mentor. They work together a lot and are the most prominent Wise Ones for a while. I’m not sure why they gave Amys Bair’s name, except maybe the felt the name was more Unique? No idea. Anyway, the Tardaad Wise One training Egwene to be a Dreamwalker is good and accurate to this point in the story. That’s about it for this one. Have a good night.

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