“The Wheel of Time” showrunner breaks down epic season 2 finale and the danger of the Seanchan
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Warning: This article contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of The Wheel of Time, "What Was Meant To Be."
How about that for a season finale, huh? "What Was Meant To Be" brought an epic, triumphant end to a season that did not shy away from darkness or danger. Thankfully, the Hollywood writers' strike ended just in time for EW to catch up with showrunner Rafe Judkins and pick his brain about his "holistic" approach to the adaptation of Robert Jordan's long-running fantasy series.
Jan Thijs/Prime Video Mat Cauthon (Dónal Finn) leads the Heroes of the Horn on 'The Wheel of Time'
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: In addition to being the showrunner, you're also the co-writer on the season 2 finale. What's the difference for you between leading the room throughout the season and actually being in the writer's seat for such a big episode?
RAFE JUDKINS: Yeah, I mean, I love writing. That's why I got into this gig and I love all the pieces that I get to do as a showrunner, but I love to write scenes. I love to just be alone with a computer working on a script. And so it was great to get to do that with this finale and make sure that I could tie together all of the pieces that we've been trying to build toward all season. We have a complicated job in terms of adapting two books into one season and pulling in certain things from later in the books, but also holding other things for later in the show. We've got a complicated juggling act going on right now. Our job by the end of season 2 was making sure that when you see those five characters up on the tower at the end, you understand who each of them are and what the core crux of their character is. You may have favorites and lesser favorites amongst those five, but you know who they are and you know what they stand for.
Totally. And not only are you combining books two and three, but you're also bringing stuff in from the first book since we didn't really touch on Perrin's wolf stuff in the first season and that had to come in here too — and obviously that plays a big role in the finale.
Yeah, I'm always viewing my job as adapting the entire series of Wheel of Time, not just each book individually. Because the series is so massive — it fills my whole wall behind me — we have to think of it holistically. Especially in these early stages, we really have to set up correctly what people need to understand because the books start to go into storylines that more cleanly adapt to television the later we go on as well.
When we talked about season 1, you mentioned that the first book, The Eye of the World, is very different from the rest of the series. It starts out by seeming like a standard fantasy quest, but then at the end of that story it becomes clear that The Wheel of Time has only just begun. What was fun about diving deeper into Robert Jordan's world in season 2?
I think that's one of the best things about The Wheel of Time is the deeper you get into it, the more interesting things happen, the more unique cultures you meet, the more unusual characters and conflicts that still feel so fresh even decades later. I think the books really do that. When you read them, you feel like you grow up with them, you feel like they become more sophisticated and deep. I hope the show does the same, so that by the time you get to season 3, you're just rattling off things about the One Power and the Black Ajah. You just become fluent in the world of Wheel of Time the deeper you get into it.
Speaking of the unique cultures of Wheel of Time, the Seanchan are such a big element of season 2. What was fun about bringing them to the screen, and also making them feel so dangerous? One of the reasons this finale feels so triumphant is that there were several episodes this season where it felt like the Seanchan were just steamrolling everything. In season 1 it's like, "There are troll soldiers, there's a Dark Lord and his minions, I know how this goes." But with the Seanchan you just feel like, "Wait, I don't know what's going on. I haven't seen anything like this before."
One of the things that really excited me about taking on this adaptation was that memory of getting to the second book and meeting the Seanchan. I remember getting there when I was younger and feeling like, "I don't know where this story is going, and that makes me excited!" That makes you lean in, and I feel like we had to achieve that in the show too. Everyone worked so hard across every department, from the writers to the costumes to the dialect team to the production design to make sure that the Seanchan really come in and just absolutely sideswipe you and drive every story in a direction that you never saw coming. I think for the show to really work, we needed the Seanchan to work because it could give that audience the feeling of, "I don't know what's going to happen next in this show and I need to watch to find out."
Jan Thijs/Prime Video Egwene (Madeleine Madden), collared and gagged as a slave of the Seanchan in 'The Wheel of Time' season 2
In particular, their threat feels so real because they really beat down Egwene (Madeleine Madden). So her breaking free and working together with everyone to defeat the Seanchan in this finale feels so exciting and triumphant because it really did seem like they were walking away with it for a little bit there.
We really wanted her personal journey this season to feel impossible to get out of. As a logical person, you're putting yourself in her mind and you're like, "There is no way out. We cannot escape from this." She feels like our sort of representation for the Seanchan writ large: How do our leads get out of this? And I feel like the best finales that any movie or TV show have are something where you as the audience feel like your lead is up against impossible odds and you don't know how they can overcome them. And then when they do, it's surprising and amazing. The Seanchan really give us that story, where it's really satisfying for the audience to follow Egwene on that journey and then see all of our characters overcoming the Seanchan in a similar way.
I wanted to ask you about that climactic scene with the five Two Rivers characters on the tower and the fiery dragon in the sky behind them. We spent season 1 wondering which of them was the Dragon Reborn, and we eventually learned that Rand (Josha Stradowski) was the reincarnation of Lews Therin Telamon. Throughout season 2, Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) has been reciting this prophecy of how the Dragon Reborn will declare himself to the world on that tower. But I just couldn't help but notice that if Rand had been on his own up there, it would not have gone down like that. He would've been gentled by the Seanchan and killed by Ishamael (Fares Fares). Their triumph was only possible because they were all there together. Doesn't it feel like "The Dragon," this world-saving force for good we've heard so much about, is really all of them?
Yeah, one of the most famous quotes of the final book is it wasn't a story about him, it was about all of them. That's what we're trying to represent in that scene on top of the tower: This is not a Chosen One story just about him, it's a Chosen One story that's about all of them, and they each fit into it in their own different way. That makes it a much more interesting story. You don't know where it's going to go. Also it makes you think, was it about all of them last time? Were Lanfear and Ishamael similar or dissimilar to Mat and Egwene? That cyclical nature of time and how it repeats itself opens up really interesting ideas.
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