Overall, Shadow and Bone Season 2 is a lacklustre continuation of the previous season. That said, it has its merits. Below is my list of the good and bad and a few more things about this show.
*This post contains SPOILERS
WHAT’S GOOD
Nikolai is entertaining enough. Patrick Gibson’s portrayal is not how I imagined Nikolai Lantsov in the book. But the changes he brings to the character are pleasant ones. Nikolai is a perfect gentleman now with a few bad jokes here and there.
One downside of Nikolai’s characterization here is he lets Alina do whatever she wants without expressing any kind of strong opinion whatsoever.
Everything about Inej and Kaz — how she shoves a butterfly into his mouth, how blunt and straightforward she is about what she wants, how he can be a ruthless gang boss one second and a frightened kitten curled up in a street corner the next, etc.
Nina. Where would everyone be without Nina and her waffles?
Luke Pasqualino, Daisy Head, and Zoe Wanamaker are all excellent in their roles as David, Genya, and Baghra. They bring some much-needed charm and colors to the “Shadow and Bone” part of the show. Especially Baghra; every time she shows up, the plot moves.
Mal is just a sweetheart. This might sound strange because my review of Season 1 is quite determined that Mal is unnecessary and has no identity; well, here’s the deal:
He still has no identity. He still follows Alina around and exists to protect her only. However, this season contains a surprising amount of illogical decisions and underdeveloped emotions that Mal’s simplicity shines. His simple wish to protect everyone around him and his pure devotion to Alina become one of the few things that make sense. In addition, by the end of the season, when Mal discovers that he has to die, the show handles his emotions particularly well. As Dumbledore would say: it is one thing to get killed, but another to walk to your death willingly. And that is what Mal has to go through in the last episodes.
Throughout the show, Mal always sees the big picture and puts the collective good above all. Perhaps he only does so because it is said to be what Alina wants? But there’s no denying that despite his insecurities and his lack of purpose, Mal’s decisive actions are better than Alina’s tendency to be dragged around by the plot all the time.
And when so many characters whom I don’t want to die are stuck with such a heroine, I am naturally grateful for the one guy who can put an end to that.
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER
The mixing of the Crows and “Shadow and Bone” is… still not a good idea.
While the Crows gang has the best stories and the best characters in the Grishaverse, their stories are about survival on a more personal scale and more nuanced fashion. When mixed together with a Chosen One fantasy, the Crows’ backgrounds and adventures become confusing fragments, especially for those who have not read the books.
At times, it seems like the Crows are only there to rescue what would have been a dull and generic story otherwise.
Even though the “Shadow and Bone” side has Ben Barnes and Zoe Wanamaker, the Crows, collectively, is a better batch of actors. In one scene, you have the dark-lipped lady who works for the Darkling act like a raging kid who just lost a Fortnite game; in the next, you have Kaz and Inej exploding with depth and unspoken emotions.
It isn’t a good combination.
Wylan and Jesper’s rushed relationship.
I can believe that Jesper sleeps around a lot, but Wylan does not seem to be the type who would jump onto bed with someone he doesn’t know well.
All the inconsistencies.
Why would Nikolai need to hire the Crows, who live on the other side of the Fold, to cross over to Ravka and kidnap Alina from Ravka when he needs her for Ravka?
Alina insists that she has a way to make amplifiers without killing the animal in question for its bone. What is it? And why doesn’t she try it when it’s Mal’s turn to sacrifice?
If Alina and Mal only need to get intimate for the Firebird power to be activated, why hasn’t it been seen before? They kiss more than a few times in this season, don’t they?
What makes Pekka Rollins so powerful that even an order from the King of Ravka with a Saint by his side can’t do anything for Matthias?
And many more inconsistencies and plot holes.
The dialogues.
Most of the conversations in this season — considering that every episode has to be rushed and packed with plots from two different series — consist of rhetorical back and forth, one-liners, and iconic lines from the books without proper context. Very rarely do we get regular conversations.
The Darkling. What have they done to the Darkling?
This show tries hard to make him look bad and we end up with a one-dimensional bad guy who is rude to his followers, has no strategy, and won’t stop whining about his victimhood.
The Darkling is lonely, he is tragic. Crappy childhood, betrayal, torture, etc. All of these things are in the books. True. But they are conveyed through Alina’s reflection.
The layers of his character are there for readers/viewers to find and dissect. They are not supposed to be said out loud, and certainly not by the Darkling himself.
Perhaps I understand this choice of the show’s writers. They need the Darkling to be a whiner so Alina can respond by pointing out that his past cannot justify his actions, which is more or less a lecture to the audience.
At one point, the Darkling attacks Alina physically, choking and pinning her to a wall while delivering that one important line:
“I will strip away all that you know, all that you love, until you have no shelter but mine.”
How effective can this statement be if you have the girl hurt and gasping for breath while saying it? What happened to the clever sorcerer who has mastered the art of manipulation, who messes with people’s minds from afar and makes them seek him out? Are we really that desperate for a chance to say to the audience’s faces that the Darkling-Alina ship is bad that we are willing to destroy the consistency of a character with so much potential and intrigue?
At times, he is a flat-out comical villain; in other moments, he is hinted to be a tragic figure with more to offer. It is as if the character was constructed by two different writers who never agreed on which direction to go.
The only time when the script allows the Darkling to show something different and in-line with the way he was introduced is when Baghra dies. And you can bet that Ben Barnes seized this chance to shine through and give this character a little more soul.
Alina and the Darkling’s relationship is one-note.
The Grisha trilogy is no masterpiece, but the one thing it does well is building a layered connection between its hero and villain. Alina is on the “good” side, but she is also the only one who cares to understand the man underneath the shadows.
That is not the case in the show.
ALINA: You’re evil. I’m not.
DARKLING: You’re wrong. I’m right.
And that is all there is in their interactions. I kept waiting for something deeper than rage in Jessie Mei Li’s portrayal of Alina, but rage and disdain are the only things there.
During the last episode, in the Fold, despite how underwhelming and fragmented the final confrontation is, Ben Barnes acts his heart out and delivers once again the complexity of the Darkling’s motives.
“Let me carry the hatred of this world.”
And what do we get from Alina?
“Hatred? Because of the choices you made?”
Alina shuts her eyes and ears on purpose and convinces herself that the Darkling alone is to blame for the way the world is, and for everything that happened to her and Mal. We, as the audience, cannot learn anything deeper through her. At one point, I wanted to tell the Darkling to stop wasting philosophy on Alina because nothing is going through. We get the same reaction, the same anger from her over and over again.
In the end, Alina stabs the Darkling as she declares:
“There is no redemption”.
Yes, do you hear that, Darkling-Alina shippers? No redemption. So stop fantasizing about this man.
Instead on giving us what Alina the girl would say in this situation, the show uses her as a megaphone to tell the audience what they should think.
When the Darkling – the first person who encouraged Alina to be more, the one man who took action against Grisha suppression despite his ruthless method, a lost boy with a forgotten name – dies, Alina watches him fall with a blank expression and then, “Mal!”.
Is it the script? Is it the actress? Who knows. But it makes for an anti-climatic scene for both readers and non-readers alike.
At the Darkling’s funeral, Alina, Zoya, and Genya take turns throwing torches on the pyre. Yes, take that, evil. Double evil. Triple evil.
There is no silent moment for Alina or for the audience to reflect on the end of a complex figure who has played a major role in this story. Granted, with the way the Darkling is written in this season, there isn’t necessarily much to reflect on.
In addition, the show attempts to turn this “burning the Darking” into a girl-power/cool-revenge moment, but being burned is actually what the Darkling asked for. Alina never once mentions that this was his dying wish, but sells the idea as if it were her own.
It is as if the writing is terrified to recognize any connection between its heroine and villain, and to recognize that even though they stand on opposite sides, they can still learn from each other.
ALINA STARKOV
I will devote an entire section to Alina, the leading protagonist, because one paragraph does not cover how poorly her character is written.
First of all, I understand that Alina is an everyman character, which means she is more or less a blank canvas for readers/viewers to project themselves onto. So if my criticism of her character offends anyone who sees themselves in her, I apologize in advance.
The fact that Alina has no clear personality is forgivable for the same reasons mentioned above. But here are the things that are not quite forgivable:
Alina is neither intelligent nor capable, but she walks around like she is. She operates in a random manner and usually without sense, for instance: talking about her intention to own three amplifiers – a never before done feat — to complete strangers while playing cards with them; defying Nikolai’s order to kill the Sea Whip even after it has drowned two soldiers; insisting that her plan with the Fold will work without Mal’s sacrifice even though she has absolutely no plans; waltzing into the Darkling’s place through a vision and attempting to seduce him without any safety measures, then yelling at Mal for saving her and everyone else’s life.
Let me clarify that the problem isn’t Alina making mistakes, it is that the show tries to sell these mistakes as her being strong, and that she never learns from her mistakes.
Alina has a permanent frown and is more than ready to snap at anyone who sees things differently from her, to the point that I feel nervous for anyone who opens their mouth around her.
She has no humbleness and no willingness to learn. Even Zoya has her humble moments, and she is supposed to be the proud and stubborn one. Yet with all this air of superiority, Alina still relies heavily on others to get things done for her.
In the end, we are left with a lot of why-s.
Why do these people trust Alina as much as they do?
Why does Nikolai care about Alina’s good opinion so genuinely?
Why does the Darkling waste his time trying to convince Alina of anything at all?
The plot does not focus at all on developing Alina as a “sun-summoner”. No real scene of her practicing her barely discovered power or attempting the Cut before using it on the Darkling. In the end, Alina’s light works out because the plot needs it too.
Her struggles are not relatable.
Let me be clear here: relationship problems are valid, having the safety of the world dumped on you is terrible, and having to take your beloved’s life is an unimaginable feat.
But the way Alina’s problems are written in this show makes them look almost insignificant, especially when put alongside everything else.
At the time of the final battle, Nikolai has been crawling and limping to Alina’s rescue, has watched his lieutenant die. David seals Genya inside a dumbwaiter and sacrifices himself. Soldier after soldier put themselves in front of bullets and bombs to protect their king and hope. Inej and the Crows swallow live bugs to get the magic sword to help Ravka. Mal, kind and sweet and confused Mal, is willing to do whatever it takes and give whatever is required of him so his friends can have a chance to fight.
Sure, the battle scene was mediocre with overacting from the evil Grisha; but it does somewhat convey what’s at stake and show us the heart-wrenching things men do on a battlefield to survive.
Then — we go to the Fold and see Alina kissing Mal, prioritizing Mal over everything else, suddenly wielding a power she has no prior practice with, then bragging to the Darkling about how special she and Mal are.
Her exact words are: “Mal and I changed the world.” Despite how Inej, Zoya, and Nina have been saving her neck all along.
Where is the real struggle? What has Alina gone through that can compare to Nikolai, Zoya, Inej, the Darkling, etc? And why should we believe that Ravka is lucky to have her?
Then, comes the moment when the show decides there is one more thing its leading protagonist doesn’t need: humility.
When the Darkling, worn out yet still hanging on to this cause, emphasizes that he could have shielded Alina from the cruelty of the world, her answer:
“I will save myself.”
Five seconds later, a shadow monster grabs Alina and she has to be saved by Inej.
To be clear, I do not take Alina’s declaration literally, no hero ever waltzes through life without help. The Darkling also does not mean to “save” Alina from physical dangers; rather, he is warning her about the long eternity she will have to face being a Grisha. Whether Alina truly understands this message or not, her response — after so many people have helped and sacrificed themselves to give her a fighting chance — indicates arrogance and thoughtlessness, while the narrative insists all along that she is noble, kind, and modest, the Sun Saint the world had been waiting for.
You know, now would be a good time to bring Mal in, I would not mind. How about:
“Mal and I will save each other.” Or “Unlike you, Aleksander, I have friends who will always be there for me.”
Alina is not a heroine. She is a shallow and naïve girl who is obsessed with the notion that she and her boyfriend are the victims. And with that mindset, she grants herself the right to scowl at the rest of the world.
SHIPS, SHIPS, SHIPS
All the ships in this show suffer due to the numerous storylines. Though, the good news is: the cast truly come through and give us many entertaining moments, some so faithful to the books that the flaws become somewhat forgivable.
Kaz and Inej — their development is on the right track without any issues except that I would prefer them not to get involved with the Shadow and Bone plotline anymore.
Nina and Matthias — here’s to the hope that there will be some actual interactions between them if there is a next season.
David and Genya — please, David, live! And make that ring you drew a diagram for.
Jesper and Wylan — because they are together so quickly, some future angst would be great.
Regarding Alina, by the end of this season, I no longer ship her with anyone. As of now, there are three men who are in line for her affection/attention:
Mal — I fully support the show’s decision to let Mal separate from Alina and be his own character. Archie Renaux’ acting can give Mal the much-needed depth if the show allows it.
Nikolai — Alina has proved to be shortsighted and dangerously naïve. So if the goal is to rebuild a country, I have no wish for her to be an influence on Nikolai. It would be best if they remained friends.
The Darkling — maybe waiting for another sun-summoner to appear would take him less time and effort than trying to make Alina understand anything.
That leaves us with the one option that, I believe, is quite popular in the Grishaverse fandom: Alina going solo.
Perhaps she can be a lot more if the show explores her beyond the source material. Otherwise, I would rather have the ending in Ruin and Rising than have Alina continue to stand in the way of better-written characters.
BOTTOM LINE
With the way Season 2 of Shadow and Bone is done — unsatisfying for book fans and convoluted for everyone else — it is hard to be excited about another season, especially if the writers will go by the King of Scars duology, which, despite its title, is not really about the “king of scars”.
Though, one thing to look forward to still is the Crows gang. There are still a few interesting backstories left that have not been explored along with the main heist. Let’s hope they will get the amount of screen time they deserve.