4:00 – Not sure how I feel about Nynaeve using a weapon. Not that there’s anything wrong with it per se. But it’s just her thing, that she’s not a killer, but a Healer.

7:27 – By “you won’t” he meant “succeed” of course. Because Lan.

7:50 – Yes, Perrin is gone, too. Nice of you to remember.

9:30 – I kind of feel like it should be obvious to WoT Novices that the Dragon Reborn is probably not Perrin or Mat.

10:46 – Perrin was not nearly so sanguine ITB about Egwene’s channeling, and he should not have been, because that’s super dangerous as Verin points out in the next book, and Perrin’s deal is that he understands the dangers of things and grasps the importance of controlling power instead of using it. Because he’s really strong and waves heavy objects for a living and doesn’t want to hurt anyone. And also, the One Power is the reason for every single aspect of WoT that is worse than the Real World, so people are more afraid of it than anything.

I kind of feel like they don’t get this and think they are fixing Perrin here, by making him supportive.

11:15 – And Egwene wants to go back home to look for their friends, instead of heading to Tar Valon. Like or hate her, like or hate this aspect of her character, it’s a big deal for her! Hell, ITB, she was adamant about not delaying their journey to the Tower for even the slightest detour even after Elyas demonstrated how much better off they would be in his company. Perrin even went on an uncharacteristically sarcastic mini-rant about it.

12:45 – Nynaeve would never require coercion or pressure of any sort to heal someone who was sick or hurt, for any reason. That is her thing. It’s as much her thing as Egwene’s ambition or Perrin’s caution. She would never hold out Healing in order to pressure someone into doing what she wants.

14:25 – Why be coy about her tracking? ITB she offered an explanation of her skills unsolicited.

I just realized that maybe she was embarrassed ITB in Baerlon, because she actually was more subconsciously relying on the link to Egwene and did not want to admit she was actually following a feeling she could not explain. Which, in turn, might explain her reluctance to answer Lan. Except in this version, there is still no explanation of how she then found Lan and Moiraine, rather than being drawn in Egwene’s direction.

17:28 – I like the dream if it’s Baalzamon trying to make Perrin fear the wolves, otherwise, wolves in his dreams were protecting him from Baalzamon. And shouldn’t be eating his dead wife.

17:40 – I’m imagining those snarls are wolvish for “Damnit Young Bull, we’re trying to help! There’s food over…no, not that way! Crap, someone find Long Tooth to talk to these idiots.”

20:13 – I feel like maybe the show people don’t know what the point of those cage things actually is. They are intended to make people die of exposure, a long, slow suffering. Not to hoist them up as target practice. One of those cages whose occupant is riddled with arrows looks like he was mercy-killed.

20:30 – Is this Whitebridge or Baerlon? It’s got a bridge, but it’s kind of shabby and miney for the former.

21:14 - >resigned sigh< I’m half expecting Min to be winning a drinking contest in this place. TV writers being all super-original and whatnot.

21:43 – Thom?

22:00 – Okay, guitar.

22:21 – Is this good singing? I can’t tell.

23:55 – A song about how sad LTT is would not be something people in the Third Age would appreciate.

24:52 – Saw that coming a mile away. Hood dude was a clear and obvious Film Pickpocket, but if he managed to get Thom, I’d have shut the browser window. Thom picking HIS pocket was the only way to stay true to the character. Happily.

25:07 – Please don’t let “donation for the gleeman” become the new “Toss a coin for your Witcher”.

25:13 – So with that essential character service out of the way, we can go on with Thom taking advantage of two hard-up young men in over their heads, because his mercenary attributes and greed are a thing with him.

25:53 – “Aawooo! Seriously, Young Bull! You’re going in the wrong direction for hunting or water. Just hold up, Long Tooth isn’t far!”

28:09 – Careful, barmaid. In Rand’s experience, doing the dishes means sex.

Ah, good thing she’s setting him to chop wood. No innuendo or euphemisms there.

29:00 – They don’t use scatological profanity in WoT. How hard is it to stick with “bloody” and “burn me” and “blood and ashes”? What’s gained by having Mat say “shit” all the time.

29:59 – Or sexual profanity. Not least because that tends to have sexist connotations.

30:17 – There’s a reason why Rand is mentioned as taking off his coat when doing chores for his room and board. It’s confining and gets in the way, especially a long flappy one like he’s wearing. Would it be too much trouble for TV writers to ever do a little manual labor so they know these things? Anyone who’s ever split wood would feel that shot was wrong.

32:02 – What exactly are we getting out of this whole scene in the bar? Turns out this is Breen’s Spring, so it’s not like this is an important locale they need to establish.

32:28 – This is NOT Mat! Even with the dagger affecting him for much longer, even when it has him thinking Rand will abandon him if he can’t keep up, he still sticks with Rand, protects him when he’s weak and gets him food and shelter.

32:55 – I don’t think the locals know the barmaid so well because of enforced familiarity, but because she’s prone to blabbering to even a stranger she was belittling moments ago for being lazy and useless. This is Sanderson all over again. Jordan wrote a million characters. We don’t need all this screen time devoted to a useless original one who serves no purpose.

35:56 – This is, like, exactly the opposite of how the Tinkers are presented. Why would you ever trust these creepy people without an intermediary like Elyas vouching for them.

36:30 – They haven’t actually BEEN welcomed to the Tinker camp, because the show thought it would be better to have them seem creepy and shocking, so you get zero points for sticking with the book dialogue.

36:59 – “You both look awful and this is being said by people who appear not to have washed our top-knot man-bun dreadlocks in forever.” Why is so much TV dialogue putdowns, insults or mockery, even, or especially, between friendly characters?

38:18 – It’s almost like Perrin and Egwene tucked into their food so emphatically because they really want to finish and get away from the most evil person from Downton Abbey and her husband, Taika Waititi.

38:42 – Yay. Took off his coat.

38:47 – See, this is what I mean. You can dig into the barmaid’s comments to infer that she’s impressed with Rand’s work ethic and output, but it’s all negative. First, she’s questioning why he’s working when she let Mat off an hour ago, then she’s ironically noting that he’s chopped enough wood for the next year and when he asks for confirmation that he’s done enough to earn food and shelter, her manner of agreement is as if she’s trying anything but to say, “yes, good job, thank you.”

39:28 – And she’s only being actually nice when she’s being a good LGBTQ ally. Because that’s the highest virtue. And they’re playing it for laughs, so it’s not even like this is being woke.

39:53 – WHY have Rand and Mat EACH exchanged more words with the bar woman than with THOM? Or maybe even each other since coming into this town? They might have spent more time with her, each, than Lan and Nynaeve interacted.

40:02 to 40:16 – Lan sitting on his horse looking over a cliff. Why? You couldn’t have him just ride up to Nynaeve and Moiraine and say he found it?

43:06 – “Stop acting like a bloody white-veiled Aiel” doesn’t have the same ring to it. Thom knowing about Aiel honor also feels wrong.

44:20 – I like Thom kind of teaching Mat a moral lesson here and being a good example. He doesn’t get enough credit for that ITB.

45:19 – And we’re back to the barmaid. She had better be a Darkfriend at this point.

48:00 – Okay. Better, but predictable. And no, the braid doesn’t make you look like Egwene when you’re easily 50 pounds heavier than she is and the nose ring only highlights another proboscis-related difference.

48:30 – I suppose it would make sense for a gleeman to have some knowledge of Aiel customs, even if he didn’t bury the guy right, but you’d think that with them would come questions or speculation as to what one was doing so far out of his homeland.

50:36 – Dana the Darkfriend.

52:24 – Predictable can be satisfying. There was no way this monologue was ending without Thom’s knife suddenly sticking out of her. But it’s only satisfying because she’s been so annoying and pointless and taking up too much of the episode, not because she is actually scary as a chubby woman in a bulky dress trying to hold off two fit men.

54:38 – Since when do Aes Sedai address each other as “(Name) Sedai”?

How did we get through the introduction of the Tinkers with no reference in the whole episode to the Way of the Leaf? That's like a vegan's diet - they find a way to work it into every conversation.