The Order Season 2 Review: Shifting Allegiances

Warning this review contains spoilers for the entirety of The Order Season 2.

The Order is back, and with Season 2 comes memory loss, new romances, new allegiances, and the same lovable dorks we fell in love with during Season 1.

All in all, it is a pretty solid, enjoyable season that demonstrates The Order is still capable of balancing drama and comedy really well. There are some flaws, but there’s also some exciting worldbuilding, character development, and more shenanigans courtesy of the Knights.

The Order Season 2 excels at presenting all sides to a situation, whether that be the Knights working through the pros and cons of whether or not to join The Order or having multiple people attempt to handle the Praxus situation.

Everyone has their own tactics when it comes to protecting The Order and their own, and while you may not agree with them, it’s easy to see where everyone is coming from.

We see Vera killing a council member to get what she wants because the council isn’t taking her seriously, the anti-wolf disciples spying on the Knights to prove that they are up to no good, and Jack and Randall getting Hamish to give up The Order’s next raid in order to make a deal with Praxus to get them one step closer to saving Lilith.

It’s easy to understand everyone’s motives, and if you hate the anti-wolf disciples (like I do), you have to admit that they aren’t completely off base by spying on the Knights with the loom — Jack and Randall are kind of plotting to betray The Order.

Jack: I do not have time for your Hamish and Vera shipping theories!

Randall: I’m calling them Vermish.

Season 2 finds you constantly questioning who you can trust and who is in the right of any given situation. We watch the Knights learn to trust Vera and The Order, and then soon after that, Alyssa makes a discovery that puts Vera and The Order’s motives into question.

Allegiances and the decision of who to trust is constantly shifting. It’s thrilling. You can want The Order to burn for the memory wiping stunt they pull on the Knights at the beginning of the season and yet be firmly on their side in the fight against Praxus.

What’s really impressive is it seems like the decision of who is in the right, to some extent, depends on you and who your favorites are. You can be Team Randall and completely agree with all the anti-Order points he makes, and a lot of events of the season will back you up on those beliefs.

I side more with Jack and Vera — their relationship this season is amazing, by the way — so that’s where my allegiances lie, but when Randall and Jack devise a plan to betray The Order to get Lilith back, they have my support.

Season 2 shows that everything is not black and white. No one is completely in the right, and picking a side isn’t an easy task. There aren’t any good guys, although I think we can all agree that Keppler is a terrible person.

There is one person that Season 2 fails when it comes to showing their side and understanding their motives, and that person is Alyssa Drake. A lot of her decisions are questionable, and you have no idea what she’s thinking.

It really all starts when she drinks the juice and becomes connected to the egregore during her time as a hostage with the Sons of Prometheus on The Order Season 2 Episodes 5 and 6, “The Commons, Part 1 and 2.”

The juice appears to completely brainwash her, and you can’t really tell when she is speaking as Alyssa and when it is the hive mind brainwashing that has taken over. It’s hard to know what is genuine.

From here, it only gets worse, or rather more difficult, to understand where Alyssa is coming from, but there are some actions and decisions of Alyssa’s that do make sense.

Vera: I’ve known Jack Morton for over a year, and I want to kill him at least once a week.

Her being upset at Vera for keeping the Vade Maecum a secret makes sense; the book is keeping her from her magic. After the powder incident, it’s understandable why she would join forces with Praxus — The Order and Vera betrayed her.

And those are basically the only times where we truly understand Alyssa’s reasonings. Once the time jump happens, things get worse.

While the time jump allows us to see Praxus as a well-organized machine and Alyssa as a formal part of it, it hurts us in the long run.

We don’t see the extend of the bond between Alyssa and Salvador, and so when Salvador dies and Alyssa initiates war on The Order, it doesn’t make sense. We see Salvador try to kill herself and Vera, and yet either Alyssa doesn’t see that or her bond with Salvador overpowers it, and all Alyssa can see is that Vera killed her friend.

You’d think that Alyssa would be shocked that her friend went in with the intention of sacrificing herself to kill Vera and that Alyssa could see how it was a bad idea. However, we never see Alyssa react to that aspect.

It is possible that Alyssa didn’t believe Jack’s theory, didn’t hear Vera’s scream, and she ran into the room because she was running after Jack, who was breaking parlay. Once in the room, it is possible all Alyssa sees is Vera killing Salvador.

Alyssa: Oh god, you’re still so stupidly kissable.

Jack: Thank you.

Alyssa: But together we’re a hot mess. Okay? It’s like a game of fuck, marry, kill, and you’re all three. But I will not allow you to compel me away from what I want from my life.

We don’t really get confirmation of that. All we get is Alyssa fully turning against The Order and picking up where Salvador left off, and it’s hard to understand why.

What’s even more difficult is understanding why Alyssa shifts from being concerned about Praxus not doing sacrifices before magic to all of a sudden saying screw sacrifices and bringing on the apocalypse for “revenge.”

It doesn’t seem like the Alyssa we’ve grown to know. Perhaps she just snapped, and that’s why she turned into someone who would use the safety of innocents and the world as leverage in order to get a spell.

We see so many other sides, and we can understand why Vera set off the eruption that killed the council member. We may not agree with it, but it makes sense why she would do that. You can’t really say that about Alyssa’s actions, or at least I can’t, which is frustrating.

Before wrapping up this review, we have to talk about Lilith.

When she ends up getting sucked into the demon realm on The Order Season 2 Episode 4, “Fear Itself, Part 2,” there may have been a lot of screaming at the TV. It’s frustrating that out of the four Knights, the one female is the one who gets shipped off to demon world.

I’m very torn on this whole storyline. She’s a badass female character who gets sidelined, but the storyline isn’t completely terrible.

As Vera says, Lilith is the most likely out of all the Knights to survive there (none of the others stand a chance, honestly), and the Knights are committed to getting her back.

A lot of what the Knights do in the rest of the season is driven by their desire to save her, and so while Lilith is gone for the majority of the season, she is not forgotten.

Her return on The Order Season 2 Episode 10, “New World Order, Part 2,” sets up some really interesting storylines for a potential Season 3. There’s a brush with demons during Season 2, but there’s obviously a lot more to learn, and we could get that through Lilith.

Stray Thoughts:

• The scenes with Jason Priestley and Ian Ziering rely too much on you knowing who they are.
• And if you haven’t seen Beverly Hills, 90210, you’re just confused, and it’s awkward.
• Meanwhile, James Marsters showing up is much more exciting, personally.
• MVPs of the season: Vera and Gabrielle, hands down.
• Does Jack still have his prime beef tattoo?
• Is anyone else completely over Alyssa and Jack?
• Did anyone else struggle to adjust to Jack’s normal, non-bleached hair?
• Gabrielle teaming up with the Knights is absolutely amazing.
• The Part 1 and Part 2 episode titles are ridiculous and weirdly annoying.
• Jack turning into a tree is one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen.
• Vermish is amazing, and I ship them.
• Nicole becoming hardcore anti-wolves after learning they were behind the heist is a bit of an overreaction.

What did you think of The Order Season 2? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Order Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.

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The Order: Devery Jacobs on Her Inspiration For Lilith and The Obstacles Ahead For Season 2 [Video]