Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2 Review: A Disappointing Return to Alfea

Warning: This review contains spoilers for the entirety of Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2.

Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2 is a disappointment; there’s no other way to say it. There’s so much potential in this 7 episode season, but ultimately, it’s squandered as the show rushes to fit in the story it wants to tell.

Season 2 needed to be more than 7 episodes long. That’s the bottom line.

Before diving into the season’s faults, I do have to take a second to praise one aspect: Bloom’s a much better friend.

During Season 1, it was ridiculous that Terra, Musa, Aisha, and Stella liked Bloom so much because we never saw Bloom do anything to earn it. Season 2 makes huge progress here by showing us numerous times where Bloom’s a decent friend and an integral part of the Winx Suite.

Whether it is being ecstatic over the news of a new crush or putting aside her own questions to focus on getting Musa’s magic back, Bloom steps up in the friend department this season.

The Winx Suite friendships are at the core of this series, and so it’s such a relief to see this major issue with Bloom fixed. These characters and their friendship are why I came back for this season, and why I will watch a third if the show is renewed.

However, I still want someone to completely prove Bloom wrong at various points throughout the season and knock her down a couple of pegs due to her “it has to be me” way of thinking. There’s a lot of character work that still needs to be done with her. But hey, we’re making progress.

Alright, let’s discuss where Season 2 struggles.

Skipping the Wrong Moments

Fate: The Winx Saga doesn’t do a good job at prioritizing.

The things that it should’ve focused on were rushed for the sake of the plot, which prevents us from becoming invested in the situations unfolding and the characters.

Right when things get good, there’s a random time jump, which even as small as cutting to the next morning does a disservice to the story. The show doesn’t do this once either. It happens multiple times and affects the story differently in each instance.

On Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2 Episode 7, “All the Wild Witches,” the time jump from the attack to Bloom giving the specialists an update on what happened deprives us of some potentially fantastic tension and horror vibes. Also, it made it impossible to fear for anyone in the school’s well-being.

If this final showdown spanned two episodes, we would’ve gotten to watch the Blood Witches take over the school slowly, putting us on the edge of our seats as we wait to see how Musa and Sky would escape. We also would’ve been given time to see how the rest of the Winx suite reacts to the news that their friends are in danger.

Instead, the show quickly shifts focus from the attack to Bloom, which is a poor decision.

Musa: Well thanks. That’s twice… well, I never got to thank you for bringing me back to the school. I can barely remember anything.
Riven: Yeah, you were out cold. I chucked you over my shoulder and got the fuck out of there.
Musa: You chucked me?
Riven: Well, I’m sorry. I’ll be more delicate next time I’m saving your ass from fucking monsters.

Another big moment that the show jumps over for the sake of plot is on Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2 Episode 4, “An Hour before the Devil Fell,” with Andreas’ death when we don’t get to see the moment when Beatrix learns of his death.

Sure, she makes it clear to Sky that she’ll never forgive him, but that’s not the same as watching her hear the news and witnessing the devastating grief that I’m sure she felt. You can’t tell me that wouldn’t have been gut-wrenching to watch.

Fate: The Winx Saga went through all that effort to show Beatrix and Andreas’ relationship, and then it failed to give us any payoff. Watching Beatrix grieve would have potentially made us care about Andreas being gone a bit more.

Considering the show continuously goes back and forth on whether or not Beatrix is a good person, watching her go through such immense heartbreak would’ve endeared her to us a bit more, making her death much more impactful.

We aren’t given the chance to emotionally connect with these characters in pivotal moments, which is one of the biggest issues with this entire season. It makes it feel as if we’re simply watching things happen to them instead of experiencing everything alongside of them.

We’re not invested in anything that happens, which is a shame.

Too Many Character Storylines, Too Little Time Spent on Them

Fate: The Winx Saga has such high ambitions this season, wanting to give its big core cast important, emotional storylines. Due to time constraints, we’re instead given a poor, half-assed version of most of them.

Stella’s storyline is one of the few that works. Her issues with the gem and her mother dovetail nicely into the bigger plot storylines involving Bloom, so the show is able to add Stella’s storyline throughout the season, giving it a satisfying conclusion.

The storyline that suffers the most is the one involving Sky, Andreas, and Silva.

It’s hard to have a say in whether Andreas could’ve been a good father or if Sky should forgive Silva because we never see enough moments with all of them.

Yes, they are men who probably don’t talk about their feelings, but we could’ve gotten a better sense of them through their actions. Andreas could’ve tried more to be a father to Sky, or we could’ve seen Andreas purposely avoid Sky.

There’s so much nuance in learning your adoptive father lied to you your whole life and that your presumed dead, hero father is actually alive and not the best guy. We needed to really dive into it and see all those subtleties involved, but we aren’t given that opportunity.

Instead, Fate: The Winx Saga glosses over all of the complexities yet still gives us little snippets of moments, trying to have this nuanced storyline happen with only a few measly scenes. It’s nowhere near enough.

Honestly, I still don’t know if we were supposed to care about Andreas or not because I sure don’t.

The Rosalind of It All

During Season 1, we’re told all these horror stories about Rosalind, but we don’t really see enough of her treachery firsthand to make our own opinions about her, which was something I had hoped Season 2 would dive into.

Yes, okay, we saw her kill Dowling at the end of Season 1, but her villainry was too overhyped that even that’s not enough to justify it.

To some extent, we do see what she’s capable of throughout Season 2, but instead of giving us a non-biased look at Rosalind, we see her solely through Bloom’s point of view. Bloom thinks Rosalind is a bad person, so we see Rosalind through that lens and are shown scenes that suggest she’s evil.

Silva: That has to be the most reckless thing you have ever done.
Terra: I don’t think that’s true.
Aisha: Weren’t you here last year?
Musa: When Bloom went crazy and let loose the evil headmistress?

Then, Bloom changes her mind about Rosalind, so we too are shown moments where Rosalind’s been an asset and nothing but fantastic to the Winx Suite.

We’re not really allowed to make our own judgment of Rosalind. We’re forced to align ourselves with Bloom because that’s all we’re really shown.

Easing into Rosalind’s first days as headmistress at Alfea when she is setting up her regime and making changes could’ve helped us side with Bloom and her anti-Rosalind crusade early on.

But something that would’ve helped immensely is seeing what she did to Riven.

It’s implied that Riven is tortured on Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2 Episode 2, “Taken by the Wind,” but the door is shut on us, and Riven doesn’t remember the specifics of what happened other than Rosalind “mindfucked” him.

We’ve seen her use her powers on people before, like Devon, but it would’ve cemented in us that Rosalind is a terrible person if we saw her do this to Riven, who is someone we care about. 

Instead, like Bloom, we go back and forth on our opinion of Rosalind, never feeling too confident one way or the other. This leads to a general feeling of apathy towards her, which is not what you want the audience to feel towards one of your big “bads” of the season.

A Subpar Second Season

Overall, Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2 is a disappointing return for a series with such wonderful promise.

The show needs to fix its pacing issues and realize that focusing on the characters will benefit the show in the long run — by characters, I mean people other than Bloom.

Due to the season’s tendency to rush the character moments in the name of the bigger (Bloom-centric) plot, we’re left with a general indifference towards just about everyone.

We get some decent character deaths, and yet they don’t really land the way they should’ve because at least one of them should’ve had us sobbing.

Neither big bad is all that concerning, and you can’t even say Sebastian or Rosalind’s actions are understandable given what’s at stake because we don’t dig deeper into them and their cause.

As I previously said, I’ll still tune into a third season because I love these characters so much. Let’s just hope that if it is renewed, the series learns from its mistakes.

Stray Thoughts

• I still don’t care about Sky and Bloom’s relationship.
• Musa and Riven, however, are my absolute everything.
• The drama between Flora and Terra is weird and unnecessary.
• A moment of silence for the woman who saved the world — Beatrix.
• Sky’s haircut is a vast improvement, and I love that he’s entered his emo era.
• Every use of “fuck” is so well done.
• I can’t believe the show made the two brand-new male characters the bad guys. It’s lazy.
• I’m obsessed with Bloom’s outwear in the final episodes.
• I have never seen so many specialists until the finale. Where did they come from?
• I would’ve brought snacks with me before jumping through the portal.
• Did anyone else notice that Bloom adapted Rosalind’s crypticness after joining the Pro-Rosalind bandwagon?
• The secret to transforming is so lame.

What did you think of Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2? Were you as let down by it as I was? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.

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