The Wheel of Time Season 3 Episode 5 Review: Tel’Aran’Rhiod
The Wheel of Time Season 3 Episode 5, “Tel’Aran’Rhiod,” is an okay episode. We’re back to spending time on various storylines, checking in with our friends throughout the world.
Egwene learns more about dreamwalking and the world of dreams, Tel’Aran’Rhiod. Through her lessons, we’re also given more insight into the Aiel and the wise women.
The only issue with this storyline is that Egwene becomes seemingly adept at dreamwalking very quickly and with little guidance.
It doesn’t feel as if Egwene has earned this level of proficiency. Sure, she still has a lot to learn, and she’s not as skilled at dreamwalking as Lanfear or anything, but she goes from blindly stumbling about in the dream world to taking Moiraine into Suian’s dream and visiting the dreams of her friends.
Egwene’s progress is rushed so that she can stumble upon Lanfear and Rand making out and realize that Lanfear has been behind all of her nightmares. It is a revelation that needed to happen, so the plot can be moved along more, but it would have been better if Egwene’s training lasted a bit longer.
This will likely lead to Egwene and Rand breaking up, and we can only hope that Rand learning Lanfear was torturing Egwene will cause him to dump Lanfear too. It would be hard to root for him if he’s okay with Lanfear torturing someone for her own amusement.
A Lanfear scorned has the potential to be a very dangerous thing for Rand and even for Moiraine, as evident by the visions she saw in Rhuidean of Lanfear killing her over and over.
It’s always exciting when The Wheel of Time introduces us to another group of magic users because it shows us a new facet of this world and another way the One Power can be used.
Our introduction to the One Power was through Moiraine and the Aes Sedai, and even though Moiraine is a bit of an outlier from the rest of the sisters and the White Tower, they are still our baseline for how this power is used.
The Sea Folk aren’t on our screens for long, but they leave an impression. The way they channel is breathtaking, and they manage to give Nynaeve a bit of advice on how best to tackle the one power.
Nynaeve’s block has felt as if it’s on the back burner.
Although the fact that she can’t channel is brought up often, there hasn’t been any focus on her getting over that block. There haven’t been lessons or anything. Nynaeve is just put in situations where she wishes she could channel, and then she feels awful about being unable to do so.
The conversation on the ship is the closest we’ve gotten to progress on Nynaeve working through her block, and we can only hope that this means we might see her channel again before the season ends.
Stray Thoughts
- I wonder if Elaida’s near-death experience will change her attitude toward Siuan or not.
- It’s unclear where we are headed with Lan and Melindhra.
- Min and Mat are such a fun duo.
- Lan and Moiraine’s chats are always my favorite scenes.
- Perrin seems to have gotten another boring storyline.
What did you think of this episode of The Wheel of Time? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to leave your own rating!
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New episodes of The Wheel of Time Season 3 air on Thursdays on Prime Video.
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Allison Nichols
Allison is in a love affair with television that doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. Slightly damaged fictional characters are her weakness. She loves to spend her free time curled up with a cat and a show to binge-watch. Allison is a Tomatometer-approved critic (Rotten Tomatoes).