Alina and Mal found a bit of peace, but that quickly got foiled when Alina learned her nightmares were real.
Shadow and Bone Season 2 Episode 1 saw Alina dreaming of Kirigan inside the fold while the Crows dealt with their issues.
Pekka managed to kill the woman whose name was on the deed for the Crow Club, which means the club now was his: as was Inej’s contract.
Mal and Alina continued their romance, but their romantic interactions kept getting interrupted by multiple outside occurrences.
Both of them managed to get caught (Alina as the Sun Summoner, Mal as an army deserter), causing them to flee the land they had just arrived in.
We didn’t see much of the Zemeni side of things, so hopefully, they get brought back into the future. Just as Alina did, we learned that the Zemeni consider their magic users blessed and don’t categorize them.
The Zemeni saved Alina and Mal later in the episode, much to everyone’s surprise.
The army had Alina and Mal cornered, and all seemed lost. They both would get captured, and Mal would get court-martialed, while Alina’s fate would likely have been much worse.
But the Zemeni made a barricade between Alina, Mal, and the Army, using their shop carts and selves as shields.
They managed to escape to a ship they found that was privately chartered, which is where an important new character made his entrance.
The Crows and Alina’s storyline diverged again, with only one character connecting them: Sturmhond.
Sturmhond managed to save Kaz and Jesper from going to Hellgate, but Kaz gave up Alina’s location, much to Jesper’s anger.
Kaz betrayed Alina, and while it wasn’t in a significant way, his betrayal is quite shocking. After she paid him off handsomely, he just tells this random privateer?
Jesper was also offended and angry toward Kaz’s decision and didn’t appreciate Kaz’s logic regarding why he did it.
Nonetheless, this new character now knew the location of Alina and left the two men to escape from the police on their own. The Crows got framed for murder.
The murder of none other than the woman who owned Inej’s contract; and the Crow Pub. The Crows rightly assumed that Pekka committed the crime and framed the three, which sucks.
Kaz wanted to retaliate and only knew how to hire a young explosives expert, Wylan (Jack Wolfe), and a Heartrender.
Wylan’s appearance in the series marks a big step for the Crows, as the original duology (Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom) featured Wylan as a main character.
His casting and appearance in the season excited many fans, and even though his entrance didn’t create too much fanfare, it was still welcomed,
The Heartrender he hired ended up being none other than Nina Zenik.
Nina spent much of the first season with a man who hated her for being Grisha, and yet they still loved each other. Sadly, to save his life, Nina turned him into the police, so he got sent to Hellgate.
Hellgate seemed hardly better than dying as we saw Matthias enter the horrible prison.
Nina and Wylan’s involvement with Kaz and the Crows sees two more main characters of the original Six of Crows duology come together, leaving just one more Crow: Matthias.
Nina’s main goal this season seems to be shaping up to revolve around saving Matthias somehow, and we hope she does.
Something that surprised the characters (specifically Genya, she’s the only lead that found out for sure) but didn’t surprise us: Kirigan lived.
Alina’s dreams and conversations within her dreams proved real (or real enough), and Kirigan is coming for her (and the throne).
Alina and Mal have other things on their plate before dealing with the prospect of Kirigan again: Sturmhond was the captain of the ship they chartered.
They chartered it from two Shu siblings: Tolya Yul-Bataar and Tamar Kir-Bataar.
These three characters, like Jack Wolfe’s Wylan, are new to the show in the second season. Patrick Gibson plays Sturmhond, while Lewis Tan and Anna Leong Brophy play Tolya and Tamar, respectively.
We are excited to see what these actors can bring to these essential book characters.
One of the biggest things we are worried about with the second season, it combines the final two books in the original trilogy: Seige and Storm and Ruin and Rising.
We hope the writers didn’t rush through the entirety of these two novels, as they also have to work in the original storylines featuring the Crows (their books are set AFTER the original trilogy).
We enjoyed this premiere episode, as it brought us back into the world of the Grishaverse while introducing all of the unique new plot threads.
The show’s pace ran excellently throughout the first season, and we’d hate to see the quality sacrificed for the rushed plot.
That being said, if the season continues in the direction introduced in the first hour, then we all should have nothing to worry about.
So Fanatics, what did you think of the second season’s premiere?
Are you as excited as we are for the rest of the season? What are you most looking forward to seeing from the books?
Let us know in the comments below! Shadow and Bone’s second season is now streaming on Netflix.
Michael Stack is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
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