Hi, bookish friends! It's been a minute since I've written anything on here. I've been really busy lately, between sickness and social events (and turning 18!), but the day we've all been waiting for (fine, that I've been waiting for) for what seems like forever has finally arrived: Shadow & Bone Season 2 went live on Netflix on Thursday, March 16th! I binge-watched it in two days, and now that I've had my processing time, I've attempted to organize my thoughts on how it went into a somewhat cohesive order. This is, of course, all from the point of view of a longtime fan of the book series, so it's biased in the sense that I want it to be as similar to the books as possible.
POSITIVES
The characterization was on point, and the actors were amazing. I could go on about this cast all day. You can just tell they understood the characters at the deepest level, and did a stunning job bringing it to the screen. I think Kaz especially was more like his book persona this season, with his ruthlessness even more prominent and the explanation of his backstory allowing Freddy to portray Kaz's trauma even better.
Nikolai, Tolya, Tamar and Wylan. That's it. That's the paragraph. The creators had so much potential for getting these characters wrong, but they were absolutely on point. I loved watching every scene they were in. And the actors put so much heart into playing their characters. Patrick Gibson struck the perfect balance of Nikolai's cocky swagger versus his vulnerability, while Anna Leong Brophy and Lewis Tan kick butt and look fabulous doing it, and Jack Wolfe perfectly captures Wylan's mannerisms and personality even if his physical description isn't exactly the same as the books.
NEGATIVES
I don't think they should have brought in the specific Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom scenes yet like they did. To be clear, I think the actors absolutely did them justice. They translated them from page to screen with incredible emotion and vibrancy, and they were everything I would have hoped for – in a separate Six of Crows spin-off. There's been a lot of talk, including from the showrunners themselves, about developing the events of SoC as its own show, and therefore I'm left feeling confused as to why they would put in some of the scenes/plotlines from SoC into S&B S2. Why mess up the timeline like that? To be more specific, I'm referring to the whole Kaz-Pekka revenge plot (including the scene of Kaz beating up the Dregs at the Crow Club, blackmailing Pekka with Alby, etc), and the iconic Kanej scenes in the bathroom and church (you know what I'm talking about). Freddy and Amita were absolutely stunning in their roles, but it felt to me like the screenwriters were trying to rush their relationship a bit, taking away from the pining, slow-burn charm of the books.
The Helnik stans were so deprived this season. I know this sounds a bit contradictory to my previous point, but really. It felt like Matthias was only here for 2-3 scenes of shirtless Calahan fan service, which is a disservice to the character he's playing. And while I am in no way implying that Nina needs to have a romantic subplot in order to be a valuable character (Danielle absolutely slayed this season), the fact remains that they have a strong relationship in the books. Yes, whether it's love or hate depends on the spot on the timeline, but regardless, they have no direct interactions in this season that the fans were all expecting. And even if we couldn't have that, at least give Matthias a valid reason to be there?? The way they handled it, they really could have just used flashbacks from season 1 and it would have been all the same storywise.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the ending. Not going to lie, I was really looking forward to closing this chapter with the S&B main cast, with Malina running the orphanage as a quiet, happy couple (and Jessie Mei Li with white hair??). Instead, we got Mal going off as the new Sturmhond because of "destiny." I'm sorry, but I cannot stand the trope where the couple goes their own separate ways at the end because they have to "discover whether they're really meant to be together" or they were brought together through some higher power against their own wills. Obviously it's both, they're characters in a story. The author decided they were going to be romantically involved; but they don't know that. It's such a dumb reason to break up. But honestly, that's personal preference. I know Heisserer did it on purpose in order to allow for possible canon-divergent sequels, so...I guess we'll see what that's about? And ALINA DEVELOPING SHADOW POWERS? Her little smirk at the end?? That is something I was not at all expecting; I don't think anyone was. I'm very curious to see what happens there.
I think it would have been better pacing for them to stick to one S&B book per season. S1 did a great job combining the first book in the series with the new Crows plot, but s2 decided to tackle both Siege & Storm and Ruin & Rising plus a new Crows storyline, and it resulted in them taking a few random scenes from the books mixed with a lot of new ones involving both the Crows and the S&B crew in order to weave the plots together. I liked the subplot of the Crows having to get the sword from the Shu saint well enough – it was a cool Easter egg for Istorii Sankt'ya book fans. I feel like they maybe could have extended that in order to not have to use up the Pekka Rollins revenge scheme yet, and stuck to S&S in order to play it out in a rational sequence and have more of the fun scenes, like Malina + Nikolai and crew fighting the Darkling at the beginning – and stronger arcs for certain characters, like Alina, who barely even got to use her powers at all. She's supposed to be the main character, and she had such a great start in season 1, but she didn't get to be fleshed out as much because there were so many characters and storylines to keep up with in s2.
They wasted almost all the potential the Darkling had and reduced him to the most basic form of a vanilla villain (try saying that three times fast) that wants world domination, power, etc, etc. This is mostly because cramming S&S and R&R into one season dramatically reduced his screentime, so most of it was plot-oriented and prevented having enough of those scenes between him and Alina (or Genya, Baghra, etc) we got a small taste of that really flesh out his character. Ben Barnes did his best with what little he was given, but the showrunners ignored way too much of his role in the books.
Having said all this, it really sounds like I hated this season. I promise I didn't. I loved watching this season and enjoyed every minute. I'm always going to be that annoying person comparing the film adaptation to the book and being nitpicky with details, but the show creators (and Leigh Bardugo herself) were honest from the beginning about how the show would be different in many aspects, and that's okay. The most important thing is that more or less, all the actors do an amazing job characterizing their roles and how they're written in the books, even if the characters are doing different stuff. Many books get adapted and that aspect isn't there, which is ultimately what ruins them the most (yes, I'm looking at you, Percy Jackson, among others). Season 2 of Shadow and Bone isn't perfect by far, but it's definitely good.
What did you think of season 2? Did you agree/disagree with any of my specific points? Tell me all your opinions in the comments!
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