“Shadow And Bone” Season 2 Makes Big, Bold Changes

SPOILERS FOR SHADOW AND BONE SEASON TWO AHEAD!

Netflix’s Shadow And Bone has never been a straightforward adaptation of the book series by the same name, which has proven to be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow And Bone trilogy by itself is not particularly compelling source material and fans are generally in agreement that the author’s later books are significantly stronger due in large part to their more complex, multi-faceted characters, and a curse, because removing these characters from the context of Bardugo’s later books and creating a space for them amidst the events of her original trilogy, showrunner Eric Heisserer’s galaxy-brained solution to the problem he created for himself by refusing to adapt both stories separately, ultimately did a disservice to everybody in the first season. I am happy to report the second season has a “fix” for that too; less so to admit that – while it worked for me – it has only further enraged book purists, and without their support the show may not get another chance at this.

Archie Renaux as Mal and Jessie Mei Li as Alina in Shadow And Bone. They are standing in the dimly-lit cabin of a ship, but Alina illuminates the small room with balls of golden light hovering above her hands.
Mal and Alina | polygon.com

Let me be more clear (and if the message in bold lettering at the top of the page wasn’t enough, let this be your final warning that spoilers will follow). There are a total of seven novels set in author Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse – comprising the Shadow And Bone trilogy, Six Of Crows duology, and King Of Scars duology, published and intended to be read in that order, though many fans will tell you they started with Six Of Crows, a great entry-point to the Grishaverse, and gradually worked their way backwards and forwards from there. Netflix’s Shadow And Bone only properly adapted the trilogy’s first book in season one, with the Six Of Crows duology’s characters having relatively inconsequential original storylines written for them – set prior to the events of the book in which they first appeared – so they could be present without upstaging Shadow And Bone‘s actual protagonists.

Understandably, fans were left wanting a little more from the Crows, and I think the writers took this to mean that adapting more of their story was essential in season two. One thing about Shadow And Bone‘s writers, they clearly take every criticism into consideration, which is admirable, but they have a tendency to…over-correct, in response to criticisms both great and small. One fairly innocuous example of this that stood out to me, just because I remember how viewers complained of being unable to keep track of characters’ movements throughout the first season, is that every other scene transition is now accompanied by a map. But entire subplots have, for better or worse, been discarded because they were poorly-received.

Don’t get me wrong, the first season’s surface-level depiction of anti-Asian racism as a relentless barrage of microaggressions was not something that needed to make a comeback, but Ravkan discrimination against the Shu played an unexpectedly significant role in shaping the show’s half-Ravkan, half-Shu, biracial heroine, Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), and her barely-explored complex feelings towards her home-country made her a more interesting protagonist in my opinion. But with racism in the Grishaverse suddenly ended (along with homophobia!), Alina is no longer tormented by these feelings, which once stood in the way of her becoming Ravka’s Sun-Summoner while simultaneously giving her crucial insight into the plight of the oppressed Grisha – magic-users – and the Darkling (Ben Barnes).

Ben Barnes as The Darkling in Shadow And Bone, standing in a wasteland with a dark sky, wearing a black hooded kefta with faint gold embroidery. His hood is thrown back, and he is screaming.
The Darkling | netflix.com

Other characters in Bardugo’s Grishaverse are murderers and manipulators and former members of the fantasy Hitler Youth, but none are as divisive as the Darkling, the immortal Grisha tyrant responsible for creating the Shadow-Fold, a towering wall of darkness severing Ravka from its coastline and trapping it between hostile neighbors to the north and south. In both the books and the show, Alina falls in love with the Darkling because he’s the first person to see her as something more than a mapmaker, but only in the books do they continue to have genuine feelings for each other after it’s revealed that the Darkling planned to use Alina’s unique abilities to move the Shadow-Fold for his apparently nefarious purposes. Any hint of a real emotional connection between the two was scrubbed from the second season’s scripts, probably in response to accusations that Shadow And Bone romanticizes abusive relationships, but to the obvious detriment of the entire series. Alina’s refusal to even treat with the Darkling for eight whole episodes makes her satisfied expression after becoming a Shadow-Summoner in the final scene…confusing at best, while the Darkling comes across as a downright pitiable villain, practically groveling at Alina’s feet for attention he will never again receive and resorting to empty threats when she ignores him. Where once there was a mutual understanding that came with drawbacks and advantages for the both of them, now there is nothingness – nichevo’ya in Ravkan.

And yet, Shadow And Bone still places great emphasis on the singular nature of Alina’s very literal connection to the Darkling, a bonding in their bones (or rather, the bones of Morozova’s Stag now grafted onto their own) which allows the one to invade the other’s dreams, then their mind, the space behind their eyes, and at last even their physical location. The mechanics behind it are fairly simple, but the show takes its time explaining how the bond is supposed to work and how it can be weaponized, leading to some gripping sequences where the two characters train to do just that. Still, it’s weird that Shadow And Bone has time in its busy schedule to play around with the bond when nearly every other plot-beat in Alina’s story fails to register as she and her supporting characters speed-run through the events of Siege And Storm and Ruin And Rising.

Not for the first time, a big-budget fantasy show has cheated me out of a sea-monster battle I feel I was rightfully owed by reducing the epic confrontation with the fabled Sea-Whip to a mere five minutes of characters thrashing around in knee-high water, losing a fight to a monster the size of an iguana, and my disappointment is immeasurable, but I will begrudgingly acknowledge that the CGI budget was probably better spent elsewhere (not on Alina’s powers, though, that’s for sure). I can also, to a certain extent, understand why Siege And Storm was not adapted separately from its sequel, because the book badly wants to be a suspenseful political thriller when in actuality it’s just…slow-moving and bloated. But to try and adapt the chapters of intricate political intrigue, divorced from the context of the book, is a writing choice I can’t rationalize or forgive. Alina’s fake engagement to Prince Nikolai Lantsov (Patrick Gibson, miscast in a role that called for slightly more charisma than he could offer), the cause for Prince Vasily Lantsov (Edward Davis)’s consternation, is one particularly complex storyline the show has no need for, and is forced to heavily abridge anyway, yet insists on adapting as if it’s vital.

Jessie Mei Li as Alina Starkov in Shadow And Bone, standing in a dimly-lit tunnel with her arms outstretched to either side, staring down the camera. She wears a brown military uniform with gold stripes across the front and her dark hair is tied back.
Alina Starkov | discussingfilm.net

But it’s had to be crammed into the first half of the season, along with what was Siege And Storm‘s climactic battle (which took place at the Little Palace in the book, rather than the Spinning Wheel – perhaps Netflix couldn’t afford to shoot at the Festetics Palace in Hungary again, or it was unavailable, but the Budapest Stock Exchange Palace, a reused location from season one, instead stands in for the Spinning Wheel, which was actually where Nikolai escaped in the book after the Little Palace fell to the Darkling). Ruin And Rising, the trilogy’s final book, is briefly summarized in the last few episodes; Alina, instead of fleeing into the network of tunnels under Ravka and spending months in hiding, escapes with Baghra (ZoĆ« Wanamaker), the Darkling’s mother, immediately after the attack on the Spinning-Wheel and chases after the third of Morozova’s Amplifiers until Baghra quite casually reveals that the Amplifier is Alina’s boyfriend, Malyen Oretsev (Archie Renaux), and that to harness his powers Alina will have to kill him, before she – Baghra, that is, not Alina – sacrifices herself to break the bond between Alina and the Darkling (the last remaining interesting aspect of their relationship). None of these developments are dragged out for the sake of angst, which I suppose I should be grateful for, but fast-forwarding through the story isn’t a great alternative.

Not ten minutes into the finale, the Shadow-Fold is no more, and both Mal and the Darkling are dead – for now, at least; a bumblebee landing on Zoya (Sujaya Dasgupta)’s shoulder while she stands by the Darkling’s body foreshadows the arrival of Sankta Lizabeta, a character from the King Of Scars duology who helps resurrect the Darkling – and everyone is standing around awkwardly in what used to be the Shadow-Fold, saying their goodbyes. Alina refuses to part with Mal forever, though, and forces his soul back into his body using hastily explained dark magic, with one tragic side-effect: he no longer feels anything for her. In the books, this doesn’t happen, and Alina and Mal get the happily-ever-after ending that Mal always dreamed of, where Alina loses her Grisha powers and they retire to a farm and raise lots of children.

Needless to say, many readers felt cheated by that conclusion to Alina’s character arc, so the show has done away with it completely (another correction, but one that I think almost everyone can get behind). Mal decides to become a privateer like Nikolai, traveling the high seas, while Alina becomes Queen of the Grisha, all while still “engaged” to Nikolai. I love that this is the route we’re going with, because I’ve always been a proponent of platonic “Malina”, but again, this is something the show needed to establish earlier, and it just never carved out the time to do so (and on a side-note, everyone’s “ships” are breaking down the middle as a result of this change: Alina is with Nikolai but now reminiscing about the Darkling; Nikolai seems genuinely infatuated with her, and still hasn’t even glanced in Zoya’s direction; Mal is single and apparently ready to mingle).

It’s abundantly clear that the writers’ interest lies with the Crows, on the other side of the Shadow-Fold. No surprise there. The morally ambiguous, eccentrically-dressed (and for the time being at least, predominantly queer) Crows have a certain panache that Shadow And Bone‘s archetypal protagonists lack. Even outside of Ketterdam (the Crows’ home-turf, a precarious stack of casinos, nightclubs, and brothels clamoring over each other for tourists’ money), or separated from their veritable rainbow of a rogues gallery, the Crows are not only the more eye-catching characters but by far the more three-dimensional and real. Some of that can be attributed to the actors and their obvious delight in the roles they were practically born to play – Freddy Carter and Amita Suman, standouts among the ensemble cast, deliver equally phenomenal performances as the criminal mastermind Kaz Brekker and assassin Inej Ghafa, doing Bardugo proud in every scene; those where they act the part of Crows, indecipherable and unfeeling, and those where surprisingly eloquent confessions slip from their lips unbidden in each other’s presence, before they shamefully begin bricking up the gaps in their armor. Even though Inej boldly pushes Kaz to open up in the final episode and he rather hesitantly admits that he wants her to stay in Ketterdam with him, Inej realizes then and there that they still have a long way to go before they’ll ever be comfortable expressing how they feel through physical gestures of affection, and that she doesn’t have all the time in the world – so she chooses to leave the Crows and search for her family, giving Kaz time to consider whether he’s willing to begin healing and become the person she needs him to be.

(left to right) Jack Wolfe as Wylan Van Eck, Danielle Galligan as Nina Zenik, Freddy Carter as Kaz Brekker, and Kit Young as Jesper Fahey in Shadow And Bone, seated around a table in a diner, all turning to look at the camera. Kaz wears a black bowler hat and overcoat, Jesper a maroon jacket, Nina a  dainty hat perched on the side of her head, and Wylan a waistcoat.
(left to right) Wylan Van Eck, Nina Zenik, Kaz Brekker and Jesper Fahey | elle.com

A less complicated love blossoms between Jesper Fahey (Kit Young) and Wylan Van Eck (Jack Wolfe), the Crows’ demolition man. In a change from the books that came as a shock to some, Jesper and Wylan are already…intimately acquainted in Shadow And Bone, which means they obviously don’t spend several episodes silently questioning whether the other is interested in them, and Jesper doesn’t ever deliver what is arguably his most iconic line, “Not just girls”, nor will there ever be a chance again. Instead, the conflict in their relationship comes from their inability to get on the same page about what they really want – they’re both looking for passion, but they have completely different definitions of the word. And this change actually worked for me, as did most of the changes to the Crows, because I can tell these changes were made by writers who really love the Crows and understand them, even if they don’t always have the time and means in what is still technically an adaptation of Shadow And Bone to prove it to cynical book purists.

The most controversial change, of course, is the decision to adapt large chunks of Crooked Kingdom – the second book in the Six Of Crows duology – prior to the events of Six Of Crows, and with Kaz’s arch-nemesis Pekka Rollins (Dean Lennox Kelly) taking the place of Jan Van Eck, a character we still haven’t seen in the show (which is fine by me, because that means it’s not too late to cast Richard E. Grant in that role). The raid on Van Eck’s lawyer’s office; the Crows dressing up as Komedie Brute characters to pull off one of their plans; the iconic scene in which Kaz usurps Per Haskell (Tim Plester) as head of the Dregs, and where he pretends to have buried Pekka’s son alive; Inej becoming a pirate…it’s all here. To do any of that again would be redundant. But Inej being kidnapped by Van Eck and fighting Dunyasha, Jesper’s father coming to Ketterdam, the smuggling of Grisha refugees onto the boats with help from Nikolai, the auction for Kuwei Yul-Bo and Kaz’s confrontation with the Council of Tides are all major sequences that have not yet been adapted, so it’s not like there’s nothing left. These scenes will just be very different when they happen onscreen.

I won’t say it’s not occasionally frustrating, because of course it is. I would have just as gladly accepted more original storylines for the Crows in place of a loose adaptation of Crooked Kingdom (and I enjoyed the one written to keep them occupied through the back-half of the season, during which they travel to Shu Han in search of a blade that can cut shadows to help Alina). But as a fan of the Crows, I look at what was done with their characters this season – and how they were set up for the future – and I can’t help but feel excited that the story could potentially veer off in so many different directions now. Because Pekka Rollins is already in Hellgate Prison by season’s end, he’s had the opportunity to befriend the sixth future member of the Crows, Matthias Helvar (Calahan Skogman), while the Fjerdan still hasn’t even had the chance to meet Kaz. Because Inej is off traveling the world with Mal now, she can join the Crows at a different point during the Ice-Court heist and Mal can fill the small but significant role that Nikolai plays in Crooked Kingdom. Because Wylan is already with Jesper, the truth about his identity, when it inevitably comes out, could drive a wedge between them. And of course, Alina still being involved in the story introduces even more variables.

Amita Suman as Inej Ghafa in Shadow And Bone, holding onto the rigging of a ship with one arm. Her hair is tied back in a ponytail, and she wears a blue-green vest and leather pants.
Inej Ghafa | looper.com

Of course, it all depends on whether Shadow And Bone gets renewed for a third season, and at Netflix that is never a guarantee (another reason I think the writers snuck in so many great scenes from later books this season, because they knew better than to assume that Netflix would let the show run long enough to get to those scenes organically). I remain cautiously optimistic that it will be picked up, or rather that the story will continue under the title Six Of Crows. Whether Bardugo book purists will give the writers another chance after so many controversial changes to the source material is a different matter. For the answer to that question, we shall have to wait and see.

Series Rating: 8/10

Who Is Wylan Van Eck? Shadow And Bone Season 2’s New Star, Explained

Netflix missed a golden opportunity today. They could have announced the casting for the character of Wylan Van Eck in their adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow And Bone while Wylan’s name was one of the top five trends on Twitter; but they didn’t, which is really a shame. However, I intend to use this moment to my advantage, to churn out a breakdown of the character’s backstory for everyone who saw the name trending earlier and was left perplexed about who Wylan is, and why fans of Bardugo’s fantasy novels are so obsessed with him. I’m gonna try to do this without spoiling anything too major about Wylan for the general audience, because I don’t imagine many fans who have read the Six Of Crows duology will need a refresher on a character who ranks among other Grishaverse fan-favorites like Nikolai Lantsov and Genya Safin.

Wylan Van Eck
Wylan Van Eck, art by Kevin Wada | lgbtqia-characters.fandom.com

Wylan Van Eck is introduced in Six Of Crows, Bardugo’s fourth fantasy novel set in the fictional world of the Grishaverse, and the book which kicks off her widely-loved and critically-acclaimed Six Of Crows duology. But while Netflix’s Shadow And Bone pulls inspiration, elements, and characters, from the duology in its adaptation of Bardugo’s earlier Grisha trilogy, Wylan was conspicuously absent from the show’s first season. Luckily, he is “a hundred percent” going to appear in season two, according to Shadow And Bone‘s showrunner, and fans are eager to find out who will be playing him in live-action, completing the line-up of “crows” currently comprised of Freddy Carter, Amita Suman, Kit Young, Danielle Galligan, and Calahan Skogman.

Wylan is the only one of the book’s six protagonists who was presumably both born and raised in the city of Ketterdam, although his experiences with the city were pleasant enough at first: he was not hardened from an early age by the rough-and-tumble environment of Ketterdam’s notoriously seedy Barrel district, but was instead brought up amongst the stately mansions of the city’s Financial District, where he lived with his father and young stepmother, attending lavish parties in foreign lands and receiving a classical education until an…unfortunate incident, which takes place several months before the events of the book and leaves Wylan homeless and on the run in the midst of the Barrel, surrounded by people who want him dead.

To survive, Wylan assumes a false name and puts his skill with chemistry to good use, creating explosive devices for Ketterdam’s rival street gangs. He declares himself a “demolitions expert” because of this, although Kaz remarks that he is only “passable” at demo. He becomes involved in the plot of Six Of Crows unintentionally, when Kaz takes a dangerous but highly profitable job from Wylan’s father, the wealthy merchant Jan Van Eck, and decides to use Wylan as leverage over Van Eck to make sure he gets his money when all is said and done. Kaz, of course, was not long deterred by Wylan’s little business with the false name, and had come to the conclusion before any of his fellow gang-members that the young boy was none other than Van Eck’s son – and the heir to the old man’s vast trading empire.

Wylan initially comes across as a bit of a pampered character, no thanks to his angelic, even cherub-like appearance, and holier-than-thou indignation at the other Crows’ violent deeds. He shares very few details about his past, or about what drove him to seek a life of crime in the Barrel even though he comes from a background of such privilege and prestige, even though his father continues to send letters to the boarding house where Wylan went missing, asking him to come home. But he earns his keep on the crew, thanks to his resourceful attitude and first-hand knowledge of the Fjerdan Ice Court – the heavily-fortified palace and prison which the Crows must infiltrate to free a Shu scientist by the name of Bo Yul-Bayur, whose skills are coveted by Ketterdam’s Merchant Council.

Wylan Van Eck
Jesper Fahey | digitalspy.com

Along the way, the shy and introspective baby gay cinnamon-roll-who-could-actually-kill-you Wylan becomes close with the charismatic bisexual sharpshooter Jesper Fahey – and as their relationship grows more intimate with each trial they face, they open up to each other more. The dynamic between them is truly heartwarming, because of how Wylan’s desire to be accepted by the other Crows pushes him to become more violent, and how Jesper instinctively reacts by trying to protect Wylan from his darkest impulses. Jesper is capable of doing some pretty terrible things on his own, but he’s a good person at heart, and he genuinely wants to help Wylan become a better person than he believes he could ever be. I’m not crying, you’re crying. Just kidding, I am definitely crying. Their ship name is “Wesper”, and I can’t wait to see how Netflix builds this relationship from the ground up.

There’s been some doubt as to whether Shadow And Bone season two will adapt the events of Six Of Crows, since the first season left off roughly around the same point where the book begins, but this is one area where you can see the potential upside of holding off on that for another season or two: giving Wylan and Jesper a little more time to get to know each other, to start off as rivals but slowly begin to begrudgingly admire each other’s talents. The obvious drawback is that the mysteries regarding Wylan’s backstory might be much harder to maintain, even for general audiences. But seeing that backstory played out in real-time could be more compelling than trying to preserve surprises in the books which can easily be spoiled for anyone at this point, thanks to Google.

As for how Wylan will change from book to screen, I think there’s no doubt he’ll be aged up significantly – and for hardcore Wylan fans, that will probably be the biggest shock. In the books, he’s sixteen when we first meet him, but pretty much everyone else in the Grishaverse takes one look at him and mistakes him for a twelve-year old: like, to the point where I thought he was a twelve-year old the first time I read Six Of Crows. He’s memorably described by Kaz as resembling “a silk-eared puppy”, something that sticks with the reader. But in the show, he’ll likely be around the same age as the other Crows – i.e. in his early to mid-twenties – which might have interesting ramifications for his character arc. Book readers will know what I’m talking about, the rest of you will hopefully be sufficiently tantalized by the hints I’m dropping that you’ll go check out the books.

Wylan Van Eck
The Crows | variety.com

In Shadow And Bone‘s second season, the thing I’m most excited to see from Wylan are the nuances of his character that I can’t begin to explain here without entering major spoiler territory. There’s so much more going on beneath the surface than you realize at first, and he grows on you with each reread. I can’t wait for new fans to meet this amazing character and fall in love with him just as deeply as longtime Grishaverse geeks have, and I hope this post gets you a little more hyped for his inclusion in Shadow And Bone season two.

But what are your feelings on the character, and who’s your fan-cast? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

“Shadow And Bone” Will Return For A Second Season!

I appreciate that after forcing the entire Grishaverse fandom to wait on an official renewal of Shadow And Bone for over a month, Netflix finally dropped the hotly-anticipated announcement into the opening minutes of their Geeked Week fandom event as a sweet surprise for fans. Well, I say “surprise”, but let’s be honest, this was pretty much the worst kept secret at the streaming service. As Netflix confirmed today alongside the renewal, Shadow And Bone‘s first season was viewed by more than 55 million households in its first 28 days, making it a huge hit for the studio. Obviously, all those times I left the show playing in the background so it would boost streaming numbers actually worked.

Shadow And Bone
Shadow And Bone | geekgirlauthority.com

There’s not much official information about Shadow And Bone‘s second season just yet, apart from confirmation that it will be eight episodes in length like the first (still too short, if you ask me, but whatever), and that the writer’s room has wrapped, with showrunner Eric Heisserer presiding (hurrah, I guess). Grishaverse author Leigh Bardugo will continue to be involved in her capacity as consultant and executive producer. And all of the main cast will return, including Jessie Mei Li, Freddy Carter, Ben Barnes, Amita Suman, Archie Renaux, and Kit Young, while Danielle Galligan and Calahan Skogman have been upgraded to series regulars in preparation for their greatly expanded roles next season. All good stuff.

But the reason Shadow And Bone exploded into the trending section of Twitter after the official announcement was because fans of Bardugo’s novels (including myself) are hyped for a bunch of new characters who will be joining the second season, if the show follows the books: Wylan Van Eck, the surprisingly formidable wayward son of a wealthy merchant who specializes in demolition while sustaining an adorable romance with the series’ resident bicon, Jesper Fahey; Nikolai Lantsov, the charismatic younger prince of Ravka who has his eyes set on the crown and an alliance with the Sun Summoner herself; and Tolya and Tamar, secretive twin mercenaries from Shu Han in league with a pirate. All of these characters come with their own fans, and Wylan in particular is extremely popular: as evidenced by the fact that he is still trending on Twitter as of this writing.

Shadow And Bone
Shadow And Bone | hitc.com

Obviously, these and other major casting announcements can be expected in the near future – given that Geeked Week will continue for a few more days, and that day three is devoted specifically to fantasy, we might even get some new information then. But this reveal on its own is very exciting, and allows me to continue wildly theorizing and speculating about season two, with the assurance that season two is actually happening. There’s no word yet on when season two will begin filming or potentially debut on Netflix, although there’s no reason why, with the scripts already completed, it couldn’t go into production soon and be ready for release by the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023.

But while we wait, you can expect me to keep covering the show extensively (I may or may not be in the process of writing an entire breakdown of the top ten Six Of Crows scenes in Shadow And Bone‘s first season…), as well as pushing the show’s production team to address and fix mistakes made on the first season. I haven’t forgotten that someone behind-the-scenes (most likely the show’s stunt coordinator, based on what I’ve learned about the casting process) signed off on a white stunt double being hired for Amita Suman and then painted brown to match the Desi actress’ skin color. Eric Heisserer, who claims he was completely unaware of this, apologized on a Reddit forum to fans and to Suman: whether you accept his apology or not is up to you, but there’s clearly much more work to be done making sure the show’s inclusive messages are applied behind-the-scenes as well.

Shadow And Bone
Kaz Brekker and Milo | nerdist.com

But what are you most excited to see when Shadow And Bone returns? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

Shadow And Bone Season 2 Just Got A Lot More Complicated

SPOILERS FOR SHADOW AND BONE AND THE GRISHAVERSE NOVELS AHEAD!

No fantasy adaptation can just be simple these days – something that’s alternately exciting and worrying for fans of the source material, and exhausting for any reviewer trying to write coherently about said fantasy adaptations. If it’s not Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings prequel series being pieced together from mostly contradictory notes, it’s The Witcher‘s first season playing chronological guessing-games with the audience – and then there’s Shadow And Bone, which perhaps takes the cake (or should I say, waffle) in this competition of complexity.

Shadow And Bone
Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, and Jesper Fahey | polygon.com

The Netflix show isn’t a straight-up adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s debut novel, Shadow And Bone, although it will presumably continue to bear that book’s title. It also includes characters from Bardugo’s fourth Grishaverse novel, Six Of Crows, which is set a few years after her first trilogy, in a different region of the Grishaverse. But rather than follow two timelines simultaneously, Shadow And Bone (the show) imagines an original scenario where these Crows characters and their storylines overlapped with the events of Shadow And Bone (the book) sometime between their canonical backstories and the events of Six Of Crows. The end of season one roughly matches up with the beginning of Six Of Crows.

Or at least, so we thought. Shadow And Bone‘s showrunner, Eric Heisserer recently declared that the plot of Six Of Crows can’t happen until after The Darkling is dead, a statement he reiterated in an interview with Variety where he suggested that, while the Crows offer a clear path forward for the show “once you get to the end of Alina’s storyline”, in the meantime their arcs will continue to interweave with Alina’s, “without really disturbing too much of the separate storylines that they’re on.”Ā Heisserer’s reasoning is that the central premise of Six Of Crows – that a mysterious new drug named jurda parem has appeared in the Grishaverse, giving Grisha heightened abilities – would break the world’s established magic system too soon.

Obviously, this begs the question of why it was necessary to introduce the Crows this early, if the events of their own book won’t occur onscreen until after Alina’s journey is complete and they won’t substantially impact her arc in the meantime, but the real question we should be asking is what the Crows will do in season two now that the Ice Court heist is apparently off the table and jurda parem can’t yet be introduced. Put on your theorizing hats, people: we’re about to dive down a deep lore rabbit-hole.

First thing’s first, the Crows will have to deal with their mysterious client Dreesen once they return to Ketterdam in season two without a Sun-Summoner. That’s a given whether or not Dreesen is involved in the creation of jurda parem, as I had speculated (and still believe, although I no longer think it’ll be anything more than an undercurrent of a storyline in season two). But Dreesen doesn’t seem wily enough to handle Kaz Brekker on his own, so I’m sure he’ll turn to Pekka Rollins for protection from the Crows – positioning Pekka as a main antagonist in season two, and allowing for flashbacks to Kaz’s history with the ruthless gang leader.

The details of Kaz’s plan to defeat both men simultaneously are still unclear, although he informs his Crows that, for it to work, they’ll need to hire a Heartrender whom neither Dreesen nor Pekka are familiar with – and that’s where Nina Zenik comes into the picture. At the end of season one, Nina is on her way to Ketterdam alongside the Crows, and overhears them discussing Kaz’s plan – but we don’t see her actually join the team, so it’s possible that season two will find her loyalties divided for a number of reasons.

A peculiar plotline left dangling after the finale was the matter of Nina being a spy for The Darkling, and even being personally assigned by him to infiltrate a trio of rogues from Ketterdam who intended to capture Alina Starkov. It’s a significant alteration from the books, especially since it would have been easy enough to keep her canon backstory, but it doesn’t pay off…yet. If Nina joins the Crows, it’ll only be a matter of time before she realizes they’re the same scoundrels she was supposed to hand over to The Darkling, and that could be exactly the right kind of crisis to drive her into the hands of Pekka Rollins – taking a plot-point from Six Of Crows and giving it a fresh twist.

In the books, Nina is alone in Ketterdam and out of options when Pekka’s people find her and bring her to the Emerald Palace, where Pekka offers her a job at one of his pleasure houses. But Kaz sends Inej Ghafa to scale the six-story building at night in the pouring rain with his own counteroffer – a moment too cinematic to miss out on, in my opinion. Besides, returning to the Emerald Palace would give us an opportunity to check up on Poppy, an original character and breakout star from season one who would be a great foil for Nina’s humor.

Another source of conflict between Nina and the Crows could be Matthias Helvar, the Fjerdan witch-hunter whom Nina loves. Shadow And Bone dramatized a key scene from Six Of Crows in which Nina was forced to accuse Matthias of being a slave-trader and have him put in prison in order to save him from a team of Grisha who would have killed him otherwise – but now, with Matthias headed for Ketterdam’s notorious Hellgate prison, Nina will do anything in her power to free him and clear his name; and she might use him as a bargaining chip in her dealings with Kaz. The Hellgate prison break could be a pretty awesome set-piece, even if it would lead to complications with Matthias joining the Crows much earlier than in the books.

Then there’s Tante Heleen, who still has in her possession the deed for Kaz’s precious Crow Club – not only his primary source of revenue, but his headquarters and the capital of his sprawling criminal empire. I highly doubt the monstrous Heleen will hand it over without a fight, and she’s capable of prolonging that fight thanks to her resources and connections. But one thing she doesn’t have anymore is a Wraith, and Inej Ghafa knows her weaknesses and how to exploit them almost as well as Heleen knows hers. This storyline could also help Inej get closer to learning the truth about her family, from whom she was separated as a child by slave-traders who sold her to Heleen.

Shadow And Bone
Kaz Brekker and Inej Ghafa | buzzfeed.com

Shadow And Bone made the deliberate choice to give Inej a brother – despite her being an only child in the books – and indicated that her brother was also sold off somewhere, although where is a mystery even to Inej. Heleen won’t know either, most likely, but she’ll know the identities of the slave-traders who captured both children, and Inej will track them down: of that I have no doubt. Her desire to fight the slave-trade is a major part of her character arc in the books, and the way she memorized every detail about her captors’ physical appearances and advocates for the other girls indentured by Heleen suggests it’s no different in the show.

Inej’s dream of owning a ship from which to launch this valiant crusade is something she only properly formulates in Six Of Crows during a powerful epiphany in an incinerator shaft (long story), but Shadow And Bone can plant the seeds of this dream if Inej encounters Nikolai Lantsov, the charismatic and flirtatious Ravkan prince who first appears in the Grisha trilogy disguised as a privateer named Sturmhond. In the books, Nikolai seeks to redeem Alina Starkov’s image with the Ravkan population by having her pose as his bride-to-be – but to avoid a massive geographical division in the show, he could announce their “engagement” in Ketterdam. I’m brainstorming here, but some kind of plot to assassinate the prince could make for rather compelling television.

Who would be pulling the strings behind such a scheme? Well, a few candidates come to mind. Obviously, The Darkling is one of those, but another could be Jan Van Eck, the Crows’ nemesis from the books. Since we know Eric Heisserer intends to introduce Van Eck’s son Wylan in season two, it stands to reason that Van Eck himself will also make an appearance, and it wouldn’t even be that much of a spoiler to establish him as a villainous or antagonistic character this early, as long as he’s working with the Kerch Merchant Council on his plots.

Assuming we’re lucky enough to get a third season of Shadow And Bone, which would presumably cover the events of Ruin And Rising, the final book in the Grisha trilogy, we’d have to do this all over again with another original plotline for the Crows to fill the gap between now and Six Of Crows. But the books provide something in this case – something that could unlock a whole new corner of the Grishaverse, fix a major problem with season one, and seamlessly interconnect with Alina’s ongoing character arc.

Alina and Mal’s storyline in Ruin And Rising is heavily focused around returning to their place of origin, which in the books is the orphanage at Keramzin. But Shadow And Bone changed Alina and Mal’s ethnicities, making them both biracial – and establishing Alina very clearly as being half-Shu (Mal is possibly of Suli descent, based on actor Archie Renaux’s Desi heritage, which raises the way-too-complicated-to-get-into-in-this-post question of whether he’s Inej’s long lost brother). There’s a lot of valid criticism of the way Shadow And Bone uses Alina’s biracial identity as shorthand for a tragic backstory, subjecting her to a constant string of micro-aggressions, abuse, insults, and racist attacks, without ever bothering to show Shu Han culture except through racist war propaganda, or allowing Alina an opportunity to explore her culture.

That’s something that could change at anytime, but season three offers a tantalizing opportunity for both Alina and Mal to journey further into their past than the orphanage at Keramzin – which could mean traveling to Shu Han at roughly the same time that the Shu scientist Bo Yul-Bayur and his young son Kuwei will be perfecting the formula for jurda parem. At this point in the show, The Darkling will be on his way out, and Jan Van Eck will have already been introduced – all that’s needed is for the Crows to somehow end up in Shu Han. And Six Of Crows provides a precedent, in a Kerch-funded mission to the Shu capital of Ahmrat Jen that takes place shortly before the book opens. The aim of the mission is to capture Yul-Bayur, but he is accidentally killed in the crossfire without the Kerch ever finding out – and Kuwei is captured by a Fjerdan team who take him to the impenetrable Ice Court.

This mission would also allow Inej to meet her most notable opponent from the books, a Ravkan assassin named Dunyasha who was trained in Ahmrat Jen. Inej’s Suli region adheres that a person’s sum total of sins and crimes add up to become that person’s evil doppelganger, or “Shadow”, who will one day face them in battle – and Dunyasha is Inej’s Shadow. With Inej’s arc being heavily focused on her faith, it makes sense to introduce this concept as soon as possible and begin foreshadowing their duel.

Shadow And Bone
Kaz Brekker | marvelousgeeksmedia.com

But if I’m rambling at this point, it’s only because I love my Crows deeply, and I want them all to have fulfilling character arcs while we wait for the Ice Court heist. Is that really too much to ask? Eric Heisserer got himself into this mess by insisting that the Crows had to be part of Alina’s storyline as his pitch to Netflix – now we have to hope his writers room actually has a plan for them beyond the initial “wow” factor of the Crows trying to kidnap the Sun-Summoner in season one.