Recap: Wheel of Time’s third season balefires its way to a hell of a finish

Summary

Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode and second season episode of Amazon's WoT TV series. Now we're back in the saddle for season 3—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory. These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We'll do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you. New episodes of The Wheel of Time season three will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Thursday. This write-up covers the season three finale, "He Who Comes With the Dawn," which was released on April 17. Lee: Wow. That was… a lot. One of the recurring themes of our recaps across seasons has been, “Well, I guess we’re going to have to give up on seeing $SEMI_MAJOR_BOOK_SETTING_OR_EVENT on screen because of budget or time or narrative reasons,” and we’ve had to let go of a lot of stuff. But this episode kicks off with a flashback showing Elaida walking out of a certain twisted redstone doorframe, looking smug and fingering a bracelet. Sharp-eyed viewers might have spotted this doorway in the background of the season premiere, when the Black Ajah loots the Tower’s ter’angreal storeroom, and now in true Chekov’s Gun fashion, the doorway comes 'round again—and not just this one, because like many things in the Wheel of Time, the doorways come in a binary set. We surely owe show-watchers a very quick recap of the Finn—and I believe we glossed over a scene in an earlier episode where the boys are actually playing the snakes-and-foxes game that these horrifying fae-folk are based on—but before we do that, let’s take a breath and look at wh...