House of the Dragon Season Two, Episode Two, Rhaenyra the Cruel Review: The Best Acted Episode Yet.

“A Son for a Son” was a really good start to Season Two of House of the Dragon, but Episode Two, “Rhaenyra the Cruel” is even better.
Directed by Claire Kilner, the episode has the best acting across the board out of any episode in the series so far.
Beginning immediately after the horrifying events of “A Son for a Son”, we see the impact the loss of Aegon’s heir has had on the Greens.
Aegon is, of course, distraught over the loss of his son, destroying the model of Valyria Viserys spent all of last season building.
Otto, on the other hand, is already looking for a way to play this tragedy to their advantage, proposing that they have a funeral procession to show the small folk what Rhaenyra has done.
Aegon is spared from having to go through the spectacle, but Helaena gets no such consideration.
She is paraded through the streets, her sorrow used as a political tool, while Aegon takes his revenge on Blood in the cells.
Her situation gets even worse when the cart they are riding gets stuck in the mud.
I’m pretty sure we were all scared that Jaehaerys’ body would fall off the cart in the attempt to get it moving again but thankfully the showrunners were merciful enough to keep that from happening.
Following this gruesome scene, the episode cuts to the Blacks, who are learning of the murder.
Rhaenyra is understandably shocked when she learns she is being blamed for it, and offended when some of her lords suggest it may have been her vengeance for Lucerys.
However, all it takes is one look at Daemon for her to know the truth.
The following scene between the two is expertly acted by both Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith, as we see the complete breakdown of any trust Rhaenyra could have had in Daemon.
Matt Smith is especially threatening, as we see the Rogue Prince has to physically restrain himself from grabbing Rhaenyra’s throat, like he did in the Season One Finale.
Their argument ends with Daemon leaving on Caraxes, and Rhaenyra deciding sending Baela (Bethany Antonia) on her dragon Moondancer to keep an eye on King’s Landing.
Back with the Greens, we see the impact Jaehaerys’ murder has had on Criston Cole.
He watches the young boy’s room being cleared out and, based on his expression, he seems to feel quite a bit of guilt for what happened.
He was supposed to be on watch, but instead was sleeping with Alicent and, because of that, Jaehaerys died.
Watching this scene made me wonder if it was possible for me to feel some sympathy for Cole… then the next scene happened, and it made me hate him even more.
Rather than decide to change for the better, Cole instead doubles down and projects his guilt onto Arryk Cargyll, someone who holds no blame for the murder.
Watching Cole bully Arryk into going to assassinate Rhanerya at Dragonstone by posing as his own brother made my hatred for him increase tenfold.
One character I definitely do not hate, though, is Addam (Clinton Liberty), the brother of Alyn, who is introduced this episode.
I will not get into his role in the story, I will save that for the book spoilers section, but I will say that he is one of my favorite characters in the Dance of the Dragons, so it is good to see him.
What is also good to see is how much better Sonoya Mizuno’s performance as Mysaria is now that her accent is much more subdued.
It really allowed her acting ability to shine through in her scene with Rhanerya.
But by far the best acting in this episode is hands down done by Rhys Ifans.
The scene where Otto berates Aegon for killing all of the Rat Catchers is excellent.
Otto’s rage and exasperation is both engaging and hilarious.
It is even emotional when he brings up Viserys, and we see that he really did care deeply about the old king, even if he did manipulate him constantly.
Otto ends his beratement of Aegon by revealing to him that Viserys really did not want his son to be king.
This appears to be the final straw for Aegon, who fires Otto as his Hand and gives the job to Cole.
The guy just keeps failing upward, doesn’t he?
To be fair to Cole though, his crazy plan of sending Arryk to kill Rhaenyra would have probably worked had it not been for Mysaria spotting him.
She alerts Erryk just in time for him to intervene and what results is a tragic fight to the death between twin brothers.
Elliot and Luke Tittensor do excellent jobs as Erryk and Arryk, both in their fight choreography and in their grief at having to fight, despite still loving one another.
The brutal duel ends with one twin killing the other, only for the remaining twin to kill themselves out of grief.
As foe which twin was which, it feels kind of ambiguous.
Either Erryk apologizes to Rhanerya before committing suicide, or Arryk acknowledges her as the true queen before killing himself.
Either way, it is one of the most tragic scenes in the show thus far.
Following the duel of the brothers, the episode cuts to the Greens for the final time.
We see Otto talking with Alicent about his firing, and he brings up Daeron, Alicent and Viserys’ youngest child.
Daeron was not seen or mentioned in Season One so many of us book readers were afraid that he had been cut.
It is good to hear that he exists, even if his introduction in this scene comes out of nowhere.
The conversation between Otto and Alicent ends with Alicent trying to admit to her affair with Criston, only for Otto to say he does not wish to hear of it.
This perfectly highlights the generational family neglect going on within the Green side.
Otto neglects Alicent, who then neglects Aegon when she refuses to comfort him.
Instead of mourning with him, Alicent instead chooses to sleep with Cole again, showing that neither of them has learned their lesson.
In my review of Episode One, I said I had mixed feelings about the two of them hooking up because it felt like it went against both characters.
However, I did say that the hypocrisy of it may be the point.
After watching Episode Two, I can say with absolute certainty that it was.
Both characters are very hypocritical, and their hypocrisy will probably only grow as the season progresses.
Overall, “Rhaenyra the Cruel” is a great episode, with the best acting of the series, so far.
Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Rhys Ifans, Elliot and Luke Tittensor, Tom Glynn-Carney, Phia Saban, and Sonoya Mitsuno all give their best this episode, and I cannot wait to see how their performances continue to improve as the season progresses.

Book Spoilers Section:
Once again, the main topic of discussion for the spoilers section is the Dragonseeds.
First there is Addam of Hull.
As I said, he is one of my favorite characters in the Dance of the Dragons.
We get foreshadowing for him eventually claiming the dragon Seasmoke, when he sees him flying overhead.
I am curious to see what the explanation for this will be, since Laenor is not dead in the show, at least as far as we know.
I am also curious to see how Rhaenys will react to Addam and Alyn’s existence.
Does she already know that Corlys fathered bastards, or will it be a shock?
It would be pretty tragic for it to cause a rift between the two, only for them to never reconcile because Rhaenys dies at Rook’s Rest.
Then there is the other Dragonseed, Hugh.
We see this episode that he has a family, which is struggling due to the conditions caused by the coming war.
His story is already very different from the books, where he was pretty much just a scumbag with no family, so I am interested to see how he will get to that point, if at all.
In any case, we should get our first dragon action in the next episode, as Daemon will be capturing Harrenhal, and the trailer makes it look like Baela will run into some trouble while watching Kings’ Landing.
We are getting ever closer to the actual dragon fights, and I could not be more excited for that.

House of the Dragon Season Two, Episode One, A Son for a Son Review: The Dance Continues.

After a long wait, House of the Dragon Season Two is finally upon us with its first episode, “A Son for a Son.”
Directed by Alan Taylor, the episode is a solid start to the season, ending with a gruesome moment that book fans have been waiting to see for a while.
“A Son for a Son” begins in the North, where we finally get to meet Cregan Stark, played by Tom Taylor.
Taylor does a good job in the role, as does Harry Collett as Jacaerys.
The two meet atop the Wall and discuss the Starks bending the knee to Aegon the Conqueror over a hundred years ago, leading into Jace asking Cregan for men to support his mother’s claim to the Iron Throne.
There are a few details that stood out to me in this scene, one of which is that Collett got to show off his actual hair, rather than the horrible wig of Season One.
This is good because now he actually resembles Harwin Strong quite a bit.
As for the second detail, Cregan states that when King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne visited the Wall, their dragons refused to fly across it.
This is book accurate and does foreshadow the White Walkers, but it also does not really mesh well with the Game of Thrones show because Dany’s dragons flew across the Wall just fine.
The scene ends with Cregan promising some of his fighting force, and a message arriving with news of Jace’s brother’s death.
From here, the episode transitions to the fallout of Luke’s death, where we learn Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) has flown off on Syrax to find his body, leaving Daemon (Matt Smith) to brood.
The Rogue Prince attempts to convince Rhaenys (Eve Best) to help him take down Vhagar, but she is able to easily take Daemon down a notch.
Although Daemon is still right when he says that Rhaneys could have ended the conflict by wiping out Aegon and the rest of the Greens in Episode Nine of Season One.
As for Rhaenys husband, Corlys (Steve Toussaint) is speaking with one of his men, Alyn (Abubakar Salim), who was the one to save his life during the fighting in the Stepstones.
This scene is actually one of my favorites in the entire episode.
It is tense and has lots of subtlety, but to explain those subtleties would be to spoil future reveals so I will save my deconstruction of this scene for the spoiler section down below.
Following the scene between Corlys and Alyn, we see what the Greens are up to and, unfortunately, do not see Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) revealing that he killed Lucerys.
I was quite looking forward to seeing Alicent’s reaction to learning her son had ruined any chance of peace.
What I was not expecting to see was Alicent (Olivia Cooke) getting it on with Criston Cole (Fabian Frankel).
Yep, those two are a thing and this definitely did not happen in the book.
To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the two of them getting together.
Alicent is a religiously devout person, so I’m not sure how she justifies having sex out of wedlock to herself when she judged Rhaenyra for it so harshly.
She went on and on about “honor and decency” in the first season, yet now she’s seemingly going against this.
As for Cole, his entire reason for turning against Rhaenyra was that sleeping with her made him feel like he had “soiled my white cloak.”
But he is suddenly okay with soiling it again with Alicent?
Maybe this is the point that the writers are trying to make; that these two are hypocrites, but them being together still feels a little out of character to me.
I will have to see how their relationship is portrayed in future episodes to decide if I completely dislike it or not, though.
Alicent may have a thing for Criston, but she definitely does not like Larys (Mathew Needham).
Unfortunately, she feels she has no choice but to work with him, as he reveals to her that he has got rid of staff who could be spying on her.
Don’t worry, he replaced that staff with his own.
It’s totally not creepy!
Well, Alicent is justifiably worried about Larys’ new staff keeping an eye on her, since she decides to bathe alone rather than have her new servants help.
Speaking of creeps, we also get to see how Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) is handling his role as king.
He is pretty much like what if a frat boy became king, with his own fraternity following him around.
Surprisingly, though, he does seem to be a good dad, as he is preparing his son for council meetings.
I say “surprisingly” because Aegon was revealed to watch his own bastard children in fighting rings last season.
I do think it was a bit of a mistake to go so extreme with Aegon’s depravity last season.
The marketing for Season Two has set it up as Blacks vs Greens.
The problem with this is that it is extremely hard to get on board with Team Green when their king is a rapist who watches his own kids fight to the death for his amusement.
At least Tom Glynn-Carney does a great job as the character.
Back with the Blacks, we see Erryk Cargyll (Elliot Tittensor) find Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), who expectedly survived Larys’ attack on her base of operations last season.
In my reviews for Season One, a common complaint I had was Mysaria’s accent.
It was so bad that it took me out of every scene she was in.
Well, I am happy to say, the accent has been severely toned down this season.
You can still hear it, but it is slight.
Most importantly, it no longer sounds like she is attempting a terrible Jamaican accent while drunk.
Following her capture, Rhanerya returns after retrieving Lucerys’ cape, and speaks her only line of dialogue in the entire episode, “I want Aemond Targaryen.”
Emma D’Arcy is an absolute powerhouse this episode.
They deliver an emotional performance which tugs at the hear strings, all without speaking.
The emotions only heighten when Jace returns and attempts to give his report to his mother, only to break down.
The two embrace as they mourn the loss of Luke in one of the episode’s most tragic scenes.
Not the most tragic, however, because that distinction comes for the one immediately after Lucerys’ funeral.
Daemon arrives in King’s Landing wearing his crime hoodie, and we all know that means nothing good.
He recruits a Gold Cloak named Blood (Sam C. Wilson) and a Rat Catcher named Cheese (Mark Stobbart) to assassinate Aemond Targaryen.
“A son for a son,” Aemond for Luke is the plan.
Or, at least, one of the plans.
The lack of a response from Daemon when Cheese ask what to do if they can’t find Aemond speaks volume.
Daemon is fine with killing any of the Greens’ sons as revenge.
Blood and Cheese then enter the Red Keep, encountering hurdle after hurdle, leading to Cheese eventually kicking his dog in frustration.
It is kind of funny that more people seem upset over the kicked dog than the later murdered child.
In a morbid sort of way, I mean.
The two are unable to find Aemond, which is probably good for them because, let’s face it, Aemond would have wiped the floor with them.
It is less good for Helaena (Phia Saban) and her children, however, because Blood and Cheese find them.
And so, another of Helaena’s prophecies comes true.
She told Aegon earlier in the episode that she was afraid of the rats and now they have found her.
She attempts to placate Blood and Cheese with her necklace, but they take it anyway and still demand “a son for a son.”
In the end, Helaena has to point out which of the twins is her son, Jaehaerys.
The boy is then murdered, thankfully off screen.
We can still hear the sounds of Blood and Cheese taking his head, however, as Helaena takes her surviving daughter and runs to Alicent and Cole, ending the episode with the statement, “they killed the boy.”
I do have to woner if this line is a reference to Aemon telling Jon to “Kill the boy… and let the man be born.”
If it is a deliberate reference, then perhaps this is foreshadowing that this horrific act will cause Aegon to go on a vengeance streak.
He was shown to care a lot about his son this episode, after all.
Back to the Blood and Cheese scene itself, one thing that drew me out of the scene is how there were absolutely no guards defending the royal family.
There may be a combination of reasons for this, however.
For one thing, Larys said he halved the staff earlier in the episode.
For another, Criston Cole could have sent the guards away so no one would know about him sleeping with Alicent.
In this is true then, yeah, Cole is definitely one of the worst Kingsguard to ever Kingsguard.
As for how the Blood and Cheese scene compared to the book, it was actually much tamer in the show.
That is not meant to be a criticism, however, because I think if it had played out exactly as it did in the book much of the audience would be traumatized.
The scene was brutal enough as is, and the writers thankfully did not take it too far.
It is a horrific end to the first episode, which is a solid start to House of the Dragon Season Two.
The fallout will certainly be interesting.

Book Spoilers Section:
Just like last season, my reviews for every episode will come with a spoilers section at the bottom, where I discuss how scenes compare to the book and what may happen in the future.
For starters, I will talk about how the book handled Blood and Cheese to show you just how brutal it was.
In Fire and Blood, Blood and Cheese kill the guards and Alicent’s handmaiden, before tying her up and holding Helaena and her children at swordpoint.
They then cruelly demand that Helaena choose which one of her sons will die (she has two sons in the book).
A distraught Helaena chooses her youngest son, only for Cheese to tell the boy that his mother wants him dead before Blood decapitates the older boy instead.
As you can see, the scene is much more horrifying in the book, but it is good the show played it safe because we did not need to see a kid decapitated.
Now, I will go back to discussing the Corlys and Alyn scene, one of my favorites of the episode.
The reason the conversation between the two was so tense is because Alyn is actually Corlys’ bastard son, along with his brother Addam.
So, when Alyn offers his condolences for the loss of Lucerys, Corly’s heir, he is actually showing quite a bit of understandable bitterness.
Alyn and his brother are bastards, so are not acknowledged, while a bastard who was not even related to Corlys was elevated as his heir.
I love how subtle this scene is, and it makes me excited to see more of Alyn and Addam, the latter of whom is one of my three favorite characters in the Dance.
One of my other favorites is Daemon, and the other one is a character I will discuss in a bit.
For now, though, I want to talk about another new character, Hugh (Kieran Bew).
He gets a small appearance in this episode, while Aegon is holding court in King’s Landing but, if I am right, he is the Hugh Hammer character from the book.
Him being in King’s Landing is especially interesting because he later joins Rhaenyra’s side as Dragonseed, a bastard with Valyrian blood who tames a dragon, alongside others like Addam.
Hugh eventually betrays Rhaenyra, so him being in King’s Landing makes me think that maybe the Greens will send him to spy on Rhanerya, once they learn she is recruiting Dragonseeds.
This would certainly be an interesting change from the book.
What would definitely be a worse change from the book, however, is the potential removal of one of the Dragonseeds.
This Dragonseed is named Nettles and she is the third of my three favorite characters of the Dance.
There have been leaks going around that Nettles has not only been cut but replaced by Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell).
If these leaks turn out to be true, then I am going to be pretty mad.
Not only would removing Nettles from the story be a big mistake but replacing her with Rhaena would completely miss the point of Nettles’ role in the story.
I just wanted to get this concern out there, in case the leaks turn out to be true.
If they are true, then you can probably expect a rant about it in the review for the episode where it happens.
Just a heads up.
Although, if this were to happen, it would not kill the season for me.
Would it be a big negative?
Sure.
But Episode One was great and, if the quality keeps up, then Season Two will be a more than worthwhile watch.
There is only seven episodes left and I hope the rest are just as good, if not better

Arcane Season Two, Teaser Trailer Breakdown: The Final Chapter?

I still remember the first time I finished watching Arcane Season One.
I immediately started screaming “10 out of 10!”
No one was there to hear me, but I was screaming with glee over how fantastic this show was.
I had been initially reluctant to watch it, and yet Arcane delivered the best first season of any series I have ever seen.
So, naturally, I was already eagerly awaiting the second season after finishing, even though I knew that season would be years away.
Well, those years have passed, and we now have our first teaser trailer for Season Two, which I will attempt to breakdown and predict what happens to the best of my ability.

This disturbing poster speaks of an even darker season than the first.

The teaser begins in the wreckage of the council room, with what appears to be a POV shot from someone beneath the rubble.
We then hear voice over from Ambessa saying, “Your council is dead. Wrath must be met with wrath. You will have justice.”
So, we know that some characters survive Jinx’s attack, and some do not.
I am confident that Jayce, Viktor and Mel will survive, due to whatever magic we saw Mel utilizing at the end of the first season.
As for the rest of the councilors, they’re probably dead since they do not add much to the story.
The one of them who does is Caitlyn’s mother, Cassandra, who I am also confident is dead.
When Ambessa says, “You will have justice,” the shot focuses on a determined looking Caitlyn, implying she lost her mother.
The other reason I am confident Cassandra died in the attack is that apparently, in the German dub of the teaser, Ambessa tells Caitlyn, “We will avenge your mother.”
Cassandra dying would certainly throw a wrench in Vi and Caitlyn’s relationship, especially since Vi stopped her from shooting Jinx right before she blew up the council chambers.
As for Vi herself, we see her emerging from the darkness in an Enforcer uniform, which she looks entirely uncomfortable in.
Her joining the group who killed her parents so she can stop her sister will put a massive weight on her shoulders.

I doubt Jinx will take this well either, since this will tie Vi in more with Caitlyn.

A title card then reveals that this season will be the “final chapter.”
However, this is in regard to the Piltover and Zaun conflict, rather than meaning the end of the Arcane universe.
The writers have stated multiple times that they want to explore other characters in this world.
Personally, I am completely on board with this.
Not only is it good to know they have an ending planned for all of the Arcane characters, but I also want to see more of this world fleshed out eventually.
Following the title card, we see Caitlyn holding a meeting with a strike team, explaining their three objectives, “locate Jinx, dismantle Shimmer, and neutralize any agents still loyal to Silco.”
It is interesting that Caitlyn’s plan is to “locate Jinx” not “kill.”
If Jinx really did kill her mother, then Vi must have been incredibly persuasive to get Caitlyn to back off vengeance.
We then see that the strike team does manage to locate Jinx, as Vi wanders into one of her traps.
The teaser then briefly focuses on the Yordle Chem Baron from Season One, who we see standing before a giant statue of a woman.
At first, I thought this statue was of Jinx, but others have pointed out that it seems more similar to one of the unnamed Chem Barons.
This is the most curious shot of the trailer, for me, as I have no idea what it means.

We also see the Yordle Chem Baron fighting Sevika, who now seems to be working with Jinx.
I say this both because Sevika’s new prosthetic is covered in Jinx’s graffiti, implying she made it for her, and because we can literally see Jinx standing behind the Yordle for a second.
The situation must truly be dire for Jinx and Sevika to be working together.
We all know Sevika is going to be furious when she learns Jinx killed Silco.
Back to the teaser, we get a small look at other characters like Singed, Ekko and Heimerdinger.
There is also a shot of Warwick roaring in shadow.
Warwick is a character I am super excited to see, given theories about who he is, but I will not get into that because of spoilers.
Another mysterious character is a hooded figure we see, who I believe is Viktor, since there seems to be a quick shot of him unhooded, using his new abilities for an unknown purpose.
Vi then says that her sister is gone and that “this has to end”, before Caitlyn fires a Hextech-powered rifle.
The teaser seems to be suggesting that she is shooting to kill at Jinx.
The final scene of the tease shows Vi and Jinx’s long-awaited confrontation.
Vi calls out her sister’s new name in her hideout, and Jinx responds by saying, “Finally got the name right, sister.”
The teaser then ends with a showcase of their upcoming battle.

This fight looks like it will be both emotional and intense.

So, we know the structure of the season, right?
It will all build to this single Vi and Jinx fight.
Well, perhaps not.
There is a popular theory that all the of shots we have seen are only from the first three episodes, meaning the Jinx and Vi confrontation will only be the climax of the first act.
Where the season goes from there is anyone’s guess but there could very well be a timeskip to mirror the one from the first season.
Also, one of the Enforcers in promo material does look similar to Marcus’ daughter and, if it is her, it would make no sense for her to appear that old without a timeskip.
We will have to wait until November to see if any of these theories are correct.
I waited for Arcane Season Two for years, I will have no trouble waiting five more months.
As for the teaser trailer itself, it did a great job of hyping us all up for this final installment.
The animation looks glorious, the soundtrack sounds good, and I am eager to see how these fantastic characters’ stories will end.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury Season Two Review: Emotional Gut Punches Throughout.

The first season of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury did a great job of getting plenty of people hooked for a second season.
Ending on the cliffhanger of Suletta (Kana Ichinose) killing someone in front of Miorine (Lynn) and being completley unbothered by it, there were a lot of questions about what would happen next.

This dark ending hinted at grim things to come.

This is why it was surprising to see the second season have a slow start, with the first episode mostly being setup.
Unsurprisingly, this caused a few complaints, but people should have been more paitient because, low and behold, the second episode gets right back to the grim story telling the first season left on from.
The story follows Suletta, who is struggling to deal with the blow that has been dealt to her relationship with Miorine, who, in turn, now has to run her father’s corporation while also trying to get Suletta away from her conniving mother, Lady Prospera (Mamiko Noto).
This leads to many a tragic moment, some of which are not even related to a character death, with the characters words alone doing the emotional damage.

This scene especially was hard to watch.

It is not just Suletta and Miorine who get the spotlight though because plenty of the other characters get time to shine, with Shaddiq (Makoto Furukawa) making his move, and an unexpected bond growing between Elan (Natsuki Hanae) and Norea (Aoi Yuki).
It is Guel (Yohei Azakami) who really shines this season, however, as he deals with the trauma of accidentally killing his own father, while being held captive on earth.
I have loved Guel’s arc, as he started off as a privileged bully at the beginning of Season One, only to grow into a humbled leader and friend of Suletta.

Guel’s arc in seasons one and two is fantastic.

Not all about his story is great though because this does lead into one of my issues with Season Two, that being Guel’s brother Lauda (Takeo Otsuka).
Towards the end of the season, Lauda’s brain does a whole lot of mental gymnastics to blame Miorine for everything, leading to a conflict between him and Guel.
It honestly felt like the writers just wanted Guel to have a fight at the end so they came up with a reason to have Lauda be his opponent, no matter how contrived it was.

Lauda’s reasoning ultimately left me scratching my head.

Unfortunately, that is not my only problem with Season Two because I feel that the ending is a bit lacking.
Don’t get me wrong, the characters do get a satisfying ending but, as for the world The Witch from Mercury has built, it felt like everything was wrapped up too neatly.
I think we could have got another season showing a conflict between earth and space, rather than it all being quickly wrapped up here.
Sadly, it seems like this really is the end of The Witch from Mercury.

It is a shame if the show is truly over because I felt it had the potential to go further.

That being said, if this is the end then the show was highly enjoyable.
Along with the story and characters, the animation and score were also great, with the OPs and ED being very well done.
This is especially the case for Season Two’s ED “Red:birthmark” by Aina The End, which has banger singing, visuals and symbolism.
All in all, The Witch from Mercury Season Two is a great follow-up to the first season, which provides a satisfying conclusion, despite it being a bit lacking.
I hope we get some continuation, even if that seems unlikely at this point.

Vinland Saga Season Two Review: From Epic Viking Tale to Epic Farming Simulator.

Vinland Saga is an all-time great manga and the first season of its adaptation, made by Wit Studio, was amazing.
After finally watching it, I was too interested to wait for Season Two and read the manga.
I was quite surprised by the direction Makoto Yukimura took the story, with the setting changing from the brutal viking battlefields to a farm.
This was far from a bad thing though as Yukimura crafted a beautiful arc centering around the horrors of slavery and pointlessness of war.
It also serves as the beginning of Thorfinn’s (Yūto Uemura) redemption, and now Studio Mappa has adapted this storyline flawlessly.

Thorfinn’s story of redemption is brilliantly adapted by Mappa.

Season One ended with a tease of various characters important to the future of the story.
One of these characters was Einar (Shunsuke Takeuchi), a man who was enslaved after his family was murdered.
Season Two’s first episode sees Einar being bought to work on a farm by land owner Ketil (Hideaki Tezuka).
It is here that he meets Thorfinn, who was also sold into slavery after Season One and is now aimless in his life and suffering from the guilt of what he did while working for Askeladd.
From there, the season follows the two as they work to gain their freedom and grow closer as brothers, while Thorfinn slowly changes for the better in realizing what he needs to do to become a true warrior.

Thorfinn’s journey in Season Two puts on the path to becoming a true warrior.

At the farm,Thorfinn, Einar, and the audience are introduced to various interesting new characters like Snake (Fuminori Komatsu), Arnheid (Mayumi Sako), Sverkel (Mugihito), and Olmar (Yū Hayashi), all of whom have their own parts to play in commentating on the themes of the story.
All the while, Canute (Kensho Ono) is slowly consolidating his power, becoming more and more like his cruel father as each year follows, eventually building to a tense confrontation with Thorfinn.

While Thorfinn rises, Canute falls into darkness, until their fateful meeting.

Season Two’s story may be of lesser scope and have lesser stakes than the first season but this does not make it any less impactful, with Thorfinn’s growth being especially moving.
Accompanying the excellent arcs of many of the characters is the animation, which Mappa excels at as expected.
The score is also beautiful, with the piano notes composed by Yutaka Yamade being tear inducing during certain tragic scenes.
Speaking of the music, the openings for Season Two are also fantastic.
The first one is “River” by Anonymouz, which seems to highlight Thorfinn’s growth in the first half of the season, and the second OP is “Paradox” by Survive Said the Prophet, which appears to represent the challenges to Thorfinn’s new mindsets, including the consequences of the escaped slave Gardar, and the now ruthless Canute.

Both OPs perfectly reflect the tone and events of each half of the season.

By the end of the season, it was clear that Mappa had done a masterful job of adapting the Farm Arc, both in their faithful recreation of scenes from the manga, and in new, interesting anime original moments like Einar’s past in the first episode.
I hope that Vinland Saga continues to get the brilliant adaptation it has been getting so far, with hopefully a Season Three and fingers crossed an eventual Season Four.

The Promised Neverland, Season Two, Episode 11 Review: An Absolute Insult.

Coming into the Season Two finale, and most likely series finale, of The Promised Neverland, I was not expecting it to be good.
The prior episodes had been of such low quality that the bar was almost floor level.
Well, the final episode was so much worse than I could have possibly feared, not just lowering the bar to the floor but right down to the damn basement.
This episode was directed by Yukiko Imai, Yoshiki Kitai, and Hiroki Itai, and written by… oh, wait, that’s right, the people who wrote the last couple of episodes, including this one, don’t actually want credit for it.
It’s almost like they know how absolutley insulting this episode is, crazy right?
Also, yes, I did just say insulting because that is exactly what Episode 11 is.
I suppose the most accurate way I can describe it is that it’s like a person dangling a delicious ice cream in a child’s face and then, while the child is distracted, they take the opportunity to punch them in the face.
But, before I get to the insulting scene that inspired this analogy, I have to talk about the expectedly bad opening to the episode, which sees the conclusion to Peter Ratri’s storyline.
This followed from the terrible cliffhanger in last week’s episode of Emma actually offering a chance for Peter to come and be free with them.
Again, this bad scene was in the manga so Cloverworks admittedly did not have much to work with here but, somehow, they managed to make it even worse than the manga counterpart.
The animation of this scene is absolutley abysmal, with constant still frames used during Peter’s backstory scene, where its revealed that he betrayed his brother and had him executed because he became William Minerva and tried to help the farm children.
It’s clear they had very little budget from this scene, otherwise this was a really incompetant way of animating it.
Almost as incompetant as animating Peter’s knife with absolutley no blood on it, despite the fact that he slit his own throat with it.
I mean, seriously, they want us to be shocked by Peter’s suicide but they just ruin it with this glaring error that draws you out of the moment.
Not that it was an intense or interesting moment to begin with.
Then, there’s the Isabella scene, where the children all just immediately forgive her for planning to send them to their deaths.
So, Isabella doesn’t end up sacrificing herself for them in this verion, no, instead she concludes her story by going with them all to the human world.
This was pretty disappointing to me because Isabella’s death is one of the most emotional moments of the manga, especially how she calls out to Ray in her final moments.
Here, there was very little acknowledgement that Ray was actually her son.
Come to think of it, why the heck was there that anime only scene in Episode Four that hyped Isabella up as a big bad villain if they were just going to give Isabella the exact same storyline she had in the manga, only for her not to die?
This all renders that new scene completley pointless.
Just like how Sonju’s scene, where he reveals in Episode Three that he wants to eat humans one day, is rendered pointless by it never being brought up in this episode.
Why add that if you’re just not going to follow up on it later?
It’s honestly laughable that a character like Vylk had more importance in these final episodes than freaking Sonju and Mujika.
Not only that, but Cloverworks actively teases us with things we are never going to get now.
They show the Goldy Pond door and the Queen and her nobles but these things will most likely never be explored because this is definitley the final episode.
Way to tease us with things we won’t be getting, Cloverworks.
But now, we get into the really insulting part.
The scenes that made me simultaneously laugh and yell at the screen in outrage.
First, we get the moment when the characters are walking through the door to the human world.
Only, what’s this? Emma, Ray, Norman, and the Lambda escapees are planning on staying behind with Sonju and Mujika to change the demon world?
Oh, okay, so this means that we are going to get a season three and they are going to adapt the Goldy Pond and the Queen arcs in the third season.
Well, I’m not sure how I feel about this, considering that the character development is compromised because of how things were swapped around and rushed in the second season, but I’m willing to see where this goes.
And now we’re getting some kind of montage to build into this next season, alright, interesting, and is that Emma with The One, okay… wait, what?
Is that Emma and the others about to launch an attack on the demon capital?
Is that Mujika being crowned queen?
Is that Emma saying goodbye to Mujika?
Is that Emma reuinting with Phil and the others, making that scene where it looked like we were going to get a season three nothing more than build up for a slideshow?
What?
A slideshow?
You’re kidding!
This is how you end the series?
You tease us with a potential season three and then you hit us with a slideshow montage of what we could have got in this potential season three before ending the story entirely?
Who thought this would be a good idea?
No, they had to have known it was a bad idea because why else would no one be claiming responsibility for writing it?
This is what I meant when I said that the final episode is like a person dangling an ice cream in front of a child’s face before punching them while they’re distracted.
The child is us, the ice cream is the teasing of a third season, and the person punching the child is Cloverworks giving us a freaking slideshow montage instead.
This was insulting.
The absolute audactity of this moment left me wondering what the hell the writers were thinking.
I mean, why didn’t they just have Emma and the others go to the human world in the first place?
Why get us excited for a potential season three where they would adapt the missing arcs, only to pull the rug out from under us and show the scenes we all wanted to see in a slideshow?
What a terrible episode, no, a terrible adaptation.
You know what?
I’m going to say it.
This is worse than Tokyo Ghoul‘s adaptation.
That’s right, I said it.
At least Studio Pierrot didn’t have the audacity to unjustly tease us with the missing stuff.
This episode is the equivalent of how it would have been if Tokyo Ghoul √A’s ending had been a montage of all the events in Tokyo Ghoul: Re, which they then refused to show us.
An absolute insult to any fan of the manga and anime.
What a joke.
I now feel comfortable saying that Season Two of The Promised Neverland is one of the worst adaptations of all time.
Thank god this miserable experience is over.

The Promised Neverland, Season Two, Episode Ten Review: I Can’t Stop Laughing!

This is hilarious.
Seriously, Season Two of The Promised Neverland is basically a comedy at this point.
I haven’t been this disappointed in a season since the final one for Game of Thrones and that is saying a lot.
If Episode Nine’s convient scene where Vylk somehow provided a pen that magically solved all of the characters’ problems had me laughing my head off, then the entirety of Episode Ten had me rolling on the floor.
Directed by Ayako Kurata, Ryō Kodama and Shigeru Fukase, Episode Ten is just one rushed, convenient, unintentionally hilarious scene after the next.
First, we get the instant reveal that Vincent was just acting like he was betraying Norman to trap Peter Ratri, rendering the cliffhanger scene as instantly pointless.
Then, the children somehow build mutliple hot air balloons in mere hours with no prior knowledge on how to do so and launch an all out assault on a heavily guarded farm.
Next, Vincent and Norman are somehow hacking into the system, despite it never being established that they had these skills beforehand.
It’s just convenience after convenience, in rushed scene after rushed scene that ruins various parts from the manga.
The manga may have had its issues, but there were still moments that had me tearing up, like Emma’s reunion with Phil.
Here, I felt literally nothing because of how rushed everything had been to get to that point.
But, oh no, Isabella, the other mothers, and Peter Ratri have now surrounded and captured the children!
The horror!
Oh, wait, no, Isabella and the mothers have betrayed Ratri, even though there’s been little to no build up for this happening.
But, oh no, now trained demon soldiers are about to storm the farm and overpower everyone!
Our heroes are doomed!
Oh, wait, no, turns out they have been taken out by a completley random and untrained army of demon civilians that just suddenly decided to rebel against the system.
Say it with me, “How freaking convenient!”
And then, the stupidest scene that brought the biggest laugh.
Emma literally gives the guy who wanted to feed them all to demons a helping hand and offers him a chance to be free with them.
This was a really dumb moment in the manga and, like everything else, it is 1000 times worse here because Emma coming to this mindset where she becomes so dedicated to helping everyone was skipped over, along with some very important story arcs.
Heck, this episode somehow even screwed up Sonju’s arc, since now he’s helping Emma and the other kids when this should go directly against his plan of eating their descendants.
Episode Ten is a joke.
It’s nothing more than an unintentionally funny series of convenient twists and turns that had me face palming when I wasn’t laughing at how god awful everything was.
Even the animation can’t save it, with weird looking shots all around.
At least there’s only one more episode left and then this misery can end.

The Promised Neverland, Season Two, Episode Nine Review: How Convenient!

In my review for Episode Six of The Promised Neverland Season Two, I said that Norman’s exposition scene was one of the worst instances of telling instead of showing that I have ever had the displeasure of seeing.
Well, after seeing Episode Nine, I can say that Season Two has done it again, this time providing one of the worst elements of convenience that I have ever seen.
Directed by Kakushi Ifuku, Sumito Sasaki and Tsuyoshi Tomita, everything about this episode is so freaking convenient.
Think about it.
The old demon, Vylk, just so happens to have found a dying human 15 years ago, who just so happened to have the pen part that Emma and the others needed, which just so happened to have a map into Grace Field, and also just so happened to have the cure for Norman and the other Lambda escapees’ illness.
Not to mention how ridiculous it is that all this informaiton is somehow up to date 15 years later.
The scene where this is revealed was so terrible that I was honestly laughing my head off at it.
I could not get over how absolutley nonsenically convenient everything was, and this isn’t even the end of it because we still have to talk about the beginning of the episode, where Norman and his squad all give up on killing demons easily.
This was rushed in the manga too but it is a thousand times worse here.
You’re telling me that Barbara, the person who was all gung ho on slaughtering and eating demons, now hesitates and gives in?
I don’t buy it one bit.
Also, was that dying human Vylk met supposed to be Yuugo?
I hope not because if it was then that is probably one of the most insulting things about this season.
And then there’s the cheap cliffhanger where Vincent is suddenly a traitor.
I’ll get into the reason for this being cheap in my review for Episode Ten, which, oh boy, is just as laughably bad.
There is absolutley no hope for The Promised Neverland now.
It’s a train wreck and Episode Nine is easily one of its worst episodes, full of characters who just magically change their minds on a dime and one of the most laughably awful cases of convenience I’ve seen.
The voice acting and animation are the only redeeming qualities at this point.

The Promised Neverland, Season Two, Episode Eight Review: WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME!?

Episode Seven of Season Two of The Promised Neverland was such a boring episode that I honestly forgot what happened in it not long after.
It wasn’t even so bad that I just had to talk about it, like with Episode Six, it was just extemely forgettable.
Therefore, I never really saw a point in reviewing it, since I could not remember anything about it.
Episode Eight, on the other hand, is definitley worth reviewing since it’s one of the better episodes of the season.
Definitley not quite as good as Episodes One and Two but certainly a lot better than Episodes Five, Six and that extremely pointless recap episode.
Directed by Hiroki Itai, the episode picks up with what should have happened in Episode Six, a flashback to Norman’s time in Lambda.
This is what we should have got instead of that god awful exposition scene, which was one of the worst instances of telling instead of showing that I have ever seen.
I still think that we could have used an entire episode laying out Norman’s time at the facility but it was still decent.
We also got to meet the main villain of the story here, Peter Ratri, who, as an antagonist, is servicable enough.
He’s nowhere near as interesting as Isabella, or the character who would have been the main antagonist of the season if the Goldy Pond Arc hadn’t been cut, but he’s still servicable.
All in all, this flashback is good but could have been more fleshed out.
I wish the anime had expanded on Smee a bit because he’s essentially a plot device to randomly justify Norman’s escape.
Despite these problems, it was still interesting to finally see how Norman escaped Lambda and formed his own little Suicide Squad.
From here, the episode cuts to the present where Emma, Ray and the others are searching for Mujika and Sonju, while Norman and his cronies are preparing to initiate their attack early.
It’s all fairly standard stuff to move the plot along and, as a manga reader, I was disappointed with how one intense shot of Norman was extremely simplified.
In any case, Emma and the others finally locate Mujika and Sonju, only for Norman to attack the demon village early and, just like that, the episode gets way better.
Watching the effects of Norman’s drug on the demons is a pretty big gut punch and the music is straight up fire.
But then my excitement is slightly ruined by yet another contrived scene, when Norman hesitates to kill a demon girl all because the grandpa demon shouts Martha– I mean Emma!
Jokes aside, this had to be a Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice refrence right?
It’s just too similar and just as convenient.
But hey, at least it leads into the final shots of the episode, where Emma arrives just in time and sees Norman as a scared child, which gave me literal goosebumps.
So, overall, there’s a lot of good and a lot of bad about the episode.
However, despite the episode’s problems, it just edges out into the good territory because of the Norman flashbacks and the intense final scene, even if there is a lot of convience there.
In my opinion, Episode Eight in the best one this season, since Episode Two.
However, you will definitley not see me being as kind about Episode Nine, oh no.
I just watched that episode and rather than just being just forgettable, like Episode Seven, it’s just plain bad, like Episodes Five and Six.
Expect a full on rant when I review that one.
Oh well, at least we got one good episode before the show descended into train wreck territory again.

The Promised Neverland, Season Two, Episode Six Review: A Terrible Case of Tell Don’t Show.

It’s funny how a couple of episodes has been enough for me to pretty much lose all hope for The Promised Neverland Season Two.
Episodes Three and Four did concern me with all of their cut content, including the best character in the entire story being removed, but I was hopeful because of new scenes given to characters who needed it, like Isabella.
However, then Episode Five happened, cofirming that they had skipped the Goldy Pond Arc, causing everything to make absolutley no sense, including Norman’s return, which was incredibly rushed.
Then there was last week’s “episode”, where they just pointlessly recapped the entire story, including everything in season two for some weird reason, and that would have been completley pointless to do a review on.
Now, we have what looks like the final nail in the coffin for me: Episode Six.
Wow, was this a bad episode.
Directed by Yoshiki Katai, this episode commits the cardinal sin that almost every story should avoid completley, instead of when absolutley necessary, by telling instead of showing.
After Emma and Ray’s reunion with Norman, which lacks any emotion because of how short he has been gone in the anime, Norman goes on a long exposition spiel about what he’s been doing for the past year.
He explains how he was taken to be experimented on at a place called Lambda, how he escaped with the help of someone called Smee, who was then killed, and has since created a drug that he plans to use to cause all demons to degenerate, with all of this happening off screen.
This scene has to be one of the worst cases of telling and not showing that I have ever witnessed.
I will give the anime some credit, though, because this was not entirely its fault.
From what I recall, the manga did not show many of these events either and Norman just explained it through an exposition scene as well.
So, this poor moment is partially the manga’s fault and the anime is just adapting it.
However, the anime still does it way worse because even in the manga we do see at least some of Norman’s time in Lambda, what lead him there, and his plan actually makes sense because he has the means to do it.
Here, he has none of the resources he had in the manga so his plan to eventually use this drug to degenerate all demons is just stupid.
Just as annoying is Emma’s response to this because most of her character development has been cut along with the previous arcs.
Emma’s trauma and now wanting to find a way to make peace with the demons makes very little sense in this episode because it lacks any context because of these cuts.
This makes the attempted emotional moment where Ray convinces Emma to go and talk to Norman ring extremely hollow.
Speaking of Emma and Ray going to talk to Norman, it is here that we are officially introduced to his crew of Cislo, Barbara, Vincent and Zazie.
Honestly, I never really cared for these characters in the manga.
If anything, I actually found them all rather annoying, so it’s a very bitter pill to swallow for me that these are the characters the anime decided to adapt, instead of the likes of Yuugo, Lucas and Leuvis.
Barbara especially got on my nerves, what with her crazed rant at Emma, which, again, makes no sense because Emma has not gone through any events that would make her feel this way, like she did in the original story.
At least this leads into the one redeeming quality of the episode, where Emma and Ray tell Norman about Mujika and Sonju being able to survive without eating humans, causing Norman to look horrified, calling Mujika the “evil blooded girl.”
It makes for a good cliffhanger, which will surely have anime only viewers speculating.
Other than this, though, Episode Six is a flat out terrible episode, full of rushed scenes, annoying new characters, character incosistency, and one of the worst cases of telling instead of showing.
I now have very little hope for the rest of this adaptation and am honestly not looking forward to Episode Seven, or any other subsequent episode for that matter.
I hate to say it but The Promised Neverland Season Two is getting the Tokyo Ghoul treatment.