I just realized that my original draft didn’t have any pictures of Ben Barnes in it, which is unacceptable, so here he is with his horse. I read somewhere that this is the same horse from the Witcher! I couldn’t confirm it through a quick google search but I’m choosing to believe it anyway.

Grisha Tests

The second episode opens with another childhood flashback. This time we see Alina and Mal listening as one of the older children in the orphanage talks about the Grisha test that’s about to happen. Young Mal chimes in and asks what the test is like, and the older kid kind of sneers and informs Mal—whose hand is injured—that they don’t test the sick or injured, so he’ll be skipped this year. I don’t really understand why they don’t test the sick and injured because it’s not like a strenuous test or anything? Also, Mal looks fine! His hand is loosely wrapped in a bandage. I don’t see how that would prevent him from getting tested. Are you excused from the test if you get a bad enough papercut?

Anyway, Alina then grabs Mal’s hand as they hear that they have visitors and they run away and hide in the field together. Mal asks Alina if she wants to know if she’s Grisha or not and Alina says not if they can’t go together. I think that’s such a sweet sentiment, but I actually think the way it happened in the book was even more powerful.

Later in the book we learn that Alina and Mal did in fact get tested. When Alina was tested, she could feel something inside of her welling up and coming to the surface. But then she heard Mal calling her name and realized that Mal wasn’t Grisha, and that if she was Grisha they would be separated. So, Alina fought the thing inside of her back down and was never discovered. When Alina woke up the morning after, she was exhausted and had bags under her eyes. Ever since that day Alina was weaker than the other children, was easily tired, scrawny, and had no appetite. Book-Alina loved Mal so much that she fought a part of herself and hid it from the world so they wouldn’t be separated. That’s powerful love right there and I miss this kind of love and dedication in the show. Also, did Alina and Mal just hide every single year when the Grisha came to test the kids in the orphanage? I feel like it’s unreasonable that they would have been able to avoid it every single year, and Grisha are so important that I doubt they would have just given up and not tested them.

I’m a Mapmaker, Sir

We then cut back to present day, where we see Alina and Mal injured on the skiff deck after the Volcra attack. Mal gets taken away and soon after Alina wakes up and asks about Mal. The commander calls for a healer to see to Alina and then take her to the general’s tent. Alina gets escorted by guards to the Darkling’s tent where she gets interrogated.

I feel like Alina’s kneejerk response to any difficult situation is just to repeat that she’s a mapmaker and I love her for it. I think it would be really funny if she just kept on doing it even after she was revealed as a Grisha, just for the fun of it. After getting an unhelpful but technically accurate answer from Alina, the Darkling asks a Grisha we later learn is named Zoya what happened and she gives a quick explanation. The Darkling then asks Alina when she was tested and Alina doesn’t respond.

The scene then cuts to Mal as he wakes up in a medic’s tent and asks about Alina, completely ignoring his injured leg. When he learns what’s happening he gets up and starts going after her, saying that Alina is in trouble since she isn’t Grisha, and when they find out things will be bad for her. I’m going to be honest, I never fully understood this concern because Alina was never claiming to be Grisha or claiming that she was the one who summoned the light, so I don’t get why she would be the one in trouble if it turned out she was just a normal mapmaker. Alina has this same fear in the book, so it’s not the TV show’s fault. Idk, maybe I just don’t understand how magical military governments work. If anyone has any insight please let me know in the comments!

Anyway, we cut back to Alina in the tent and the Darkling asks her to roll up her sleeve and there is a weird amount of sexual tension in that moment. I mean, I get that Ben Barnes is super-hot and that (SPOILERS) there’s a thing between him and Alina later, but it seems super out of place for there to be sexual tension in this moment. Alina just went through a traumatic event, is injured, and is terrified. My girl should not be getting horny at this moment. The Darkling then takes out a knife (kinky!) and cuts Alina causing a bright light to shoot out of her arm. We see Mal outside of the tent looking at the light and stop struggling to get to Alina. Inside the tent everyone looks amazed, Alina looks shocked, and the Darkling looks kind of smug.

I have to say this was such a dumb plan if they wanted to keep Alina’s powers a secret. I feel like it would have made way more sense to bring her someplace secure and then test her in secret. The way they did it literally just lit a beacon so all of their enemies know what’s going on. And they’re surprised that they get attacked on the road?

In the book, this sequence of events does happen but there are some differences. First of all, everyone is way more hostile to Alina when she first wakes up. Book-Alina wakes up to a gun pointed in her face and true to form immediately snaps for the soldier to get the gun away from her. An incredibly dumb and bold move to do to someone literally pointing a gun at you, but it does show that even though Alina is physically weak, she’s generally a tough person. In the book, when the Darkling asks what happened he sounds disinterested whereas I felt like in the show he seemed incredibly impatient. It’s a small change, but one thing that makes the Darkling so terrifying in the book is his impeccable control. Even when we think that he’s lost his control over himself, we later learn that it was actually part of his plan. I like this early introduction of his self-control in the book and kind of missed it in the show.

In the book, Alina is a lot more aggressive. When the senior mapmaker starts explaining what he saw, Alina interrupts and admonishes him for not doing something to save Alexei. The initial response of the audience in the tent to the thought of Alina being the sun summoner is also very different. In the book, the senior mapmaker gets laughed at and jeered at. They say that the sun summoner is just a myth and he’s clearly had his brains rattled from the attack. All of this sets a very different tone.

But the main difference in this scene is that in the book, Mal is in the tent and gets questioned. He tells the Darkling what he saw but lies when asked what he said to Alina before he passed out. Mal insists that it couldn’t have been Alina because they’re from the same village and he knows her. I think it makes way more sense that they would interview everyone who was involved. In the show, Mal is ignored despite the fact that he was right next to Alina when everything happened. I think it makes the leadership look kind of dumb to ignore a witness for something so important.

The test is also different in the book and I think more interesting and terrifying. Instead of just grabbing Alina’s arm and making a small cut, the Darkling spreads darkness (who’d have guessed!) around the room, covering Alina and the crowd. Alina can’t see and begins to panic, but the Darkling grabs her arm, and she feels calm and senses a power inside of her. Just like we later learn she did as a child, she tries to push it down but the Darkling seems to sense this as he takes out a knife and cuts her. Once she’s injured, Alina’s power rushes to the surface, and light bursts out of her. It doesn’t exactly specify how the light comes out of her, but in the book, I didn’t interpret it as one beam of light coming from her cut. It seems kind of weird to me how it was shown in the show. It almost made it look like Alina just bleeds light or something, which I don’t think was the intent in the book. We also don’t get to see Alina’s fear and then struggle to hide her power in the show. Now, I’m only on the second episode, but I have a feeling that the show is going to focus a lot more on the cool flashy aspects of the Grishaverse and less on the emotional battles that happen internally. I feel like this happens a lot in fantasy movies and shows that are based on books, so Shadow and Bone is not alone in this, but it does still bother me.

As Alina is led away she sees Mal arguing with the captain. Mal and Alina lock eyes and Alina can see that Mal is pale and panicked, but he doesn’t try to stop her or rush to her.

To the Palace

In the show as Alina is led to the carriage, she insists that she has to see Mal but her request is ignored. As the coach leaves Alina looks through the window and calls out to Mal, banging on the glass. Mal tries to run after her but doesn’t catch up, surprising exactly no one. Zoya shows up for some reason and tells Mal that Alina will be fine. In an amazing show of lack of social awareness, Mal says that Alina won’t be safe as long as she’s around Grisha. Like read the room, my dude, you are literally talking to a Grisha right now! Also, again I might just be dumb and missing something, but why does Mal think that Grisha aren’t safe to be around? When has it ever been established that Grisha are dangerous to their allies?

In the coach, Alina talks to her guards and seems pretty unhappy about being singled out. She tells them that when you look different, everything is at risk of becoming a fight so being overlooked is how you survive. The mean guard (I don’t feel like looking up his name, sorry), says the palace has walls to protect the Grisha, but now thanks to the Darkling, Grisha are feared and respected and that’s how they survive.

I like this line and think it really highlights the different survival philosophies we see throughout the series.

Seemingly minutes later the coach stops because a tree has fallen in the road and they get attacked. I feel like I’ve never seen a show where a tree blocking the road wasn’t a ploy for an ambush, but I guess it’s a classic plot device for a reason. During the attack, Alina hides in the carriage, and when the door is flung open and she’s pulled out, she doesn’t even really try to fight. She kicks a bit and says her catchphrase, but the attackers don’t seem to care.

I’m not going to lie, the Grisha seem like pretty fucking ineffectual fighters in this scene. They’re taken completely by surprise and almost immediately overwhelmed by the guns and smoke bombs. I know that a theme is that with the advances in technology the Grisha are getting comparatively less and less powerful, but this scene made it seem like they’re kind of useless in a fight. The Darkling then shows up, somehow knowing exactly where Alina is, and uses the cut to save Alina, proving that at least one Grisha is capable in a fight.

In the book, there’s no discussion about being different and trying to be overlooked because Alina isn’t Shu in the book. Instead, in the carriage we learn about amplifiers what they’re used for and that the Darkling is a human amplifier.

They get attacked just like in the show, only Alina actually tries to fight back. It doesn’t work, but at least she took a few swings with a knife. When the Darkling arrives, Alina calls out to him for help and he uses way cooler shadow magic than we see in the show. I think this is going to be a common complaint I have with the show. The Darkling’s magic, other than the cut, doesn’t seem all that impressive in the show. So far, we’ve only seen him create shadow and not complete darkness, which is way more terrifying. The rescue is also not as easy in the book. When the Darkling arrives, he uses his magic to blind the Fjerdans, but one of the Fjerdans is already on top of Alina and holding a knife to her throat. As he correctly states, he doesn’t need to see her to put a knife through her throat. The Darkling tries to barter for her but eventually uses the cut like he does in the show.

After the Darkling saves Alina and Alina’s stopped screaming, there’s this fun back-and-forth between them when the Darkling says they should have taken the other road and Alina quips that oh wow he does make mistakes which makes the Darkling smile. It’s a small moment, but I missed it in the show. Alina is hesitant to ride with the Darkling but once he puts a hand on her neck, she feels the power well up inside of her and reassure her.

In the show, we then cut back to Mal being extremely extra. After he finds out that there was an ambush and Alina is riding alone with the Darkling, he freaks out and decides the best course of action is to barge into his superior’s tent and demand that they go after Alina. Has this man never learned military protocol? Understandably the captain shuts him down and makes the very reasonable argument that she’s a Grisha and therefore not their responsibility anymore and also that one person isn’t worth risking an entire army for. Yeah, it’s kind of harsh but he’s not wrong. So Mal’s next plan is to desert the army and ride after her. Surely one soldier on a horse who’s at least a day’s ride behind them will be able to catch up and definitely won’t get attacked on the way and will also totally be able to find a way into the palace if he doesn’t catch them on the road despite being a deserter. These scenes aren’t in the book because the book is from Alina’s point of view, however, based on information we find out later in the book we know that none of this happened.

I’m not gonna lie, TV Mal is starting to annoy me. He just doesn’t seem like a realistic character. He’s apparently been in the army for years and has become a well-known and respected tracker, but his first plan is to interrupt his superior and give him an order, then yell at him. And when that doesn’t work, instead of taking the time to think things through, his plan B is to desert. Luckily his army friends are much smarter than he is and point out the many faults in his plan. Mal agrees to stay for them and follow their advice to get awarded a medal so he gets invited to the palace. I think this is also a dumb plan because there’s no guarantee he’ll be in a position to do something worthy of getting a medal, but it’s a better plan than deserting the army so I’m going to let him have this one.

Meanwhile, Alina makes it to the Little Palace and is shown to her room. As soon as she’s alone she breaks down and starts to cry. I really like seeing this vulnerability. Alina has been through so much shit over the past however many days and hasn’t had the time to process any of it. She was attacked, saw one of her friends get taken by a monster, found out she was not only a Grisha but the Sun Summoner, was taken away from her best friend, and then was attacked and nearly killed on the road again. She deserves to have a little breakdown. After finding a letter opener to use as a weapon if needed, Alina falls asleep looking to her left and the camera cuts to Mal falling asleep and looking to his right. Their hands reach out for each other even though they are miles apart and it flashes to the two of them as children hiding in the field and holding hands.