Shadow and Bone: Season 2

Ravka has descended into civil war as a result of the Darkling's attempt to seize power. Both the Darkling and Sun Summoner are feared dead, but they both re-emerge to form new alliances and raise new armies. Meanwhile, the criminal gang known as the Crows return home to Ketterdam to find some major changes have taken place in their absences, changes they cannot abide.

Shadow and Bone is an adaptation of the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, drawing on other books set in the same universe to add more details and more characters, and enlarge the scope of the story. The first season, released in 2021, was enjoyable and competent, gaining strength from its solid cast and, perhaps, the fact that many other fantasy TV shows that had hit the ground in the preceding few years had been quite weak.

The second season picks up where the first dropped off and immediately makes some bold choices. The most obvious is that whilst the first season only adapted Shadow and Bone by itself, with some additions from the novel Six of Crows, the second season adapts the latter two Grisha Trilogy novels, Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising. This immediately results in a faster-paced, punchier season with major events happening at a more frequent clip. Netflix also continue to tell the story of the Six of Crows characters, setting up their "big heist" story from that novel (although the heist itself sounds like it might be its own spin-off series, not part of a future third season for Shadow and Bone itself).

The show's trump card remains its cast, a mix of steely experience (Zoë Wanamaker has an expanded role this season, Ben Barnes gives great scene-chewing villainy) and younger up-and-comers. It's hard to fault any of the cast for their work this season, although perhaps turning Barnes into an outright villain does waste some of the nuance he brought to the role in the first season, when his character's motivations were more ambiguous. There's also a number of solid newcomers, with Jack Wolfe and Patrick Gibson doing solid work and Lewis Tan and Anna Leong Brophy adding some serious action chops. Amongst the established hands, Jessie Mei Li continues to be a good lead and Danielle Galligan arguably emerges as the MVP of the season with her dry, comedic observations on what's going on at any moment.

There's some excellent action setpieces, and a number of intersecting storylines. The quickened pace keep things moving along nicely. Occasionally this rapid pace and busy story means that motivations and travel times are neglected, and the way the Crows characters are drawn back into the "main" story cannot help but feel contrived. The world also feels extremely small, with characters flitting from one side of it to the other in less time than a between-episode break. The tone also distinctly remains YA-ish, with a strong focus on character romances but dialled-back on sex; the occasional, if fleeting, graphic violence of the first season occasionally returns, though.

To give a lazy review, if you enjoyed the first season of Shadow and Bone, you'll enjoy the second, whilst I doubt this season will do much to change the mind of anyone who wasn't keen on it. It is a stronger season, helped by the storyline only having two elements to it (Alina and her battle against the Darkling versus the Crows doing their thing) that intersect, rather than the three that had relatively little to do with one another in the first season. It also feels more confident, one wonders if because the fantasy shows that have emerged since the first season have largely been something of a letdown.

Shadow and Bone's second season (****) perhaps remains a little lightweight (not necessarily a bad thing, not everything needs to be wrought and grim), but its humor, strong cast, better pacing and more epic battles result in an improvement over its debut season. The show is available now worldwide on Netflix.

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Shadow and Bone: Season 1

The great nation of Ravka is troubled by war with her neighbours and by the Shadow Fold, a mysterious force of darkness which has cut off the west coast from the rest of the kingdom. Only the Grisha, the magic-wielding servants of Ravka, can cross the Fold in safety. A young mapmaker, Alina Starkov, is recruited to help such a crossing but she manifests the powers of the Grisha along the way. Recruited into the order, Alina discovers she has the power to summon light, the power to perhaps destroy the Shadow Fold forever...and a power that some will do anything to possess.

Shadow and Bone is a Netflix fantasy TV show based on the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, a highly successful YA fantasy series originally published in 2012-14. The trilogy was enjoyable, if a bit lightweight, but veered towards the traditional and predictable. By itself, it's questionable if it would have been picked up for adaptation. However, Bargudo followed up the trilogy with two further duologies which dramatically expanded the scope and scale of the world, introducing many more interesting characters, locations and factions.

For the TV show, the writers have made the decision to incorporate characters and backstory from the sequel duologies into the events of the original narrative. Thus, as well as the struggle between Alina Starkov and the Darkling, we also meet the band of ne'er do wells known as the Dregs, or Crows (from the Six of Crows duology) and the character of Nina, who plays a key role in both that duology and the current King of Scars series.

This has the benefit of giving the story a lot more meat to its bones. By itself, the Shadow and Bone novel would have perhaps had enough material for four hours, maybe five, but the other subplots allow it to extend to eight reasonably well (even if there is a fair bit of portentous wheel-spinning in the final two episodes).

On the negative side of things, it does result in a fair bit of narrative dissonance: the three main plot threads (Alina, the Crows and Nina) have very little to do with one another across the episodes, and there's a distinct fanfiction-y feel whenever Alina and the Crows' storylines cross over. Nina and her decidedly thin narrative (which is a fairly odd tale of kidnap followed by Stockholm Syndrome romance) feel like they could have been ejected from the series with no problem whatsoever and introduced later on when more relevant to the plot. Certainly keeping the Crows involved, no matter how contrived it feels and how much their heist hijinks clash tonally with Alina's Chosen One narrative, is a good idea because they're the most fun characters in the series and bring a lot of energy to proceedings.

The actors all do a reasonable job (Jessie Mei Li is probably the standout, which is great as she's playing the protagonist, and The Punisher's Ben Barnes is pretty good as the antagonist), the pacing is pretty good and the sets and costumes are appropriately lavish. However, there's a distinct "Netflix house style" that's been pervading their shows for a few years now which this series definitely suffers from. The CGI is competent, but overly-digital, with a fairly fake sheen that often took me out of the show (doing flashy effects these days is easy; seating the effects in the environment so it looks like people can see and react them is much harder). The most impressive sequences are those in the Fold and involving the Volcra, but given those scenes rely on darkness for maximum impact, that's not as outstanding as it may sound. There's also a distinctly Netflix-ish thing going on of filming too many outdoor scenes on unconvincing indoor sound stages like it's a 1960s episode of Star Trek. The musical score is also surprisingly bland, and the show even lacks a title sequence: instead we just get a brief title card like it's a 2007 big network show urgently trying to keep as much time open as possible that would otherwise be lost to the credits and adverts.

The series also has its own tonal issue. It's based on YA material and for most of the TV version it leans into that (limited swearing, no sex or nudity), but it'll then pull off some scenes of ultraviolence that wouldn't be out of place on a HBO drama (someone needs to tell TV writers that decapitations are not as common as they'd like to think). It's odd because without just a few shots of brutal deaths, the show would be suitable for 10-year-olds, and genuine family-friendly fantasy is thin on the ground these days.

But the negatives feel like they're more than balanced out by the positives. Alina's relationship with Mal, the weakest part of the trilogy, is here fleshed out and Mal made a much more likeable character. Ben Barnes plays the Darkling with scene-chewing relish and you can almost sense his disappointment at not having a moustache to twirl. The Crows - Kaz (Freddy Carter), Inej (Amita) and Jesper (Kit Young) - are great fun and it'd be interesting to see a show focused just on them. The "fantasy heist" storyline certainly made me wonder how much longer we're going to have to wait to see a Lies of Locke Lamora adaptation.

Shadow and Bone's first season (***½) on balance, is fine. It's enjoyable, reasonably well-paced and the integration of two different storylines works well (the attempt to add a third does not, though). The performances are solid and keep the show aloft whenever the over-expository dialogue and plastic effects threaten to bring it down. It does enough that I'd be interested in a second season. The season is available now worldwide on Netflix.