You Should Be Watching The Wheel of Time Season 3, Even If It’s Basically Dune

Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time has always been easiest to define through comparison. It’s just one of many high-concept, high-fantasy shows fighting for space in the zeitgeist — and its timing is never quite right. Though its first season premiered about a year before Prime’s other big fantasy adaptation, The Rings of Power, it’s often labeled the Lord of the Rings wannabe. It’s not beating the Game of Thrones comparisons either: HBO’s marquee franchise is effectively evergreen, overshadowing any adult costume drama that dares to follow in its footsteps. Still, The Wheel of Time isn’t giving up. It’s long been the underdog in the race to become The Next Big IP Series, and its third season feels even more determined than those that came before.

With two successful seasons already under its belt, The Wheel of Time no longer has all that much to prove. Season 3 is overwhelmingly assured as a result, hitting the ground running with a bombastic mix of action and pathos. At this stage, it knows its audience and the story it wants to tell, and it deserves some credit for sticking to its guns. It’s neither Lord of the Rings nor Game of Thrones, but a secret third thing — at least, it ought to be. But in this season’s attempts to set itself apart from its competitors, it finds itself in the crosshairs of another infamous franchise: Dune.

Season 3 of The Wheel of Time is, essentially, the Dune season. After officially declaring himself as the “Dragon Reborn” — a messianic figure who has the power to destroy the world — Rand Al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) is searching for any way to back his claim. As even the most casual Wheel fans will remember, the Last Battle is fast approaching, and Rand and his allies can’t defeat the forces of darkness alone. Our conflicted hero finds himself pulled in multiple directions: the sorceress Moiraine (Rosamund Pike), with whom Rand maintains a weirdly-charged rapport, wants to take him to Tear to find a mythical sword. The Aes Sedai, the society of witches who maintain order throughout the realm, wants to cage Rand before he slips into madness. And then there are the Forsaken, a group of immortal fiends who want to capture Rand and deliver him to the Dark One, The Wheel of Time’s yet-unseen Big Bad. The options aren’t great for our hero either way, but there is one that could be worth the risk.

Rand sidesteps the quagmire in the Westlands and heads east to the Aiel Waste, his ancestral homeland located in the heart of the desert. There, he receives training from Moiraine’s warder Lan (Daniel Henney), tries to reconnect with his sweetheart Egwene (Madeleine Madden), and gains the trust of his people, the Aiel. Not unlike Dune’s Fremen, they’ve been waiting centuries for the Car’a’carn, a savior who will unite the disparate tribes scattered throughout the Waste and bring the Aiel back in line with their destiny. Some believe that Rand could be that savior, and he has no issue leveraging that hope to raise an army. He’ll just have to complete the complicated (and dangerous) Trial of Rhuidean before he can win the title. He also has his hands full with Moiraine, Egwene, and his Season 2 love interest Lanfear (Natasha O’Keefe) — who also happens to be one of the Forsaken.

A huge chunk of The Wheel’s third season is spent in the Waste, and its allusions to the Dune-verse aren’t at all subtle. Fortunately, there are plenty of other plots within Season 3, each heavy with their own stakes and dense exposition, but engrossing enough to distract from any overlap with the sci-fi series and its most recent adaptation. The most interesting involves the political turmoil in the White Tower. The Aes Sedai are left splintered after Liandrin (Kate Fleetwood) is outed as a dark agent, and she’s not the only “Black Ajah” embedded in the Tower. Her treachery kickstarts an explosive battle with the Amyrlin Seat (Sophie Okonedo), the leader of the Aes Sedai, in the season’s opening minutes. It’s just the shot in the arm The Wheel of Time needs at this point: we still know so little about the Aes Sedai, their factions, grudges, and politicking, but that’s easy to forgive in the heat of the moment. The introduction of Elaida Sedai (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a formidable Red Ajah with a score to settle, converts that early adrenaline into propulsive political intrigue in later episodes.

The Wheel of Time arguably handles its Aes Sedai plot the best, which unfortunately makes its other plots comparatively weaker. With such lofty stakes elsewhere, it’s a bit harder to invest in, say, Perrin’s (Marcus Rutherford) return to his hometown in the Two Rivers. It is great to see Rutherford finally get the room to explore his character’s inner world — for too long he’s felt like an afterthought in the narrative, and he embraces his growing responsibilities with gravitas and grit. But his side quest also kicks the door open for a host of new characters and plot points, only some of which feel earned in the grand scheme. (The Wheel does get major kudos for spotlighting Priyanka Bose’s Alanna, an Aes Sedai grappling with blindsiding grief.)

The rest of the crew — Princess Elayne (Ceara Coveney), Nynaeve (Zoe Robbins), and Mat (Dónal Finn) — likewise find themselves on a strange mission tailing the Black Ajah. It’s here that the strains in the show’s worldbuilding are most acutely felt. The Wheel of Time wants to position itself as a series with sprawling, sweeping locales and big-budget aesthetics. But the port city of Tanchico, a pirate bay where everyone wears veils and mismatched, gaudy garb, it starts to feel less like fantasy prestige and more like stilted cosplay.

For all its merits, Season 3 is a whole lot denser than it should be. It’s no easier to keep track of its many locales, sacred rites, mystical objects, and same-sounding names this go-round, especially with the world of the series getting bigger by the episode. Even as characters take great pains to explain what’s actually happening, and what their plans are moving forward, there’s still a frustrating disconnect. The Wheel of Time is frequently saved by its performances, which give us something to hold onto through waves of heavy exposition. Pike is always solid as Moiraine, and Stradowski especially gets to test the limits of his range as Rand, portraying the character in glimpses of possible futures and beyond. Still, one shouldn’t need a glossary to enjoy the more unwieldy parts of The Wheel of Time.

The Wheel of Time Season 3 premieres March 13 on Prime Video.