For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Grishaverse, the fictional universe is composed of the Shadow and Bone trilogy, followed by the Six of Crows duology which is a BookTok favourite, and the King of Scars duology. To flesh out the wider universe is a Grisha retelling of fairytales in Language of Thorns, and The Lives of Saints, a published book that features in-universe similar to how Tales of Beedle the Bard was published to accompany the Harry Potter series. The original trilogy was always the weakest series but it was necessary to adapt it first if we ever wanted to see an adaptation of Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom.
Season two covering the second and third books of the trilogy made sense; there isn't a large enough storyline to drag out for eight episodes. The incorporation of the Crows through new storylines from the author herself fleshed out the characters and brought us new dynamics that I loved. Whilst the storyline was played loose in that certain plot points happened sooner than expected, it creates an element of surprise that will keep readers guessing. One such moment that had my jaw drop was the ending with Alina and Nikolai. A complete deviation from the books, it means we aren't going to lose Alina and Mal from our screens in a third season (fingers crossed).
The chemistry between the cast is evident both on and off the screen. Newcomers such as Patrick Gibson as Nikolai, Jack Wolfe as Wylan, Lewis Tan as Tolya and Anna Leong Brophy as Tamar, feel like the missing pieces of the Shadow and Bone jigsaw. The show delivers on both the humorous moments but also the more emotional moments with Daisy Head's performance in the last episode bringing a tear to my eye.
Eight episodes makes a relatively short season, particularly as Netflix drops all eight on the same-day rather than dragging it out over eight weeks. I unashamedly binged it the week it came out, particularly because of the way the episodes leave you on a cliffhanger. It does feel a little crowded trying to keep track of the multiple storylines running alongside each other. With such a stacked collection of characters, it's inevitable that some do not get to shine as much as others such as Zoya, who will have a much more major role in the future.
As a whole, the season was a joy for me to watch as a fan of the books. However, you get the feeling that the showrunners were trying to set up for the spin-off and third season but yet make it feel semi complete should the show not be renewed.