Because of this, moments that should be emotionally resonant often feel unearned. Because of the large amount of material to get through in only eight episodes, the season progresses at a breakneck pace that sacrifices the development of meaningful character relationships in favor of barreling towards the story’s conclusion. While the first season of “Shadow and Bone” only adapted the first of the three “Grisha” books, Season Two attempted to finish out the trilogy’s arc completely, adapting both the second and third novels. A parallel storyline concerns the Crows, a gang led by Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter), who find themselves entangled in Alina’s story and the politics of Ravka. “Shadow and Bone” follows orphan and cartographer Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), who discovers she’s a Sun Summoner - a person with the rare ability to control light and destroy the Shadow Fold, created by the Darkling (Ben Barnes) to divide her country, Ravka. While the highly-anticipated second season carries some of the previous installment’s strengths, it crams in too many plotlines and the addition of surprising changes from Bardugo’s books work against the show’s coherence and thematic throughline.

The first season of the show, which is based on Leigh Bardugo’s bestselling Grishaverse novels, was praised for its impressive acting performances, compelling writing, high-quality production, and adaptation from the source material (which included the first book of the “Grisha” trilogy as well as characters and settings from the “Six of Crows” duology). On March 16, the second season of the fantasy show “Shadow and Bone” dropped on Netflix.

Bones and shadows