 Hey guys, it's Liana and I'm here today to talk about Shadow and Moan. If you clicked on this video because you're looking for something that's like got high production value or I'm going to be like putting in clips of the show as I discussed it and I've broken it down by like, by episode or by category or by theme, pros and cons. Something like that. Do not watch this video. Click away now. At best, I might find the meme that I'm referencing and like show it to you. Maybe. So if you've been living under a rock, you may not know that last Friday as of the filming of this video, Netflix dropped a new show called Shadow and Bone which is inspired by the books by Lee Bardugo that take place in the Grishaverse named this because of the Grisha magic that is present in this universe. I've been a big, big, big, big fan of, well, mainly Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom which is the sort of spin-off duology. Originally it was the Grisha trilogy so this TV show is doing both of those things and like it's, as Lee Bardugo said, kind of like a really great fan fiction essentially that she has written herself because she's like taking characters from the spin-off duology called Six of Crows and like written new plot lines for them so that they can be involved with the events of the Grisha trilogy. So like that's kind of like the situation. Like if you've never read the books and you're like, I thought, who are these characters or like if you just watch the show and like now you pick up the book Shadow and Bone and you're like, where is Cass Breaker? Cass Breaker is not in the trilogy. Cass Breaker is in Six of Crows as are the rest of the dregs. I knew all that going into it. I've read all the books a couple of times. I was like, all right, let's see. Like I kept seeing stills and everything and was excited for it and like a new Lee Bardugo had a heavy hand in producing it. So I was like, you know, that's, that bodes well. I saw Cass pictures and I was like, you know, some of the Cass members, I was like, I don't know, I'll see them in action. Like the still image doesn't like sell me, but like, you know, you sometimes actors, like you have to see them acting for like, you know what I mean, you know what I mean. So anyway, yeah, I got my vaccine. This is relevant because first dose of my vaccine. And so I was at my parents house because I got the vaccine like at a place nearer to them. And then like also like I stayed over with them. Well, because they were close to it and because I figured if I had any like bad reactions to it, then like, they could take care of me. And Shadow and Bone was dropping. So I was like, well, we wanted to watch it together anyway. All Friday afternoon, all of my friends, my fellow reading buddies, like from me, Jesse and Joshana, we reread the Grisha books and you know, like they were already starting to watch it. And I wasn't because like we were only going to watch Shadow and Bone like that evening after we were all done with work and whatnot. And I was like trying not to pay attention to all my group chats in my phone, which were like the first episode. And oh my God, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no listening. Finally, finally, finally, we got our Chinese takeout. Don't ask me why we got Chinese. Don't know what that has to do with the Grisha verse. And started watching. And you can ask my mom. I mean, you can't ask my mom because you don't know her. But you could ask my mom. I was like bouncing off the walls, like so hyped, wasn't even eating the food. I was like, I'm too excited to eat. Like, thank you for ordering food for me, but I'm not eating this. I'm too excited. Spent 10 hours. Well, it's not, I mean, it turned into 10 hours because we didn't have to keep pausing, but there's only eight episodes. Like grinning like a lunatic because the show is, I went into it with like, I tried to have low expectations so that I wouldn't be disappointed because an adaptation is always going to be different from how you imagine. And then I knew going in that I knew for a fact they'd be changing things because we've already basically said this is going to be like a big old fanfic of it instead of like a loyal adaptation. And I was like, all right, just like, just, you know, just go with it. Oh my God, it's so good. So I have always loved Mal and Alina, like in the books. Again, if you want to watch the live shows with me, Jesse and Joshanna, you can watch like the three part battle royale between me and Joshanna over whether or not Maloretsev deserves rights. I think he does. But I'm so delighted that as of this adaptation that like at least, you know, Shadow and Bone TV show Mal, everyone pretty much agrees deserves rights. So like, I still like Mal in the books, fight me. But at least we can all agree that Malina forever in the show. And if you ship her with the Darkling, leave. I did love, love, love, love, love them in the show. I love them in the books too. But I love them in the show. He was actually one of the like casting choices that like when I just saw a still image, you know, them all just like sitting on the stairs or whatever. And he was just like sitting there on the stairs. Like I was just like, he looks fine. It's just in the book because Mal is always described as a kind of like charismatic guy that like all the girls are swooning over. And that's why Alina is always feeling insecure about how like he's just like, he's like the hot guy, like the cool guy, the jock, like the quarterback or whatever that everyone's into. And she always feels like the awkward, like less fortunate looking one. So when I saw what he looked like the actor, I was just like, he just, I mean he's not a bad looking guy. But like he hardly screams like walk down the hallway in high school and have the cheerleaders faint at your feet. You know what I mean? So I was like, you know, like, all right, I mean, whatever. I don't know. We'll see. And he was so good. Oh, my God, I love him so much. I already started like approving of him as soon as I saw the trailer because, you know, again, seeing him in action and he and Jesse May have such amazing chemistry and they're just, oh, they're so cute. And he's so good as Mal. Oh, he's so good as Mal. I loved him so much. It's still it's still a different interpretation of the character. Like he is different than he is in the book, partly because of that, you know, that like they clearly didn't go for him being like, you know, the hot jock, which is kind of his vibe in the books. But like, and every time I knew we were coming to a scene that from the books at least had been like rough for Mal. I was like grabbing my mom's hand and be like, so she was always new to expect something like, are you doing OK over there? I'm like, no, too many feelings. But then, OK, that's all well and good. I do. I love Mal and Alina, whatever they're fine. But we all know that I am here for the crows. I am here for the drinks. I am here for my boy, Kaz Brecker, bastard of the barrel, dirty hands. He is my favorite animal. I love me, son, Kaz Brecker. My car's license plate is customized to reference Kaz Brecker. Like, I'm a fan. And when I first saw Freddie Carter cast, like again, just a still image, I was like, yeah, like he has like he's a Kaz type. I don't know. He looks a little. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. He was amazing as Kaz. I'm sorry for doubting you. I'm so, so sorry. Also, Jesper, same thing, saw a still image of Jesper. And I was like, he's like Jesperish. I guess like, sounds exactly how I pictured it will seem. But again, as soon as I saw the trailer, as soon as I saw him in the trailer with his little wink, I was like, OK, you are Jesper now. Jesper forever. So really, when I saw Freddie Carter in the trailer, flip the cane into his other hand while he's in the crow club, I was like, you are Kaz Brecker. I'm so sorry for doubting you. So like them embodying the roles, like Chef's Kiss, they are in edge, too. Like, I didn't really have any doubts about an edge. The other two, I was like, jury's out. And then when I saw an edge, I was like, oh, I'm looking at an edge. Freddie had to prove himself to me. And I don't remember the actress' name in place, Jesper. Because he's just Jesper to me now. So the two of them, A plus, like, sorry for doubting you. But again, them embodying the characters is one thing. But then this new completely fanficked plot that like brings them into the events of Shadow and Bone, this is where things could very easily go wrong, like, you know, where it would feel unnecessary or somehow not true to their characters or somehow mess up some part of who they are in what comes next, if that makes sense. Because, you know, like, decisions they've made might paint the character in a new light that, like, affects your perception of them and affect and, like, colors what they later do that never would have been the case before if that makes sense. But, like, the plot line for them also super lived up to their characters. Like, obviously, like, these characters were, you know, alive before the events of Six of Crows. Like, they had done things together. They have history together. And that is apparent. And, like, this is so believably, like, a piece of that history. Like, that, like, the characters you meet in Six of Crows, it's believable that, like, this is what they'd got up to before that. Obviously, I mean, like, certain things, like, necessarily are different about the characters. For example, the fact that Inej has named one of her knives a sancta Alina because by the time Six of Crows is happening, the events of Shadow and Bone have already taken place. So she's never, like, met Alina. She's just kind of, like, over there in Ravka, a saint. So, like, obviously, like, Inej's personal connection to Alina. She's actually meeting her in this. Colors heard the naming of her knife, you know, in a new way. It's more personal. It's less, like, just, like, a faith thing. So, I mean, that's, but that wouldn't necessarily have to happen. Like, I'm fine with it. Milo the Goat. We stan. Love Milo the Goat. He's the best, a new addition. Nina and Matthias. Nina and Matthias. Nina actually also was a character or, like, a casting choice that when I saw just a still image of the actress who'd chosen to play Nina, again, I was like, yeah, I guess she's Nina-ish. And then seeing her in action at all, I was like, you're very Nina-y. And then seeing her chemistry with, I guess, I think his name is Cal or something? Okay, who plays Matthias? Perfect Nina, Matthias chemistry vibes. Like, they are Nina and Matthias. Oh, also amazing casting. And, I mean, their plot line wasn't made up. Like, that was, you know, actually from Seix of Crows. So, and it was handled very accurately, spot-on accurately. So just seeing that come to life, like, I was squealing a great deal when Nina and Matthias were, like, saying stuff that they said in the book. I was like, ah! Okay, but there were things in the show that only became possible because of the fan-ficky nature of it. Things that we could only ever have dreamed of, such as Kaz Breaker meeting the Darkling. And when that was happening again, my mom's hand was nearly broken by yours truly. I was like, ah! That's Kaz! That's the Darkling! They are meeting! Oh my God! And, like, honestly, like, if you haven't read the books and you don't care what these characters, that moment in the show, it's not terribly important. Nothing terribly epic occurs. The fact of them meeting is the epic thing. And I guess, I mean, I liked the fact that the show, like, if you've never seen anything like, about this before, if you've not read the books, if you have no context, that scene doesn't stick out as, like, a weird fan service scene. Like, it's a normal scene to have, and it doesn't feel oddly epic for no reason. We were like, am I supposed to care about this? Why? But for those who do care about it, it's there so that you can be like, and then that was me going, so, so, so good. And then, I mean, I did really like how they changed Alina and Mal's, like, I like Mal in the books, but they changed Alina quite a bit and made her less, like, passive, less whiny, less insecure. Not to say that, I mean, she still has flaws and she still has insecurities, but she's just very kind of, like, down in the dumps, hard on herself, mopey in the books, which, like, I always found frustrating and I personally feel like that is largely what is to blame for people hating Mal because Alina keeps projecting all of her insecurities onto Mal and we only have Alina's perspective. So people are like, oh, fuck Mal. And I'm like, no, not fuck Mal. It's Alina being insecure. But that's a discussion for another day. Anyway, they made Alina more confident and they took out some of the contentious scenes that I don't actually have a problem with, but I know other people do, so if it gets them to ship Mal and Alina, I'm okay with them taking them out. They had a really great vibe and a really good dynamic and I liked that, like, she didn't seem, like, maybe internally her journey is the same as book Alina, maybe she is sitting there going, Mal will never see me, Mal will never love me. But as far as what she is like, showing the world how she is around Mal, she's not, you'll never see me. They have a like a sweet, jokey, like, bantery friendship of equals thing going on. That was like, we love to see it. It was so cute. I did think it was interesting. Like, obviously, like I knew that they had announced that they decided Orly Bardugo had wanted to make Alina Park Shoe in the book. She's just a Rothkin. And so like, obviously like that, you know, when Jessie May was cast, like, yeah, well, they were gonna make her shoe. But I didn't know how much they were gonna like work into the story, like how much she's been othered by being Park Shoe. And I thought that was a really good choice. And it wasn't handled in like a really aggressively hand-fisted preachy way. All these like subtle moments where there's like, some kind of like racist imagery in universe that's being used on a poster or something or like Alina will side-eye it or Mal, because he's friends with Alina will side-eye it. And there's like offhand comments from people like calling her a rice eater or something, but it's not like, I don't know, like I've seen shows, movies, books where it's like constantly throwing it in your face as like, I'm trying to make a point about racism. Which like, I find hand-fisted preachy soap boxy. And I find that like, is a detriment to your message when you do it so aggressively, as opposed to just working into the story in a way that feels really organic and just much more realistic and sad for that reason. Where like, when you see it happen, you're like, oh man, yeah, that's, people are the worst. And it did create some nice moments for Mal and Alina to bond more, which obviously like, just wouldn't exist in the book because there wouldn't be like that racist element in the book, because she was just Robkin. But like when Alina isn't served food because like the guy's serving food is racist. And then Mal goes and like gets her some fruit. We love to see it. But I thought it was also like interesting then that they were able to work it in as a parallel to like why she, like a way for her to understand and empathize with Grisha. Because like, she and Mal kind of grew up being afraid of Grisha in the books and in the show where they're like these scary like magic users who take children away. But then like to have this kind of conversation of like, you know what it's like to be othered. You know what it's like to be hated for being different because she's part of shoe. And just, you know, basically be like, look, you're scared of the Grisha, but like people being scared of us has been the way that we've protected ourselves because for like, for much longer in our history we've been othered and hated and vilified. And can you not understand why we might like use fear as a means of protecting ourselves. And that was a good like conversation to work into the story. And a really natural and organic conversation to work into the story. It wasn't like just shoved in there. Like it really fit and worked and really like fleshed out some of the themes that are already present in the story. So tip top, absolutely loved it. That's to where the show is gonna go next. I guess they're gonna do the Six of Crows plot next while they're telling season storm. Like I wasn't sure. I mean, I don't, maybe they've published something about this and I don't know. I like to prefer to speculate because like, I loved seeing the, the crows brought into the plot of shadow and bone. So I would kind of love to see Mal and Alina and Nikolai brought into the plot of Six of Crows. You know, like fair is fair. I don't know that they're gonna do that or that they might maybe just to do more crossover where like if they start telling the Six of Crows story in the next season, while they move on to the season storm plot with like what's going on in Ravka that they kind of intermingle them. I don't know if they will. I hope they do mainly cause I wanna see like Nikolai and Kaz together. We haven't even seen Nikolai at all yet. I'm very excited to see like so far their casting decisions have been A plus tip top top notch fantastic casting decisions. So like I am very excited. I would have been nervous, but now I'm just excited because so far they've not let me down to see who they cast as Nikolai, who they cast as Weilin, who they cast as Kuei, who they cast as those are the main ones. I am very excited to see where it goes next. And I mean, I'm not gonna say this for a couple of years. You know, good things come to those who wait, I suppose. And credit where it's due, this production is so high quality in terms of just production value, which is something that like I also would have been worried about especially after seeing Witcher because like I'm sorry, but the Witcher adaptation looks so low budget at times. It really does. And it's weird because the whole thing doesn't look low budget. It's just like a lot of it does. And then other parts of it look high budget and it's very like up and down. It's so inconsistent episode to episode, but like a lot of Witcher, it looks like those old ABC daytime, like Beastmaster, Hercules type shows where you're like oof, oof. So I was worried that Shadow and Bone would at times also look kind of low budget and it did not ever look low budget. It was the tip top, the costumes, the sets, the locations, like just the cinematography, the music, the CGI. Everything was like beautiful, like just a beautiful show. So obviously like you know, quality takes time. So I would not rush them as much as I want season two, like to have season two yesterday. I love, if taking the right amount of time all the time in the world they need gives us this quality product, I will wait for it because so, so good. So good, way better than I could possibly have hoped for. I went in again with like trying to have low expectations, trying to be like just, you know, take it for what it is. It'll be fun even if it's not good. Like my soul, my body, my heart was not ready for it to be this good. Like it's painfully good. Like literally all I wanna do is just rewatch Shadow and Bone. And then rewatch Shadow and Bone. And then rewatch Shadow and Bone. I mean, I just finished reading the Grisha trilogy. So now I'm, I was already thinking that I'm like, oh no, I wanna read Six of Crows again. This will be my third time. But after watching the show, I was like, yeah, if I hadn't already been planning on it, I would definitely be planning on it now. Cause like, I need to be back in Cutterdam. I need to be with my boy, Cass Brecker. And I don't know if I'll picture the cast, like cause I've already read Six of Crows twice. So I already kind of had a picture in my head of Cass Brecker. Like I won't be mad if I'm picturing Freddie Carter. He's an excellent Cass Brecker. I was, okay, slight criticism. And maybe not even a criticism. It's not a slight criticism. In Six of Crows, it's kind of a big deal how the other like criminal gang lords dress in like flamboyantly flashy colors and like actual mergers, like actual businessmen in Cutterdam dress, you know, in like elegant but like, you know, muted colors like black and gray and brown. And it's like, it's the crime bosses that dress in extravagant, like brightly colored silks and satins and brocade, et cetera. And Cass stands out because he dresses like a merchant. He dresses in plain drab, black and brown, like a businessman, not like a, like a gang lord. And so Cass obviously dresses like Cass in the show. The thing is the other gang lords also dress kind of like normal, if that makes sense. So by making them dress normal, it takes away that element from Cass' character because it's no longer like such a distinct choice on the part of Cass to distinguish himself from other gang lords by not dressing like they do because he's not different anymore, if that makes sense. So like, they didn't change anything about Cass. And yet by changing things around Cass, they've changed Cass because it's no longer a choice on his part to do this. It's just kind of what everyone's doing, if that makes sense. So that's not a big deal. But like I kind of always like enjoyed that about him that he like, it was just like another way to make him kind of like stand out and kind of be like, fuck you to like whatever one else is expecting of him. But it's fine. Like I appreciate that like the tone of the show, the look of it overall was, was kind of having more muted tones, looking more dull, looking more realistic and less like technicolor. So like, I appreciate how like, like from a production design standpoint, like having Pekka Rollins walk around in like a Riddler costume wouldn't be great. But having read the books, like, I kind of missed that juxtaposition that is so present in the book. Oh well, that's a very smart, if that's my only complaint about the show, we're in good territory. I don't think I have anything else to say. I mean, I could just go on and on and on because I could just talk about every single scene and squeal about it. But I don't think that's especially helpful or entertaining for you. If that is entertaining for you, then maybe I'll just do a live stream of me re-watching the show. And you can watch me squeal because they will be for the full eight episodes. Again and again and again. But I think, I think that will do it. Let me know in the comments down below if you also love Shadow and Bone, if you also love Six of Crows, if you also love Kaz Brecker, if you don't love Kaz Brecker, don't feel the need to tell me that. Just leave, because I will fight you. Okay, I think that's it. So let me know all the things. I post videos on Saturdays, other random times as well, but definitely Saturdays. So like and subscribe, join my Patreon if you feel so inclined. And I'll see you when I see you.