What you need to remember from Shadow and Bone season 1

Like so many Netflix shows, Shadow and bones had a long, healthy break between seasons – it’s been almost two years since season 1, so… make one there Real long healthy break. That means you might need a quick refresher on the events of the first season of the Grishaverse.

Season 1 mainly rested on the story of Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), the long-awaited Sun Summoner recruited by General Kirigan (Ben Barnes), also known as the Darkling, to take down the Shadow Fold. But that’s not the only storyline. Mal (Archie Renaux), Alina’s childhood best friend who has a slight crush on her, fight their way to Alina along with the Crows (Freddy Carter, Amita Suman and Kit Young), a gang hired to kidnap her. There’s also Nina (Danielle Galligan) and Matthias (Calahan Skogman), a Heartrender and her captor who are thrown together in the most unlikely of circumstances.

(Ed. remark: This post discusses the season 1 ending of Shadow and bones. Only read on if you came here to be pampered and/or remember what happened.)

Alina realized that she trusted the wrong allies

After working with him all season trying to take down the Fold, Alina finally realized that Kirigan wasn’t using her to destroy the Fold, but to expand it. Turns out the Darkling is actually hundreds of years old, the same Shadow Summoner who created the Fold all those ages ago. His plan was to use the Fold as a weapon, and Genya (Daisy Head) unfortunately had to help him.

In the end, Alina wins against the Darkling in the season finale – regaining control of the solar powers that Kirigan tried to control in the final battle, and saves everyone on the ship from the Fold and its monsters.

But also, before she found out what he was up to, they kissed, a romantic dynamic that was sure to complicate things for season 2.

He did get a deer bone in her neck

Before Kirigan lost, he managed to get another Grisha to stick a deer’s bone in Alina’s neck (a way of amplifying magical powers) and bond to the amplifier. The hope was that he would be able to control her power himself – as whoever kills the deer is presumably the one who can control its vast amplification abilities – but Alina discovers that the deer is actually the one who chooses who bestows its powers. on. And it chose Alina after she spared (or at least tried to) his life.

Though the bones no longer protrude from her collarbone as they do for most of the Season 1 finale, Alina still has the deer (and its power) embedded deep within her.

Mal and Alina ended up together

Alina rescues Mal from the darkness of the Fold once again, and the two end the first season by doing what they’ve been trying to do all along (sort of): vanish into the world together.

Of course, this time they do it with the intention of Alina returning one day and tearing down the Fold. But for now, it’s safer for them to fake their deaths (or at least hers; as the Sun Summoner, she’s profiled higher than him as “the Tracker”) and hide while building her strength even further.

What happened to the Darkling?

Image: Netflix

After Alina uses her newfound sun powers to strike back at him, Kirigan and Mal begin fighting alongside the ship. In the end, Kirigan gets dragged into the middle of it all by a Volcra…or at least Mal and Alina think that’s the last of him. But as we see in the closing moments of the season, Kirigan is really alive and (by Fold standards) well, walking out of the extended Fold looking a bit worse for wear with at least a few slashes to the face. Unfortunately, he is also supported by some creatures from the Shadow, whom he orders to follow him out of the Fold.

The Crows must pay off their debts

While the Crows set out to pull off a heist and kidnap the Sun Summoner to pay off their debts, they’re left empty-handed (if it’s still the best part of Season 1). Heading back to Ketterdam, they face a pair of adversaries who expect them to posit: Dreesen (Sean Gilder), the wealthy merchant who hired them, and gang leader Pekka Rollins (Dean Lennox Kelly).

Fortunately, Kaz has a plan: they have to get a Heartrender, and “it has to be someone neither of them know”, a plan that Nina overhears.

Nina has imprisoned Matthias as a slave trader

Although Nina and Matthias dreamed of taking their enemies-to-lovers act to a place where they – a Grisha and a Drüskelle – could live together in peace, things quickly went wrong. While holed up in Os Kervo, they are spotted by one of Nina’s former Grisha friends, who threatens to have Matthias arrested. Panicked, Nina claims that Matthias is a slave trader (knowing that he will be arrested just for that, and not for being Drüskelle, which would kill him).

This backfires almost immediately: Though she says she would withdraw her statement once he goes to court, his cellmate points out that it could be in a year or two. Meanwhile, they are on their way to Hellgate, the terrifying Kerch prison.

Shadow and bones Season 2 premieres on Netflix on March 16.