Shadow and Bone season 2 twist ending explained
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Shadow and Bone spoilers follow.
Shadow and Bone really took its name to heart in that final episode of season two. There were shadows and bones aplenty, but there was also a lot else going on. In fact, season two is pretty busy, with multiple storylines woven in from numerous books.
As such, everything might be a tad confusing. The Grishaverse is vast, after all.
So that's where we come in. Join us here at Digital Spy as we shine a light on the end of Shadow and Bone's second season to figure out what's coming next in the inevitable season three.
Shadow and Bone season 2 ending explained
The main thrust of season two was all about Alina's quest for the second and third amplifiers that she needed to magnify her sun-summoner gifts and destroy the Fold forever.
The sea whip popped up pretty early on, so her focus moved on to the Firebird... which is revealed to be none other than Mal, Alina's childhood friend and romantic sweetheart.
Handy? Well, no, actually, because that means Mal has to die if Alina's going to fulfil her destiny and save Ravka. Savage, we know, but it's a YA show. What do you expect?
Once everyone learns what's going on, the gang come up with a plan to stop Mal's heart briefly by using Tamar's heartrender gift. That would buy Alina enough time to bring down the Fold and fulfil the prophecy without killing Mal forever. All David needs is a piece of one of Mal's bones.
Unfortunately, the Darkling expands the Fold and ambushes everyone before the plan can be set in motion. Alina tries to connect to the Firebird's power anyway but pesky Kirigan interrupts and brutally injures Mal with the Cut.
Nina can't heal Mal in time, so he asks Alina to kill him and save everyone, as he's dying anyway. The Sun Summoner declares her love for Mal one last time and stabs him, creating a huge surge of energy that destroys the entire Fold and all the Volcra inside as well.
There's still Kirigan to deal with, though. Both he and his shadow monsters survive the blast, which gives the Darkling some time to gloat over Mal's death. He then asks Alina to join him one last time. It's kind of a dumb request given how brutal he's just been over Mal, so of course, she refuses.
Ben Barnes, who plays the Darkling on the series, recently opened up about the season two finale and what his character was feeling at this particular moment.
"He's feeling love and he's feeling regret, but he's also still championing his cause, all the way to the bitter end, which you can respect, but the way he went about it was always wrong," Barnes said (via Collider).
"It's messy, and I think life is messy and relationships are messy. Trying to find the clarity in the messiness, it felt like a lot to try to navigate in that final scene, especially in three leather coats in the desert, covered in black blood. There was a lot to it."
He added: "You can feel this connection between them. You can feel there's a love. You can feel that there's something more real at play than the way he just behaves. I think that part is for whoever is watching to decide what they feel about it."
Then, the shadow monsters jump in. And when Inej and Zoya help Alina fight them off, she realises Kirigan is distracted, so she quickly stabs him with the Neshyenyer sword.
With the beautiful Darkling taken off the playing field for good, Alina turns her focus back to Mal. Nina fails to bring him back, but then the Sun Summoner manages by using merzost — which means she's now tapping into dark shadow magic, just like Kirigan used to.
It's kind of the opposite of everything she stands for, so that's not ideal. But hey, at least Mal is alive and they can go off together now for their happy ending. Right? Right?
In the aftermath of that big battle, Mal struggles to find his purpose now that he's no longer the Firebird. So with that, he and Alina decide it's best if they separate so Mal can go off on a new path as a privateer. If they end up back together one day, it means that love was real and not just a manifestation of the Firebird prophecy.
Nikolai gives Mal his special compass before he leaves, and even dubs him the new Sturmhond — which is rather nice of him, if we do say so ourselves. The last we see of Mal is on board the Volkvolny/Hummingbird with Tamar, Tolya and Inej on a new quest to find Inej's family.
In an interview with Collider, Amita Suman, who plays Inej, broke down what this quest meant to her character – and quashed any rumours that there may have been a spark of romance between Inej and Tolya.
"My character's mindset in that scene was, 'Okay, you need to find your brother and get going,'" she explained, adding, "her heart is firmly set on Kaz right now.
"Right now she's hung up on Kaz and finding her brother, that's all that matters to me."
Understandably, the two have been on a deeply intimate and intense journey. Speaking of building that on-screen bond, Suman said: "[Freddy Carter and I] respect our characters so much, and Freddy loves Kaz as equally as much as I love in Inej. So, when two people who work like that come together, it's all about the work. It's all about giving service to these characters, to their backstories to the writing, to the moment as well."
*Dabs eyes emotionally before returning to the final episode breakdown*
Genya's not as lucky, though, because her lover isn't around at all. Unable to sense David's heartbeat, she comes to the conclusion he's dead, which stings even more when she finds plans for an engagement ring in David’s clothes.
On the plus side, Kirigan's still dead. Zoya and Genya start the funeral pyre and Alina fuels the flames to burn his body away completely, just to make sure the near-immortal hottie is gone for good.
That's not going to be much comfort moving forward because things aren't right with Nikolai either. After the Apparat taunts the king-to-be ahead of his coronation, he's wracked with pain in his shoulder. It's the same place where he was injured during the battle, but that's no ordinary wound.
When Nikolai looks into the mirror, a shadow monster stares back, which suggests the King of Ravka might just be turning into one himself.
During Nikola and Alina's subsequent coronation, Kaz updates the Crows with a "lucrative" opportunity that revolves around a drug named "jurda parem" that holds the power to amplify Grisha's gifts to untold heights. The chemist who created it fled once he realised what he had on his hands, but the Fjerdans captured him with the intent to weaponise the drug for themselves.
It's up to the Crows to stop that, but they don't get very far because a Fjerdan woman takes jurda parem during the coronation, using her amplified gifts to make everyone convulse and cough up blood. Gross and effective.
Although Alina manages to stop her by using the Cut, it's still not a happy ending. The magic is coming out as dark rather than light, which means Alina's power has indeed been corrupted by the merzost she used to save Mal.
And the worst thing is that it's smiling as she uses it, much like the Darkling used to...
The way this twist plays out will be a surprise for show watchers and book readers alike – with showrunner Eric Heisserer taking the series in a new direction.
"That discovery by Alina goes to the cost of merzost. She used merzost to bring Mal back to life, and she knows that it always has a price attached to it," Heisserer said (via TheWrap).
"In the book series, at the end of the trilogy, Alina loses her sun-summoning powers so she is back to being otkazatsya essentially. "
"We were devious in deciding that she gets the Darkling’s power set instead. So that is a revelation for her and her relationship to Kirigan now, after the events of [the finale] will be an interesting question."
Heisserer previously told Collider that he's always had a "three-season plan" for Shadow and Bone, so let's hope Netflix listens and renews the show at least one more time. We really, really need to know what happens next, and because of deviations in how this season was adapted, Leigh Bardugo's books aren't going to be particularly useful on that front.
So. just like everyone in the Fold, we too are stumbling in the dark. But if nothing else, let's just hope Jessie Mei Li finally gets her wish and Alina comes out as queer next season.
Shadow and Bone is streaming on Netflix.
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