Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of The Wheel of Time.

It may be hard to believe, but we’ve already reached the conclusion of Season 2 of Prime Video’s adaptation of The Wheel of Time — but with that especially chilling cliffhanger, it’s clear that Rand (Josha Stradowski) and his close-knit group of allies have never been in more danger. While all roads have been leading to Falme over the last several weeks, the finale finally saw everyone converging on the city for an epic battle that plays out on all sides. Whitecloaks versus Aiel versus Seanchan versus Ishamael (Fares Fares) versus… wait, are those the Heroes of the Horn, summoned by Mat (Dónal Finn) himself?

Ahead of the Wheel of Time Season 2 finale, Collider had the opportunity to sit down with showrunner and executive producer Rafe Judkins to break down some of the biggest moments of the episode. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Judkins discusses why they wanted to expand on Lan (Daniel Henney) and Moiraine’s (Rosamund Pike) story this season through their separation and reconciliation, how long Egwene (Madeleine Madden) has been holding onto the knowledge of her power’s true strength, and why the final battle against Ishamael is a direct parallel to Rand’s solo confrontation last season. He also delves into that Little Mermaid moment between Rand and Elayne (Ceara Coveney), why they wanted to bring back Uno (Guy Roberts) as a Hero of the Horn, what that ending with Lanfear (Natasha O’Keeffe) means in terms of setting up a future threat, and more.

COLLIDER: I wanted to ask about the Lan and Moiraine moments in this episode. We’ve seen her reconnected to the One Power as of last week, and now she’s reopened the bond between them. Did you always want to bookend the season with their breakup and their makeup?

RAFE JUDKINS: In Book 2 of Wheel of Time, Moiraine and Lan only had one chapter together. So we really looked at that chapter and tried to see the core of what’s going on there, and what goes on there is this breakup and makeup of Lan and Moiraine. She tries to drive him away, and he is resolute and dogged and will not walk away from her no matter what she tries to do. That’s the story we wanted to tell with them, [taking] the juice of what’s in that chapter and expanding it out to carry across the season.

So I think you really do get that feeling from the two of them that the bond they have isn’t just something. It’s like any relationship that you have. It’s not strong because it’s the same all the time. Sometimes it is down, and sometimes it is up, and the strength of their bond is that they’re able to weather anything together, even this. Hopefully, you see that at the end of Season 2 so you really understand emotionally how strong the connection between those two people is going into future seasons.

Image via Prime Video

Egwene and Renna have a very different kind of bond that all reaches a culmination in the finale — along with the reveal that Renna has the spark, even if it’s not the same level of power that Egwene has. Has Egwene been sensing that something is up with the sul’dam from the beginning? How does that discovery change her perspective on being able to beat Renna herself?

JUDKINS: We’ve left little hints through Episodes 6 and 7 of Egwene actually processing what’s going on between them. You see her watch the weaves that are linking, you see her eventually see Renna talk about the light that she has and the weaves that she’s making. You can actually track Egwene’s little subtext journey through the season as she realizes what’s really going on with the sul’dam. It’s an important, interesting theme that’s in the books of people who hate what’s inside themselves and put that hate out onto others — and so there’s something, even if it’s subconscious from Renna, quite interesting about that and about Egwene being the one who susses that out. Xelia Mendes-Jones, who played Renna, is just such an incredible actor, and Maddie gave an unbelievable performance. Every second that those two are together, you want to be there with them, even if it’s hard.

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A big moment from this episode, which obviously book fans know, is that Mat is the one to blow the Horn of Valere in Falme, but how early into Season 2 plotting did you know that you wanted Uno back for that moment?

JUDKINS: It was really in the moment where he died in the show, and it felt like unfinished business for him. We thought it was very important for the audience to understand this idea of the Heroes of the Horn, [to] also visually see someone who had died coming back as a Hero there at the end, because then you begin to process what this really means. There is a little Easter Egg of a character that we’ve combined Uno with from later in the books; I think they’ll know from the two swords what we’re doing there. But it’s an important piece of visual storytelling. We knew we wanted one of the heroes to be someone that you knew because it lets you understand what that means, that after you die you can be brought back as a Hero of the Horn to fight battles again.

Image via Prime Video

I really loved the change-up that the show does with the fight against Ishamael because it feels like a parallel to Season 1, where Rand is at the Eye of the World—Moiraine is there, but she’s obviously kind of been taken off the board—and he has to face down Ishamael all by himself. Now, in Season 2, he has his friends coming together and supporting him. Was that intentional to juxtapose those two battles? Rand has tried to distance himself, but is this him realizing he is stronger when he has everybody around him?

JUDKINS: We try to do a lot of circular storytelling in the show. It sort of fits with the theme of the books, but also, it lets you come back to these things again. He lost in the same scene in Season 1 because he was alone and because he tried to push his friends away, and that’s what his story is the whole season. The crux of Rand’s story in Book 2 is that he tries to push everyone away from him and then eventually embraces that he has to have his friends and be with them in order to succeed. So that really was an important moment for us in constructing the whole season — that the first time you see all of them together is on that tower at the end, and they all start in their separate places so that you get that real arc across the season for each of them, realizing that they’re stronger together.

It’s a very brief moment, but Rand and Elayne, I call it The Little Mermaid moment. He’s bleeding out, clearly, dying…

JUDKINS: He’s Prince Eric.

And then there’s this beautiful face. It feels like sowing the seeds of that relationship and what it’s going to come to mean. How important was it for you to get that ball rolling in terms of connecting Rand to this person who he hasn’t even met until now?

JUDKINS: We really wanted to flag for the audience that this is a relationship to pay attention to. So having her heal him of this wound that can’t be healed is a way to cement right away for the audience, “These two have a connection to each other, and I’m paying attention to what’s going on with the two of them.” The way he sees her, the way that she comes into the scene, it all hopefully is signaling to an audience that’s not familiar with the books that there’s something to really pay attention to there — because there is.

Image via Prime Video

The last scene of the finale puts us in a room with Lanfear, who I personally have become a huge fan of this season. I’m ready to swear allegiance to the Dark One. It’s fine! I think it would be a great personal decision for me.

JUDKINS: [Laughs] As long as she’s there, wouldn’t we all?

Exactly. But all the seals have been broken as Ishamael’s one last chess move, and we get our first look at Moghedien. What can you tease about what type of Forsaken she is and how much of a threat she’s going to be? Even Lanfear is like, “Whoa, this person’s a lot.”

JUDKINS: One of my favorite things in the books is the Forsaken and how they function. They’re just really fun. Sometimes, the best bad guys can be the characters that you actually love the most. I think the audience will be sort of devastated to see Ishamael go at the end of the season in a weird way. I want them to be thinking in their minds, “How could any of the Forsaken be more interesting than these two?” And then have Moghedien come in [for us] to declare very clearly and very loudly, “You better pay attention to every one of the Forsaken that’s coming because they are each their own kind of messed up. They should each develop their own cult following.”

We’re just as obsessed with Laia Costa, who plays Moghedien, shooting Season 3 as we were with Lanfear in Season 2. The fun of the Forsaken is [that] these people are this very human face of evil and do the things that they do from a human perspective, but they’re not afraid to have fun with it sometimes. Hopefully, [what] the audience gets right away from the Moghedien/Lanfear scene is that there is a lot of trouble in store for all of our leads moving forward, and that this victory on top of the tower is just the beginning of a very long road.

In Season 1’s cold open, we get the flashback to before the Breaking of the World. Lews Therin is being warned, obviously, about the dangers and is brushing it off, but we know what’s to come. Then, in this episode, there’s the cold open with him and Ishamael, and Ishamael being sealed away. Moiraine also separately notes that some of these Forsaken had a close personal relationship with the last Dragon, and we see that in the scene, that Lews and Ishamael were friends. Are season finales always going to be where we get these little flashbacks, as a treat?

JUDKINS: I can’t say always, but there is a circularity to coming back to the Age of Legends, coming back to what happened in the Dragon’s last life, that is always meaningful. It always provides an underpinning for what’s happening in the rest of the season. Every time we go back to the Age of Legends it’s interesting, and it reveals something when we do it. We’re trying to go back to reveal something about the characters that we’re looking at today, and I think that we’re able to successfully do that these first two seasons, and I think we will be in the future, too.

Seasons 1 and 2 of The Wheel of Time are available to stream on Prime Video.