Maldraxxus is the latest episode of World Of Warcraft’s Afterlives, which premiered earlier today. The show is based around the upcoming update to WoW, Shadowlands. Now, with a late October release date, the next month or two will be heating up episodes of this animated masterpiece.
Summary
In this episode, we follow Drakka, who is the Thralls’ mother and former leader of the frostwolf clan. This begins at the moment of her death while she is trying to protect Thrall during the events of the orc invasions. We then see the landscape and the warring houses within Maldraxxus. Similar to the first episode, a training montage is used to describe how she came to find her place within the house of eyes.
The house of plagues has fallen, and now there is one less house on the board in this war. Drakka’s master explains the importance of her mission to deliver a message to the master of the house of the chosen. During the journey, she runs into 2 skeleton-looking guys. These two turn on her when she reaches the dread citadel of the house of eyes.
She makes quick work of them as the citadel explodes. After Drakka arrives at the house of the chosen, she finally delivers the message. She receives mention of a key before revealing that Drakka, herself, is the key.
Finally, the episode finishes with a beautiful frame of Drakka talking and mentioning she is Drakka, Baroness of the house of the chosen and protector of Maldraxxus.
Overall Thoughts
This one, unfortunately, fell flat for me. The first episode led with Uther’s story, making it a tough act to follow. World of Warcraft has such rich lore, but I struggled to get invested in this episode. The visuals were brilliantly done. The striking imagery of the citadel blowing up really captured the despair of the moment.
The camera still of her standing there while she pronounced she was the baroness of the house of the chosen was a nice reveal. Especially after the build-up of her delivering the message.
So far, the series is still impressive. I think upcoming episodes will have different tones, given the covenants that are left. This is a fresh way of showing off each covenant, though, and it does a good job of getting people hyped for each of them. Personally, I am going to play at least 4 characters so I can see each covenant firsthand and what they have to offer.
What were your thoughts? Keep the conversation going down below, and tune in next week when we tackle the next episode!