Well, they've casted Natasha O'Keeffe but haven't said who she is playing yet. We've got two choices for her--Lanfear or Elaida.
Elaida is a HUGE player later on and the whole first book she's in Caemlyn until Elayne gets to the Tower. There's literally no reason to cast her yet.
Liandrin is...
Moiraine talked about an Aes Sedai who came to her room as an Accepted to help her learn to channel, but instead beat her repeatedly with the Power until she panicked enough that she could do it.
That's straight out of New Spring. Elaida did that in the guise of helping her practice for the...
I forgot to mention I am 99% certain Moiraine talked about Elaida in this episode, which likely is setting things up for the takeover in the next season.
If the continual story aspect of modern TV has taught us anything, it's that they put a ton of things in the finale that become major...
I watch everything based on a series with the realization that they *can't show everything exactly or do everything exactly as written.* I mean, do we really want an entire chapter about hat shopping (to paraphrase The Princess Bride book!verse) and skirt smoothing and sniffing while everyone...