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September 19, 2022

“The Rings Of Power” Episode 4 – Higher Highs And Lower Lows

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE FOUR AHEAD!**

“At the feet of the mountain were built the tombs of the Kings, and hard by upon a hill was Armenelos, fairest of cities, and there stood the tower and the citadel that was raised by Elros son of Eärendil, whom the Valar appointed to be the first King of the Dúnedain.”

– The Silmarillion: Akallabêth, p. 312

The text I have quoted above, which comprises part of a brief description of the island kingdom of Númenor in The Silmarillion, contains the very first instance of the name Armenelos in J.R.R. Tolkien’s posthumously published writings on Middle-earth (when Tolkien passed in 1973, he left The Silmarillion unfinished, and the task of piecing together a cohesive narrative from his scattered notes fell upon his youngest son, Christopher). Since The Silmarillion‘s publication in 1977, the name Armenelos has popped up again in Unfinished Tales and a few other places, but it never appeared in The Lord Of The Rings or its appendices, and was never added retroactively by either of the Tolkiens.

Rings Of Power — Galadriel in Númenor | empireonline.com

This may seem a small thing, but if you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you probably know where this is going. Yes, I was surprised – stunned, even – when the name Armenelos was casually used in conversation in the fourth episode of Amazon’s The Rings Of Power: which has until now drawn on The Lord Of The Rings and its appendices exclusively for information regarding Númenor and the events of the Second Age. Discounting all the place-names from Unfinished Tales that appeared on Amazon’s first official Rings Of Power tie-in map, which have deliberately been left off the map used throughout the series during scene-transitions, this usage of the name Armenelos marks the first time that something supposedly off-limits to the showrunners and writers has worked its way into The Rings Of Power.

So how did this happen? As far as we know, Amazon does not own the rights to The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, and there is no evidence to suggest that has changed. In this very episode, two characters reminisce about the land of Beleriand that sank beneath the sea at the end of the First Age, but they refer to locations there like the Mouths of Sirion only in vague terms, as though the writers were legally unable to use names from The Quenta Silmarillion (the third, and longest part of The Silmarillion, which deals with the wars in Beleriand) and instead had to resort to implication. My fool’s hope is that the Tolkien Estate is providing Amazon access to materials in both The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales on a case-by-case basis.

Until we learn more, however, I will lower my expectations slightly and assume that the terms of this agreement with the Tolkien Estate apply only to the specific chapter of The Silmarillion where the name Armenelos originated, Akallabêth – an appendix of sorts that deals with the history of Númenor and its people. And make no mistake, Akallabêth may only be thirty pages long but it’s a goldmine: of all Tolkien’s writings on the Second Age, it’s the only one that covers the decline and eventual downfall of Númenor in great detail. It is here, and here alone, that Tolkien transcribes the dialogues on death between the mortal Men of Númenor and the immortal Elven ambassadors out of Valinor; here, and here alone, that he reports on Sauron’s seduction of the Númenóreans; here, and here alone, that he records the warnings of the Valar, which went unheeded by all but a few. With minimal expansions and additions, the materials in this appendix alone could easily fill out three or four seasons of The Rings Of Power.

Still, if the writers are theoretically allowed to use anything in Akallabêth that the Tolkien Estate is willing to sell (and Amazon is willing to pay for), one has to wonder why they settled on the name Armenelos, and how they convinced the higher-ups at Amazon to spend what I can only assume was a hefty sum of money for this obscure place-name, which they’ve used exactly once – not on the map of Númenor, where it would arguably help viewers get geographically situated, but as part of an improvised speech by the Númenórean politician Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) outside the Guild-Hall, where guild-members are gathering to complain about the possibility of tireless, immortal Elves stealing their jobs (more of that one-note fantasy racism that the writers must have thought was clever enough to include at the expense of character-building moments). Gravelle’s Pharazôn, a charismatic dictator in-the-making, reminds them that they alone are responsible for all of Númenor’s great accomplishments throughout history, from the vastly overstated military victories of Elros Tar-Minyatur, the first King, to the building of Armenelos, and vows that Elves will never take that away from them.

But while Pharazôn gains favor with the citizenry of Númenor, Queen-Regent Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) alone amongst her people can see that Númenor is falling out of favor with the Valar, Middle-earth’s gods, as her people turn away from Middle-earth in its hour of need, forsaking their old bonds of fellowship with the Elves. The falling petals of the White Tree growing in the Court of the Kings are a clear sign that the Valar weep for Númenor, one that even Pharazôn recognizes, but Tar-Míriel has seen in her dreams something far worse – a vision of the sea rising high over Númenor’s green hills before crashing down upon the land, carrying away the towers and palaces of fair Armenelos, pulling Míriel and all her people to a watery grave.

J.R.R. Tolkien was haunted by a similar dream throughout his life, and it was a trait he passed on to both his son Michael and to the character of Faramir in The Lord Of The Rings. From this vivid dream sprang fully-formed the story of Númenor, an ancient island kingdom comparable to Atlantis, sucked into the abyss by a “great dark wave”. Though the tale evolved over time, the significance of the Great Wave never diminished. Quite the opposite. In-universe and to some extent in real life, Tolkien postulated that dreams of the Great Wave were attributable to some cultural memory of Númenor left to linger in the minds of Men by the descendants of that traumatic event’s survivors – who naturally began referring to Númenor as Atalantë (the Downfallen), which then became Atlantis, by which name we know it today.

As one of the first recipients of this unsettling dream, chronologically at least, The Rings Of Power‘s Tar-Míriel has no way of knowing whether the “great dark wave” is a literal or metaphorical manifestation of the gods’ discontent, but it doesn’t really matter to her – either way, she’s just witnessed the imminent destruction of all that she holds dear in Númenor, and that can’t be a good thing. Searching frantically for a solution, Míriel first has to reverse-engineer her own problem. She comes to the bewildering conclusion that Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is the problem, so she has the Elf imprisoned…then has her released and sent back to Middle-earth to try and appease the Valar…then realizes at the last minute that the Valar brought Galadriel to Númenor for a reason, so she calls her back.

Structurally, this storyline is by far the weakest of the four we’re currently following because there are so many other characters in Númenor besides Galadriel and Míriel that The Rings Of Power is simultaneously trying to establish, which frequently requires jumping away from the characters that matter most to spend time with characters like Pharazôn’s unexciting and extraneous non-canonical son Kemen (Leon Wadham), who I gave the benefit of the doubt going in because other non-canonical characters like Eärien (Ema Horvath) had impressed me, only for him to disappoint greatly as a character in terms of both personality and design. As a result of all this needlessly urgent subplot-hopping that leaves little space for organic character and plot development in the main storyline, our protagonist’s motivations change from scene to scene with barely any build-up.

With all that said, when Galadriel and Tar-Míriel actually do interact, their scenes are invariably among the episode’s highlights – boasting some of the most eloquent dialogue in the series, and two phenomenal performances from actresses of equal regality whose characters balance each other out: the one confident, reckless to a fault, and slightly incompetent (I love Galadriel, but we all know it to be true), the other self-doubting and subsequently slow to action, but a capable leader when nudged in the right direction. They are also alike in many ways. Galadriel tells Míriel that she knows what it is to be the only one aware that something is terribly wrong, and the only one whose opinion is never asked for, or dismissed when proffered, because speaking the harsh truth makes her unpopular with those who would sugarcoat it.

However, as Galadriel’s suspiciously politically-savvy traveling companion Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) advises her while the two spend time together in a Númenórean jail-cell, there is a time and place for sugarcoating the truth when it will benefit you. It’s an underhanded tactic, one which Galadriel has never had the patience for, as she prefers to rush head-on at all her problems with the mindset of a warrior: even when attempting to follow Halbrand’s advice, she still resorts to beating up Pharazôn and a few Númenórean guards and breaking into the chambers of the old king, Tar-Palantir (Ken Blackburn), without any consideration for the consequences of her actions. Thankfully for her, Pharazôn either has a very short memory or was offered something by Halbrand after the camera cut away from them that convinced him to hold his tongue.

While this could conceivably count as a plot-hole, until and unless additional context for Pharazôn’s inaction comes to light, it doesn’t quite beggar belief like the idea that a single Elf could persuade Númenor to go to war in the Southlands based on one man’s unreliable testimony, without the backing of her own High King and without even fully comprehending the situation or the strength of her opposition. I understand that Galadriel is reckless, but Tar-Míriel is evidently not, and yet she demands no further information from Galadriel than the two scraps of paper she stole from the Hall of Lore that “prove” Sauron is regaining strength in the Southlands and that Halbrand is the long-lost king who can unite the Southlanders against him. Funny, isn’t it, that Halbrand is behind all of this?

What Galadriel doesn’t know is that the enemy in the Southlands whom she has been led to believe is Sauron (again, by Halbrand) is in fact an Elf – one played with cold majesty by Game Of Thrones‘ Joseph Mawle – who goes by the title “Adar“, the Sindarin Elvish word for father. Theories abound as to who this character is, or could have been in the distant past: popular suggestions include Maglor, the only surviving son of Fëanor who was scarred, physically and mentally, by the burden of the unbreakable Oath he and his father swore and which they could never fulfil; Maeglin, a Dark Elf who betrayed the location of Gondolin to Morgoth in the First Age and was thrown from the city’s parapets as a result (although in the chaos, no one ever recovered his body from the flames below); and the nameless Elf captured by Morgoth long before the First Age began, who was corrupted “by slow arts of cruelty” in the dungeons of Utumno until they became the first Orc or half-Orc.

There are clues pointing in every direction. Adar’s dark hair would suit either Maglor or Maeglin. The metal gauntlet he wears on his left hand supports the theory that he’s Maglor, whose hand was burned by the Silmaril he carried for a time…but Adar also has burn marks along the sides of his face, which could have come from centuries of torture in Utumno, or from being tossed into the fires that raged around Gondolin. It is he who mentions growing up in Beleriand and traveling down “the river” (likely referring to the River Sirion), and his breastplate depicts a winding river as well. Maglor would have gone down the River Sirion on his way to the Third Kinslaying. But what could have happened to Maglor that would soften a Fëanorian’s heart towards Orcs, the greatest enemies of his people? That’s more of a Maeglin thing, and Maeglin could have traveled down the Sirion with the refugees from Gondolin as well.

The problem with most of these theories is that most of the characters Adar could be, like Maglor and Maeglin, are mentioned only in The Quenta Silmarillion – and as we’ve established, Amazon probably doesn’t have those rights. If they do, it’s not something they’ve indicated yet, and the time to introduce Maglor and/or Maeglin was long ago, in the prologue to The Rings Of Power‘s very first episode. To retroactively explain who these characters are, and what their relevance is to the current story, would require extensive flashbacks at this point, which seems wasteful seeing as neither Maglor nor Maeglin is relevant, quite frankly, to the story of the Second Age. Both the Silmaril that Maglor carried and the city of Gondolin that Maeglin betrayed are lost forever beneath the waves of the Sundering Sea.

Well…there is one other connection between these characters and the current story that could be exploited for dramatic effect in The Rings Of Power, but only if Amazon has the rights to do so. Both Maglor and Maeglin are linked to the character of Elrond (Robert Aramayo). It was Elrond’s grandfather who pushed Maeglin off the walls of Gondolin after Maeglin tried to abduct his wife and son, Elrond’s father Eärendil. And during the Third Kinslaying, when Eärendil and Elrond’s mother Elwing fled across the sea to Valinor, it was Maglor (with his brother Maedhros) who rescued their twin sons and hid them in a cave, raising them as if they were his own children. None of this has been mentioned in The Rings Of Power yet, but Elrond has been talking a lot about his father recently.

What we learn about Eärendil in this episode is virtually everything that The Rings Of Power can legally say about him – that he was a great mariner, who led the host that defeated Morgoth at the end of the First Age and was afterwards appointed by the gods to safeguard one of the three Silmarils, which he took into the heavens with him. Once again, I have to applaud the writers for taking all of this arcane information, which to the average viewer means absolutely nothing on its own, and making it relevant in the context of the show. When Elrond observes his friend Durin IV (Owain Arthur) struggling under the weight of his father’s impossible expectations for him, he shares the story of his own father’s legendary exploits and awkwardly tries to make a point about family in a sincere attempt at outreach that comes across as self-centering and slightly condescending.

This has been a problem for Elrond, however, since the very first episode – when he told Galadriel that if she stopped fighting for once, she could focus on being his friend…as if Galadriel, who is several-thousand years older than Elrond, doesn’t have slightly more important things to do with her life than help an aspiring politician impress any one of his many morally ambiguous father figures. In this episode, it’s revealed that Durin IV and his wife Disa (Sophia Nomvete) don’t even trust Elrond completely, not so much because they think ill of him personally but because they can sense he’s being manipulated. Durin tells his father that he intends to go to Lindon and figure out what High King Gil-galad is using Elrond for, but he really ought to be keeping his eye on Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), who is even more blatantly weaponizing Elrond’s innocence for his own gain.

Durin gets the upper hand by forcing Elrond into a tricky situation from which the Elf can only extricate himself by swearing an oath to protect the greatest secrets of the Dwarves – an oath nearly as dangerous as that which Fëanor and his sons swore, with the potential to curse all of Elrond’s kin to sorrow if broken. This whole plot-point was created for The Rings Of Power, but I suppose it could explain why, canonically, Elrond’s family was so singularly unlucky. No spoilers, but the poor guy is abandoned by pretty much everyone he loves. If you’re familiar with Peter Jackson’s film trilogy, you probably already know about the fateful choices of Arwen Undómiel, Elrond’s daughter, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. His grief has multiple layers.

All that Elrond gains from swearing this terrible oath is advance-knowledge of mithril, the new ore discovered by the Dwarves in the mines beneath Khazad-dûm…and it’s not like Elrond can do anything with that information yet anyway, although he does walk away with a small chunk of mithril, a gift from Durin IV – from which I am certain either he or Celebrimbor will forge a Ring of Power in the near future: specifically Nenya, one of the Three Rings made exclusively by and for the Elves without interference from Sauron, which was given to Galadriel. Seeing as Amazon is compressing the timeline of Middle-earth’s history to the point where Khazad-dûm will likely be destroyed before the end of the Second Age (was that a Balrog’s roar we heard as the mine-shaft collapsed around Durin and Elrond?), mithril will soon become a scarce and prized commodity in the show, and even a little will go a long way.

Now that we have reached the midpoint of the first season, which has been quietly laying the groundwork for the forging of the Rings, it’s safe to assume that Elrond and his supporting cast of characters will gradually come to the forefront in the remaining four episodes until the season finale presumably reveals that their subplot has been, all along, the main event. I am still fairly confident – despite all the mounting evidence that Halbrand is a baddie – that Sauron is already deeply entrenched in Eregion, where he’s manipulating Celebrimbor. Halbrand I believe to be a servant of Sauron’s, likely the future Witch-King, assigned with keeping Galadriel distracted in the Southlands until Celebrimbor’s great forge is ready to take its first commission.

And Sauron being the type to try and kill two birds with one stone, I believe that Galadriel will accidentally remove the last obstacle standing between Sauron and his plans to conquer the Southlands – Adar, who is clearly revered by the Orcs that used to follow Sauron. With Adar gone (because there’s no way Galadriel doesn’t personally take him off the board before season’s end), Sauron will be able to swoop in and effortlessly regain control of his old armies, but first he’ll give the Orcs plenty of time to inflict heavy casualties on the Southlanders and Númenóreans, thereby ensuring that there will be little resistance to his eventual takeover when he gets around to it.

There’s one wildcard that Sauron probably hasn’t taken into account, and that’s Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), a young boy who is now in possession of a magical sword bearing the mark of Sauron, which seems to have powers and detrimental side-effects like those of the Morgul-blades wielded by the Nazgûl in The Lord Of The Rings – except that Theo isn’t affected by these side-effects which appear to be leaving a toll on his friend Rowan (Ian Blackburn), and nor is the old barkeep Waldreg (Geoff Morell), in whose barn Theo discovered the sword. Waldreg even rolls up his sleeve to reveal that he repeatedly used the sword in the same way Theo has, by stabbing its hilt into his forearm to activate the blade with his blood. My guess is that they both come from a long lineage of Sauron-worshippers, but that doesn’t explain why Adar is so desperate to get his hands on this sword.

In a harrowing long-shot sequence that once again demonstrates why Middle-earth is a veritable playground for horror auteurs interested in experimenting with fantasy elements on a grand scale, Theo is hunted by Orcs through the burning ruins of his hometown, smoked out of various hiding-places, and eventually lured into the arms of Vrath (Jed Brophy), possibly the most genuinely terrifying Orc to date in any adaptation of Tolkien’s works – so naturally he, Vrath that is, is killed off immediately. The Rings Of Power has many more well-designed and almost entirely practical Orcs where he came from, but none played by Brophy, who gave Vrath a little more personality than your run-of-the-mill Orc.

The Orcs’ canonical aversion to sunlight is also being played up, which means that action scenes involving Orcs end abruptly as soon as the sun rises and begin again after nightfall, except indoors and underground – assuming The Rings Of Power remains consistent with regards to this, and the Orcs don’t suddenly develop an immunity to sunlight when it’s time for a battle, we could be in for some really compelling “keep them fighting until the dawn” type scenarios where the characters are worn down and exhausted, but still need to hold out for an hour more: a bit like how Gandalf defeated the Trolls in The Hobbit, but sans the ventriloquist act.

Something else I had written down in my notes – while Wayne Che Yip’s direction and cinematography remain superior to J.A. Bayona’s in my opinion, he needs to chill out with all the slow-motion, because after a certain point it starts to get really obnoxious. The use of slow-motion also particularly de-emphasizes the innate speed and agility of the Elves, which could be intentional if the idea here is still that the Elves are just ordinary people with an aloof attitude they haven’t earned, but given that this episode finds Elrond eavesdropping on Durin and Disa from at least a mile away with the help of his enhanced eyesight and hearing, I kinda wish The Rings Of Power would choose a direction and commit to it fully. Are the Elves “magical” or not? Do they have special abilities as a reward for being Eru’s favorite children, or is all that pro-Elf propaganda we’ve been fed in The Silmarillion merely lies, to paraphrase Adar?

Personally, I would admire The Rings Of Power greatly if it deconstructed some of Tolkien’s favorite problematic tropes (namely, as you can probably guess, the whole Race Of Inherently Beautiful People Predisposed Towards Good trope that has proved so popular with white supremacists over the years), and I feel like if ever there was an opportunity to do just that, it would be in a story that encompasses all the greatest failures of Men and Elves in the Second Age. Now that we’re halfway through the first season and I’ve seen what the series’ best writers are capable of, I’ve come to expect more from The Rings Of Power in this regard than the occasional threadbare metaphor for racism (we haven’t reached Shadow And Bone-level lows, thank goodness, but we’re too close for comfort). While the fast pacing doesn’t often allow for much nuance and depth, that’s a problem the writers and director need to sort out if they ever plan to tackle Akallabêth.

Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay (who co-wrote this episode along with Paper Girls‘ Stephany Folsom) have guaranteed that The Rings Of Power, with its bright color palette and heroic protagonists, welcomes no comparisons to House Of The Dragon – but that doesn’t mean it must shy away from being complex, even subversive, in the way Tolkien’s own writing increasingly grew to be as he revised it later in his life. Otherwise, it runs the risk of appearing merely trite, and no amount of lore sprinkled into the dialogue will be able to redeem it then.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

September 12, 2022

“The Rings Of Power” Episode 3 – New Allies And Enemies Arise In Númenor

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE THREE AHEAD!**

“Then the Edain set sail upon the deep waters, following the Star [of Eärendil]….and saw afar the land that was prepared for them, Andor, the Land of Gift, shimmering in a golden haze. Then they went up out of the sea and found a country fair and fruitful, and they were glad. And they called that land Elenna, which is Starwards; but also Anadûnê, which is Westernesse, Númenórë in the High Eldarin tongue.”

– The Silmarillion: Akallabêth, p. 311

Only the first two episodes of The Rings Of Power were given to critics to review before the series’ release, and now having seen the third episode I believe that was a mistake on Amazon’s part. As was originally reported by TheOneRing.net in July of 2021, the first two episodes back-to-back form a feature-length prologue to The Rings Of Power, which like most prologues puts worldbuilding ahead of plot development – and that in turn led many professional critics to describe the series as slow and dense, which are legitimate criticisms of the first two episodes (though I personally disagree, and would even go so far as to say the first two episodes were fast-paced to a fault). However, the same cannot be said of episode three, which swiftly moves the story along and ends on an excellent cliffhanger that is sure to entice viewers back next week.

The difference is in the direction. Wayne Che Yip, whom I previously accredited with fixing the early mistakes of Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time in its third episode, does the same for The Rings Of Power, and I hope that at this point he can truly level up as a director, past the point where Amazon only calls him in to put a fantasy series back on the right course after squandering two episodes. Yip brings a dynamism to The Rings Of Power that was absent throughout J.A. Bayona’s episodes, marked by their placid (albeit pleasing) cinematography and minimal stunt choreography. Under Yip’s direction, the camera and the characters are always in motion – even the lengthy dialogue sequences that Bayona rendered dry and lifeless go down easier, because Yip encourages his actors to move about, interacting freely with their environments and one another.

His one fault as a director is his proclivity for slow-motion, an overused effect in action films which can still be used to convey something more meaningful than the impact of a big explosion – but there’s a random quality to the scenes Yip shoots in slow-motion that suggests to me he’s just playing around with the effect to see what it can do for him, and somehow his experimental footage ended up in the final cut. In case it’s not immediately clear what I’m referring to, those bizarre thirty seconds of Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) riding a horse along the beach in slow-motion while grinning from ear-to-pointed-ear like she’s in an equestrian apparel commercial took me all the way out of the episode. I appreciate that we got to see her happy for once, but at what cost?

Slow-motion is generally less jarring when used in the heat of an action sequence, where it can give viewers a much-needed moment to catch their breath and get their bearings – and that is certainly one of its purposes in the climactic action sequence of episode three, although Yip again overdoes it slightly. The skirmish, which pits two Silvan Elves and a handful of disposable human extras against roughly fifteen Orcs and one rabid Warg in broad daylight, isn’t even so complex that slow-motion shots are necessary to help viewers follow along – honestly, as long as you can keep track of Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and the Warg, no one and nothing else is all that important to the outcome of the fight. It’s still a cool action sequence, however, and the Elven acrobatics are closer to what you’d expect from Peter Jackson’s films if that’s your thing.

But while an action sequence every now and again is a good thing to keep the stakes high, what really stood out to me about Arondir’s subplot in this week’s episode is that it would be right at-home amongst the pages of The Silmarillion, where there are already several stories of stoic Elven heroes forced to endure terrible suffering in captivity at the hands of Orcs, but few so intimate as this one. When ordered to uproot an old tree blocking the path which the Orcs have carved into the barren surface of the Southlands (what will later become known as Mordor), Arondir and his fellow Elves put their lives on the line to save the tree by suggesting they go around it, leading to the unceremonious execution of Arondir’s comrade, Médhor (Augustus Prew). Unwilling to let any more Elves die, Arondir tearfully agrees to fell the tree, but not before first asking for its forgiveness in the Quenya tongue of old. It’s a beautiful, tragic moment based in the deep knowledge that writers Justin Doble and Jason Cahill have of the lore (Doble snuck several Lord Of The Rings references into his writing on Stranger Things).

On the subject of lore, Amazon isn’t allowed to reference anything in The Silmarillion or Tolkien’s other posthumously published works by name unless it appears in The Lord Of The Rings or its appendices, but they can still convey a great deal of information through clever dialogue and subtle visual details, and that’s a loophole Wayne Che Yip, the writers, and production designer Ramsey Avery have taken advantage of at every possible opportunity – in the mixed architectural styles of Númenor, for instance, there are clear signs that the Edain are neglecting and even building over the ruins of Elven towers and citadels as they distance themselves from their immortal kinsfolk. What they’ve preserved are monumental statues of the Maiar responsible for guarding mariners on the open sea, Ossë and Uinen, and of the great mariner Eärendil with a seabird representing his shapeshifting wife Elwing. In Númenor’s Hall of Lore, a tapestry depicts the Star of Eärendil beaming down on the island realm’s first king, Elros, and his twin brother Elrond.

I hate to call these Easter eggs, because that term seems to be used primarily in relation to the Marvel Cinematic Universe these days, but fans of any franchise are much the same: we all get ridiculously excited over the most obscure bits and pieces of lore that only we can explain to our friends and family with the help of an hour-long PowerPoint presentation. The first two episodes of The Rings Of Power, which some critics said were “dense”, didn’t have many of those Easter eggs – probably because the writers and director hoped the show would be more accessible if it weren’t crammed full of references to things beyond their ability to explain. I absolutely get that. But also…I’ve been waiting for this moment.

For more casual viewers, however, this episode may be rather overwhelming as it abandons two major plotlines we followed consistently throughout episodes one and two (both of which ended on cliffhangers last week), while simultaneously introducing the entirely new region of Númenor and not one, not two, not even three or four, but five new characters: a few of whom are predestined to have equal importance to anyone we’ve already met. Not all are treated as such in this episode – for instance, one could easily make the mistake of assuming the character of Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle), still merely a counsellor to the Queen-Regent, has little to no significance in the overarching story – but be prepared to spend much more time with all these characters, as their story is the overarching story of Middle-earth’s Second Age. They’re not going anywhere.

And what of Númenor, the fabled island kingdom never before seen onscreen? Though nearly every wide-shot of the capital city is comprised entirely of CGI, large sections of the harbor and Court of the Kings were built as practical sets, decorated, furnished, and populated by crowds of actors and extras for weeks on end, giving each space that feeling of being lived-in that made Jackson’s adaptations so revolutionary for the fantasy genre at their time (though he erred, I feel, in designing Minas Tirith as a cold, oversized gray wedding-cake dropped in the middle of nowhere). On street-corners throughout the city, there are craftspeople and merchants representing every one of Númenor’s Guilds, puppet-shows providing the citizenry all the latest dramatized gossip (including a depiction of Galadriel rescuing the Queen-Regent from…Morgoth?), and open-air restaurants serving seafood. The city – indeed, the whole island – is unmistakably alive, and home to a resplendent culture.

The Númenórean culture created from scratch for The Rings Of Power is built around sea-worship, in what I suspect is a clever example of reverse-engineering (no spoilers, but if you know you know). For aid in actualizing this concept, the production design team and VFX artists have looked first to the seafaring cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean for inspiration. Númenor’s primary architectural influences range from Byzantine to vaguely Babylonian by way of the Greek islands. Its people wear Greek or Italian-Renaissance era garments and hairstyles (well, the extras do), while the royalty make use of nautical patterns, marine gemstones, and jewelry fashioned in the shape of sea-creatures and coral. Its ships have Egyptian or Phoenician silhouettes (although their wing-like sails are very loosely based on those of Chinese junks, with a fantastical twist meant to evoke the wings of Aragorn’s crown).

This is, after all, the land of Aragorn’s distant ancestors; a tall, hardy, and extremely long-lived branch of the human race who fought alongside Elves in the First Age and were rewarded for their sacrifices with the mountainous, many-sided island on which they now isolate themselves from Middle-earth’s troubles – and those of their fellow Men, whom they regard as generally inferior to themselves in every way. Through the character of Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), a Southlander whom we see beaten up, mocked, and derisively called “Low Man” by Númenóreans out looking for a fight, The Rings Of Power tentatively begins to explore this conflict which past adaptations have shied away from, either because it’s too complicated or because it’s uncomfortable to acknowledge that the crimes of Aragorn’s ancestors went far beyond their inability to dispose of the One Ring.

If The Rings Of Power doesn’t abruptly back out of this conversation with its hands in the air, as I still fear it might, the series could provide an entry-point into more challenging discussions around race and racism in Tolkien’s writings – because honestly, these are discussions we need to be having now more than ever. Feigning shock at the very notion that Tolkien’s works contain aspects of racist ideology, as many fans and scholars have in the past few weeks, isn’t how we combat the racists who have adopted the book as some kind of white supremacist myth. At the same time, I understand that many fans (particularly fans of color) want to see fantasy-worlds free of racism and bigotry, so it’s definitely a tricky situation.

On a similar note, the Harfoots in this episode are revealed to have a shockingly grim tradition of ableism in their community. While they get ready to embark on one of their annual migrations across Wilderland, with a procession of kids dressed as wolves and birds-of-prey all chanting the phrase “Nobody goes off-trail! Nobody walks alone!”, Largo Brandyfoot (Dylan Smith) tries to reassure his wife Marigold (Sara Zwangobani) that his broken ankle won’t be a problem for them and their family even though they both know the Harfoots will in fact – without any hesitation whatsoever – leave their weakest members to walk alone at the back of the caravan, where whatever happens to them ceases to be the community’s problem.

In the final, most horrific stage of this whole charade, Sadoc Burrows (Sir Lenny Henry) recites the names of all the Harfoots who died in the past year, either because they could not keep up – as I assume was the case with one Miles Brightapple, stuck in a mountain-pass…which in turn has me wondering if the Harfoots travel as far south as the Ered Lithui? – or for other terrible reasons, like the landslide that wiped out Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards)’s entire family or the wolves that got Daffodil Burrows, whom I assume had personal significance to Sadoc. The Harfoots’ response to tragedy is not to work together, but instead to prioritize the survival of a few while compartmentalizing their grief until it’s safe to mourn.

We see that attitude slowly beginning to change, however, as Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh)’s kindness towards others – which most of the Harfoots see as a weakness that will get her killed – actually results in not one but two friends coming to her rescue: first Poppy, who hangs back to help even though she could easily keep up with the others, and then the mysterious Stranger (Daniel Weyman), who understands, perhaps instinctively, that Elanor is in trouble and needs his help. This should have been the moment where the rest of the Harfoots came back to help too, but they made it abundantly clear that they don’t value friendships the way Elanor and her new found family do. Their loss.

While we’re on the subject, it’s heavily implied throughout this episode that the Stranger is not such a bad guy after all, though he still can’t coherently vocalize his own agenda in Middle-earth or explain why he occasionally murders fireflies, so the possibility remains that he’s not such a good guy, either. Maybe he’s somewhere in between. What is clear is that he’s looking for a particular constellation in the sky (or whatever it is that this constellation represents to him), one that Elanor is not familiar with, and he believes the Harfoots can lead him…somewhere he can see this constellation, possibly? That would presumably require a long journey to lands east and south of Wilderland “where the stars are strange”, according to Aragorn’s reports in the Third Age, but The Rings Of Power did promise to take us to “the furthest reaches of the map”.

If this is the case, and the Harfoots must take the Stranger east or south, it would certainly lend credence to the theory that he is one of the two Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando, who were sent to Middle-earth in the Second Age by the Valar to stir up resistance against Sauron behind the front-lines. The only problem with this theory, of course, is that the names of the two Blue Wizards and all the details of their accomplishments can only be found in Unfinished Tales, to which Amazon does not possess the rights…that, and we only saw one meteor streak across the sky in the first episode, although it’s possible the other Wizard was already in Middle-earth, or came from a different direction, or took a different mode of transportation entirely. It’s equally likely that the Stranger is just Gandalf.

Three episodes into The Rings Of Power, and our burning questions about the Stranger and about Sauron have yet to be answered: though we did find out that Sauron’s mysterious sigil, which he carved into Finrod’s chest and various other surfaces during the First Age, was in fact a highly-stylized map of Mordor meant to guide lost orcs into the embrace of a leader after the downfall of Morgoth. Frankly, I think that raises more questions than it answers (how did Sauron know Morgoth’s downfall was imminent? Why leave a map of his secret headquarters on a body he knew the Elves would take and analyze? Why is his plan only going into effect now, near the end of the Second Age?), but we don’t have time to address any of those questions in this episode.

We do apparently have time for an entirely unrelated mystery subplot involving Isildur (Maxim Baldry), whom we meet as a young man reluctantly training to be in the Númenórean navy, as he hears a voice calling him to the island’s western shores, the homeland of his paternal ancestors; this leads to a weird, vague conversation over dinner between Isildur and his father Elendil (Lloyd Owen) – and Isildur’s sympathetic sister Eärien (Ema Horvath), who has her own interesting journey ahead of her – in which Elendil warns Isildur that “the past is dead” and not to go down the same path as his brother Anárion…who is canonically younger than Isildur, so I’m not entirely sure what is going on here or whether we even need to care yet.

Then there’s a second new mystery subplot, currently unrelated to Sauron and at best only tangentially connected to Isildur and Elendil, one which involves Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), Queen-Regent of Númenor, and her father Tar-Palantír – who I believe are conspiring via a literal palantír to assist the Elves and their allies in Númenor. The timeline is being urgently sped up, and the divisions between Elf-friends (who still worship the Valar) and King’s Men (those who worship the divinely-appointed human rulers of Númenor) are already so prominent that Elendil is fearful to even translate his Quenya name, which just means “Lover of the Stars” but was also historically used to mean “Elf-friend”.

If you can believe it, there’s a third new mystery – but this one actually is connected to Sauron. Adar, the Sindarin Elvish word for “Father” from which this episode derives its title, is a word we first hear whispered by the orcs in a reverent tone as they punish their prisoners, and we soon learn that it’s a title by which they address their leader, whom we glimpse at the very end of the episode emerging from the shadows to interrogate Arondir, the only survivor of a failed prison-break that claimed the life of his comrade, Revion (Simon Merrells, very well-cast as an Elf but gone too soon). Adar, whose true name is probably of great lore significance, has long dark hair framing a gaunt, pale face…and if you’re not up-to-date with Rings Of Power leaks, that might be all you know of him just yet, so I’ll say no more for fear of spoiling casual viewers.

That’s where we leave Arondir and the rest of our characters for the week, and that’s where I must now leave you too (unless you want me to start rambling on about my new favorite characters, Poppy and Eärien, because I can and I will if left unchecked), but not before delivering my final verdict. The Rings Of Power‘s third episode is far and away its strongest, boosted effortlessly to the top of my rankings by a balance of high-stakes drama and action, grand spectacle, deep-cut lore for the fans, and heart most crucial of all – and even a dash of romantic chemistry, if you want to interpret Galadriel and Halbrand’s interactions that way. Wayne Che Yip has done it again, but this time on an even bigger scale than with The Wheel Of Time, and I could not be more excited for the episodes ahead of us that he directed.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10

September 6, 2022

“The Rings Of Power” Episode 2 Reminds Us What Tolkien’s Writing Is All About

**MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE TWO AHEAD!**

“There is a seed of courage hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid hobbit, waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow….[Frodo] thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey.”

– The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, Fog On The Barrow-Downs, p. 140

There is a hint of irony in the title of The Rings Of Power‘s second episode, Adrift – for while we find our main characters cast off-course both literally and figuratively in episode two, this is also where the The Rings Of Power finds itself, and begins to deliver on its initial promise of unprecedentedly epic storytelling grounded in relatable human dynamics. As our characters drift further from familiar shores into dark and dangerous waters populated by the foulest of beasts, each of them transforms before our eyes into capable heroes, moved to decisive action by the sudden germination of that “seed of courage” within their hearts – a seed which in some cases, is buried deep in darkness, as Tolkien wrote. But as Elrond (Robert Aramayo) says of a mallorn sapling growing in the underground kingdom of Khazad-dûm, “where there is love it is never truly dark”.

And it is love – in all its varied forms – that drives the characters throughout the second episode, leading them to do both great and foolish things in its name. For love of Middle-earth, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) abandons the ship that would have taken her safely back to Valinor and swims the entire breadth of the Sundering Seas. For love of Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), and to a lesser extent for her kinsfolk, Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) investigates a network of tunnels built by orcs underneath the village of Tirharad, while Bronwyn, for love of her son, Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), takes on an orc that got into her home. For love of a complete stranger, Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) hides a secret from her family – one which could put all the Harfoots at risk.

Coming on the heels of a pilot episode that struggled to eloquently and concisely convey what The Rings Of Power was actually about, or how it stands apart from House Of The Dragon, The Witcher, and The Wheel Of Time, among other fantasy series’ currently on television, this episode’s clear focus on love as a catalyst for acts of courage ensures that there will be no doubt in viewers’ minds as to what kind of story this is – a decidedly earnest fantasy that seeks to uplift its audiences. That’s not to say The Rings Of Power doesn’t have dark and occasionally disturbing moments throughout, or that it won’t gradually become darker in future seasons when we get to the bits with human sacrifice and genocide in them, but there’s a fine line to be walked between exploring the darkness and actually reveling in it – one which Tolkien arguably never crossed, and which I don’t expect Rings Of Power to cross any time soon, either.

Besides, when so many of these characters are as endearing as they are because they love deeply and unapologetically, there’s no rush to put them in situations just yet where their love and unwavering faith in something greater than themselves isn’t enough to save the day. There’ll be plenty of time for that in later seasons. Right now, it’s crucial that our protagonists understand what it is to triumph, even if those triumphs are small and short-lived, so that every setback on the path ahead will hurt them – and us – twice as hard as it would otherwise. To use an example from The Lord Of The Rings, it would be a lot harder to empathize with Frodo’s suffering under the oppressive weight of the One Ring if we hadn’t already seen him at his strongest, spiritually, when that seed of courage awoke within him beneath the Barrow-downs.

The brief, triumphant moments we share with our characters in this episode hit me in the feels, though to varying degrees depending on which storylines I felt were generally well-executed and which needed a couple more refinements. Elanor Brandyfoot’s clumsy efforts at communication with the mysterious Stranger (Daniel Weyman) who fell out of the sky in episode one, culminating in her earning his trust enough that he no longer wails in fear every time she spooks him, belong squarely in the former category, because while not the most action-packed subplot by any means, there’s real emotional heft to every interaction between the two.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Galadriel’s victory over the perils of the Sundering Sea didn’t resonate with me as strongly, because the perils in question turn out to be weightless in comparison to everything she’s already confronted and conquered in her life (even her hotly-anticipated underwater encounter with a sea monster lasts all of ten seconds before she escapes by simply…swimming in the opposite direction), and because the only thing gained from this subplot is Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), a shipwrecked Southlander who shares with Galadriel the first hard evidence that Sauron has returned. Given that Halbrand’s character is fairly unimpressive, and that Vickers’ performance gets only a “let’s wait and see” out of me, I’m not sure that we gained more than we potentially lost in the ten to fifteen minutes this subplot eats up.

And I’m still salty that the sea monster fight never materialized! As someone who’s equal parts fascinated by the sea and terrified of what lurks beneath its surface, I was really looking forward to an action-sequence like nothing we’d ever seen before in the legendarium or its adaptations – but either the budget couldn’t support such an action-sequence (I find that hard to believe), or it got cut for time (which I can believe, because television executives are always making stupid decisions like that). At least the monster took out all of Halbrand’s equally irritating crewmates before vanishing back into the ocean depths.

While we’re on the subject of action, I must admit that The Rings Of Power is severely lacking in this department – and it can’t exclusively be due to budgetary concerns, because even action-sequences requiring relatively little CGI fizzle out before they get started. My best guess is that, in an effort to conceal instances of poor fight choreography and protect the dignity of actors still mostly new to wielding swords and axes, these sequences were edited to the point where they now hardly exist. The exception to the rule is the second episode’s fast-paced, close-quarters brawl involving Bronwyn, her son Theo, and a single orc that claws through the floorboards of Bronwyn’s home. A single orc might not sound so bad when we’ve seen swarms of them onscreen before, but through the lens of The Orphanage director J.A. Bayona, this orc has all the presence of a slasher-movie villain; its movements slow and purposeful, its design genuinely grotesque (those practical effects are just…*chef’s kiss*), and its fate appropriately gruesome.

But the sequence is still too short, and the orc doesn’t rack up any kills the way a slasher-movie villain should. I mention this only because I think The Rings Of Power‘s stakes are still somewhat unclear after two episodes (a little Sauron does not go a long way, as I wrote in my review of episode one), and a minor character’s death at the hands of an orc would have made a big difference. I suppose there’s still time for that, but the stakes diminish slightly whenever characters walk unscathed from a fight, and so far that’s all they’ve done (well, with the exception of Galadriel’s brother Finrod, but we hardly knew him and he died offscreen). Arondir gets captured by orcs, but I’m fairly certain he’ll escape by the end of episode three and return to Tirharad to help Bronwyn muster the Southlanders to her cause.

Theoretically, however, the stakes are ridiculously high right from the get-go – we’re talking end of the world, end of life as we know it, all that good stuff. That’s what Galadriel claims will happen if Sauron’s imminent return is unchallenged, and although we have yet to see much (or, come to think of it, any) proof of her claims, I’ve read The Lord Of The Rings and its appendices, so I know she’s right, and I know there will be many opportunities in the near future for us to see Sauron in action, so we never have to end up in a Game Of Thrones type situation where they keep telling us a bad thing is gonna happen, but then when it happens, it’s actually not that bad.

In this case, the bad thing really is gonna happen and it’s gonna be worse than Galadriel could have possibly predicted (the source material being written already makes that a guarantee). But that’s several seasons down the line, and The Rings Of Power needs to start laying the groundwork now for the bad thing to happen then, so that viewers who haven’t read the books and don’t remember the movies know what this is all building towards. So far, the prologue’s attention-grabbing aerial battle between Morgoth’s fell beasts and a giant eagle of Manwë is still more visually impressive than anything Sauron has done (onscreen, to be clear), even during the First Age of Middle-earth.

On the margins of the main story, where the stakes are still high but not quite so unfathomable, it’s easier to convey the consequences a minor slip-up could have, and this ties into my earlier point regarding the joyful and triumphant moments we need to share with the characters – because while you can kinda get away with being vague about what the end of the world really means (the fantasy genre’s been doing that forever, and the appeal hasn’t worn off), when the stakes are small they need to be clear. And The Rings Of Power mostly succeeds on this front, especially where the Harfoots are concerned: from the moment they’re both introduced, we’re first shown and then frequently reminded that the Harfoots are a nomadic people who survive by moving out of harm’s way in a twinkling. So when Elanor’s father, Largo Brandyfoot (Dylan Smith), breaks his ankle, we understand immediately that the consequences this could have on Elanor’s family and the entire community are devastating.

Likewise, I’m invested in Elrond’s storyline not because I particularly care whether he’s successful in brokering a deal with the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm on behalf of Lord Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), but because it turns out that there’s a lot more at stake here for Elrond than he let on – his friendship with the Dwarven prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur) is riding on this, and Durin already feels betrayed by Elrond for missing his wedding, the birth of his children, and a whole bunch of other milestones in Durin’s relatively short life that Elrond, as an immortal Elf, forgot were important. Whether or not you can relate to that exact experience, most of us have been in roughly analogous situations.

And if you’ve ever had to mediate between two estranged friends (or frankly, even if you haven’t), I think you’ll be drawn to the character of Disa (Sophia Nomvete), Durin’s wife and Elrond’s only other close acquaintance amongst the Dwarves, to whom both turn for help in getting through to the other over an awkward dinner. Mediation is Disa’s primary role throughout this episode, where she indeed appears only briefly, but we learn so many interesting details about her, and Nomvete’s performance is instantly so warm and heartfelt, that I feel as though we’re only scratching the surface of what could be done with her character – a “Resonator” responsible for singing to Khazad-dûm, not its people but its stones.

Resonators like Disa are a welcome new addition to the lore, which has surprisingly little to say regarding Dwarven culture and customs even in the Third Age, much less the Second. If The Rings Of Power freely invents original material here and in other corners of Middle-earth, it’s because there’s plenty of space in this sandbox to flesh out all the characters that to Tolkien were just names on a family-tree, and reconstruct from imagination all the great cities that the Fellowship of the Ring never got to see when they hurried across Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age. It’s not lore-breaking to let “other minds and hands” add to the great tales Tolkien left behind.

In one particularly beautiful example of this, The Rings Of Power‘s unconventional (but decidedly charming) version of Celebrimbor regales Elrond with a story of the First Age that comes to us not from The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, but from the writers’ own imagination – and the potent simplicity of the story they’ve created, one in which the Great Foe Morgoth gazes so long upon the beauty of the Silmarils that he weeps a single tear in which his terrible visage is reflected, finally breaking the spell Fëanor’s work had cast over him, is so evocative of Tolkien’s own writing that I had to double-check to make sure this detail wasn’t mentioned in any of the published works. The deliberate caveat that this story is merely a legend amongst the Elves means that you can integrate it into your readings of The Silmarillion or disregard it entirely, if for whatever reason it doesn’t work for you.

So, as sacrilegious as it may be to say this, maybe original content can be good sometimes, actually? Maybe there’s beauty to be found in these stories that don’t have a basis in the canon but still encapsulate the integral themes of Tolkien’s Second Age writings, besides being – for the most part – really well-written, well-acted, and visually spectacular in their own right?

I don’t know about you, but I’ll not soon forget the experience of seeing Khazad-dûm revealed in all its ancient glory on the biggest screen possible (I was lucky enough to attend a theatrical screening of the first two episodes). As Bayona’s camera swooped through an underground wonderland awash with blazing sunlight, capturing and crystallizing every last detail at which the author’s pen can only hope to indicate, all the while accompanied by Bear McCreary’s bellowing Dwarven theme (which has been stuck in my head for the past several days), I realized that whatever other sensations The Rings Of Power evokes in me, first and foremost among those will always be love for Middle-earth – of that, I’m already confident.

I love being back in this world where love is a power innate to all people that can awaken in them the capacity for earth-shaking heroism, and the fact that The Rings Of Power conveys all that in just the first two episodes is why my eyes are brimming with tears just writing these words, because even if all the new fans introduced to Middle-earth by way of this series never continue on to the books (though many will, I’m sure), in the end I believe The Rings Of Power is worthy to stand alongside a handful of other great adaptations of Tolkien’s works that get it. This is a story about love. I sincerely doubt that Jeff-I-Want-My-Game–Of–Thrones-Bezos knew when he commissioned this project that what he’d get would be the literal antithesis to the harsh cynicism of Thrones and its successors, but based on The Rings Of Power‘s global viewership numbers, it looks like love wins.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

September 2, 2022

“Rings Of Power” Episode 1 Sets The Stage For An Epic Tale

**MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE ONE!**

“Among those of [Morgoth’s] servants that have names the greatest was that spirit whom the Eldar called Sauron..,.in all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself. But in after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void.”

– The Silmarillion: Valaquenta, p. 23

Although Amazon was denied access to the contents of The Silmarillion (and it’s evident from the opening scene just to what extent this has hindered their ability to tell a coherent story), The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power is best described as a Silmarillion sequel of similarly gargantuan proportions, and not as a prequel to The Lord Of The Rings, despite how Amazon and the mainstream media have jointly marketed the series, and what its long and unwieldy full title would perhaps lead you to believe…and I mean that not merely in the sense that The Rings Of Power picks up right where The Silmarillion left off, with the great enemy Morgoth defeated and his lieutenant Sauron still evading capture in Middle-earth, but in that the writers have constructed an original story around these events that feels almost too large for even this largest and most expensive of television series’ – a grand and somber narrative spanning centuries, with a massive ensemble cast given precious few moments to leave a lasting impression in these first two episodes.

Yet on that note, there are hundreds upon hundreds of named characters in The Silmarillion, many of whom only stick around for a couple of pages and some of whom are mentioned just once or twice in a single paragraph, and these characters have nonetheless made an impression on people – so I firmly believe that the protagonists of Amazon’s epic series will do the same, especially seeing as the main cast already have more screentime in just two episodes than most of The Silmarillion‘s main characters had in a whole book. Still not as much as they deserve, mind you, but just enough that you’ll know going into episode three which of these characters you’ll want to spend more time with – and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that, for me, those characters are Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), Elrond (Robert Aramayo), and Disa (Sophia Nomvete), the latter of whom I’ll speak about in my review of episode two.

Collectively, these three characters represent almost all the Free Peoples of Middle-earth – Harfoots, Elves, and Dwarves, respectively – and at this point I’m just waiting for a charismatic human character to come along and give me a reason to get invested in the dealings of Men. Nazanin Boniadi does her level best with the character of Bronwyn, a shy and unassuming single mother from the Southlands who falls in love with a Silvan Elf, but humans in The Rings Of Power are the most underwritten of all the races that make up Middle-earth’s diverse population. To some extent, that could be interpreted as a reflection of their current social status in Middle-earth and an unconscious bias on the part of our Elven protagonists and narrator, but I have a feeling it’s probably not intentional.

Nonetheless, with so many different peoples represented in just the first two episodes, even if only briefly, the scope of this series is quite large – as I said, almost too large. In episode one, following a necessarily vague and therefore somewhat unhelpful prologue that is memorable mostly for the fact that it’s the first time we’ve seen events from The Silmarillion adapted for the screen, we flash-forward to find our main characters scattered far and wide across Middle-earth, each isolated to their own little corner of the map where they can pursue their own agendas untroubled. And while I’m hardly the first person to say this, it bears repeating that each location we visit is distinct and extraordinarily beautiful, from the rolling hills of Valinor bathed in unearthly light to the cliffs of Lindon overlooking the young sea, and the tumbling ladders of crystalline ice suspended from mountaintops in the Forodwaith.

In fact, not to get side-tracked or anything, but I can’t overstate it enough that The Rings Of Power is beautiful; genuinely some of the most beautiful television ever produced. Director J.A. Bayona definitely got the memo that Middle-earth is as much a character in Tolkien’s stories as any Elf or Hobbit, and just as deserving of flattering close-ups every now and again. If there’s one fault with Bayona’s direction, it’s that whenever his camera comes to rest just over a character’s shoulder during a reverse-angle dialogue sequence, he has a tendency to leave it there for the duration of the scene, which grows especially frustrating when the environments in which these characters are placed are clearly practical sets demanding – nay, pleading – to be interacted with and walked upon! I’m not feeling the energy that these sets inspired in the actors, and which they could have used to their advantage if they were allowed to ever move about.

Anyway, forgive me my occasional tangents. We’re first introduced to the Elves – an immortal race of beings from beyond the Sundering Seas who reside in Middle-earth partly out of genuine love for the land, and partly because the land was bought with their own blood. Characters like Elrond, who are relatively young in Elven years, have a vision of what Middle-earth could be if the Elves finally laid down their weapons and allowed themselves to be at peace for once in their lives, while Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is still poking around in dark corners, searching for any sign of Sauron, the undefeated enemy responsible for so much of her sorrow.

Conceptually, Galadriel’s arc is quite the compelling one – and the idea that there are Elves who wish for her to stop, and would even conspire with each other to send her packing and put an end to the war she insists on prolonging for her own purposes, is all rather fascinating. In execution, it only works half the time. Legally, The Rings Of Power can’t plumb the depths of Galadriel’s trauma without encroaching upon territory covered exclusively in The Silmarillion, including the gruesome details of her elder brother Finrod (Will Fletcher)’s death at the hands of Sauron. We only spend a few moments with Finrod in waking life before he’s dead, suddenly, at which point Galadriel embarks on her quest for vengeance.

Galadriel has been hunting Sauron for centuries by the time we catch up with her in the Northern Wastes, and is still hot on his heels, but we as the audience are only allowed one quick glimpse of the Dark Lord (conveniently wearing a familiar suit of full-body armor) – and while we can all agree that he looks absolutely fantastic, I can’t help but wonder if one shot is enough to convince fans, particularly casual fans who aren’t aware of the atrocities Sauron committed while serving under Morgoth, just what a threat he poses to Middle-earth. Sure, poisoned cow’s milk in Tirharad and decayed mallorn leaves in Lindon are an indication that he’s probably up to no good, but until orcs start popping up in the Southlands in episode two, the only tangible antagonist is a single hungry snow-troll that stupidly attempts to ambush Galadriel in a cave.

Still, one could argue that the Elves are the antagonists of their own story – for indeed, it’s their pride, their stubbornness, and their misplaced confidence in their own might that leads the High King of the Noldor, Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker), to dismiss all of the evidence piling up as just a string of coincidences out of which Galadriel has constructed a false narrative that Sauron has returned. In that sense, too, The Rings Of Power is much like The Silmarillion: for at their core they are both stories of Elven failings. Where the stories may differ slightly, and where The Rings Of Power certainly differs from previous adaptations of Tolkien’s work, is that The Rings Of Power doesn’t depict the Elves as ethereal or untouchable to the point where their aloof attitude is ever justified.

Nor are they capable of the same gravity-defying feats that Peter Jackson’s Elves effortlessly pulled off in The Hobbit trilogy. In fact, physically, they’re almost indistinguishable from humans. Some might consider this a downgrade – personally, I find it to be an intriguing stylistic choice that unexpectedly serves a thematic purpose in the story. For if Elves look just like humans, and they act just like humans, then the only thing differentiating them from humans is their immortality – and for a human, to look at an Elf and see nothing there so vastly different from themselves that it could be said to warrant the gift of immortal life being bestowed to one and not the other, that would be weird and a little conflicting. On top of that, the Elves and humans are still pretty close in the Second Age, so these are people the humans know well, and regard as friends, if not nearly family.

Well, mostly. In Middle-earth’s Southlands, where Elves were assigned to watch over the descendants of humans who followed Morgoth during the First Age, there’s a clear divide between the two peoples that is widening with each passing day – and only Bronwyn and a Silvan Elf named Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) have any interest in bridging that divide. While their relationship is described in romantic terms by supporting characters in-universe (Arondir is harshly reminded by his Elven compatriots that two prior unions between Elves and Men ended tragically), I have not yet discerned this apparently palpable chemistry of which they speak. It’s only when the two characters find themselves suddenly standing on the front lines of the war for Middle-earth that I was even convinced they cared for each other.

Still, while neither Arondir nor Bronwyn is particularly high on my list of characters I cared about deeply after watching the first two episodes, I’m nonetheless curious about life in the Southlands for both the Silvan Elves and the descendants of Morgoth’s worshippers, and I wish The Rings Of Power used its time as wisely as it did its enormous budget; perhaps then we could have explored the conflict between Elves and Men with some proper nuance and avoided awkward moments…like when a kid refers to Arondir by the name “Knife-Ears” (I need writers to stop inventing fantasy slurs, please for the love of Eru, stop), or when Arondir tells Bronwyn that the residents of a nearby village were especially loyal to Morgoth in the old days, as if it hasn’t been over a thousand years since then – you’re telling me that the people of these two neighboring villages didn’t intermingle and intermarry to the point where such labels would be meaningless after a few generations?

I suppose it’s not so bizarre that an Elf would think that way, but that one line – well, that and Bronwyn’s immediate rebuttal that the people in the village are “good people”, close kin of hers – doesn’t make for the most thorough exploration of the subject. And unfortunately, Bronwyn is interrupted before she can say anything more, when she and Arondir find the village in question deserted. That’s the end of that conversation, and as of episode two the writers have not yet picked up this story-thread again.

That sort of thing happens a lot in the first two episodes of The Rings Of Power (not that specific scenario, just scenes being interrupted before they can reach their seemingly natural conclusion), which is why I take issue with complaints that the pacing is slow. I felt as though the first episode raced by! The moments that stand out to me in these episodes, generally, are the still and contemplative moments that have been given space to breathe – when the show isn’t rushing on to the next thing but instead allowing us to live in the present with characters we adore, set amidst beautiful scenery or on any of those magnificent practical sets I mentioned before. I think that’s one reason why both Elrond and Elanor got through to me, because they’re the two characters who benefit most from such moments in the first episode.

The time we spend with the Harfoots in episode one, for example, is time well-spent establishing characters and character dynamics that will be easy to remember going forward. Elanor Brandyfoot is an inquisitive young Harfoot who wants to see the great wide world off the beaten path that the Harfoots take each year as they migrate back-and-forth across the same familiar patch of land in Rhovanion (a patch of land that by the time of The Lord Of The Rings had become an “unfriendly waste”, blasted by some “pestilence or war or evil deed of the Enemy” – so make a mental note of that). Her best friend, Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards), is the prehistoric Samwise Gamgee to her prehistoric Frodo Baggins; well, perhaps not quite as fascinated by Elves as Sam would be, but no less willing to help her friend out of a tight situation at a moment’s notice.

Even outside of these two characters, I felt that we really got to know the Harfoots, individually and collectively, who they are and what they stand for, as they spend the entire first episode preparing for a festival to mark the end of summer (who wants to bet it’s held on September 22nd?), while avoiding “Big People” and other dangerous creatures wandering across their lands. There are several character actors with small but memorable roles sprinkled amongst the Harfoots, including legendary British comedian Sir Lenny Henry as an elderly sage named Sadoc Burrows who is in possession of the Harfoots’ only book – and is the only Harfoot capable of reading it. Thusitha Jayasundera is also delightful as Malva, a gossip constantly prophesying doom who hangs around Sadoc in the hopes that he’ll spill some secrets from his dusty old book.

Because it’s not until the very end of episode one that something momentous actually happens to the Harfoots in the form of an old man falling from the sky (more on him in my review of episode two), the Harfoots are, for the time being, relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. As Elanor’s mother Marigold (Sara Zwangobani) tries to explain to her, the Harfoots don’t need to get involved in Big People business because they have each other, they always have and they always will, and that’s always been enough. Therefore, while it comes as no surprise that the Harfoots are easily the most endearing characters in The Rings Of Power, I was personally shocked to discover that their subplot is also one of the most interesting, even before the arrival of the aforementioned Stranger (Daniel Weyman).

Of course, it’s because the Harfoots make the most of their limited screentime that this is the case – and I’m sure I’d feel the same way about Elves or Men if we had spent a little more time getting to know them as actual characters – but I think part of it, at least for me, is that the Harfoots, alone of all the Free Peoples we’ve met (with the possible exception of the Dwarves, but they don’t show up until episode two), are unfamiliar in a way that is particularly immersive, because it underscores how far removed this story is from the events of The Lord Of The Rings.

To put it another way, when we first enter the Elf-kingdom of Lindon in episode one, I felt at-home right away because The Rings Of Power uses all the same design cues for the Elves and their architecture that Peter Jackson did – Lindon is, much like Jackson’s interpretation of Rivendell, a web of open-concept porticos and colonnades draped across cliffs and autumnal woodlands. It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it does make me feel as though I’m returning to Middle-earth the way that Peter Jackson conceived it, when really I want to see something different, something new (is it any wonder Elanor is my favorite character?). When we meet the Harfoots, living not yet in cozy holes in the ground but in tents and small carts in the middle of the woods, rather like the Nelwyn from 1988’s Willow…that was the moment Rings Of Power first pulled me out of my comfort-zone, and it felt wonderful.

In that moment, I wasn’t returning to Middle-earth – I was being reintroduced to this world and these characters as I’ve never seen them before onscreen or even in the pages of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. I can predict each step the Harfoots will have to take for them to transform over time into the Hobbits of the Third Age, but I’m enjoying this take on the Harfoots so much that I don’t need to see them evolve any time soon – and in just five seasons, I don’t know that The Rings Of Power could even believably get them to the point where they’d be recognizable from The Lord Of The Rings, decked out with late 19th Century accoutrements like pocket-watches, parasols, and floral-printed waistcoats with brass buttons.

That being said, The Rings Of Power covers over five-hundred years of Middle-earth’s history in a prologue under five minutes long (though there’s enough intentionally vague imagery in there that you’ll still want to check out my recent Silmarillion summary so you can pick up on easily-overlooked details) before jumping forward a few thousand years to an indeterminate point on the timeline somewhere near the end of the Second Age, so it’s clear now that the writers are taking many liberties with the chronology where they feel it suits their story to have, say, Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) alive simultaneously to the last Númenóreans.

I can’t honestly say that it bothers me every time the Tale of Years has been slightly altered, but I do find it strange that the character dynamics amongst the Elves don’t at all reflect their canonical age differences – Elrond and Galadriel, for instance, speak to each other as if they’re roughly the same age, when in truth Galadriel is anywhere between 5000 to 24000 years old in The Rings Of The Power, while Elrond, at a mere 1500 years old, is young enough to be her future son-in-law. Gil-galad and Celebrimbor are a generation younger than Galadriel, yet both are played as if they’re much older, and portrayed by middle-aged actors to boot.

I have no desire to dissect every moment in the first episode that I would consider “lore-breaking”, because inevitably that will turn into nit-picking and in fact I’m quite satisfied with how The Rings Of Power has turned out, so if that’s the kind of coverage you’re expecting I urge you to continue your search elsewhere besides my blog. Just to give you a sense of what kind of thing irritated me, and because I think it will irritate me for a long time yet and I need to share this burden with my readers, I was…deeply conflicted when Gil-galad granted Galadriel permission to return across the Sundering Seas to Valinor, as if he possessed the authority to do so. On the one hand, I understand that it would be exceedingly difficult to explain why Galadriel is banned from heading west without mentioning her crimes against the Valar in the First Age that Amazon can’t legally mention, but also…it just felt so wrong.

On a more positive note, while I expected to be extremely critical of the original dialogue written for The Rings Of Power, I can only think of a few instances from the first episode where a line was poorly-written or its delivery fell flat. For the most part, Amazon’s writers did an admirable job of mimicking Tolkien’s signature style without ever reusing or misappropriating lines from The Lord Of The Rings. But given how high the bar is that they’ve set for themselves, every occasion on which they fail to clear that bar – in the first episode, the worst line of dialogue is undoubtedly “Elf-lords only” – will momentarily break the immersion.

What will draw you back in again, whether you’re a diehard fan or someone just looking for a cool new show to watch over the weekend, are the characters (whom you really can’t help but root for), and the visual splendor on display in every frame of these first two episodes. After finishing these episodes, you may feel – as I do – that the story still needs a little more time to solidify into the firm backbone required of a multi-season series and a potential billion-dollar investment on Amazon’s part, but if Amazon (and audiences) are willing to give The Rings Of Power the time it needs to do just that, it could quickly grow to become what it already aspires to be: a worthy sequel to The Silmarillion.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10