“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.

Rings Of Power
The Court of the Kings | aboutamazon.com

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.

Rings Of Power
Elros and Elrond | otakukart.com

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.

Rings Of Power
Númenor | nerdist.com

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.

Rings Of Power
Largo, Elanor, and Poppy | slashfilm.com

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.

Rings Of Power
The Stranger | gamesradar.com

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.

Rings Of Power
Adar | express.co.uk

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

“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”.

Rings Of Power
Galadriel and Halbrand | meaww.com

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.

Rings Of Power
Poppy Proudfellow and Elanor Brandyfoot | cinemablend.com

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.

Rings Of Power
Bronwyn, Theo, Arondir, and Halbrand | wall.alphacoders.com

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.

Rings Of Power
Durin IV and Disa | theonering.net

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.

Rings Of Power
Khazad-dûm | chicagotoday.news

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-GameOfThrones-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