Poppy Proudfellow Archives - The Wide Screen

September 21, 2024

“The Rings Of Power” Season 2, Episode 4 Indulges In Fan Service

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

Although the term “fan service” used to refer primarily to random scenes of female nudity or gratuitous violence in Japanese anime and manga, in recent decades it has come to be more broadly defined as anything included in a piece of media to please the perceived target demographic, usually the diehard fans of the universe to which that piece of media belongs: and it can range from the inoffensive (a meaningful reference or detail only fans will catch) to the in-your-face (shoehorning in a beloved character just to have them do or say “the thing”, or revisiting an established location when any other would have sufficed). As a rule of thumb, fan service should only have a small, positive impact on a person’s enjoyment of the story being told. It shouldn’t be the story.

Markella Kavenagh as Elanor Brandyfoot in The Rings Of Power. She has short, curly brown hair, and wears a dark green blouse. A disc of silver hangs on a cord around her neck. — Elanor Brandyfoot | youtube.com

Shouldn’t be, I say, but it all too often is, because in every fandom there are some who believe that the sole purpose of stories is to service them, and who consequently treat storytellers as fan servants, with whom they can be as cruel and demanding as they like. These fans do not want their favorite franchises to offer them anything new or unfamiliar – and since they tend to be conservative, straight, cisgender white men, that inevitably includes anyone who doesn’t look like them. Unfortunately, these people have a way of amassing power and influence over fandom spaces by claiming to want what’s best for the fans, and then act as gatekeepers, which is why studios insist on courting them even though it’s been proven time after time that franchises which bend over backwards to try and placate these fans leave themselves nowhere to grow, and for nothing, because these fans will never be satisfied, especially not if they know they can wield their power and influence to prevent their favorite franchises from ever evolving or experimenting, as happened just recently with The Acolyte.

Amazon reportedly has no intention of ending The Rings Of Power prematurely, which is reassuring to hear, but they’re still making efforts to reach “fans” (loiterers, at this point, seems a more accurate term for them) who claim to hate the show; an admirable and probably pointless endeavor, if even the overt fan service in the first season, of both the innocuous and egregious varieties, wasn’t enough. The very act of compressing the three-thousand year timeline of the Second Age, making it possible for the show to adapt all of the major events of the Age without having to switch out the entire human cast between seasons, was a kind of fan service. Bringing in proto-Hobbits and a wizard heavily implied to be Gandalf is fan service as far as I’m concerned, since these characters have yet to fold back into the overarching narrative (and, in fact, stray further afield with each passing episode).

In its second season, and particularly in episode four, The Rings Of Power doubles down on aggressively targeting people who will never admit to watching the show regardless of whether they do, when it should be focused on telling a cohesive story. With everything else the show is trying to accomplish in just eight episodes, there’s simply not enough time to squeeze in appearances from Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear), the Barrow-wights, Shelob (in episode three, but she still counts) and the Ents – none of whom have any good reason to be here, with the possible exception of Tom (ironically the last character who should ever need a good reason for anything).

It would be one thing if we didn’t know about most of these cameos beforehand – then at least the shock of seeing a Barrow-wight or an Ent would distract, on an initial viewing, from how extraneous their few scenes really are. But Amazon put it all in the marketing. We’d seen pretty much the entirety of the Barrow-wights sequence, for example, split up across various trailers, teasers, and behind-the-scenes clips long before the episode dropped. Though, to be honest, that was only one of several factors in why that particular scene fell flat for me, not least of which had to do with the atrocious optics of introducing a new Elf, Daemor, played by a Black actor, Oliver Alvin-Wilson, and then killing him off almost immediately; the only casualty of the wights. Never mind that what makes the encounter with the wights so terrifying in The Lord Of The Rings is that they didn’t kill their victims straightaway, instead putting them to sleep and dressing their bodies in the garments and jewelry of the barrows’ original occupants for uncertain, but obviously ritualistic, purposes. The Rings Of Power‘s Barrow-wights are just your run-of-the-mill reanimated skeletons, and not scary in the slightest.

Shot from below looking up at Robert Aramayo as Elrond and Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, standing near the broken edge of an elevated stone walkway through a pine forest. Elrond has short tousled brown hair and wears a gray cloak over a pale yellowish-gray tunic. Galadriel has long blonde hair in a braid, and wears a gray cloak over a silver tunic with a quiver of arrows strapped to her back. — Elrond and Galadriel on the Axa Bridge | youtube.com

Even before they showed up, the wights were getting on my nerves, because I could sense the characters were being forcefully shoved in their direction. My internal alarm bells started ringing when Elrond (Robert Aramayo) mentioned crossing the “Axa Bridge” to reach Eregion. “That’s funny,” I said to myself, “I don’t know an Axa Bridge.” As it turns out, there’s a good reason for that. It was made up for the show, and crosses the River Baranduin south of the Old Forest, on a road leading through the hills of Tyrn Gorthad (better known as the Barrow-downs). All of which is fine. There could conceivably have been a bridge there in the Second Age. It’s just…there’s no reason for Elrond and his company, speeding across Eriador, to go anywhere near it. Draw a straight line from Lindon to the capital city of Eregion on a map of Middle-earth and it takes you across the Baranduin at Sarn Ford, many miles to the south of the non-canonical Axa Bridge, which (according to the map shown in the episode) would have taken Elrond’s company northeast, out of the way entirely.

And that’s not even the most confusing part, nor is it when the group reaches the Axa Bridge, and it’s revealed to span an impassable canyon, deep and wide with sheer sides (on the eastern border of what becomes the Shire, not an area known for having rugged geography). No, it’s the fact that this bridge contrived to take them directly to the Barrow-downs is broken, and so the group’s map expert Camnir (Calam Lynch) declares that to circumvent this canyon that shouldn’t exist, they must turn south through the Barrow-downs…which do not extend south of the Axa Bridge on the map shown to us mere moments before, and in fact, lie somewhat to its north. So either Camnir is extremely, like, embarrassingly bad at following maps, or the writers are. And I’m inclined to believe it’s the latter.

Maybe I’m being nitpicky about the bridge, but I think it’s fair to say that any fantasy story with such a large scope should aspire to give its audience a general sense of where things are in relation to each other, and of the distances between them, especially when that information is often critical to understanding the plot. Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond traversed the long leagues between Lindon and Eregion in a matter of seconds back in episode one, but three episodes later the same journey in the opposite direction is long, perilous, and requires a map-expert. There’s an even greater distance and many more natural obstacles between Eregion and Mordor, but The Rings Of Power has on multiple occasions treated that span of over a thousand miles as a mere insignificance, easily covered by Sauron (Charlie Vickers) in human form twice, both times while pretending to be wounded, and now by Adar (Sam Hazeldine) and his legions of Orcs, without anyone noticing except a pair of Ents in the Southlands.

But if I don’t stop ranting about maps now, I never will (maybe it’s a subject for a separate post), so let’s move on to the Ents. They’re scarier than the Barrow-wights, which is a surprise. Olivia Williams and Jim Broadbent lend their voices to this dendriform power couple, named Winterblossom and Snaggleroot respectively, who rip people limb-from-limb if they raise axe to tree. They’re great characters: I would have loved to spend time with them in a show that actually had time to spare on an environmentalist murder mystery subplot, but The Rings Of Power is not that show. And although it’s in the process of investigating these Ent serial murders that Isildur (Maxim Baldry) and Estrid (Nia Towle) become conscious of their romantic feelings for each other while Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) proves himself as a father figure to Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), I find it difficult to believe there wasn’t a far more efficient route to the same destination (help, I’m about to make this about maps again). A conflict between the Southlander refugees and those who swore fealty to Adar could have easily provided a backdrop to all of these developments, and simultaneously done more to deepen our investment in the people who will one day become Isildur’s people when he goes on to found the Kingdom of Gondor, whereas following the Ents, even though it’s to rescue Theo, pulls Isildur out of that environment.

Ismael Cruz Cordova as Arondir, standing over Maxim Baldry as Isildur, extending a hand to the man. Arondir has close-cropped dark hair and wears a gray cloak over a gray wooden breastplate sculpted into the glowering face of a man with a leafy beard and hair. He has a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. Isildur has shoulder-length shaggy brown hair and wears a gray cloak. They are in a forest. — Arondir and Isildur | youtube.com

Isildur, marooned on Middle-earth and thrust into a leadership position he didn’t ask for, has an unlikely (but, given his…connection to hobbits, rather fitting) mirror-image in the Harfoot Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), who also finds herself separated from her family and everything that represented home to her in season two, lost in a strange land, forced to take refuge among a people wary of outsiders, and gradually becoming a respected member of their community and helping them in their fight to save their homes. There’s even a burgeoning romance in both subplots, though it’s not Nori herself, but her best friend Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) who falls head over heels in love with one of the Stoor hobbits they encounter in Rhûn; the slightly peculiar Merimac (Gavi Singh Chera). However, seeing as I still strongly feel that Poppy wasn’t originally intended to come back for season two, Nori and Merimac may well have had a relationship in an earlier draft.

But Nori already has a much more interesting relationship with the Stoors through their leader, Gundabel (Tanya Moodie), who reveals to her in a surprisingly powerful scene that the ancestor of the wandering Harfoots was a Stoor, who left the narrow gorge where they’ve always lived in search of a promised land called the Sûzat, a land of rolling green hills and clear rivers. It’s written as Sûza-t in The Peoples Of Middle-earth, but the meaning is the same: it’s derived from a word in the Westron tongue, sûza, which means province, county, or…shire. Sûzat or Sûza-t, therefore, denotes The Shire. This arguably falls under the category of fan service just like Ents and Barrow-wights, but it doesn’t bother me the way those do for two reasons: one, it’s relatively subtle (yes, you can find the translation easily, but the show itself doesn’t provide one), and two, it isn’t just a reference for the fans. This is what Nori’s story has been building towards, all along. She will unite the estranged Hobbit tribes and lead them to a permanent home.

There is one small problem with this, and that’s the timeline. Canonically, the first hobbits to cross the River Baranduin (how do we keep ending up back here?) into The Shire were the brothers Marcho and Blanco in the year 1601 of the Third Age, almost two-thousand years after the events of The Rings Of Power. The showrunners have shown no qualms about compressing three-thousand years of history into what feels like a couple of months, so I wouldn’t be shocked if they extended the history of The Shire back by a millennium, but I’d much rather they didn’t, to be honest.

Alternatively, they could have Nori lead the hobbits to the Gladden Fields, where we know Stoors at least were living about a thousand years into the Third Age, and where Sméagol was born and raised. We’re probably going there one way or another, because the Battle of the Gladden Fields is where the Second Age comes to an end. And it’s worth noting that Isildur, Nori’s parallel, is involved in that battle, so to have their storylines finally segue at the very end would be thematically satisfying. But I’d hate to miss out on the perilous crossing of the Misty Mountains by the hobbits, so maybe Nori will make it to Eriador, and settle her people in the Bree-lands, the only place in Middle-earth where Men and Hobbits coexisted during the Third Age.

Rory Kinnear as Tom Bombadil, standing outside in a rock garden. Bee-hives sit on a wooden bench behind him, and a pile of branches. Tom has long curly reddish-brown hair and a bushy beard, and wears a white tunic with rolled-up sleeves and a brown leather belt. — Tom Bombadil | nerdist.com

It may come as a surprise to learn that I want more of Nori, Poppy, and The Rings Of Power‘s proto-Hobbits – I’ve been complaining bitterly that the storyline in Rhûn is eating up screentime, after all. And it still is, but the problem is not and has never been the Hobbits. It’s the Stranger (Daniel Weyman), whose search for a gand (a wizard’s staff) is turning into the most frustrating kind of fetch-quest. Weyman is charming, but he can’t elevate relentlessly dull material. Tom Bombadil’s appearance feels timed to inject a shot of energy back into this subplot, but it’s not enough – especially not with how subdued the show’s take on Bombadil is in comparison to the bold, boisterous version we meet in The Lord Of The Rings. I understand that a more book-accurate take on the character, who dances wildly about and breaks into song without the slightest provocation, might have scared off some casual viewers, but that’d be preferable to boring them and underwhelming fans with a solemn and mature Bombadil who mumbles his songs under his breath.

The parts of Tom’s portrayal that I truly enjoyed are all attributable to Kinnear – his hearty laugh and big smile, his ungraceful gait, the twinkle in his eye when he starts to ramble and the distinctive Cornish accent he settled on for the character – all the little things he nails, that assure me he would have been quite comfortable playing Tom as originally written. There’s something to be said for juxtaposing him with Weyman’s reserved and quizzical Stranger, too, as the clear contrast between their personalities makes Tom feel more vibrant and more whimsical than he really is. But as I said back when it was first announced that Tom would be making an appearance in season two, he is a character defined by his refusal to acknowledge the importance or urgency of any narrative that happens to cross his doorstep, and if you, as a screenwriter looking to utilize Tom in your adaptation of a story that didn’t even include him in the first place, aren’t prepared to start there, you’d probably be better off using any other character from the legendarium.

The Rings Of Power‘s Tom Bombadil not only takes an active interest in the Stranger’s journey, but aggressively pushes him to confront the mysterious Dark Wizard (Ciarán Hinds) before his power becomes one with Sauron’s and they set Middle-earth aflame, as the Wizard’s already done to Rhûn. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised that the writers went this route, but I’m not happy about it. For all the changes it’s made, The Rings Of Power has never, to my recollection, committed such a blatant mischaracterization – Tolkien having only sketched out in the broadest of terms what most of the protagonists of the Second Age were like as people, and characters like Galadriel and Elrond, whom we know from the books, being significantly younger here even by Elf standards, has given the writers leeway. But Tom is, in his own words, “eldest”, predating the first raindrop and the first acorn. It’s hard to handwave away the differences in his depiction by saying that three-thousand years changed him, seeing as he’s roughly fifty-five thousand years old.

There is one side-effect of Tom’s inclusion, I should note, that almost – almost – justifies his inclusion; that we get to hear his song, lyrics lifted straight from the pages of The Lord Of The Rings and set to music by the brilliant Bear McCreary, belted out by Rufus Wainwright over the end-credits with ethereal backing vocals from Raya Yarbrough, who has a voice cameo in the episode as Tom’s wife Goldberry. It’s a poignant rendition of a nonsensical ditty, befitting the version of the character we see in the show, and it’s never leaving my playlist. McCreary’s work on season one received widespread acclaim but was shamefully snubbed for an Emmy nomination: I pray that voters do not make the same mistake again next year. The technical categories are where The Rings Of Power has its best chance of nabbing gold – in terms of music, visual effects, production design, costume, hair and makeup design, there’s simply nothing else on TV that comes close to matching it. But I don’t seriously expect it to pick up so much as a single nomination in any of the major categories, which might as well forbid entry to non-HBO genre television. And that’s a real shame, because in a fair world, Charlie Vickers and Charles Edwards’ symbiotic yet distinct performances as Sauron and Celebrimbor could plausibly secure them both trophies.

Ciaran Hinds as the Dark Wizard, seated on a stone throne carved with runes and hieroglyphs, in a cave between basalt pillars. He has long, straight dark brown hair, a long beard going gray, and bushy eyebrows. He wears white robes with a silver breastplate and gauntlets on both his wrists, and carries a horned staff in his right hand. — The Dark Wizard | radiotimes.com

Their absence from this episode, the first (and thankfully, the last) of the season not to check in on the situation in Eregion, is felt strongly. Without Sauron physically present to keep The Rings Of Power‘s various story threads fastened to the central throughline he represents, they come loose alarmingly quickly, disrupting the smooth flow of the narrative. Bolstering these subplots to the point where they can eventually stand on their own is a matter of finding the time to do so: time, the only resource in short supply on the most expensive television show ever made; wasted – in this episode at least – on superfluous cameos.

Episode Rating: 6.8/10

September 5, 2024September 7, 2024

Annatar Arrives In “The Rings Of Power” Season 2, Episode 2

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER SEASON TWO, EPISODE TWO AHEAD!**

Ever since it was announced that Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power would be adapting the events of the Second Age of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, fans have been waiting to hear one name – a name which never appears in the text of The Lord Of The Rings or its Appendices, but has seeped into mainstream perception of the story, by way of fan-art and fanfiction. It is a name I feared we might never hear spoken onscreen, after we learned that Amazon does not have the rights to any of the books in which it was published, including The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales: Annatar…”Lord of Gifts” in Quenya…the name adopted by the Dark Lord Sauron (Charlie Vickers) when he went among the Elven-smiths of Eregion, disguised as an emissary of the Valar, and deceived their wisest. While the writers could have invented their own name for the character, it would have been a blow to The Rings Of Power‘s legitimacy, perhaps a fatal one.

Charlie Vickers as Annatar in The Rings Of Power, facing Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor, whose back is turned to the camera. Annatar has long blonde hair held back by a golden circlet, and wears a white mantle over a white tunic with silver embroidery. Celebrimbor has short brown hair and wears a dark red robe with gold embroidery. — Annatar and Celebrimbor | youtube.com

We still don’t know exactly how Amazon goes about acquiring a name or piece of information from The Silmarillion, etc., and in the absence of official answers rumors thrive. TheOneRing.net reported in January, citing “verifiable spy reports” and some wild rumors started on 4chan, that Amazon had quietly acquired the rights to The Silmarillion, though they said the same thing before season one aired, and only a single Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales-exclusive name – that of Númenor’s capital city, Armenelos – ever popped up in the final product. In February, Fellowship Of Fans reported that Amazon had gone to the Tolkien Estate to negotiate access to specific passages from Unfinished Tales regarding the Istari. For my part, I’ve always assumed that the showrunners are so tight-lipped on this subject because they have to do a fair bit of pleading with the higher-ups at Amazon to in turn go back to the Tolkien Estate (whom they paid $250M upfront in 2017 for the rights to The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit, ironically the two least useful pieces of source material for the show they ended up making) and shell out more mind-boggling amounts of money in exchange for the rights to use a name like Annatar.

It’s just the name, nothing more (so far), but the name alone carries weight, and the effect of its use in an already dramatic sequence is immediate and enthralling. Sauron, having weaseled his way back into Eregion disguised as Halbrand, under the pretense of wanting to share with its lord Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) news of the Three Rings – which he has prevented from reaching Eregion – finally secures an audience with the Elven craftsman near the end of the episode…and finds him less amenable than he had hoped to the idea of forging more Rings of Power for the race of Men. Celebrimbor is, in fact, so put off by the very notion of placing objects of such world-altering potential in the hands of “covetous” mortals that he is unwilling to treat with Halbrand further, and the Dark Lord, internally sweating bullets, has no choice but to confess that he is not a man at all. He turns to sorcery, the most advanced form of optical illusions, to convince Celebrimbor that he is in truth a beautiful blonde envoy of the Valar named Annatar in search of an artist, preferably an extremely talented Elven jewelsmith directly descended from the very greatest, capable of saving Middle-earth and its people from imminent destruction.

Annatar’s appropriation of Christian religious imagery, first speaking to Celebrimbor as a disembodied booming voice coming from his hearth and then appearing to descend from the clouds, succeeds in overawing the reverent Elven smith, and his shameless flattery certainly doesn’t hurt either. Poor Celebrimbor; he’s really not a bad guy. It wasn’t arrogance that told him to open the gates to Halbrand, it was frustration with the Elves for keeping him in the dark, and empathy for the man alongside whom he did his best work (and knows it), who tells a similar story of being disrespected and dismissed when he was no longer useful to the Elves. The Rings Of Power makes a point of showing Sauron manipulate his victims not by exploiting their vices but by turning their virtues against them – Galadriel (Morfydd Clark)’s righteous anger, Adar (Sam Hazeldine)’s love for his people, and now Celebrimbor’s kind heart. A person can resist their vices, or overcome them. But if their virtues are so thoroughly corroded that the two become confused, they will never be safe in their own skin.

Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor, in close-up, standing on a mezzanine overlooking his forge. It is dark. His face is lined with worry and possibly fear. He has short brown hair, and wears a red robe with gold embroidery. — Celebrimbor | youtube.com

Edwards, 54, may not physically resemble the image many fans had of Celebrimbor, typically portrayed as a (frankly rather generic) young, square-jawed Elf with long dark hair and broad shoulders, but the star of Britain’s National Theatre carries himself with a dignity that is thoroughly Fëanorian, perhaps most palpable in the scene where he goes to speak with Halbrand at the gates, meaning to turn him away; it is raining, and Celebrimbor is followed by attendants carrying a large and ineffective umbrella over his head, a visual that would be distracting, to the scene’s detriment, if the actor under the umbrella wasn’t unwaveringly convincing as someone worthy of the whole production, but Edwards is. Far from stoic, however, his character is downright excitable, the fast and fluttery mannerisms coaxed out of him by Sauron evoking a moth drawn instinctively to the flame that will consume it. I don’t have much to add about Vickers’ invariably alluring performance here that I didn’t already write in my review of episode one, but suffice it to say that his Sauron remains the dark heart of the season.

Sauron’s gravitational pull, irresistible even when he’s not onscreen, finally knits (most of) The Rings Of Power‘s disparate story threads into a cohesive web. The Rings themselves give him tiny fingerholds in the minds of their wearers, by way of which a shadow may creep undetected even into the golden realm of Lindon. And for Galadriel, wearing a Ring of Power risks solidifying a connection between her and the Dark Lord that was already there. During the brief time they knew each other, Sauron planted a venomous seed in her exposed heart, and Clark, transferring a bit of Saint Maud to Middle-earth, vividly conveys Galadriel’s bewildered horror, disgust and anger at having to share her body with it as it invisibly takes root. I keep coming back to the moment after she instinctively refers to Sauron as “Halbrand” in a heated argument with Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker), undermining all her efforts to prove that Sauron no longer has influence over her – the expression that momentarily contorts her face is not comprised merely of predictable regret and shame, but also shock that her tongue could betray her so, the impatient frustration that comes with knowing exactly how her slip-up will be used against her, and the feeling she refuses to confront that tells her Gil-galad is right to distrust her. Layers upon layers of emotions, communicated in a split second.

Underwater shot of a hand, reaching for the bottom of a shallow pool teeming with small fish and a few brightly-colored coral. The hand wears a single golden ring, in which a dark red gemstone is set. — Narya on the hand of Círdan | youtube.com

Other standouts from the cast include Robert Aramayo, playing Elrond as a battered young idealist who would rather see the Elves abandon Middle-earth than become beholden to the Rings of Power (an interesting and important counterargument to Gil-galad’s assertion that their use is justified by the dire circumstances); and the charming Ben Daniels as Círdan, whom I feel obliged to inform you all shaves with a seashell and sea-foam – but unfortunately also has to deliver some of the season’s most perplexing dialogue thus far, including drawing an inapplicable analogy between the Three Rings and the writings of the First Age poet (and notorious drunkard) Rúmil, in a monologue that’s essentially saying “separate the art from the artist, even if the art is magical objects of great power and the artist is the literal Dark Lord”. Elsewhere, The Terror‘s Ciarán Hinds makes a strong first impression in his brief appearance as the unnamed “Dark Wizard”. I speculated that he was being styled to resemble an imagined younger version of Sir Christopher Lee’s Saruman the White, and I would now like to add that if Hinds is playing Saruman, whose airs he affects, he has the potential to rank among the franchise’s greatest casting choices. I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be hoping neither nameless wizard on The Rings Of Power turns out to be a Blue Wizard, but here we are.

There is still alarmingly little to say of the other nameless wizard – Daniel Weyman’s Stranger – walking across Rhûn with only the vaguest sense of a direction, in the company of reliably endearing Harfoots Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards). Their subplot on the edge of the world provides the occasional moment of levity and a welcome change of scenery from the forests and mountains of western Middle-earth, but at the cost of staggering the narrative. Events in this episode result in the Stranger and Harfoots becoming separated, further dividing the story’s time and focus through episode four.

But while I would happily exchange some, most, or all of the Stranger’s scenes this season for a few more fleshing out the seduction of Celebrimbor, the subplots closest to the action in Eregion earn their keep on the show. The Rings Of Power struck gold in season one with the coupling of Owain Arthur and Sophia Nomvete, two equally boisterous and complimentary personalities, as the Dwarven prince and princess of Khazad-dûm, so it’s no surprise to see them back and leading their own storyline under the mountain. Their characters are living a bit more modestly these days (just a bit: Nomvete’s Disa still wears a robe encrusted with chunks of gold, and both her and Arthur’s Durin IV twinkle from all the gold-dust in their hair and beards) but their love for each other is unaffected, and anchors them as their kingdom literally crumbles. It’s particularly exciting to see more of Nomvete’s fire in the scenes Disa shares with her estranged father-in-law, King Durin III (Peter Mullan), and to have her extraordinary singing-voice featured again on Bear McCreary’s beautiful score.

Owain Arthur as Durin IV, reading from a piece of parchment while Sophia Nomvete as Disa stands just behind him, reading over his shoulder. Durin has red hair and a bushy beard. He wears a red-and-gold short-sleeved tunic. Disa has long dark curly hair, and wears a loose gray gown with a cape. — Durin IV and Disa receive Celebrimbor’s invitation | youtube.com

In the episode’s final minutes, Durin and Disa receive a letter summoning them to Eregion to speak with Lord Celebrimbor – an invitation they can hardly refuse, given their present circumstances, but one that will have fateful consequences for Khazad-dûm, the Dwarves, and indeed, all of Middle-earth. Seven more Rings of Power, designed by a well-intentioned Celebrimbor with Dwarven collaboration but sullied in the making by the malicious hand of Annatar, will be brought into the world alongside the Three as a direct result of the meeting, speeding the Dark Lord’s plans along. Although he’s had to backburner his idea of forging additional Rings for Men, Sauron is already almost halfway to his goal of bringing the Free Peoples under his control and in the darkness binding them, to paraphrase the verse inscribed on the one Ring he hasn’t yet spoken of forging to anyone. And he accomplished all of this, mind you, with some hydrogen peroxide and a hair straightener. Morgoth could never.

Episode Rating: 9/10

August 30, 2024

“The Rings Of Power” Season 2 Reintroduces Its Villain

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER SEASON TWO, EPISODE ONE AHEAD!

Just as the first season of Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power opened with Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel narrating over a montage of scenes that followed her progression from a child of Valinorean peace and tranquility to a woman hardened by the ceaseless wars she and her kind brought to Middle-earth’s shores, season two tries to do the same for the character of Sauron and goes to show that Amazon hasn’t “bought” the Tolkien Estate (as some of the series’ detractors claim), seeing as they were evidently denied access to the descriptions of Sauron’s First Age activities found only in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, resulting in a prologue and premiere episode that knows it would be so much stronger if it were free, either to adapt the source material or, barring that, outright contradict what it can’t adapt.

Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad, standing in the foreground, while Morfydd Clark as Galadriel stands behind him, out-of-focus. Gil-galad has long dark brown hair, and wears a circlet of golden laurel leaves and a golden-brown cape over the left shoulder of his gold robe. Galadriel has long blonde hair, and wears a floor-length blue-green gown. — Gil-galad and Galadriel | youtube.com

Until that time comes, The Rings Of Power will continue to dance on tip-toes – whether with the gracefulness of a fleet-footed Elf or a lumbering cave troll is entirely dependent on the individual writer for each episode – to avoid touching anything it legally cannot, including the most detailed account of Sauron’s origins (The Ainulindalë), his motivations (The Letters Of J.R.R. Tolkien and Morgoth’s Ring), and his deeds (The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales), which significantly restricts The Rings Of Power‘s Sauron-centric prologue: from starting at a point in time even remotely equivalent to when Galadriel’s began; from using any of the names for Sauron that he canonically preferred to the one in common use among his enemies; from explaining that he belonged to a class of angelic beings called Maiar, specifically one tasked with maintaining order and coordination; from laying bare his vision, ultimately unobtainable save through the domination of all living things, of the world under his control; and from referring to how the Valar, the pantheon of godlike beings ranked above the Maiar in power and seniority, offered him a second chance after Morgoth’s defeat, which Sauron considered and rejected, being unwilling to part with the power he had obtained in Middle-earth.

Most of what was omitted can be inferred to exist still, offscreen. Sauron is not not a Maia in The Rings Of Power, the word just isn’t used. There are subtle hints in his dialogue that point to his true ideology and aims, maybe a bit too subtle, but they’re there. And for all we know, he could conceivably have had his moment of repentance shortly prior to when The Rings Of Power picks up his story as he gathers the Orcs at his fortress in cold Forodwaith, intending to be accepted as Morgoth’s successor. Jack Lowden’s Sauron is rather more pitiable than intimidating (and I can’t say that would be an entirely unfounded read of the villain), but his face befits the name Mairon, nowhere used in this sequence but plausibly still the name he wore as a Maia. The very best version of The Rings Of Power often isn’t the one onscreen, but the one hiding between-the-lines.

Jack Lowden as Sauron in The Rings Of Power. He has long blond hair, slicked-back, and wears black armor over a red-and-gold robe. — Sauron | slashfilm.com

With that said, this episode is extremely entertaining in its own right, and again, we need only turn to the prologue – a very effective microcosm of the entire season so far – to understand why. It may be sacrilegious to suggest, but The Rings Of Power feels most at ease when it’s having fun playing in the vast sandbox that is Middle-earth, using the building-blocks at its disposal, but arranging them in ways that J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn’t have, like when it implied that Sauron and Galadriel had romantic feelings for each other, or when it invented an extremely compelling half-Elf, half-Orc character named Adar (Sam Hazeldine), whom Sauron inherited at the end of the First Age along with everything else that once belonged to Morgoth. Perhaps The Rings Of Power‘s single most valuable contribution to the Middle-earth legendarium is Adar, who not only straddles the line separating good and evil, but forces Middle-earth’s heroes and its villains alike to grapple with the disturbing implication that all Orcs straddle that line as much as any people – something that Tolkien himself was coming to acknowledge near the end of his life, but was never able to reconcile with his earlier depictions of the Orcs.

Adar’s decision, solidified in secret while Sauron addresses the Orcs and makes it increasingly clear that he not only doesn’t see them as his people but assumes it is in their nature to serve a Dark Lord (the same prejudice he accuses Elves and Men of holding), to kill Sauron then and there with his own crown, transforms a coronation into an execution, and all the Orcs get in a stab, until the bloodied heap that remains of Sauron erupts, sending shockwaves across Forodwaith. But while Adar and the Orcs depart in search of a new home, the camera tracks Sauron’s pooled blood as it runs in rivulets through cracks in the stone, coagulating deep underground into something utterly repulsive and somehow mesmerizing to watch, a mass of tiny feelers groping back towards the surface, absorbing small animals and insects; a sort of reverse-Gollum that gradually becomes more humanoid as it slithers purposefully out of the mountains, eventually getting stuck to the wheel of a merchant’s cart, consuming her, and thereafter wearing the body of Charlie Vickers’ Halbrand.

Charlie Vickers as Halbrand, standing at the back of a covered wagon, looking around. He has shoulder-length, shaggy brown hair, and wears brown rags. — Halbrand | youtube.com

At this point (and through no fault of a consistently exceptional Vickers, I must add), the prologue gets bogged down contriving a string of unremarkable scenes intended to signal to the audience that Sauron’s pursuit of redemption under a new name throughout season one was not entirely a deception, as well as retroactively justifying how he came across the heraldry that allowed him to pass himself off as a lost king of the Southlands, and why we and Galadriel first encountered him on a raft in the middle of the Great Sea. The answers to these outstanding mysteries are linked, but neither is particularly interesting. It’s when Sauron returns to the Southlands in the body of the episode that Vickers gets to show off his strengths as an actor, an opportunity that season one deprived him of until its final few minutes. In his scenes opposite Adar (now the Lord of Mordor), Sauron, still disguised as Halbrand, manipulates masterfully – exposing the feigned weakness he wants Adar to believe he can wield as leverage over him, his concern for his people, and using that very same weakness on Adar’s part to begin amassing an army. There is such salt-of-the-earth sincerity in Sauron’s ruggedly handsome face and in his folksy accent that the absence of it in the half-smiles which crook the corners of his lips and never quite reach his steely eyes escapes notice initially.

If Vickers’ performance embodies the idea put forward in The Lord Of The Rings that the agents of evil “seem fair, and feel foul”, Hazeldine’s is the inverse: the grim set of his mouth and the slow, seemingly methodical way in which he moves do not betray emotion, but it roils under the surface and shimmers faintly far behind his eyes. Hazeldine is a less lanky man than Joseph Mawle, who played Adar in the first season, and his version of the character is physically imposing where Mawle’s was frail, without a trace of trembling rasp in his voice. But Adar’s love for the Orcs, the enveloping and unconditional love of a parent for their children, is as genuine coming from Hazeldine as it was from Mawle in season one, and both actors deliver the best performances of their respective seasons.

In comparison, the evolution of Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel and Robert Aramayo’s Elrond from one season to the next may not seem significant, but there is a newfound surety in their performances, with which comes the ability to turn over their characters and explore their different facets. Galadriel is still impulse-driven by nature, but she let those impulses drive her straight into a ditch in season one, forcing her to consult other emotions besides her shattered sense of self-righteousness as she tries to back out of her current predicament without accidentally entrenching herself any deeper. Elrond, by contrast, has never been more certain in his definition of “right” and “wrong”, and is aghast when High King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) doesn’t see it the same way, putting the idealistic young politician in an uncomfortable and isolating position where people he’s regarded his whole life as fundamentally good appear to be shedding their morals all around him.

A cliffside in Lindon, upon the edge of which grows a tall mallorn tree with golden leaves. Within its shade sits a dais, encircled by a stream falling off the edge of the cliff, and upon that dais stands a basin filled with water. Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad is approaching the basin. He has long dark hair and wears a golden robe. Nearby stands Robert Aramayo as Elrond. He has short brown hair and wears a blue robe. In the background stand two Elven soldiers in gold cloaks, wielding spears, and Morfydd Clark as Galadriel. She has long blond hair and wears a green mantle. — Lindon | youtube.com

Having Elrond grab the Three Rings and leap off a waterfall into the Gulf of Lhûn to prevent the Elves from using the devices of Sauron isn’t exactly subtle storytelling, but I respect The Rings Of Power for unapologetically foregoing subtlety in favor of spectacle every now and then. It’s the rare fantasy show in the post-Game Of Thrones television landscape that gets a kick out of testing its audiences’ suspension of disbelief. If we accept that Elves exist and can walk over snow without sinking and tell a person’s height and hair color from over fifteen miles away, why can’t they also survive a fall of many hundreds of feet into the ocean? What’s important is that Elrond isn’t just jumping off a waterfall for the sake of having something cool happen in an episode light on action, but because The Rings Of Power has exponentially raised the stakes by having Sauron involved in the forging of the Three Rings (a controversial deviation from the canonical account, where the Three are created behind Sauron’s back, after the Seven and the Nine) and deliberately obfuscating the extent of his involvement. It is a choice that the show proudly owns, taking advantage of the opportunity that’s emerged to closely and critically examine the Three Rings and the potential consequences of wearing them.

Enter the character of Círdan (Ben Daniels), the oldest and wisest Elf in all of Middle-earth, who harbors Elrond when he washes up in the Grey Havens and offers to discard the Three by dropping them into a submarine trench…only to have a change of heart and do the exact opposite of what he promised Elrond, putting on one of the Three himself and delivering the other two to Gil-galad and Galadriel. The Elves are able to slow their inevitable fading and continue the fight against Sauron in Middle-earth, but at the cost of becoming bound to the fate of the Three Rings (and therefore also Sauron, which, to be honest, does make a lot more sense if he had a hand in their creation). It may have been their best choice, but was it the right choice? The Rings Of Power leaves the audience with that question. Although, as a fan of Círdan, who has never had a speaking role in an adaptation of Tolkien’s works before, I’m also left wondering why the writers chose to utilize him in this way. Daniels is perfectly cast in the part, make no mistake, but the narrative does him no favors by having Círdan betray Elrond’s trust the way a parent might an errant child and then fall victim to the temptation of the Rings, all before most viewers will even have picked up his name.

Ben Daniels as Cirdan in close-up. He has long gray hair, slightly curly, and a gray beard. He wears a gray robe with golden waves embroidered around the collar. — Círdan | nerdist.com

I have no idea how to elegantly segue into talking about The Stranger (Daniel Weyman), still following the stars eastward into the land of Rhûn, where he believes he will learn, or relearn, his true name and purpose. Unfortunately, he’s no closer to finding any of those things after the first three episodes of season two, and spends almost the entirety of the premiere lost and going in circles, his genuinely charming banter with his stalwart Harfoot companion Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) the only highlight of this subplot. I’m not sure how much longer The Rings Of Power can even keep up the pretense that the Stranger’s identity is a mystery, when the magic staff that he keeps seeing in his dreams is referred to on several occasions not as a staff, or a stave, or even a wand, but a gand, derived from the Old Norse word gandr, one half of the name Gandálfr or, you guessed it, Gandalf (“wand elf”). There is no reason, none whatsoever, to use this particular word if the Stranger is not Gandalf. And if it’s a misdirect, I’ll be furious.

While the Stranger and Nori can certainly keep a conversation going, the return of Nori’s friend Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) is a welcome relief at a particularly slow moment in this storyline, giving them both another person to bounce off. I’m inclined to believe, however, that her inclusion was the result of rewrites, because of how little effort is put into explaining why she decided to follow Nori after turning down the chance to travel with her and the Stranger last season or how she even caught up with them, and once added to the party, she does nothing that Nori could not also have accomplished. But I always wanted the three of them together anyway, so I can’t object to her reappearance, only to the fact that it doesn’t save this subplot, which continues to waste time in a season too short and too crowded already to spare even a second.

Close-up image of a person of indeterminate age and gender, wearing a brown hood over an ornate bronze mask shaped into a leering skull with gaping eyesockets. — Easterling | youtube.com

That’s the other big problem lingering over The Rings Of Power season two: the story it’s telling, spanning seven kingdoms and all the lands between, is simply too large to be condensed into a season of just eight episodes. Of course, it would help if every subplot was equally engaging, but regardless, there’s not enough time for them all to be fully fleshed-out. And the first episode is only juggling three, mind you, divided between Lindon, Mordor, and Rhûn – in the episodes that follow, The Rings Of Power makes its way around Middle-earth, revisiting Eregion, Khazad-dûm, Númenor, and the Southlands. Every location is its own enormous, fully-realized world, but the time we’ve spent in each is just barely enough to get reacquainted with the characters we already met last season. I’m not demanding twenty episodes, each an hour long, per season (though I wouldn’t object), but surely the most expensive show on television can afford ten?

Thankfully, The Rings Of Power is in no other aspect stingy. The first episode of season two boasts CGI more convincing than most blockbuster movies, breathtaking locations ranging from New Zealand to the Canary Islands, extensive practical sets, a panoply of props including the titular Rings, and gorgeous costumes (for more on that subject, see my interview with the series’ costume designer, Luca Mosca), of which my favorite is, perhaps surprisingly given its relative simplicity, the gray robe embroidered with golden waves that Círdan wears in his introductory scene: an unpretentious but beautiful garment well-fitted to its owner’s personality. Through the lens of director Charlotte Brändström (who directed the sixth and seventh episodes of season one) and cinematographer Alex Disenhof, Middle-earth bursts to life.

Wide shot of a round stone dais in the shade of a tall tree with golden leaves. Ben Daniels as Cirdan and Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad stand upon the dais, while Morfydd Clark as Galadriel ascends the dais by a flight of short steps from the left. Cirdan has long gray hair and wears a gray robe. Gil-galad has long dark hair, a crown of golden laurel leaves, and wears a golden robe. Galadriel has long blonde hair and wears a green gown. Veiled attendants and soldiers wearing gold cloaks and winged helmets, wielding spears, stand nearby. — (left to right) Galadriel, Círdan, and Gil-galad | youtube.com

The flaws that have always held The Rings Of Power just a hair’s-breadth back from greatness continue to do so, but the series strains against its bonds and makes a valiant push forward in this episode, a reintroduction to the world and its characters that doesn’t seek anyone’s forgiveness for sizable changes to the source material, whether smart or baffling, but asks only for patience. If not all fans will be inclined to give it even that much, there are many still who will be intrigued by what the series is doing to grapple with the broader themes of Tolkien’s work, and I see enormous potential yet in this unconventional adaptation.

Episode Rating: 8/10

October 21, 2022

“The Rings Of Power” Episode 8 – Two Different Endings For Two Different Shows

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

“‘In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!'”

– The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, The Mirror Of Galadriel, p. 366

The iconic passage quoted above is from a pivotal scene in The Lord Of The Rings where Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), hosting the Fellowship of the Ring in her home as honored guests, is freely offered the One Ring by Frodo Baggins. In shock and disbelief at the suggestion, she is forced to confront the Ring’s tempting power for the first time, and even after training for just such a moment for over three-thousand years she can’t resist breaking into a classic evil villain monologue before finally gathering her wits and prevailing. Her success in that moment ensures that she can eventually leave Middle-earth and find peace in the Undying Lands across the Sea.

It’s a moment that The Rings Of Power‘s writers have obviously tried to foreshadow in the first season’s final episode, with…moderate success. In a sequence invented for the series, which takes place roughly three-thousand years before the events of The Lord Of The Rings, Galadriel is offered a place at the side of the Dark Lord Sauron and wavers for a minute, torn between her duty to the light and her obsession with the darkness, before rejecting him and his half-baked philosophies so thoroughly that a reunion of their hearts seems inconceivable. It’s supposed to be a moment of catharsis for the protagonist, the moment that her storyline has been leading towards throughout this entire season – and yet it falls flat for two crucial reasons.

Put simply, Galadriel’s epiphany in the finale belongs to a totally different version of the character. I would even wager it was specifically tailored to fit the version of Galadriel who appears in the published Silmarillion and in one of the most frequently-quoted essays in Unfinished Tales – the version widely considered “canonical”, who left Valinor because “she yearned to see the wide unguarded lands [of Middle-earth] and to rule there a realm at her own will”. I myself have long adored the canonical, complex, morally ambiguous version of young Galadriel who seems so at odds with the serene and wise character we meet thousands of years later in The Lord Of The Rings, and there was a time when I had hoped to see her onscreen in The Rings Of Power. But when it became clear that Amazon didn’t have the rights to either The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, I resigned myself to the fact that we would probably never get to see a truly ambitious Galadriel in the first season.

And we never did…until the finale, which I have to assume was written very early on, for a version of Galadriel who actually lusts for power, and was never rewritten even after the writers were denied access to the rights they obviously wanted. Maybe they thought it would work as an homage to the canonical version of the character that most fans wanted to see all along, but it doesn’t track with what we learned about the version of Galadriel we actually spent time with in The Rings Of Power; a battle-hardened warrior who has never been shown to crave either power or status in Middle-earth, who scoffs at politicians and seems unaccustomed to dealing with kings and queens, who desires one thing and one thing only: vengeance for her brother’s death. And that, ironically, is the one thing Sauron never offers her when he makes his impassioned plea.

Of course, that’s because Sauron himself is responsible for the death of Finrod (Will Fletcher), and both he and Galadriel know it, but it would have made sense for him to appease her in the moment by promising her vengeance on those ultimately responsible for all the suffering her family has endured – the Valar, Middle-earth’s pantheon of gods. That suggestion may seem bizarre to some, blasphemous to a few, but hear me out: in The Silmarillion, which contains the closest thing to a “canonical” account of Galadriel’s life that Tolkien ever wrote, it is said that Galadriel rebelled against the gods in her youth and refused their pardon after the downfall of Morgoth, hence why she remained in Middle-earth long after the other “chief actors in the rebellion” had died or departed. I think it’s not too much of a stretch to say that her relationship with the gods is complicated; something that Sauron could and arguably should have exploited when he had the chance.

And frankly, what better moment to test the limits of her faith than when she’s face-to-face with the enemy she’s hunted relentlessly for centuries, whom she befriended, grew to trust, and even began to love? It didn’t actually happen that way, so there’s no sense in me veering off on a tangent, but I do wonder why the writers went down the path they did if their stated goal was to humanize Sauron and force the audience to empathize with him against our will. How can we, if all we know of him is that he craves power? We’ve heard it said, once or twice in the show, that Sauron plans to heal Middle-earth’s hurts (an idea fleshed out fully in Tolkien’s letters), but what we see of him tells a very different, and in my opinion far less interesting, story.

The somewhat genericized version of Sauron we’re introduced to in The Rings Of Power‘s season finale wears the ruggedly handsome face of a mortal Southlander, Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), and strangely never sheds that disguise even after revealing his true identity to Galadriel. The showrunners must have their reasons for sticking with Vickers, and if commitment to the role was one of their criteria I can see why he was chosen to continue as Sauron, because you can’t fake the kind of extensive research that Vickers has done for this role, not just into the lore and into Sauron’s backstory, but into Tolkien’s own thoughts on the nature of good and evil, as well as those of his contemporaries and close friends like W.H. Auden.

Unfortunately, someone in the writer’s room either betrayed Vickers or hugely overestimated his improvisational skills, because Sauron is inexcusably underwritten in the finale and little to none of Vickers’ research shines through his stolid performance. On top of that, the hairstyling and costuming departments failed miserably when constructing his look – between his dirty, uneven reddish-brown wig and the plain garments he wore throughout the season, every styling choice that befitted the persona of Halbrand feels out-of-character for Sauron in retrospect, and the fact that he willingly keeps this form even after parting ways with Galadriel warrants an explanation in and of itself (some of that is probably my headcanons speaking, but I really am bewildered by a number of styling choices made on this show).

But whether in spite of his scruffy appearance or in part because of it, Charlie Vickers exudes sexuality – and the unconsummated tension between him and Galadriel, which can be variously interpreted as sexual, romantic, or entirely platonic, doesn’t entirely dissipate even after he’s revealed as Sauron. Yet I could wish, were it of any avail, that Galadriel had not been so quick to reject him – her haste to assert her moral superiority over the charismatic Dark Lord seems to be for the audience’s benefit rather than her own, echoing moments in dozens of other books, films, and series’ where pure-hearted heroines have spurned their villainous love-interests, with Alina in Shadow And Bone and Rey in The Last Jedi coming to mind immediately. I’m not the best person to examine why women’s wrongs are vilified by writers while men’s are romanticized, but I would very much like to see this trope subverted someday and The Rings Of Power has already failed in that respect.

If the show’s version of Galadriel was even half as politically ambitious as her counterpart in the books, she would have rejected Sauron’s offer not because it was the “right” thing to do but because it would mean sharing power with someone else. And all I have left to say on the subject is that it would have made for a far more compelling scene than the one we got, which is unsurprisingly sexy and well-shot (props to director Wayne Che Yip) but also…unsurprising. When a master manipulator like Sauron is on the game-board at last, you’d think that there would be some twists and turns in store but the finale instead takes the most direct path to its destination, leaving me to once again wonder whether showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay should maybe leave the writing to others.

The highlight of this mostly average episode, for me, is the scene where Halbrand introduces himself to Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), the Elven jewel-smith with whom he will go on to forge the first Rings of Power…in the span of about fifteen to twenty minutes. Though the writing is nowhere clumsier than when Halbrand explains the concept of alloys to Celebrimbor, Edwards’ performance is nowhere more lively than when he’s shyly blushing at Halbrand’s compliments, or when his fingertips and Halbrand’s brush against each other for a moment as they exchange a piece of mithril silver. Many fans felt dissatisfied by the lack of interactions between these two characters and criticized The Rings Of Power for blatant queer erasure as a result, but I wouldn’t be so sure that in season two, with Galadriel no longer susceptible to manipulation, Sauron won’t turn all his attention on Celebrimbor.

And just to be clear, I too would have liked to see the queer undertones in Sauron and Celebrimbor’s story brought to the surface when they were first onscreen together, but nowhere near as much as I wanted Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) to kiss in the final minutes of the episode, as Elanor set off on a new adventure into the unexplored east of Middle-earth while Poppy led the nomadic Harfoots in the opposite direction. I knew then that their story wouldn’t parallel Frodo and Sam’s, or even Merry and Pippin’s, but for a few moments, I actually wondered if they might just be our queer parallels to Sam and Rosie – and when Poppy screamed “Wait!” my heart soared, only to drop again when I realized they were just going to hug and cry before saying goodbye. I wish I could say I have no problem with theirs being a sweet platonic relationship, but in a story as vast and sprawling as this one, to have no queer characters at all is…suspicious, not gonna lie.

In season two, it seems that Elanor’s screentime will once again primarily be shared with The Stranger (Daniel Weyman), now revealed to be one of the five Istari or “wizards” sent to Middle-earth to combat Sauron between the Second and Third Ages. Which one, exactly, remains a mystery; but of the five, only two are ever said to have journeyed east into the lands of Rhûn, where the Stranger is currently headed – and those two are, conveniently, the enigmatic Blue Wizards whom Tolkien wrote the least about in his lifetime, which could make them particularly appealing to writers looking to expand on the legendarium. Alternatively, he’s just Gandalf, but surely that or one of his many other names would have been used in the episode if that were the case, no?

Either way, the Mystics from Rhûn somehow recognized him as an Istar immediately after discovering the full extent of his power, but they’re dead now (much too soon, if you ask me), and the Stranger hopes that in Rhûn he can learn whatever it was they knew. But he already knows the most important thing: that he is good, and not because of what he was told but because of what he chose to be. I can imagine the eye-rolls that will have induced from some, and yes, it’s clearly intended to be heartwarming, but aren’t all stories involving Hobbits, to some extent? Isn’t that what we love about them, that they always voice their true emotions without reservation even at risk of sounding overly earnest? And isn’t it beautiful that the Stranger, who didn’t speak at all when he first descended from the sky, is learning to speak what he truly means and feels from the best teachers in Middle-earth?

Of all the characters crammed into The Rings Of Power‘s first season, I dreaded the Harfoots the most, largely out of fear that they would slow down the story – and yet in the end, theirs was the only subplot that consistently moved slowly enough for my tastes. While the Rings of Power themselves were forged in a matter of minutes by characters who’ve had barely any screentime throughout the season, abruptly resolving a story that had only just gotten started, the Harfoots required eight whole episodes to build up to their own extremely satisfying cathartic moment in the finale; the moment where they band together to defeat the Mystics, pelting the ethereal antagonists with small stones – possibly alluding to how Bilbo defeated the ravenous spiders of Mirkwood (which is incidentally also where this scene takes place, although in the Second Age it’s still known as Greenwood the Great).

So yeah…definitely didn’t go into this expecting to want more non-canonical Harfoots and less of Sauron the literal Dark Lord, but I have a feeling Tolkien at least would be pleased to know that the light can be more interesting than the darkness, and sometimes all it takes is someone like an Elanor Brandyfoot or a Poppy Proudfellow, the most quintessentially Tolkienesque characters to have never flowed from the author’s pen.

If The Rings Of Power can’t yet commit to telling the darker stories of the Second Age with the nuance they deserve (I’m still not sure where and when exactly the writers lost the thematic through-line of mortality and the fear of death, but by the time they find it the story of Númenor’s downfall will be over at the rate we’re currently speeding through major plot-points), at least it doesn’t lack for wholeheartedly magical subplots that make this first season worthwhile despite a disappointing (and to be fair, only temporary) conclusion to Galadriel and Sauron’s intertwined character arcs.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10