The Stranger Archives - The Wide Screen

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

October 12, 2022

“The Rings Of Power” Slows Nearly To A Standstill In Episode 7

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

“‘I shan’t call it the end, till we’ve cleared up the mess,’ said Sam gloomily. ‘And that’ll take a lot of time and work.'”

– The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King, The Scouring Of The Shire, p. 1020

A very good episode in and of itself, but poorly-suited for its crucial spot towards the end of season one, “The Eye” will, I think, be remembered unfavorably by fans for failing to deliver on the promise Amazon made with that arresting title and their marketing, that this would be the episode where the Dark Lord Sauron’s identity would be revealed outright, to the audience if not to the characters. Whether you feel that’s entirely on fans for allowing themselves to be so easily deceived, there’s no denying that episode seven is surprisingly slow and uneventful for the penultimate episode of a season that has been widely criticized for taking too long to get wherever it’s going (and until now I’ve been on the opposing side, saying the season has moved much too quickly for its own good, but this episode is almost as slow as an Entish good-morning).

This episode brought to mind something that I’ve heard said about Peter Jackson’s The Return Of The King frequently over the years, namely that the film has too many false endings where it feels like the story has been satisfyingly wrapped up but after a fade-to-black it’s revealed that that’s not the case and instead it just keeps going, and going, and going – it’s a critique I hear a lot from casual fans, who don’t realize that Jackson was heavily abbreviating the last few chapters of the book: which follows the Fellowship on their homeward journey north from Minas Tirith after the War of the Ring, with stops every couple of paragraphs at Edoras, Helm’s Deep, Isengard, Rivendell, Weathertop and Bree, all before the four Hobbits make it back to the Shire, where they discover Saruman has installed himself as “Chief” in Bag-end and has hired mercenaries to oppress the Hobbits.

None of that makes it into the Extended Edition of Jackson’s Return Of The King, much less the Theatrical Version with which most casual fans are probably familiar, and yet even the swift transition from Frodo reuniting with his friends in Minas Tirith directly to the coronation of Aragorn and thence to the Shire is enough to bore some viewers to tears – and while I can’t say I ever felt bored watching The Rings Of Power‘s seventh episode (unlike the Elves, I have not yet grown weary of Middle-earth and likely never will in my lifetime), I think I finally understand where those critiques are come from, at least to an extent…though I still don’t agree that The Scouring Of The Shire “needed” to be cut entirely, and The Eye works for me precisely because it explores several of the same themes as that chapter. Slow pacing and a few too many false endings aside, it actually does so rather well.

The first few minutes of the episode, packed with high-stakes action as the survivors of Orodruin’s eruption stagger blindly through the burning wreckage of Tirharad, dragging their wounded friends and loved ones with them, give no indication that the episode will soon grind to a halt as subplots collide, characters reel and take time to recover, and a lot of subtle internal development occurs as a result, especially to Galadriel (Morfydd Clark). The Noldorin Elf, born in Valinor before the first sunrise, is paired up with Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), a fourteen-year old mortal boy stunned into silence by the sheer scale of the devastation unfolding around him, devastation he unwittingly helped to bring about and at the time believed worth it for his mother. These two, companions by chance, learn valuable lessons from each other that will shape them both moving forward.

In Theo, Galadriel sees another version of herself rising from the ashes of Tirharad – another dangerously naïve child with fire in their heart and behind their eyes, whose instinctive response to trauma is to exact vengeance on those they’ve determined to be responsible. Galadriel, though not a child in years when her older brother Finrod was killed by Sauron and his mission became hers, was still childish and impulsive, like most of her family (sadly, in The Rings Of Power, Galadriel’s family consists strictly of her brother Finrod and father Finarfin because Amazon can’t legally mention anybody else). She hoped, as a child might, that when Sauron was gone, her heart would be healed, and instead she spent over a thousand years pursuing him across Middle-earth without success, while alienating everyone she cared about (possibly including her husband, Celeborn).

Following Finrod’s death, Galadriel had no one to advise her against making the worst decision of her life…at least in The Rings Of Power‘s abridged version of events, where no mention is made of her mentor in sorcery, Melian the Maia, and where Galadriel’s husband Celeborn is said to have never returned home from the wars against Morgoth, which to her implies that he perished although I have a feeling only she and very casual fans of the franchise will be shocked when he inevitably returns in a future season. Anyway, this time around, someone is there for Theo, someone to help guide that frightened child back from the brink of bitterness, anger, and despair, instilling in him the self-control she was never taught when she was young – and that person is Galadriel, of course.

As they meander slowly (too slowly) through the burned and blackened remains of the Southlands, Theo is driven almost to his breaking-point by his grief and guilt – but Galadriel keeps him from falling apart with gentle words of encouragement, urging him not to justify evil deeds to himself as she did. The sense I get from all their interactions is that, much like how in The Lord Of The Rings Frodo clung to the notion that if he could save Gollum there might still be hope for him in the long run, Galadriel needs to know that Theo can be saved for her to feel she too can be. But if Theo is the person Galadriel was meant to cross paths with all along, as I now suspect, where does that leave Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), who has only ever sated Galadriel’s appetite for blood by feeding her the information she wants to hear?

With Halbrand, newly crowned King of the Southlands, vanishing after the eruption of Orodruin only to wind up so badly injured that Galadriel takes it upon herself to urgently shuttle him out of the Southlands – and away from all his new responsibilities – to Lindon for the kind of healing only Elves can provide), the case for him being Sauron in disguise has never been stronger. I mean, assuming all goes according to plan, he’ll literally be delivered to Gil-galad and Celebrimbor as if on a silver platter. But the truth of the matter is a well-kept secret over at Amazon Prime Studios, at least for a day longer (meanwhile, House Of The Dragon‘s plot is available to read in its entirety on Reddit and full episodes leak in advance of their release every week).

I myself have oscillated between suspecting Halbrand and wanting only the best for him. Frankly, I don’t see how all his actions throughout the first season will retroactively add up if he turns out to be Sauron. He was downright insistent about staying in Númenor from the moment he set foot there, but then he was insistent about staying in the Southlands with his subjects – and since on both occasions it was Galadriel who ultimately coerced him into following her, the only way I can rationalize this is if Sauron is legitimately trying to do good everywhere Galadriel brings him, thinking she is his salvation the way she was for Theo, yet by a cruel twist of fate Galadriel is preventing that from happening by leading him closer and closer to his long-suppressed ultimate goal, the kingdoms of the Elves.

The emphasis placed on Halbrand’s skill as a smith leads me to believe that, whether he is Sauron or not, he will play a key role in the creation of the Rings of Power – perhaps, if he is just some guy from the Southlands trying to do good, he will contend with the real Sauron for influence over the project only to be corrupted and then later gifted one of the Nine Rings for mortal Men as a reward for his assistance. But if he is Sauron, I only pray that he poses as an Elf while dealing with Celebrimbor – Elven arrogance is one of the main ingredients in the Rings of Power, and I can’t easily envision Celebrimbor taking advice on this subject from a Man he deems inferior to himself in every way. It was hard enough getting him to work with Dwarves.

Regardless of whether Galadriel is literally accompanying the chief enemy of her people back to Lindon, the volatile situation she’ll find when she returns is practically ready and waiting to be manipulated by the Dark Lord, much like how Orodruin was waiting for a single catalyst to cause a chain-reaction of catastrophic events leading directly to the volcano’s eruption. Riled up by rumors and scant evidence that the light of the immortal Elves is fast fading and only mithril can prevent their decay (which to them is the closest equivalent to death), King Gil-galad and Celebrimbor are plotting to take decisive action, which sounds to me like someone is about to forge a prototype Ring of Power.

As much as I strongly dislike The Rings Of Power‘s take on Gil-galad as a patronizing middle-aged guy, I appreciate that the writers are implicating him in the creation of the Rings – because it always bothered me when reading The Silmarillion‘s account of the Second Age that Gil-galad saw straight through Sauron’s disguise, knew he was trouble, and even forbade him entry into Lindon, yet allowed him to stay in Eregion for centuries, all while Galadriel was going around telling anybody who would listen that Sauron was most definitely back. In The Rings Of Power, I would not be surprised if Gil-galad refuses to act because he wants Celebrimbor and Sauron to finish the Rings first, and it doesn’t matter to him if Celebrimbor gets hurt or killed because he was a Fëanorian and Gil-galad can always have the historical record edited to show that he warned Celebrimbor about Sauron.

Elrond (Robert Aramayo), Gil-galad’s young herald, is also said to have advised the High King against permitting Sauron into Lindon, but in The Rings Of Power thus far he’s only returned to Lindon once since leaving with Celebrimbor in episode one, and has spent most of his screentime haranguing the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm in the hopes that they’ll share their mithril with the Elves. He really is becoming a politician, as Galadriel once observed with some scorn in her voice that I now think was not unwarranted: apart from missing several important events in his friend Durin IV (Owain Arthur)’s life, including his wedding and the births of his children, Elrond has lied to Durin and the Dwarves on numerous occasions, or bent the truth where it behooves him to do so.

In this very episode, Elrond even admits as much to his friend, telling Durin that he intentionally threw the rock-breaking contest in episode two so that he could speak to the Dwarf (which kinda makes sense; if he had won, Durin would have been publicly humiliated and never would have heard him out). Durin laughs it off, but he doesn’t seem to realize that Elrond is manipulating him – and to be fair to Elrond, I don’t think he fully realizes it either. He just wants to make his mark on Middle-earth independent from Gil-galad, and he thought defying the High King’s will would be enough, but he’s still using the tools of Gil-galad’s trade to get what he wants. Only by discarding those tools and employing the unbiased empathy unique to him will Elrond finally evolve into the character we know from The Lord Of The Rings.

Unfortunately, it’s much too late for him to repair Durin IV’s relationship with his father, Durin III (Peter Mullan), which was already strained before Elrond entered the picture but broke at last under additional pressure from the Elf. Durin III is absolutely at fault for stifling his son’s ambitions and refusing to so much as entertain any of his suggestions, but he’s also weirdly not wrong for distrusting Elrond, believing the Elves should accept mortality as all others in the world must, not wanting to challenge the will of Eru Ilúvatar on that subject in particular (see: Akallabêth), and above all else not wishing to endanger Khazad-dûm and its people by digging for mithril beneath the city. At the same time, Durin IV isn’t wrong for wanting to help his friend or for feeling immense guilt and shame when his father intervenes on his behalf, but the Dwarves wouldn’t advise against digging too deeply if they didn’t have reason to believe there was something down there, something bad.

As we discover near the end of the episode, there is something bad down there, a Balrog of Morgoth to be precise, and if all it takes is a single falling leaf for this thing to wake enraged from its slumber and roar, imagine for a moment what the ceaseless sound of picks and hammers just above its head will do to it. Unless there’s a whole colony of Balrogs hiding out beneath the Misty Mountains, I’m inclined to say this is the very same Balrog that will in a future Age arise from the darkness to slaughter the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm; the same Balrog that made a brief but memorable appearance in The Fellowship Of The Ring, where it killed Gandalf the Grey and was killed by him; and the same Balrog described in the non-canonical Song Of The Roots Of Hithaeglir, though no mention was made of it falling into the Misty Mountains.

But these are events in the far-off future and past, respectively, and right here and now this Balrog serves no real purpose except as foreshadowing and fan-service. In the season finale I might have excused it, if it were one of many little teases to get people hyped for season two, but in the penultimate episode of the first season it’s totally misplaced. It’s definitely not getting brought up again before the season’s end, I can assure you of that, and frankly I’m not even sure we’ll see the Dwarves again, unless it’s part of some closing montage wrapping up all the subplots. But what is there to wrap up? Durin III is old and obstinate, and I don’t see him changing his mind for the sake of any Elf in Middle-earth, so all that’s left for him is to die or be defied. I’ll confess to being somewhat morbidly curious at the thought of a Dynasty-style, cutthroat Dwarven family soap opera, but even Durin IV’s ambitious wife, Disa (Sophia Nomvete), advises her husband to simply wait for his father to pass on before making his next move.

Another major character I’m not sure we’ll see again in what little remains of this first season is Theo, who parts ways with Galadriel after reuniting with his mother Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) and her Elven boyfriend Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova). The last we see of this lovely trio, they’re leading the Southlanders even further south-west to Pelargir near the mouth of the River Anduin (prediction: Arondir gets nostalgic for Beleriand and its great river, and begins to experience Sea-longing, a sign that the Elves are indeed fading). The city of Pelargir was canonically established after the forging of the Rings by Númenórean colonizers, but in The Rings Of Power it’s described as one of their ancient outposts, which implies that Númenor had an empire once, before they became a nation of isolationists, which indirectly (and probably unintentionally) implies that it’s only once they stopped colonizing Middle-earth that they fell out of favor with the gods…am I interpreting that correctly?

A number of controversial yet potentially very interesting choices were made with the Númenórean characters in this episode – Isildur (Maxim Baldry), separated from his friends in the chaos following Orodruin’s eruption, is set up to have a solo arc in Middle-earth next season, perhaps allowing him to lay the groundwork for the kingdom of Gondor (and interact with Theo, who I believe is destined to become King of the Dead); his father Elendil (Lloyd Owen)’s faith in the Elves is shaken by the apparent death of his son, which will make the future alliance between him and Gil-galad all the more emotionally impactful; and most notably, Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), the Queen-Regent of Númenor, is blinded by flying sparks.

The consequences of this choice are not immediately clear to me, and though I’ve seen speculation that Míriel’s disability will provide her chancellor Pharazôn with the only excuse he needs to take on more responsibilities in the governance of Númenor, if this is to be the case I hope it’s handled very carefully by the writers – there are a dozen routes Míriel’s storyline could take that would veer into ableist territory, and I worry that, given her ultimate fate, it’s rather callous to make her of all characters Middle-earth’s first and (off the top of my head) only blind character. But if, Eru forbid, Míriel is ever reduced to a Victim archetype, I trust that will not be the fault of Addai-Robinson; she seems to understand the importance of finding an authentic balance between vulnerability and strength, and the fact that these were the very first scenes she filmed, before she even knew the character, is pretty remarkable.

But with all the chaos and drama unfolding in the Southlands on this week’s episode, I’m sure I was not alone in feeling tonal whiplash when director Charlotte Brändström cut away from Isildur being buried under a burning house and Tar-Míriel screaming while clutching at her eyes to Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) singing about snails. The Harfoot subplot initially comes across as deliberately interruptive, as if it was meant to give viewers a quick breather before plunging back into the smog blanketing the Southlands – and seeing as The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) and Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) basically just retread the same ground we covered in episode five (with Stranger once again performing magic that goes awry and scares the Harfoots), that may well be the case. It’s not until the Stranger leaves to be on his own, and the Mystics come looking for him, that things get really interesting.

The Mystics, a harmonious trio of tall, gaunt, eerily-silent, wispy women who go by the titles Dweller (Bridie Sisson), Nomad (Edith Poor), and Ascetic (Kali Kopae), made only a small impression on me when they were introduced in episode five, but this week we saw them in action – and sure, maybe it’s just from the perspective of the diminutive Harfoots that they’re absolutely terrifying, but they can practice dark magic, which to my mind already implies that they’re on roughly the same power-level as the Stranger in his current state. Additionally, Middle-earth’s magic-system relies heavily on staffs or staves, and you’ll notice that at all times one of the Mystics is carrying a black scepter crowned with the symbol of the Lidless Eye – a bit like how, in Greek mythology, the three Grey Sisters share a single eye. I believe that’s why their magic works, and the Stranger’s doesn’t…yet.

But before the end of the season, I predict that the Stranger will wrest that black scepter away from the Dweller (who most often appears to be in charge of carrying it around) and using it for the first time will cause him to radically transform, for better or worse, into a completely different person. At the very least, I hope then we’ll be able to confirm what class of being he belongs to, and if Amazon is feeling especially generous they’ll share his name with all of us. On that note, keep in mind that even if he turns out to be Gandalf, he’s unlikely to refer to himself by that “Mannish” name – instead, the Quenya Elvish name he would presumably be using upon his arrival in Middle-earth is Olórin. Likewise, if he’s a Blue Wizard, keep your ears pricked for the names Alatar, Pallando, Morinehtar, or Rómestámo.

Some fans still think the Stranger’s identity won’t be revealed this season, and I think that’s absurd now that we know he and the Harfoots will return in the finale (what do they have left to do this season, if not get to the bottom of this lingering mystery from episode one?), but given how many subplots seemed to just end this week I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if neither he nor the Harfoots reappeared. I think that’s why this episode feels so slow, because it’s wrapping up most of the really engaging subplots a little earlier than anticipated while apparently shifting focus over to the one that never picked up steam, and to characters like Gil-galad and Celebrimbor who only got a few minutes of screentime in total. The finale needs to sell us on that subplot, or going into season two many casual fans will be more hyped to see the return of original characters than the forging of the Rings of Power, and that would be a shame.

I won’t lie, going into the season finale with no clear idea of how, when, where, or even if Sauron will be revealed is kinda nerve-wracking for this fan who’s been waiting to see him in his full glory for a very long time now – but I have no doubt that, each week, regardless of whether my expectations are always matched or surpassed, The Rings Of Power will continue to take me on a thrilling journey with every new episode. I only wish it didn’t have to end so soon. It feels like just yesterday I was sitting in a movie-theater, staring up in awe (and I mean straight up: me and my sister were seated in the literal front row) at locations and characters from these books I adore that I’ve never before had a chance to see onscreen, with Bear McCreary’s score echoing in the room all around me, surrounded by people presumably just as eager to see what J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay had to offer in the first two episodes screened for fans. Maybe that’s the upside to false endings: they allow us to spend a few more precious moments in this world we love before finishing the story.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

September 27, 2022

“The Rings Of Power” Episode 5 – Controversial, But So Compelling

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

“A complete consistency (either within the compass of The Silmarillion itself or between The Silmarillion and other published writings of my father’s) is not to be looked for, and could only be achieved, if at all, at heavy and needless cost. Moreover, my father came to conceive of The Silmarillion as a compilation, a compendious narrative, made long afterwards from sources of great diversity….To this may be ascribed the varying speed of the narrative and fullness of detail in different parts….and also some differences of tone and portrayal, some obscurities, and, here and there, some lack of cohesion.”

– The Silmarillion: Foreword by Christopher Tolkien

I would not lightly use the words of J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher, famously critical of any and all attempts to adapt his father’s work for the screen, to deflect criticism from The Rings Of Power for the liberties it takes with the lore of Middle-earth in its fifth episode, but in this case I believe the defense is justified, if you’ll hear me out. It’s true that screenwriter Justin Doble has made some bold and controversial choices (controversial among Tolkien scholars and purists, that is; I’m not sure who else will care very much about alterations to the origins of mithril), and you need not feel compelled to appreciate the bold swings he’s taking if they don’t work for you, but – if this sort of thing is hindering your enjoyment of The Rings Of Power – I would encourage you to read that quote, in which Christopher explains away the many inconsistencies in the published Silmarillion as the result of unreliable in-universe narrators each telling their own version of events from which his father and later he himself stitched together their own heavily-abridged narrative.

Now apply that same logic, if you can, to The Rings Of Power, which is already in many regards closer akin to The Silmarillion than to The Lord Of The Rings. Think of it not as an adaptation of any particular writing, but as a “compendious narrative” told from the perspective of several different unreliable narrators who may or may not be altering or embellishing the tale, as Tolkien “admitted” to doing in the Appendices (where it’s revealed that, for instance, none of the Hobbits’ names were really their names). Or imagine, as I must while I wait for a more satisfying answer in episode six, that the apocryphal Song of the Roots of Hithaeglir, which details a duel to the death between a Balrog and an Elven warrior over a tree containing the last Silmaril, inadvertently leading to the creation of mithril, is just a song: one containing numerous “obscurities”.

Honestly, it’s not so hard to believe that the Elves would write a self-aggrandizing song accrediting one of their own with the creation of mithril – a precious metal of unparalleled strength, pliability, and beauty, which could only be found in Valinor, Númenor, and in the Misty Mountains beneath the Dwarven city of Khazad-dûm. In Middle-earth (and by the end of the Second Age in all of Arda), Khazad-dûm was the only place where mithril could be obtained, but it was treasured by all the Free Peoples and servants of Sauron alike, so I actually think there’s something to the idea that each of them would individually come up with their own outlandish origin stories for mithril to support their claims to the swiftly dwindling deposits of this rare ore (and leave it to the Elves to base their claim around a Silmaril, to which they foreswore any claim when they engaged in three separate Kinslayings over the jewels).

Nor do the contents of the Song itself offend me, because a Silmaril did end up buried in the earth along with its bearer, Maedhros, and the Elves are the type to continue telling stories about the Silmarils long after their disappearance, whether they’re true or not. Sure, the Song is overwritten (it would have been so easy to say that the Silmaril’s light permeated the earth where it was buried, creating mithril, but then I guess we’d have missed out on the animated fight with the Balrog and the moral that “true creation requires sacrifice”), but even the most convoluted exposition sounds almost natural coming from Elrond (Robert Aramayo).

No, it’s what Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) and Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) have to say about mithril and its uses that’s both controversial, deeply confusing, and oddly compelling given that nothing about this subplot ought to work, quite frankly. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very silly that mithril can apparently stave off the effects of decay and that the Elves believe (or have been led to believe) that without it, they will begin fading within a year. Even if it’s a lie started by Sauron, it all hinges on two of the wisest Elves in Middle-earth not only becoming convinced that Elvendom is dying because Gil-galad’s favorite tree is rotting (and what does that prove, anyway?), but also on them reaching the conclusion that mithril is their deliverance based on an old song of disputable accuracy. Obviously, Sauron could be in Lindon or in Eregion, fanning the flames, but it’s silly nonetheless – and sillier still that Celebrimbor’s solution is to saturate the Elves in the incomparable light of mithril (how does one go about that, exactly?).

But the pay-off to all this set-up is too brilliant for me to write off this storyline as a lost cause just yet. Elrond, finally putting those diplomatic skills of his to good use, persuades Durin IV (Owain Arthur) that it would be in his best interests to make void the oath binding them both to secrecy about mithril, by encouraging the Dwarf-prince to use mithril as leverage over the gullible Elves who are eager (dare I say desperate) to buy it in bulk. Though Gil-galad assumes the worst of his young herald for orchestrating a deal with the Dwarves behind his back, the truth is that – until we know for certain whether mithril actually possesses any healing properties that could possibly help the Elves – the Dwarves stand to lose the most from this deal, as Elrond is essentially nudging Durin and his people down the path that will inevitably lead them deeper into the dark heart of the mountains in search of mithril.

For the time being, Aramayo’s Elrond and Arthur’s Durin make for the most delightful scene-partners with lively comedic banter that has routinely provided fans with memeable dialogue (“give me the meat, and give it to me raw”, innocuous enough with context, is one of those lines that seems destined, if not purposefully designed, to spawn a thousand spicy fanfics featuring the two characters). They have chemistry, with Disa as well as with each other, which is more than can be said of all the chaste straight monoamorous couples that The Rings Of Power wants its viewers to ship – no offense, but Eärien (Ema Horvath) and Kemen (Leon Wadham) scrubbing floors together offscreen just doesn’t cut it when you have the Dwarves talking so freely about their passion for each other.

And Eärien and Kemen don’t have the excuse that Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) have, which is that they’ve been too preoccupied recently with matters of war to give priority to matters of the heart…although, if we’re being brutally honest, not enough happens in the Southlands this episode to excuse the absence of any intimate scenes between these two star-crossed lovers who still can’t seem to muster any emotion stronger than apathy when they look into each other’s eyes. Arondir’s scenes with Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), Bronwyn’s son, establish that the Silvan Elf has a place in their family-unit as a second father to the teen, but they all seem equally baffled as to how that happened.

Individually, or whenever they’re not asked to feign romantic attraction to each other, Córdova and Boniadi deliver far more dynamic performances. In a moving monologue towards the end of the episode, Bronwyn asks whether her and her people are destined to crawl back to the familiar embrace of darkness, mere minutes after the elderly Waldreg (Geoff Morrell) did just that, leading a contingent of the refugees from Tirharad to the enemy camp in search of their true god-king, Sauron. The experienced Morrell is another stand-out from the episode, nailing his character’s most crucial scene – when Waldreg, aggressively confronted by Adar (Joseph Mawle) over his use of the name Sauron, switches sides in an instant and even proves himself by sacrificing one of his fellow townsfolk, the boy Rowan (Ian Blackburn). There are shades of Abraham and Isaac in this story, except that Adar, whatever else he may be, does not intend to rule as a merciful god.

I think it’s safe to say, based on this episode, that Adar has ruled himself out as a potential Sauron – even apart from assaulting Waldreg for using the name, his stated intention to take apart the world and rebuild it from scratch doesn’t comfortably line up with what we know about Sauron’s motivations, as outlined in Morgoth’s Ring. There, it is said that Sauron “did not object to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he liked with it”, in stark contrast to what is said of Sauron’s former master Morgoth, whose “one ultimate object” was the destruction of everything in existence. This suggests to me that Adar was turned by Morgoth and converted to his line of thinking (more evidence for my theory that he’s Maeglin).

This episode also instilled in me confidence that Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) really is just some guy from the Southlands, though he admits to committing unspeakable crimes in a dramatic sequence intercut with Waldreg swearing fealty to Adar. Halbrand may be a servant of Adar’s or Sauron’s seeking escape from his oaths, but I do not believe he is the Dark Lord himself. The fact that he only bribed Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) into giving him a Guild-crest so he could stay in Númenor and start a new life, coupled with his reluctance to join the Númenórean armies headed for Middle-earth, says to me that he had no plans to manipulate the progress of the war once it reached the Southlands. Now, he could have been planning to make headway with the Númenóreans while the Queen-Regent was gone, but if so, why abandon that plan for the sake of Galadriel (Morfydd Clark)? Why, unless he finally realizes that she is his one shot at salvation?

That being said, I was also convinced that the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) had good intentions at the end of episode three, when he selflessly helped the Brandyfoot family out of a tight spot…but now I’m not so sure. Weyman’s acting-choices have become more purposeful as the Stranger has slowly regained awareness, and they all point towards this character being both dangerous and fierce. His fall from the sky also conveniently erased any memory he might have had of the three mysterious white-robed women (including Bridie Sisson as “The Dweller”, whom you may remember many fans mistook for Sauron) who are now pursuing him and the Harfoots across Rhovanion for unknown reasons. These women, collectively referred to as the Mystics by Amazon, wear stylized depictions of the sun, moon, and stars on their persons, and one carries a sky disk on which is inscribed the very same constellation sought by the Stranger.

Now, I’m not saying the Mystics are definitely acolytes of the two Blue Wizards, I’m just saying there are canonical accounts of “secret cults and ‘magic’ traditions” being established in the east and south of Middle-earth (where the “stars are strange”, according to Aragorn) by these mysterious beings of celestial origin who arrived in the Second Age to combat Sauron, and I have long wanted The Rings Of Power to do something with the Blue Wizards anyway, and maybe they can if Amazon obtains the rights to the specific chapter of Unfinished Tales that deals with the Five Wizards, and this is turning into a tangent now but basically my theory is that the Stranger is Rómestámo a.k.a. Pallando a.k.a. the second Blue Wizard.

Blue Wizard or not, the Stranger’s magical abilities seem too diverse to belong to anyone but a sorcerer. A Balrog would only be able to control fire and shadow, Old Man Willow would only hypnotize, the Man in the Moon…well, I’m not entirely sure, but something tells me he wouldn’t be the type to create shockwaves, which is the Stranger’s go-to move when he or his loved ones are in danger. There’s also the cost of the Stranger’s magic to consider – every time he’s consciously used magic with just his bare hands, he’s hurt himself or someone around him. In episode five, he is injured by his own magic while protecting his friend Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) from a pack of carnivorous eohippus, and later, while performing a healing spell on himself, hurts her too. This leads me to believe that his character arc this season will culminate in him either making or receiving a staff that will allow him to channel magic without hurting anybody.

The exact power and purpose of a Wizard’s staff is one of those questions to which there is no good answer, because Tolkien never provided one. He clearly considered them to be weapons in the hands of Wizards, as Gandalf makes use of his staff many times throughout The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, and Wormtongue specifically forbids its use in the Golden Hall of Meduseld. Furthermore, Gandalf strips Saruman of all but a fraction of his former power by breaking his staff in Isengard, and a point is made of it when Gandalf’s staff is broken on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. It is also said that all Five Wizards possessed one. But the staffs may be a relic of an early version of the story where the Wizards (with a capital W) were merely wizards (with a lowercase W), before Tolkien conceived of them as angels. It is hard to believe that any of the Maiar, the class of immortals to which Gandalf and his brethren belonged, would rely on a staff – though perhaps in their mortal bodies, such tools were required.

I have no doubt that there will be more discourse on this subject if and when the Stranger obtains his staff, so for the time being let’s shift our attention away from Middle-earth entirely to the island kingdom of Númenor, where it’s been easily four or five days since Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) pledged to escort Galadriel to the Southlands with five ships bearing five-hundred men-at-arms, yet somehow neither they nor anyone else in the kingdom has found time to change their clothes. It’s actually appalling that The Rings Of Power, with its gargantuan budget, still can’t afford more than a few costume-changes for its lead characters, particularly when so many of these characters are supposed to embody the very concept of opulence. Am I supposed to believe that the Queen-Regent of Númenor is out here wearing the exact same outfit and hairstyle from day-to-day, not even experimenting with different jewelry?

Maybe she’s a minimalist. That’s cool. But Pharazôn the Golden sure as hell isn’t a minimalist, so what excuse does he have for repeating outfits? At least the smaller-than-average wardrobe for each of these characters means that the camera gets to spend more time lovingly examining every detail of the clothes and hairstyles they do wear – from Míriel’s three gorgeous headpieces to Bronwyn’s reliable burnt-orange boots. But standing out from a sea of faux Roman and Medieval tunics in Númenor and flowy, pre-Raphaelite inspired gowns and robes in Lindon, the burnished silver plate-armor worn by Galadriel towards the end of this episode stands out to me as one of The Rings Of Power‘s most instantly iconic fits (it was, in fact, featured in some of the very first promotional images and posters). My only concern is that, if this suit of armor is as heavy and uncomfortable as it looks, it may hinder Clark’s ability to convincingly pull off the same graceful twirls she used in this episode to wipe the floor with a few Númenórean soldiers.

There’s a playful side to Clark’s Galadriel that shines through in this whimsical fight sequence, harkening back to Tolkien’s description of Elves in The Hobbit as flighty, teasing creatures. Yet naturally, this had led to complaints from certain viewers that she’s too playful after weeks of them calling her “emotionless” and “bland” (some of the vaguest, most tiring criticisms leveled against actresses), because people can’t seem to settle on what their issue is with her. They’ll bemoan that she’s nothing like the character Tolkien wrote, which is arguably just a fact, not a fully-formed opinion on the character Amazon has written based on the many different, often contradictory, accounts of Galadriel’s life and demeanor that Tolkien himself wrote.

I want to bring your attention back once more to the quote from The Silmarillion that I included at the top of this article, where Tolkien’s son states outright that the stories contained therein are not intended to be taken at face-value, for they are none of them necessarily true or unbiased in their account of what “really” happened. And if a complete consistency is not to be looked for in Tolkien’s own writings, how can we possibly expect to find it in a loose adaptation of the writings in question? In our desperation to have order (or canon), I fear that some of us would go so far as to strip Tolkien’s great tales of their inconsistencies and the complexities that arise as a result of these: the subtle hints pointing at hidden biases in each narrator’s voice for the reader to suss out on their own.

I fully understand the temptation, as did Tolkien, who by all accounts was a relentless perfectionist. He was many times throughout his life tempted to retroactively revise his published works to bring them into accordance with whichever new version of the Middle-earth mythos he had just developed: yet he stopped short of fixing even major continuity errors in The Hobbit at the urging of his friends, who warned him that in his desire for consistency he was sucking all the fun out of a simple children’s bedtime story. He caved once, rewriting an entire chapter of The Hobbit post-publication, but in that case he came up with an entire in-universe excuse for how that happened, with Bilbo taking the blame for writing down a false account of what transpired that frankly ought to still be included in copies of The Hobbit, as it becomes quite important later on in The Lord Of The Rings.

Anyway, none of this is to say that you have to like the choices The Rings Of Power made regarding mithril, its origins or its properties – just that every adaptation, and all of Tolkien’s works for that matter, contain moments of discrepancy like this one where the need for compelling drama or clarity takes precedence over the desire for continuity, because they are not religious scriptures containing any kind of objective truth. Just something to keep in mind going forward, as I’m sure we’ll all be having many more discussions along these lines in the very near future.

Episode Rating: 9/10

September 12, 2022

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

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

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

– The Silmarillion: Akallabêth, p. 311

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode Rating: 9.5/10