RECAP: “The Rings of Power” Season 2, Episodes 1-3
Prime Video’s much-vaunted Lord of the Rings prequel series, “The Rings of Power,” returned this week after a TWO-YEAR absence from our screens. Season 1 of the show was hyped relentlessly by Prime, which reportedly sunk more than $1 billion into it, and viewed it as their version of “Game of Thrones” (cue “The Wheel of Time”: “Fuck my drag, right?”), as well as as the streamer’s bid at prestige programming. But it was met with considerable pushback from viewers and fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic works, who criticized Season 1 for its laconic pacing, wildly uneven cast and characters, and changes to Tolkien lore.
Personally, I enjoyed Season 1 more than I disliked it. It absolutely had problems — those first few episodes were a real slog, but I thought it improved dramatically in the back half, with the scenes leading to the activation of Mount Doom being genuinely thrilling. So I was excited to see what the series could do with a season under its belt, to see what lessons it learned from trying to adapt this unwieldy property.
Overall I found the three premiere episodes of Season 2 to be a step up from the early episodes of Season 1. There are still problems here, which I will discuss below. But I found more of it engaging than not, although Episode 3 was a notable downturn in the action.
Read on for my take on “Rings of Power” Season 2, Episodes 1-3, listing the story arcs in terms of LEAST interesting to MOST interesting. There’s a whole bunch of spoilers here, so don’t read if you don’t want to know what happens!
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THE SOUTHLANDS/EDGE OF MORDOR
These storylines comprised a good chunk of Episode 3, the least successful of the Season 2 premiere clutch of episodes. The weakest elements of Season 1 had to do with the plight of the Southlanders, and the elf warrior Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova) who tried to keep them from falling into darkness. As we saw in Season 1, he failed, and Adar, Father of the Orcs, succeeded in awakening Mount Doom, Mordor was born, and a surprisingly large chunk of the Southlanders have willingly taken the dark mark and joined up with the orcs, pushing the relatively few survivors to the Numenorian colony of Pelargir.
Arondir is still here, saving Isildur from a band of brigands (more on Isildur later), and mourning the off-screen death of his love interest, Bronwyn, who was killed after actress Nazanin Boniadi left the show. From a real-world standpoint, I don’t blame her. Both Boniadi and especially Cordova were subjected to unbelievable online hatred during/after Season 1, and I would probably walk away, too. From a narrative standpoint of this show, Bronwyn’s death is no great loss. The romance between her and Arondir was one of the weaker elements of Season 1, and her son Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) among its worst characters. Alas, Theo is still with us, and as unlikable as ever, brutally shooting down Arondir’s attempts at bonding.
Theo takes a liking to Isildur after the warrior arrives in Pelargir, and guides Isildur to the camp of the thieves who stole his horse, Berek. Real talk: I like Berek more than I like any non-Isildur human character in these storylines, so I’m grateful that Theo at least reunited rider and steed. It appears that Theo has been raiding these thief camps for some time, and I think the implication is that the kid has a death wish. He was about to get that wish granted at the end of Episode 3, when he encountered something shocking in the middle of the forest. I don’t know for sure, but do you want Ents? Because this is how we get Ents.
Let’s wrap up this section by discussing Isildur (Maxim Baldry), who is the one character here I actually care about. After seemingly dying in a fire at the end of Season 1 — which we knew wouldn’t take because he’s, like, kind of a big deal — Isildur is captured by a giant, horrible spider and Saran Wrapped so as to be a pre-portioned spider-baby snack. Isildur’s horse Berek, who is an icon, mystically tracks Isildur through the Black Woods to the spider’s nest and wakes his rider just in time for him to escape from the lair. (Do the Black Woods ultimately become the Mirkwoods? Overtaken by giant spiders? I genuinely don’t know.)
While on the road, a badly wounded Isildur encounters what reminded me powerfully of the bog-wraith swamps that Frodo, Sam, and Gollum encountered while entering Mordor (geographically these could be those very swamps), and ultimately found himself heading to Pelargir after encountering Estrid, a wounded traveler, on the road. At the end of Episode 3, we discover that Estrid bares the dark mark, but attempts to obscure it via self-inflicted blade burn. Her allegiance remains a question.
MORDOR
Note that there is a huge jump in interest level between the human survivors of the Southlands and the Orc storyline; I truly feel the non-Isildur elements in Pelargir are the weakest of this show, whereas just about every other storyline is holding my interest.
The Orcs and especially their leader, Adar, are given some interesting development in the early episodes of Season 2. First, Adar has been recast, now played by Sam Hazeldine. The swap-out is pretty seamless, as he looks and sounds very similar, but is almost immediately less punchable than O.G. Adar.
I think that’s deliberate. In Season 2, we’re meant to sympathize with the Orcs and Adar in a way I don’t think we’ve ever experienced in the previous Tolkien adaptations. Yes, they’re still violent, terrifying creatures, but in a few key moments in these episodes — a shot of an Orc mother and father comforting their baby, for instance — they’re, forgive the word, humanized. The sense I’m getting is that this show is positioning the Orcs as pitiable creatures that for the most part just want to be left alone, not unlike the Morlocks from the X-Men comics.
Adar in particular seems increasingly to be characterized not as some warlord hellbent on domination, but on the leader of the Orcs trying to ensure his people’s safety. We see that off the bat in a throwback to the end of the First Age/dawn of the Second Age, as he betrays the bloodthirsty Sauron — who wants to weaponize the orcs to take over Middle-earth immediately after the fall of Morgoth — and again as he is informed that Sauron is back from the grave, and still wants dominion over the Orcs as his personal army. Even though the Orcs have found their homeland with the creation of Mordor (the ashen clouds block out the sun, allowing them to roam unharmed), the threat of Sauron inspires Adar to marshal his forces to track down his ancient enemy. By the end of Episode 3, Adar has enlisted the help of trolls in this fight. I’m always interested in seeing a story play out from a traditionally “villainous” perspective, and narratively this is clever: Adar thinks that he’s building an army to save his people, but the viewer knows he’s actually building the army FOR his foe.
NUMENOR
I’m split on this arc. I find the ascension of the now-blind Miriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) engaging, especially as she is humbled following the tragedy in the Southlands. I find the power struggle with the usurper Pharazon (Trystan Gravelle) interesting, and the idea of a man stealing a woman’s rightfully inherited throne sure seems to be in the zeitgeist right now (hello, “House of the Dragon”).
My issue with the Numenor plotline is that all feels a little pointless. We know basically everyone in these scenes is doomed; it’s only a matter of time. I guess its power is that it’s a cautionary tale, and while Tolkien apparently considered it to be an allusion to the tales of Atlantis, it’s hard to not draw parallels to modern geopolitics as well. A nation of insufferable, xenophobic blowhards who think they’re better than everyone else? Who ignore all the warning signs until it all comes crashing around them in catastrophe? Where have I heard that before?
It’s not helped by the fact that the tertiary characters here are either forgettable or insufferable. I remember liking Earien (Emma Horvath), sister of Isildur and daughter of Elendil, in Season 1. I do not anymore. Spurred by the presumed death of her brother in the Southlands, and the cryptic warnings of the now-dead king, Earien found the palantir and received the vision of Numenor’s destruction. She works with a group of conspirators to weaponize this at Miriel’s coronation — Numenorian’s despise the Elves, remember, and view magic as their trickery. In a very cool but infuriating sequence, in the ensuing chaos a Great Eagle alights on the landing immediately outside the coronation room. Pharazon had said earlier in the episode that should an eagle visit Miriel’s coronation, it would be an auspicious sign — the Eagles had long since been absent Numenorian society. But with the room erupting in accusations over the palantir, Pharazon notices the surprise Eagle visit and acts like it came for HIM (the Eagle clearly is not that into Pharazon), and the conspirators lead a chant that swings favor to Pharazon as the new ruler of Numenor.
We’ll have to see where this ends up, but the only two characters I actually care about from this plotline are Miriel and Elendil, the latter of whom did basically nothing in these episodes. I’m now actively rooting for Earien to die.
THE ROAD TO RHUN
The quasi-Hobbit arc — centered on nomadic Harfoot Nori (Markella Kavenaugh) and the unnamed wizard who fell to Middle-earth (Daniel Weyman) — picks up awkwardly in Season 2, with Nori and The Stranger seemingly going in circles on their way East to follow the star formation the wizard is obsessed with. They realize they’re being watched, and in fairly short order Nori’s best friend Poppy (Megan Richards) appears out of nowhere and magically provides them the solution for how to get out of the apparently very confusing geographic area they are stuck in.
This was, to me, the worst part of the three premiere episodes. It didn’t make a lick of sense. We see Nori and the wizard in a fairly open, rocky terrain — they’re getting lost in that? Are they not just following the sun in a mostly set path? Poppy arriving out of nowhere, when the implication is that Nori and the wizard have been wandering for at least days, if not longer (all their supplies are gone) is both much too convenient, and ultimately speaks to the writers changing course after the end of last season. (Personally I was glad to see Poppy back, I don’t think Nori and the wizard on their own worked great, and Hobbits always work best when they’re playing off each other.) Then the solution to this…maze? I guess? That is a geographic area?…is the very same harfoot folk song they had been singing last season? And there are a few establishing shots that don’t even line up with what they’re singing? And then poof! they’re out of the area? A mess. I am happy to suspend disbelief for fantasy properties but this was so poorly done.
And for what? The ultimate outcome of all of this is to get the stranger — who we all assumed at the end of Season 1 was Gandalf, but I genuinely question if that is the case now — to the east in Rhun. Rhun is a fascinating area in Tolkien lore. I’m hardly an expert on this (I’ve read The Hobbit, 2/3 of The Lord of the Rings, none of The Silmarillion) but I would say it roughly equates to the Middle East on earth, with deserts and tribes, and in Tolkien lore is a place where various dark forces retreat and then reemerge. It is also where the other TWO Istari wizards NOT seen in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings travel. And I wonder if that is not ultimately what we are seeing here. The Stranger may not be Gandalf; he may be one of these “blue” wizards (The Stranger specifically tells Nori and Poppy that he has a name, he just can’t remember it yet), and other wizard we encounter in these episodes (played by Ciaran Hinds, which…I hope he’s good in this, as he’s so frequently miscast) sure looks like a younger Saruman, but he may be the other “blue” wizard. We’ll have to see.
For all my bitching about how the characters GOT to Rhun, this storyline had some of the coolest sequences in the first three episodes. The fight at the well where the stranger unleashes an uncontrolled tornado spell; the sequence where the “dark” wizard recreates from moths one of the emissaries who stalked The Stranger in Season 1 — very cool stuff. And I’m always happy to see Nori and Poppy, who provide much-needed levity to this very dark and ponderous show.
KHAZAD-DUM
To be clear, I’m very invested in the Dwarf storylines these episodes. There was a lot I liked about the Dwarves in Season 1, and I think the showrunners are smart to focus on the most compelling elements here: Durin IV (Owain Arthur), his wife Disa (Sophia Nomvete, in my opinion the most engaging actor on this show), and Durin III (Peter Mullan).
Following last season, Durin IV has been stripped of his princely title after directly disobeying his father’s orders to not assist the Elves (specifically Elrond) in their quest for mithril. Durin IV and Disa are struggling to make ends meet, and Disa is struggling to reunite son and father — both deeply upset about their estrangement — when an earthquake causes major damage inside the mountain city of Khazad-Dum, specifically destroying the light shafts that allow for crop growth inside the mountain and more or less routine outdoor lives for the internally dwelling Dwarves.
This was apparently a result of the explosion of Mount Doom, which makes sense — that event is basically at the heart of the darkness literally and metaphorically taking over Middle-earth — and within a few weeks the Dwarves are being starved out. Disa and the stone singers attempt to locate a safe way for the Dwarves to dig new light shafts, but fail; the Dwarves believe the mountain no longer speaks or listens to them.
Salvation comes in the most ironic of forms: the Elves, specifically Celebrimbor who promises to create rings for the Dwarven lords like he did for the Elves, which will renew their connection to their domain. In exchange, the Dwarves must continue to provide them a steady supply of the mystical metal mithril. Celebrimbor pitches the plan to Durin IV and Disa, and Durin IV is immediately suspicious. Still he brings the offer to Durin III, and at the end of Episode 3, Durin III arrives at Celebrimbor’s forge with a chunk of Mythril to see what happens. More on that in a minute.
LINDON
I loved almost all of the Elvish scenes in these episodes. Following the shock ending of Season 1, when Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) realized that her ally Halbrand was, in fact, a reborn Sauron, she is grilled by High King Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker) and Elrond (Robert Aramyao), the latter of which put together Halbrand’s identity even though Galadriel refused to admit it. The crux of the issue is this: Gil-Galad knows that the magic rings created by Elvish smith Celebrimbor are the only hope the Elves have of remaining in Middle-earth; without them they will have to return to the Elvish realm or perish. But neither Elrond nor Gil-Galad trust the rings, now that they know that Sauron may have had a hand in creating them. And who unknowingly brought Sauron into their creation? Galadriel, who has been hellbent on destroying him for the entire length of this show.
It’s pretty great drama, and sets up a tense dynamic between our three primary Elvish players. Because when Gil-Galad agrees with Galadriel that they have to at lease TRY to wear the rings to save their people, Elrond balks and literally jumps off a cliff with the rings to keep them away. He eventually finds refuge with elder elf Cirdan (Ben Daniels), a ship builder. Elrond believes that this older and wiser elf will see to the disposal of the rings, and when he takes them out to dump them in open water, the boat is suddenly upset, and Cirdan lays eyes on the rings themselves.
Meanwhile, back in Lindon, Gil-Galad has called the Elves together at the great tree, which is very nearly dead after starting to wither in Season 1. Gil-Galad puts on a banger concert and informs the Elves it’s time to hit the road, sailing west to the mystic continent from which they came. But suddenly Cirdan emerges, revealing that the rings CAN save them — and he now wears one himself. He hands the other two to Gil-Galad, whose hand shakes, and one of them falls, bouncing to the feet of Galadriel. Almost like the ring chose her. Enchanted by its beauty, she instinctively puts it on, as Gil-Galad puts on the third. And as all three Elven rings of power are worn, an intense light erupts and the tree instantly reflowers and is reborn. The Elves are restored, and no longer need to abandon Middle-earth.
Sounds great, right? But Elrond is deeply pissed off, and wonders aloud if the ring bearers have actually doomed them all. And he’s right to be worried. In short order, both Galadriel and Gil-Galad admit to one another that since wearing the rings, they have begun to see “what may come to pass” (referencing Galadriel’s speech to Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring), and none of it is good. Furthermore, Galadriel’s personality has already changed significantly from the first season. Perhaps it’s because of the ring, perhaps it’s because she realized she got played like a fiddle, but she seems far less strident and aggressive than she did in Season 1.
Gil-Galad and Galadriel realize that while the rings may have temporarily saved the Elves, there is significant danger via these rings of power, and they fear that Sauron will attempt to use it for his purposes. They send a messenger to Celebrimbor in Eregion to tell him to not allow Halbrand anywhere near the forge, and forbid him from creating any more rings; the messenger is, of course, killed off-screen and never arrives at his destination. Convinced that Sauron will still attempt to use the forge for his dark purposes, Gil-Galad agrees to send Galadriel and a small force of Elves to shut it down — but he puts Elrond in charge, as he no longer trusts Galadriel. I very much dig the combative alliance between Elrond and Galadriel, which brings to mind the initial tension of the Fellowship of the Ring. I’m excited to see where it goes.
EREGION
It is, of course, going to Eregion, and it can’t get there soon enough. Because all of the Elvish fears are warranted: Halbrand does indeed turn up at Celebrimbor’s forge, and after being temporarily rebuffed by the smith (who does not know Halbrand is Sauron, just that he isn’t who he appears and should not be trusted), ultimately lets him in after Sauron deploys a few simple deception checks.
The scenes between Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) and Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) are great. I’m sure some viewers were screaming at their TVs about Celebrimbor being incredibly stupid, but I think his actions here make a ton of sense based on the characters. First, it’s established that once Sauron has infiltrated a person’s mind, he can manipulate it whenever he wishes. At one point in their exchange Sauron explicitly asks Celebrimbor if he is his friend, and Celebrimbor says yes; to me, this is basically the equivalent of inviting a vampire into your house. Second, a recurring theme these three episodes is that Sauron is, at his core, exceptional at manipulation. He knows exactly what buttons to push, which half-truths to tell to get people to do what he wants/needs. That whole bit about how it’s so common for the crafters to do all the work, but get none of the credit, was a brilliant tactic.
Sauron goes further in manipulation by admitting to Celebrimbor that he is not, in fact, Halbrand, but is instead Annatar, an elf guide who was sent to assist Celebrimbor and — in a wonderful bit of prestidigitation — ensure that the smith will be forever remembered as The Lord of the Rings. I’m sure some people found that hokey. I thought it was a terrific moment. Annatar explains to Celebrimbor that he must create not only rings for the Elves, but also for the Dwarves — who are imperiled, after all — and even floats the idea of making rings for men. Celebrimbor balks at that last one, saying men are too easily corrupted for such power. But the thing about manipulators is that they are very good at getting in, and moving the goal posts. And we already see “Annatar” doing exactly that.
The sequence with Celebrimbor, “Annatar,” Durin IV, and Disa is another great bit, with Sauron surprisingly tipping his hand a bit too heavily, pressuring the Dwarves to go along with the plan immediately. It suggests to the viewers that Sauron knows he can’t pull off this ruse for long, because sooner or later the Elves WILL show up, and his cover is going to be blown. He has to get these rings created ASAP or his plan falls apart.
MULTIPLE LOCATIONS (SAURON)
While “The Rings of Power” is obviously an ensemble piece — I would argue the biggest ensemble I’ve ever seen on a show, and one that could use some pruning — I think Season 1 was pretty clearly Galadriel’s season. Season 2 is almost certainly Sauron’s season. Season 1 began with flashbacks to Galadriel’s life, showing how she got to be the character she is. Season 2 does the same with Sauron, and it’s fascinating.
Picking up at the end of the First Age, immediately after Morgoth’s defeat, a council of Morgoth’s followers is held, with Sauron declaring himself the new Dark Lord, and ordering the Orcs to become his personal army against the alliance of men, elves, and dwarves. Adar seems poised to crown him, before instead stabbing him with the crown, and encouraging his Orc brethren to have their way — Sauron is brutally Julius Caesar’d, but like x100.
As he dies, a massive power surge erupts from his corpse, casting a burst of cold, freezing everything around (I assume this is the starting location Galadriel explores at the beginning of S1). But like Kennedy Davenport after a long night of hooking, Sauron didn’t die! He crystalized, bitch, with his blood coagulating into a kind of swarm form, and over an indeterminate period of time consuming enough pest life to turn into a kind…goo blob that ejects itself from the mountain, flop itself to the tundra, and ultimately encounter a traveling human, which it devours, leading to the Halbrand form we met in Season 1.
In short order, Halbrand Sauron finds himself on the road, encountering Southerners fleeing Adar and the orcs. He joins them on their refugee ship, which is attacked by the sea dragon (it’s also implied here that Sauron has some level of control over/rapport with animals, which we saw again in his scenes as Adar’s prisoner in Mordor), which brings us to where he encounters Galadriel on the wreckage in Season 1. The important thing in this sequence is that it establishes a Sauron questioning his motives, questioning if he is meant to only do evil, and also driving home why maybe Sauron hates everyone. If you were turned into a pin cushion and left as a pile of sentient slime, you would probably hate people too.
I’m confident that a big criticism of these episodes will be the wild inconsistencies between timelines and geography that we get in the Sauron storyline. He’s in Mordor, he’s in Eregion, he’s beboppin’ and scattin’ pretty much everywhere seemingly instantly, which should be impossible. I see that. But also: it’s fantasy. He has magical abilities. I give a lot of leeway with these types of shows, because I choose to go along for the ride. The logistics may be crunchy, but if it’s in service to the story, I can typically wave my hand and let it pass. (Deliberate Gandalf reference.)
The Sauron sequences were all super compelling, and watching him manipulate and plot is so much more engaging than just having this all-powerful, de facto evil thing behind the scenes moving the plot along. I actually understand his motivations now, and I feel like I have at least a SENSE of how he got to this place. I’m along for the ride, for sure. Are you?
What did you think of the three episodes? Are you enjoying Season 2 more than Season 1? Leave your takes in the comments!