LAST TIME: Stranger is friend! Stranger help pull cart! Arondir prepares to meet the much-ballyhooed Adar, who may or may not be Sauron, whom Galadriel learns is gathering strength in a place called Mordor. Hey, I wonder if that's connected to the tower Celebrimbor's building! We meet the Numenoreans and they are big jerky-jerks motivated by
(siiiiigh) a prophecy.
EPISODE 4: The Great Wave
Queen Regent Miriel's faith is tested; Isildur finds himself at a crossroads; Elrond uncovers a secret; Arondir is given an ultimatum; Theo disobeys Bronwyn.
Numenor drowns but it is, of course, just a dream.
For now. Meanwhile, Pharazon talks to an assistant (whose name is Kemen but I will think of him as Kevin), the very picture of the ambitious chancellor trope; he's
this close to talking about Dark Plagueis the Wise. This scene is basically the show putting on its Game of Thrones pants and asking the audience whether it makes its butt look fat.
Extremely clumsy anti-Elf sentiment is whipped up by an anti-Elf-sentiment whipper-upper. Like, literal "they're coming to take your jerbs" rhetoric. And look, I am absolutely in favor of LOTR:ROP addressing contemporary themes, I think the setting and timeline are well suited for discussions of imperialism for example. But this scene is absurd.
Now Pharazon shows up and he's totally correct that Great Elf Replacement Theory is stupid, given there's only
one Elf refugee on the island; but Pharazon is Evil (tm) so of course his motivation is self-serving. Nobody's said "Make Numenor Great Again" but that's obviously what's happening. And then he buys drinks for everyone, which is twice in two episodes these dullards have been bribed in this manner.
And my problems with all this are twofold: one, that it's clunky and kindergarten-obvious, like I mentioned before. But second, and perhaps more insidious, is the failure (at least so far) to address any institutional problems in Numenor. I mentioned the imperialism theme earlier as something I'd like to see tackled; perhaps by showing how Numenor and the Elves, despite being the "good guys" (and certainly viewing themselves as such), are
also unwelcome colonizers and exploiters to the people of Middle-earth. They might wonder, for example, why the "lesser folk" seem so quick to support Sauron, failing to understand that from the perspective of those "lesser folk", the threat posed by Sauron and the threat posed by the Elves or Numenoreans
are not all that different. That would be a (relatively) subtle example of how great powers such as America can behave as the bad guys on the ground, even with "good" intentions. But to the extent that Numenor = America, the show doesn't seem to be critiquing America; it's critiquing
Trump's America. That is to say, the problem isn't a fundamental injustice in Numenorean policy or Numenorean institutions; the problem is this one bad apple.
Halbrand may be a king in exile, but he's still a "common brawler"; he started the fight and was 100% in the wrong. He doesn't get a pass just because he might have royal blood. And the queen is right to point this out. Good on ya, Queen Regent.
Galadriel comes in and reveals the Southlands are 1) vulnerable, 2) leaderless and 3) soon to be absorbed by Sauron's empire. Now if I'm Numenor's head of state, I'm thinking this is the perfect time to annex the Southlands myself. It's a perfect opportunity for Numenor to gain a bunch of land while denying it to a rival. They might
frame this annexation as defending the Southlands from Sauron, "we must all unite" and so forth, but it's really simple power politics. Anyway, that's what I'd do; let's see if Miriel is thinking the same thing.
Then Galadriel gets thrown in jail because she's very bad at diplomacy, but very very good at giving speeches about how passionate she is. And now exactly like Halbrand, she's locked up for something that is 100% her fault. I suspect neither will learn anything from this. I suspect they will escape (possibly with help from Elendil) and find the actual king and appeal to him, and that will work. There may be an absurd action scene involved.
Don't go into a weird vision-trance while you're working, Isildur! This isn't the time! Is
another poor sap going to get injured in a rope accident? The answer is yes! Why do you keep repeating yourself, show? Also, when is Nori coming back? I miss Nori.
What the hell? Isildur is a fuckup but in no way does this accident mean he let go of the rope deliberately. Why does the captain come to this conclusion? Why does he also fire Isildur's two friends?!
Adar shows up and he's an Elf with burns on his face. He has an evil dagger. If this isn't Sauron, it's a very convincing misdirect. Regardless of his deal, I really like Adar's actor and the character's look. He's interesting to watch.
If only Theo had some kind of magical artifact to help with his burglary mission! A ring that turns you invisible would be really useful right now. Now, I agree Theo has the right idea here -- Rule #1 of a siege is don't let your garrison starve. However, even if they came across a fully stocked Whole Foods (extra perks with Amazon Prime!) there's only so much food two skinny teens can carry, so I hope if this succeeds they come back with more people. Oh okay, they found a wheelbarrow so that helps a little.
Oh man all that loose grain on the floor, the rats should be ALL OVER that.
Theo's sword gets long, and now the boy has become a man.
Now Celebrimbor's tower is already half built, and I really wonder about the time scale these events are happening in. It feels like it's been three days for Nori and company, maybe a week for Team Bronwyn and Team Galadriel, and several months for Elrond? Well, maybe a wizard did it.
Come what may, I never have an unkind word about the scenery. It's nearly always gorgeous, except for some ocean scenes that look oddly cheap, like they were shot in a swimming pool with a matte painting in back. In the first episode even that kinda worked for me; the voyage to the West looking artificial seemed to drive home the idea of the West as this very distinct other world -- and for Galadriel, not an appealing world to go to. We share her unease because it looks unnatural
to us too. But like many other things about the premiere, it seems I read too much into an unmotivated choice made by a not-all-that-great TV show.
Okay, Dwarves having such a thing as "the knocking game" which is seemingly just hitting each other, that's pretty cute.
Ah, the old secret door. Never have a fantasy tale without one!
That's a pretty serious oath for Elrond to swear just to satisfy his curiosity -- and in this setting oathbreaking has real consequences. I think if I were Elrond, I'd just say "You know, if it's that important to you then I don't need to know all that bad. I just wanted to see that you & I were still cool." Especially since Elrond caught a glimpse at the mithril vein and should already have guessed. (EDIT: It appears mithril was just discovered so okay, Elrond wouldn't have known what he saw. Also, lol that Elrond comes up with the name.)
"This mithril is so secret, I demand you swear a mighty oath to not breathe a word of it to anyone. Feel free to take a chunk home though, I'm sure it'll be fine."
Oh that's right, Galadriel's still in jail. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Halbrand gives a speech about mastering your enemies through fear, which lends credence to my theory that we're looking at a future Ringwraith.
"Cease comparing me to a horse." Okay, that's a good one.
It seems like if Galadriel wanted an army, she could just go back to the Elves and tell her people what's what. Stop wasting time and risking your life in Numenor, G!
Earien and Kevin are our romance, I guess. (EDIT: I guess Arondir and Bronwyn are an item, but it's been a while since they even shared a scene, let alone a romantic moment.)
"How did you know I would come here?" BECAUSE YOU TOLD HER YOU WOULD, G, THAT'S WHAT PUT YOU IN PRISON. Jesus.
Here I'm going to get needlessly pedantic. In the books, one blessing of being Numenorean is that you age gracefully; the infirmity and decline of old age happens very late in life, and when it occurs is a signal that it's time to give up the ghost and die gracefully (which is also a Numenorean privilege). The later Numenorean kings refused to do this, clinging to life right up to the bitter end. But Tar-Palantir is explicitly of the Faithful. So it's unlikely we'd see him in this state, decrepit and feeble. He would have chosen to pass on before this point. This isn't really a problem with the show because I doubt they've made that canon, but it's something I noticed.
Tar-Palantir has a palantir! How nice! Here, in a break from the books, the other 6 are already lost (in the books that happened much later).
"I will not second-guess the gods", Miriel says, but of course she's doing exactly that. Bad writing, or clever writing? I'll give the benefit of the doubt this time.
Still not sure why there's a food problem among Bronwyn's people. When they left for the tower, did they not pack the food they already had in town? I understand they felt they needed to leave in haste, but who forgets to bring
food? It's the one thing they
should pack if they're going to button up for a siege.
Escaping from Orcs under the cover of ... night. I sense a problem with this plan. Theo sneaks through the tall grass and suddenly it's The Last of Us 2 but less fun.
I am not sure why Arondir went to the village where Theo was when Adar had explicitly directed him to the tower, but maybe the village was along the way. I don't have a sense of location here. Anyway, it's nice to see Arondir with the other characters again.
This fight/escape scene is in slow motion with sad chanting, which is movie talk for "a character dies here". Except it doesn't happen, and the mysterious clouds which darkened the previous day, have just as mysteriously vanished now that our characters need to get away. Okay then.
Dwarves shutting down a vein of astronomically precious ore because of a mine collapse? I'm not buying it. These are dwarves, they'd invent safety measures. Or come at the vein from another direction. Mining is dwarves' entire deal. They're willing to take decades to do it right. For something to be too dangerous for dwarves to mine it'd have to be, I dunno, on an asteroid or something.
Elrond musing about Earendil is a nice character moment. You do have to wonder what it would feel like, to have a dad who was one of the greatest heroes of all time, and every time you look up at the stars, you know that one of those stars is your dad sailing a ship across the sky with a Silmaril on his brow. Just ... up there all the time for eternity. Dad. What would it feel like to be his son, knowing this? How would you live up to that? It's nice the show lets him share his thoughts on this, let's be honest, bugfuck family situation. It's a good scene.
I'm glad Durin made peace with his father. It's a sweet moment. But also:
who cares? Why does this matter in any goddamn way? Let's recap -- Durin making peace with his dad is a subplot to the mithril-vein plot, which is itself a subplot to the Elrond-Durin-friendship plot, which is
itsef a subplot to the Dwarves-building-the-tower plot, and
we don't even know the purpose of this tower yet. So what even are we doing here, that we're spending time in this scene, sweet as it is?
So they seem to be setting up this show's Siege of Helm's Deep. These rag-tag villagers must defend their tower against the rampaging Orc army. We're sure to get the obligatory scene of Arondir training the townsfolk; "I shall teach you to fight Elf-style" and then we get a montage of drilling and absurd stuntwork.
Ah, so there are still *some* villagers loyal to Morgoth. A secret cult (consisting of one guy)! And the Stranger's meteor is part of that, although I'm pretty sure Stranger is not Sauron, funny as it would be to imagine Sauron pulling a cart for hobbits.
"Your task is to be ready for what's coming." "Okay, but what should I be ready for?" "For
what's coming, lad." "Yeah I know, but specifically what--" [credits]
I hope they end this episode with Galadriel jumping off a boat in the middle of the ocean. I hope they end
every episode with Galadriel jumping off a boat in the middle of the ocean.
It's weird that they have to ask for volunteers to accompany the queen on her journey. It's not as if Numenor doesn't have soldiers. It's not as if queens don't have elite guards to do this very thing. But, given that they
are asking, it's also weird that nobody volunteers. Maybe they're all to racist to share a boat with an Elf, that would connect to earlier in the episode; but the vibe of this crowd is more cowardice than racism. Especially since once Isildur and his asshole friends volunteer, then everyone else wants to as well.
FINAL THOUGHTS: I've noticed a sassier tone with this post, which I take to mean the shine of the first episode has worn off. By now I think the show has mostly settled on the level it's operating at, and the level of quality (good as well as bad) I can expect as a baseline. It adds up to what I would currently call a fair-to-middling TV show; some bits I like, others not much, and when I think about a billion dollars going into this I get a little crazy.
As far as this specific episode, it suffers from a lack of Nori, even though I appreciate the show realizing it can't juggle all its plotlines in every episode. Sometimes we just aren't going to check up on certain characters at all, and structurally that's probably a good call, although it would be a better call to merge some of these storylines and have characters meet finally. I just realized that as far as Elrond and the other Elves know, Galadriel is in Valinor and not coming back.
It's wild to think we're in episode 4 of [checks] 8? seriously? -- it's the halfway mark of the season and our various storylines haven't merged, our character groups haven't interacted, things seem
poised to happen but very little has
actually happened, and most surprisingly, there has been
not even a hint about the Rings of Power after which the show is named. Like that's not even on the radar right now. If you weren't already a lore nerd who recognizes Celebrimbor as the guy who eventually makes the rings, there wouldn't even be foreshadowing. So this episode feels like more flailing without forward motion, and a lot of characters doing things without many actual character moments.
I do like Adar though. We need more Adar. He's got a Lee Pace thing going on.
No letter grade. I think we can assume every episode will be a C unless it's remarkably good or bad.