Wednesday, August 28, 2024

The Rings of Power Season One Recap: Dreadful, Dreadful, Dreadful!

 

I had wanted at first to reserve this post until tomorrow, but as The Rings of Power Season Two premieres today (with three episodes instead of two), I suppose now is the time for it. I'm republishing these with very little editing, although I have to admit my disdain and displeasure has grown over the months since, and some of my criticism seems very mild to me now. Does this mean I won't watch Season Two? Naw, it should be a hoot (a hoot of scorn and derision!); it just won't be Tolkien. 

Episode One and Two: It Begins

Yesterday (September 3) I went over to my brother John’s house to watch the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. He and his family already had an Amazon+ subscription and a nice big television to watch it on. Though I could not help hearing many things before I went over and knowing many people’s opinions, I scrupulously avoided any detailed reviews, so I could go in with a clear mind.

To rehearse my pedigree once more, I was introduced to Tolkien in 1972 in Third Grade; read The Hobbit in 1975 and The Lord of the Rings in 1976; watched the Rankin Bass Hobbit in 1977 and the Bakshi LOTR in 1978; got my first copy of The Silmarillion in 1979, and every posthumous Tolkien publication from then on, including the complete The History of Middle-earth in fourteen volumes from 1983 – 1996 then The Nature of Middle-earth just one year ago in 2021. I saw the explosion of ‘Ringers’ with the Jackson movies, suffered through his Hobbit films, and in 2020 mourned the death of Christopher Tolkien, the gatekeeper of his father’s legacy. I am not of the first generation of Tolkien’s readers, nor even the second Hippie generation. I cannot write in elf-runes. My first love for Tolkien and for Middle-earth grew in isolation, almost in secret, in a small Texas town, away from fandoms and encouragement, almost amid contempt.

I have chanted my qualifications. Now I feel rather like one of those priests, scarred and crippled by the Julian persecutions, who were called by Constantine to pronounce for the newly accepted Church what is heresy and what can legitimately be affirmed. It is a daunting feeling.

Well. We ate lunch. We got comfortable. We settled down and spent a couple of hours watching the first two episodes of The Rings of Power. We talked about it a bit and found that we pretty much agreed about it.

It wasn’t good. It wasn’t absolutely horrible. It was a billion dollars’ worth of ‘meh’ (so far).

Let’s consider the ‘not horrible’ bits first. The first thing you will find on most positive reviews of ROP is that its design is visually appealing. This is true; the cities, the towns, and the wild lands tend to be quite pleasing, the costume design mostly adequate, and the background music does its job without being particularly intrusive - or inspiring. These are of course cosmetic festooning; no series will survive just on good looks. The one verified glance we get at Sauron is static but satisfying.

The actors do a fair job as well, considering the material they have been given to work with. I particularly came to like the characters of Celebrimbor and Elrond, who were not as objectionable as we had been led to believe they were going to be. I enjoyed nearly everything about Khazad-dûm, and even found the much-reviled Disa to be pleasant, if not lore-accurate (no beard). Elanor (Nori) Brandyfoot and her friend Poppy are an interesting pair, and not simply a gender-flipped Frodo and Sam, unless you’re thinking of the clownish Sam in Bakshi’s LOTR.

Alas, now I must turn to the ‘not good’ portion of ROP.

The worst thing, of course, is that it is not Tolkien. It is playing with a few of Tolkien’s action figures, and with the skeletal outline of The Appendices of The Lord of the Rings, which are informational and not exactly narrative. There is much that could be done with that, even so, but the writers and showrunners seem to be fixed on studiously subverting the lore whenever possible. They want to make a Middle-earth that conforms to modern sensibilities, when Tolkien’s Middle-earth did not even conform to the sensibilities of the time that it was written. It is, instead, a yardstick that measures and is measured by the age in which it is read.

Tolkien’s work, and especially The Lord of the Rings, is, to borrow a phrase, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Every attempt to adapt it has been flawed, even Jackson’s much touted trilogy of movies. It is not essentially a franchise, it is not ‘intellectual property’, save by unhappy chance and the ‘dirty devices of this world’. It is this, not being a troll or gatekeeping, that makes those who love Tolkien hold anything that has to do with Middle-earth to high standards. We do not wish it to change but to grow; we do not want to see a shoddy suburb spring up around it.

ROP’s Elves are not Elvish. Tolkien’s Elves (even the lowest) are distant and aloof from other races, even displeased if interfered with, but not snooty. ROP’s Elves are politicians: they set up an occupation force in the East, among other things. In Tolkien, there is no Elvish word for ‘politician’ though there are plenty for other kinds of rulers. Although there are examples of Elves Behaving Badly (Feanor and Maeglin – Elf princes - spring to mind, but also Saeros in the tale of Turin) it is hard to imagine Tolkien’s elf-children (in the Days of the Bliss of Valinor, no less) acting quite as Orcish as they do in the Prologue. Elf/mortal pairings are referenced in ROP as being rare and ending in tragedy (quite canonical), only to be subverted with a look that says “Well, we’re getting one now,” thus repeating one of the most ill-advised story lines from Jackson’s Hobbit movies.  

And one just weeps for the lore. For every good instance (the entrance into Khazad-dûm is not yet ‘The Doors of Durin’ which Celebrimbor will later help decorate) there is a terrible ham-handed element that makes anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Tolkien’s work shudder.

Among the worst is the naming. Middle-earth (more than many works) is based on words, on language, on names: Tolkien, as a philologist, did very careful building that way. There is so much background available, which need not have been referenced, but worked with behind the scenes to make sure that what was invented didn't clash. Instead, we get several abominations that make the ‘toxic’ fandom boil.

Take for example the name Elanor Brandyfoot. Not only does her nickname ‘Nori’ pointlessly recall one of the dwarves from The Hobbit, the name of Elanor for a hobbit would not have been possible until the Third Age when Sam Gamgee named his daughter after an Elven flower he saw in Lothlorien. Brandyfoot would also be impossible, because the ‘Brandy’ element had not entered their naming tradition until they had crossed the Baranduin (Brandywine) River and founded the Shire. It seems the writers just wanted a ‘Hobbitlike’ name without any of the inner historical significance.

Whenever anyone tries to sound profound, they produce wisdom on par with a bumper sticker. The Harfoots’ idiomatic references to carts and wheels seem forced.  The Tirharad insults about Elves seem strangely reminiscent of those that have been used about Vulcans. The name of Hordern seems to needlessly recall (to me at least) the name of Michael Hordern who voiced Gandalf on the 1981 BBC radio show. And so on … and on.  

BUT … all these things being considered, is it the absolute dumpster fire that many are proclaiming? Well, no, not exactly [Present-Day Me: Yes. Yes it is]. But it is certainly not the unmitigated success that others are exalting it as, either. Like I said, it is one billion dollars’ worth of ‘meh’. It can best be enjoyed by divorcing it in your mind from Tolkien, Middle-earth, or The Lord of the Rings, and thinking of it as an alternative timeline, a bit of ascended fanfiction, like The Iron Tower trilogy. It is mediocre, a questionable C at best, which is disappointing for a Tolkien … well, it’s not an adaptation; maybe an association, I guess? But for just another TV series, it's watchable. There are storylines with a bit of intrigue that one wants to see play out (Is the Stranger Gandalf, despite appearing in the Second Age? Does his ‘cold fire’ have anything to do with the heat-draining presence of evil in the Snow-Troll's chamber? Is the Stranger Sauron, or some other evil?), and that act as just enough of a lure to prompt further viewings.

John and I have tentative plans to gather again every weekend and watch until the season’s end. Will we boost the numbers of an unworthy series? Perhaps. In the long run it will not matter. Tolkien and Middle-earth will remain as they are, and we will at least have had the pleasure of a day’s visit and an interesting critical discussion afterward. And that's all I've got to say about it at the moment.

 

Episode Three: In the Medical Sense of An Episode

I was back again at John’s house with my nephew Kameron to watch the third episode of “The Rings of Power” on Friday. I have to admit that the pleasure of having the occasion of visiting the family probably tips my tolerance of the show a bit toward the indulgent side, but even that cannot completely compensate for the fraying of the emotions that “The Rings of Power” works upon my mind.

I suppose one cannot expect writing on the level of Tolkien himself from mere show biz people. I cannot count how many times we guessed the next line of dialog or made a joking parody of what it would be, only to have it fulfilled nearly verbatim. What can I say? These ‘creatives’ are not nearly creative enough, and they have mere outlines to guide them, which they tend to ignore any chance they can. Almost more irritating is when they echo lines and situations in a most painful ‘wink-wink, nudge-nudge’ manner.

The first part opens with Galadriel and Halbrand on a Numenorean ship, where they meet Elendil. They are taken to Numenor and meet the ‘Queen-Regent’ Miriel who is very cold to them as possible spies. Halbrand fast talks her into a period of leniency to decide what to do with them, then he and Galadriel proceed to make trouble wherever they go.

Elendil takes her to a library (as one does with prisoners, but then he seems to be more kindly disposed towards Elves) and she realizes that the sigil that is haunting her is a map of what will become Mordor. Halbrand shows a suspicious interest in becoming a smith and staying in Numenor, which raises some ideas in the viewership that he may be Sauron. Even his claims to being the king of the men on Middle-earth might be a sort of dissembling truth.  

We get to see a lot more Orcs next in this episode, as they have captured Mr. Tuvok and his fellow Elves. In ROP, Orcs do not only grow weak and dizzy under the Sun, but their flesh audibly sizzles when they leave their sheltering tents. After all the other Elves are killed while trying to escape, Tuvok is taken to the Orcs’ revered leader, called Adar (the Sindarin word for ‘Father’), whom we only briefly see in a blurry glimpse. There is some speculation that this could be Sauron, but it seems more likely to be one of the corrupted Elves who were the Orcs’ original stock.

Meanwhile, the Harfoots are getting ready to make their Fall migration, which isn’t good news for Largo Brandyfoot, Nori’s dad, who broke his ankle last episode. We are given a long remembrance list for those Harfoots who were killed on the trail or left behind, full of mostly terrible attempts of coming up with Hobbit names. The Stranger is finally revealed to the whole tribe, and, despite misgivings, is put on probation as he joins them. This solves the Brandyfoots’ problem, as he can draw their cart for them. The Stranger is looking less and less likely to be Sauron in disguise.

There are no specific instances of the Dwarf strand of story or of Bronwyn and her people (the humans captured by Orcs are apparently from Hordern) in this episode.

 Everyone seems to be playing the "Spot the Sauron" game for ROP, and that is still an element of interest. Is it Halbrand? The Stranger? Perhaps the shadowy "Adar" held in such reverence by the Orcs? In jest, I propose a fourth theory: it is the 'Galadriel' we've been seeing. It would explain her strange unpleasantness; her hunt for Sauron could be a big red herring that allows her to visit old evil fortresses without suspicion; the absence of Celeborn (the real Galadriel and Celeborn being off somewhere in isolation); her jumping ship rather than go to Valinor; her actions sowing doubt and dread wherever she goes, etc. etc. Although the Lore states that all the Valar and Maiar, though bodiless, have a gender that appears when they do embody, such details have never stopped the showrunners before. The big objection to this theory is that it's probably too creative by half for “The Rings of Power”.

 

Episode Four: Headin’ for a Hullabaloo

Yesterday I once more made the pleasant journey to Babeloth to visit family and watch Episode Four (“The Great Wave”) of Amazon’s The Rings of Power. I still refuse to grant it the prefixing title of The Lord of the Rings in my references; it is clumsy and inappropriate for so many reasons, not least of which is the onerous task of typing it out in full and feeling that it is somehow a lie one is forced to keep telling. But on with the show.

It begins with Queen-Regent Miriel’s prophetic dream of a great wave overwhelming Numenor (a type of Atlantis dream that Tolkien had many times himself; he bequeathed it not only to Faramir in LOTR but apparently also to his son Michael, to whom he had never spoken of it). Miriel and Galadriel then undergo a period of sparring while Numenor gets all het up about the presence of ‘the Elf’. Galadriel somehow sneaks in to see the real bedridden King, further angering Miriel and ending with ‘the Elf’ being thrown into the clink with Halbrand. The man offers some cunning advice, Miriel shows Galadriel a vision in a Palantir (which she claims is the only one on the island – another ignoring of canon), the White Tree starts shedding, and Miriel decides to take Galadriel back to Middle-earth with a fleet to counter the feared rise of Sauron. I understand there are some who are squeeing over a possible spotting of Narsil (the blade that broke in the killing of Sauron and was later reforged into Anduril, Aragorn’s sword).

We return to proto-Mordor where Mr. Tuvok finally meets Adar, the revered leader of the orcs. (Reverence, rather than simple fear and respect or downright hatred of a superior is a strange emotion to see in an Orc.) A corrupted Elf who has seen better days, he begins the interview by (mercy?)killing one of his own badly wounded minions. He rambles on a bit about becoming a god, then releases Tuvok to return to the men of Tirharad to deliver an ultimatum. They, meanwhile, have holed up in the Elf-tower as the most defensible spot, and the situation is giving off strong ‘Helm’s Deep’ vibes. Bronwyn is trying to organize a defense, but there are some self-important men, darn ‘em, who are challenging her decisions. Her son Theo and his friend Rowan volunteer to sneak back to their abandoned town and grab some supplies, but a group of Orcs start invading. The friend buggers off with about a wheelbarrow’s worth of food, but Theo is left caught in town to sneak around and avoid capture. When he is spotted it is seen he has the strange sword-end that the forces of evil have been seeking. Theo runs away and is joined by the returning Tuvok and Bronwyn who has come out to search for him. They flee and are saved by the rising of the sun. Back at the Elf-tower, Theo is confronted by the former hider of the broken blade, Waldreg, who ask him if he's heard the good news about the Lord Sauron?

We return to Khazad-Dum for the most enjoyable of the story-threads so far. The Elf-Dwarf collaboration is in full swing, with Celebrimbor’s tower/forge well under way. Celebrimbor spends a moment talking to Elrond about Earendil, taking the opportunity to fill the audience in on some backstory. Elrond returns to the Dwarf kingdom, where he gently manages to finagle Durin’s secret location from out of what Disa does not tell him. In that hidden mine seam he gets Durin to tell him the big mystery: they have discovered mithril (more specifically Disa has discovered mithril), and so finally they can dig greedily and too deep. There is a sudden collapse in the mine, trapping four miners, until Disa sings some calming Dwarf-opera to the rocks. After an initial clash, Durin and his father agree that the Elves are up to something that needs further investigation. Perhaps it's just me, but it seems there are some echoes here of Terry Pratchett's Dwarvish developments (his own vision of Dwarves being initially based on Tolkien's; thus does popular culture feed into itself).

There are no Harbits … I beg your pardon, Harfoots … in this episode. We can only assume they are on their migration, with Poppy eating all the snacks and Nori constantly asking, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” The showrunners keep insisting that the Harfoots are not Hobbits, which is like saying the French are not Europeans.

As usual, this episode suffers from poor writing: unrealistic action (yes, I know it’s a fantasy, but fantasy needs inner consistency, character truth, and probable improbabilities), clumsy echoes of familiar phrases, and cliched tropes. Once more we had the uncanny ability to predict what was going to be said or done, and words we spoke in jest were fulfilled in earnest. But, on the plus side, the turgid action seems to be finally ramping up and we can be amused by the fights and spectacles. There is still a bit of good scenery porn.

In fact, it occurs to me that I might quite enjoy The Rings of Power on a certain level, if I watched it without a dialogue track.  

 

Episode Five: Stop! In the Name of the Lore!

Suppose you sat down to play a game of chess. Suddenly your opponent begins making wild, unorthodox moves: knights act like rooks, bishops like queens, pawns start capturing pieces right in front of them. You would say he is cheating, or perhaps didn’t understand the rules of the game. He might counter that he is simply being creative, and that it makes things more exciting. One thing would be certain. Though you were using the same gameboard and pieces, it certainly wouldn’t be chess.

This episode, I think, finally sets a pointing finger down on the very sore spot that has been vaguely plaguing readers of Tolkien since the very beginning. Forget black Elves and Dwarves. Forget deviations from the timeline or contradictions with known ‘lore’ or even clumsy writing and callbacks. The difference is even more fundamental than that, and it is epitomized in the story the writers have concocted for the origin of mithril.

The story that Gil-galad orders Elrond to recount has an unnamed Elf-Lord and a Balrog fighting over a tree growing high on a mountain.  Lightning strikes the tree, and the two combatants are somehow merged into a single substance that trickles down to the roots of the peak and becomes the fabulous shiny ore when it mingles with a lost Silmaril. Gil-galad states that mithril is “as pure and light as good, as strong and unyielding as evil.” And therein lies the crux, I think.

It would be very easy from a cursory reading of The Lord of the Rings to describe Middle-earth as a kind of Manichean world, with good and evil poised in a sort of yin-yang struggle for dominance. A closer reading reveals that for all its power, there is light and a high beauty that the Shadow can never touch; that Evil does not have the power of creation, it can only sully what is made. To describe strength and rigor as an essential quality that evil can impart is to deeply misunderstand the nature of Middle-earth. They are simply positive goods that can be misused. C. S. Lewis summed it up:

“The truth is that evil is not a real thing at all, like God. It is simply good spoiled. That is why I say there can be good without evil, but no evil without good. You know what the biologists mean by a parasite—an animal that lives on another animal. Evil is a parasite. It is there only because good is there for it to spoil and confuse.”

It seems that moral ambiguity is the greatest, perhaps the most irreconcilable, difference between what is Tolkien and what is The Rings of Power. Perhaps it is this that the showrunners mean most profoundly when they say it reflects “modern sensibilities”. This moral ambiguity plagues every episode. Are Gil-galad and Celebrimbor’s actions evil? Do the Orcs just want lebensraum? In Tolkien there is moral uncertainty (“I know what I must do, but I’m afraid to do it”) but no moral ambiguity. Tolkien’s moral theme is not the largely accepted Zeitgeist of our time and it would take a master-touch to dramatize it.

“Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them …”

It is not the ridiculous constructions of the story (“The Elves are going to fade … right now! Unless we take our mithril pills!” or some such nonsense – although I suppose the forging of the Three Rings, which do resist time and fading – and could need to be made with mithril - of which Durin seems to have enough to hand out samples - but then ring-making is not a thing yet – ah, the Lore!) that is the worm in the apple here. It is the profound philosophical disconnect. They do not play by the game rules, and if they don't, they should play another game.

 

Episode Six: Oh, Bloody Hell

Last night, the last few hours of September, I once more voyaged to my brother’s house for a new installment of The Rings of Power. I had been studiously avoiding all the review videos that had been popping up on YouTube all day already. None of them looked like they had anything good to say about it. Odd, that.  I went in with as clear a mind as possible, under the circumstances.

This episode concerned itself with only two strands of the story, Mr. Tuvok and the denizens of Tirharad fighting Adar and the Orcs, and Galadriel and the Numenoreans sailing to Middle-earth. The two strands weave together for an explosive climax as Galadriel and troops ride in to save the day - temporarily. No Harfoots, no Elrond and Durin.

The plot can be summed up thus:

Adar: We’ve got you!

Tuvok: (collapsing tower) On the contrary, we’ve got you!

Adar: (somehow surviving) No, you don’t. We’ve got you!

Tuvok: (somehow surviving the counterattack) Now we’ve got you at last!

Adar: Ha! Those were human decoys. Now we’ve got you!

Galadriel: (arriving with the Numenoreans) Now I’ve got you!

Adar: (faking them out and escaping in the ensuing apocalypse) Now I’ve really got you!

That apocalypse is the triggering of Adar’s long-term plan all along, to set off the first eruption of Mt. Doom so that the ensuing pall will make a Land of Shadow where his beloved orc-offspring (“We prefer the term Uruk, you bigot”) can walk the earth un-barbequed. The explosion seems to engulf both Orcs and men, and the show ends with Galadriel just standing stoically while the fires overwhelm her. But since we see her in the previews of the next episode, we can assume her awesome girl-power will somehow allow her to survive. It would not surprise me if she were to say something along the lines of “Naked I was sent back, until my task is done.”

It would be well in keeping with the innumerable and constant callbacks and Easter eggs that plague the show as the writers rather obviously try to cadge some magic and good will from Jackson’s wildly popular movies. They are none too subtle, and it just comes across as lazy writing. The ‘creatives’ are none too creative.

Episode Six (titled ‘Udun’, the Elvish word for ‘Hell’, more or less, applied to Morgoth’s first fortress in Middle-earth) is riddled with problematic plot devices. How Mr. Tuvok (all right, I’ll call him Arondir) could rig the tower to collapse in one night (where would he even get the metal bands to hold it together in the first place? It couldn’t be a device already in place. No-one could possibly live and work there under those conditions) is a mystery. How Orcs could delve nearly four miles down to magma even over hundreds of years … how Numenoreans could sail their ocean-going ship miles inland up a river before continuing on horses … how Bronwyn’s wound, while cauterized on the outside, could also stop bleeding internally … how nobody checked the package to see if the powerful McGuffin was still there … how water poured on lava, though it might cause an eruption of steam, could also somehow trigger an enormous magma explosion … these are all ‘improbable improbabilities’ that are handwaved out of consideration. (“But how …”. “Shh. Hush, my pet. I rigged it.”) It breaks all suspension of disbelief if you stop to think about it for five seconds. As Tolkien said, Middle-earth is a place where (despite the existence of magic and miracles) ‘miles are miles.’

Once more, in a dialogue between Galadriel and Adar, Orcs are argued to have a right to existence, if only because they are in ultimate origin, ‘Children of Iluvatar’. The same, however, could be said of Morgoth or Sauron. The tragedy of the Orcs is that they have been twisted into a race that lives only to kill or enslave. If they could live in harmony with other races (or even amongst themselves) there would be no need to destroy them. But the humans of Tirharad (though it was an occasion of pity and horror) had the right to defend themselves and kill even their erstwhile fellow townsfolk when they turned and came to attack them.

If I would hazard a guess, I might say the next episode will involve the Harfoots and the Stranger, and Elrond and Durin, probably with interludes of Galadriel wandering in a visionary state. If I could say one definite positive thing about this episode, it would be that at least it brings us closer to the end of Season One. 

 

Episode Seven: Mordor, She Wrote

My God, I’m so tired. Not so much physically tired, but mentally exhausted. Yesterday evening, of course, it being Friday, John took Kameron and me to the Babel house to view the latest installment of The Rings of Power. My exhaustion arises from my consideration of what to say about it.

First, a general observation. The amount of echoes, callbacks, references, and Easter eggs appears to be increasing. It seems every other line of dialogue, every other framing shot, calls to mind the Jackson films (even The Hobbit ones now) in a shameless ploy to borrow some amount of nostalgia, some bit of power or affection by association. It fails miserably because it is so ham-handed. It comes off as lazy or even as a parody. I’d say spoilers ahead, but the whole thing is pretty rotten, anyway.

It opens with Galadriel coming to in the wake of the eruption of Mt. Doom. How she, or indeed anyone, Orc or human, could have survived being engulfed in the wave of ash and gas that surrounded them without being roasted or suffocated is a mystery. Perhaps it’s the plot armor she’s wearing.

Plenty of unnamed characters don’t survive, of course, and in the aftermath one of Isildur’s expendable friends perishes as well, just to show the awful price of the disaster. (What was his name? Seanomir? Biffalad?) Which also begs a question. With all the citizens of Tirharad (which looks like a little town of about five houses) being pecked off (leaving to join Adar, killed in Orc attacks, caught in an eruption) just what is left for Halbrand to be king of? So far, it is just a remnant of survivors of one town who have proclaimed him. But maybe there are other villages – in a land now infested with darkness and Orcs.

Anyway, the surviving Numenoreans and Southlanders flee back to their camp. Galadriel and Theo are separated from the main group, so they can have some bonding time together. In talking about loss (Theo has not seen his mother Bronwyn in the aftermath), Galadriel reveals that Celeborn, her husband, is dead – or at least, probably dead. Though Elves can be ‘reborn’ (returned from the Halls of Mandos – which is why Elves only marry once – which should put a terminus on the implied Halbrand/Galadriel tension) this is a major deviation from what Tolkien wrote. What happened to the showrunners’ claim of “not egregiously contradicting something we don't have the rights to”? Perhaps their fingers were crossed. Galadriel and Theo hide from Orcs in a scene that evokes Frodo and the other Hobbits hiding from the Nazgul. One of the Orcs asks, “What do you smell?” I muttered “Elf-farts”, but the answer is, “Nothing but ash.”

Meanwhile, in another story thread, Elrond and Durin the Fourth are disappointed when King Durin the Third decides to close the mithril mine and refuse the Elves (or even the Dwarves) access. Disa gets all Lady Macbeth on her husband, and they discover by accident that their bit of mithril ore restores the blighted leaf in which Gil-galad saw the fate of the Elves back in Scene Twenty-Four. That decides Durin Mark IV. He and Elrond dig for mithril on their own. Alone. In another blatant contradiction of Lore, Elrond says that Durin is one in a line of Durins, one after the other. Impossible, of course, because the kings named Durin were supposed to be the original Durin ‘come again’, and you can’t be reincarnated twice at the same time.

King Durin finds out, of course, and appears clutching the restored leaf (the clue by which he finds them?) just as they open huge veins of ore. He banishes Elrond and downgrades Durin (Disa has mentioned he has a brother that might become king now). He orders the newly opened shaft closed and tosses the leaf (which has by now had a storied career) down the hole behind it. It flutters down, down, down, until it lands at the bottom of the abyss. It is suddenly shriveled in a wave of fire, as it has disturbed the Balrog’s slumber (shades of Smaug and the thrush!). Certainly, it cannot be released just yet, as the Dwarves have yet to mine even enough mithril to make Bilbo’s famous chainmail.

Meanwhile the Harbits have reached the edges of Greenwood the Great (aka Mirkwood, in its days of innocence). Poppy sings a little bit too much traveling music about snails. They discover an apple grove that has been withered by the fires of Mt. Doom (which, if you look at the map, is quite a distance – and over a mountain range, too). Sadoc Burrows, the Harfoot leader, asks the Stranger to try his powers (amply demonstrated a couple of episodes ago) in an attempt to heal one of the trees. When his efforts are not immediately successful (and even seem to endanger the tribe) Sadoc decides to send him away to look for his stars (remember that bit?). Nori bids a sad farewell to her rescue puppy.

The next day she awakes to find that not only has the apple tree regenerated, but the whole grove is restored and full of ripe fruit. The Harbits happily and greedily refill their supplies. But the Three Weird Sisters are still on the trail of the Stranger and are led to the Harbit camp by a careless bucket dropped in a stream by the panicking Poppy. They seem to recognize the power that brought back the grove and are about to follow the Stranger’s trail when Nori pops up and tries to redirect them in the wrong direction. The three attack her, and when the others come out to defend her, the trio use their powers to burn both the trees and the Harfoot carts, then leave.

Things look bleak, but Nori’s dad Largo gives a rallying speech about how the Harfoot’s strength lies not in skills or carts, but in how they stay true to one another (this from folks who have apparently regularly abandoned the slow and weak). Inspired, Nori, Poppy/Sam, Sadoc, and his wife Malva head out into the uncharted wilderness to find the Stranger and … I don’t know, warn him? Even though the Ghostly Trio have a day’s march on them and some sort of infallible sense of what direction he's in. But hey, their hearts are bigger than their feet! Or their heads, apparently.

Meanwhile, back in the Numenorean camp, Galadriel and Theo have finally caught up with the rest of the refugees. The camp tents are filled with casualties and the wounded. Theo is afraid (for about five seconds) that he’ll find his mother dead, but Bronwyn has survived. What luck! Meanwhile, Elendil fears Isildur is dead and Miriel has been blinded trying to rescue people from a burning hut (so brave! so compassionate!). Now her blood is up for revenge, and she vows to return with an army and wipe the bad guys from the face of the earth. But hist! Where is Halbrand, who is definitely not Sauron? He has been found at last, wandering in wounded. Galadriel cries out that he needs ‘Elvish medicine’, a vile and clunky phrase invented for the Jackson movies. It must have worked, because the next time we see Halbrand he is up and riding a horse, going with Galadriel to seek aid from High King Gil-Galad, and definitely not just abandoning his ‘kingdom’.  Arondir, Bronwyn, and Theo watch them and the Numenoreans ride off into the sunset. At least Miriel has left them her camping gear.

The last section switches to Adar and his Orcs. They too have somehow survived and are whooping it up in their new homeland. The human traitor Waldreg is loudly praising Adar as the lord of the Southlands, trying to ensure he’s not going to wind up on the menu. Adar says they need a new name for their home. The location title (these have not been used for some time now, which makes it all the more corny) of ‘The Southlands’ pops up and burns away, and the new name ‘Mordor’ is blazed in red. So Adar has not only created Mt. Doom; he has named Mordor.

This description of the episode is not exhaustive, but it has been exhausting. I cannot recount every instance of the clunky writing as it strives to be ‘elevated’, or the moments of excruciatingly slow pacing (hey, it gives the story space to breathe, I hear), or all the offenses against ‘canon’. I may have got things a little jumbled, as it’s hard to recall details of chronology when the connective tissue between events is a little dodgy and you are appalled at every turn of the tale. There is only one more installment of this season. 

I hear that against all rules of common sense and in the face of fan disapproval (patently evil!), that they are doubling down and have already started filming Season Two.  What new terrors the last episode of Season One will bring, I dare not speculate. Will they finally disclose who or where is Sauron? They would be unwise to do so, because the teasing of that fact is one of the only impetuses of viewer interest, annoying as it may be. The things we can be almost sure of is that there will be one shocking reveal or incident, nothing will be resolved, and it will end on a cliffhanger. Even the writers and showrunners of The Rings of Power can’t subvert such serial conventions, no matter how much Tolkien they deface. Or … can they? It would be hard to overestimate their negative talent.

 

Episode Eight: Nunc Dimittis

I didn’t know exactly what I expected when we started watching the season finale. I mean, I knew there would be at least one big reveal and a sort of cliffhanger (if only an ominous implication), but just how bad it would be I could not imagine. How could it possibly be worse than Episode 7?

Well, somehow these genius showrunners found a way.

There were some good features. As usual, it is a very pretty show to look at, especially landscapes, cities, and (occasionally) some design elements. But there seems to be a general rule that the closer in you get, the worse and less satisfactory things become, especially in costuming. The exception might be the three Elven Rings. But I get ahead of myself.

There are some sequences that actually attain moments of excitement, despite the long stretches of tedium in between. A good example would be the parts of the first section follow the story of “the Stranger”, the Weird Sisters, and the Harbits who are following them. The Ghostly Trio catch up with the Stranger and hail him as Sauron Returned, albeit with some amnesia issues. They restrain him with force until his full memory can be restored. Nori and her little band turn up and try to release him but are fooled by the Weird Sisters, who are poised to destroy them. This snaps the Stranger out of his funk and rouses his powers, which he then channels through the staff that Nori takes away from the evil leader.  The Trio changes under his onslaught, first into wraith-like beings, then, inexplicably, into a cloud of moths. They have been turned into something … unnatural.

The Stranger’s mind has been unblocked, apparently, and suddenly he can speak perfectly sensibly. The Harbit elder Sadoc has been killed in the fight, so the Harfoots can all go on to being a matriarchy. Gandalf (because let’s face it, that’s who the Stranger, to no-one’s surprise but merely in an anti-climactic confirmation, turns out to be) heads off to Rhun, joined (after a moment’s hesitation), by Nori, who is off on an adventure.

Meanwhile, Elendil and Miriel are on their way back to Numenor. Miriel is too proud to be helped around by Elendil (so brave! so independent! I would have laughed if she had then gone walking over the side of the ship). Back in Numenor, the old King is dying, and Pharazon commissions a memorial portrait of him. Elendil’s daughter Earien is one of the artists left alone with him. The King wakes up, starts babbling significantly, and wanders into the next room. Earien follows and finds the covered Palantir. She ominously pulls the cover off (but since all seven stones are still in Numenor, she can’t be in danger of Sauron – perhaps she’ll get something from Eldamar, where the Master-stone resides in the Undying Lands). Elendil and Miriel return to find the ships and city shrouded in black. The old King has died.

Meanwhile Galadriel and Halbrand have reached Eregion, and Halbrand gets his “Elvish medicine”, though he seems to barely need it. High King Gil-galad is also there and has ordered Celebrimbor to shut his forge down since the Dwarves have refused them mithril and the Elves must pass into the West. But the recovered Halbrand has some good advice on how to stretch the little bit of mithril they have, and with his surprising insights into smithcraft Celebrimbor begins a last-ditch effort to save the Elves on Middle-earth.

Galadriel, suddenly suspicious of this mere human’s skill that surpasses even the son of Feanor and the repetition of words she heard elsewhere, finally decides to do some research on the man she’s helped set up as King of the Southlands. She confronts Halbrand with the fact that the line of kings had been broken a thousand years ago without any heir. Halbrand reveals that he is Sauron (what a surprise!) and immediately begins an attack on her mind.

In a series of visions he reminds her that her brother Finrod told her about touching the darkness, how she has aided Sauron to return to Middle-earth, how his ambitions were for the restoration and healing of the world (just with him as ever-lasting tyrant), how he never really lied to her (just didn’t correct her assumption), and how he can make her a Queen if he joins her, or reveal that she helped him if she doesn’t. She defies him and wakes up struggling in the river, where Sauron has apparently pushed her. Elrond helps rescue her, but Halbrand/Sauron has disappeared. Ominously, Galadriel appears not to reveal Sauron’s return to anyone, feeling ashamed about her part in it.

However, she now seems to have some insight into ring-making, and says they need to make three rings for the Elves. Celebrimbor says they need the purest gold and silver to add to the mithril to make the stretching alloy. She sacrifices her beloved Valinorean-made dagger, last relic of her brother, and the rings are made of the new alloy. Galadriel herself has become ‘alloyed’ by her experiences, perhaps ready to give up mere military means for new spiritual powers. We finally get to see some rings of power in The Rings of Power [they look like something that you'd get from a bubblegum machine].

The last scene is of the revealed Sauron, looking rather like Anakin Skywalker, on the brink of the newly created land of Mordor. You get the feeling that Adar the rebellious proto-Orc is in for some hard times. He gazes speculatively at Mt. Doom, the future forge of the One Ring. There is a terrible rendition of the Ring verse in song.

Which all sounds more exciting than it actually worked out to be. The episode suffered from the same boring stretches; the same lapses of narrative logic; the same poor writing; the same lapses of Lore and tone; and the even more frequent use of callbacks, Easter eggs, and references to evoke the member-berries of long-established LOTR fans. One little trick that they do that annoys the heck out of me is to have an almost word-for-word quote (usually from the Jackson films) but tweaked or minimally rephrased. Good visuals, yes, but piss-poor writing. They could have gotten away with much less CGI or special effects if only their characters and pacing were handled better. As it is, there is too much filler and too little meat in this sausage.

I was left at the end, not so much in anticipation of the next season, as in relief that this one was over, and that it would be about a year until any more would be available. Whether the showrunners will have learned better in Season Two (already filming) or not, at least there can no longer the fake tension of the Sauron reveal. The clumsy misdirection and obvious foreshadowing were done. I need never watch this season again.

Perhaps sometime in the future when The Rings of Power has passed into the dark backward abysm of time, I will run across a copy of the whole series remaindered in the $1.99 bin. Perhaps I will buy it, for completion’s sake or as an object lesson. But maybe I won’t. It would still be a little too expensive, especially in the waste of time and spirit.


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