The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power
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Want to make audiences squirm?
Threaten a characters eye with something sharp.
But first: the fighting.
Or at least mostly empty.
After Adar spots the shrine to Sauron, No.
(ThinkHome Alonebut with more bodies crushed by bricks.)
The day is saved!
Except its not, and both Arondir and the villagers know this.
They flee back to the village and prepare for the next stage of battle.
When she learns his name, she connects it to his father.
But that history will have to wait.
First, they have to travel upriver to reach the Southlands, where trouble is once again brewing.
To win, theyll have to engage in guerrilla warfare and find other ways to beat the odds.
After Arondir gets his ownHenry Vmoment, theyre ready to fight.
But not Theo hes charged with protecting the women and children in the keep.
But is this true?
The action that follows doesnt really bear it out (sure seems like the shadow found them!
Whatever the case, Bronwyn soon has other matters on her mind.
The battle goes on for quite a while, and its all splendidly staged.
Its another instance ofThe Rings of Powernot shying away from the ugliness of warfare in this episode.
No deaths come to characters we know well, but theyre not anonymous digital figures seen from a distance.
How long this could have gone on is anybodys guess.
Before too many perish, Theo gives up the hilt to Adar.
When the forces of Numenor arrive, however, it becomes a disaster delayed rather than averted.
Led by Galadriel, they swoop in and put an end to the nonsense.
(And again the series does a terrific job with the action.)
He wants vengeance, and only Galadriels plea stays his hand.
Soon, however, the roles will be reversed.
We prefer Uruk, Adar says to Galadriel.
He also tells her a tale of Saurons quest for power, one that hit some snags.
Something was missing, Adar tells her.
The shadow of dark knowledge that kept itself hidden even from him.
Tired of watching Sauron sacrifice Adars children, he killed him.
(He cant really be dead, but is Adar lying or does hethinkhe killed Sauron?)
The sequence brings up another issue: Is Galadriel the Middle-earth equivalent of a racist?
She talks about brutally eliminating the orcs under Adars command and making him watch.
Its not clear how direct a parallelThe Rings of Powerwants to draw.
In Tolkiens work, the orcs dont have a lot of moral shading.
Its easier to ponder, of course, when the world isnt falling apart.
Unfortunately, he cant.
Theo doesnt have the hilt after all.
And on that cliffhanger-y note, the episode ends.
Adar is evil and has done horrible things, but he does have a point.
He also seems to care about his orc followers, even if hes not above sending them into battle.
(It helps that he can put humans on the front lines.)
Did we just see the formation of Mount Doom?
It certainly appears so.
If true, its worth remembering that this is, of course, where the One Ring is destroyed.
So what exactly is Halbrand king of?
And what exactly is the real Numenor?
