Apologies, folks, for skipping last week – I’m back this weekend and talking about two pretty intense/important episodes of The Rings of Power. Speaking broadly, one of them was (to me) pretty focused on core canonical stuff that I think of as really critically important to the season, and one was largely focused on developing ideas that aren’t really canonical at all….I felt a little uneven about the success of those elements, but I’ll get into that in a bit. To me, Episode 5 was cracklingly good, probably the best episode of television I think they’ve made yet in terms of pacing and energy; Episode 6 was a bit more back to the mid-Season 1 space for me, where it’s a mix of some ideas I really dig and some ideas I’m really rolling my eyes at, but trying to stay open minded about and see how they sit once I’ve rewatched. As usual, I’ll offer some general thoughts about how this is going in the post with no/very light spoilers, and I’ll dig into more spoilery stuff in the comments.
I do think that both episodes were strongly thematic – totally successfully so for Episode 5 and at least largely successfully so for Episode 6. Episode 5 is a meditation on power – at every level, power for good and power for harm. Tolkien is fundamentally suspicious of power: he consistently treats it as corruptible, as intoxicating, as likelier to destruct than to build. Even the Valar abuse their powers, in the Silmarillion, and certainly the track record of the Children of Iluvatar vis a vis power is pretty darn bad. Even so, he does acknowledge the possibility for the exercise of power responsibly: I feel like it’s almost always in self-denying, self-effacing ways, as the powerful demonstrate capacity for restraint, use their power to guard and secure but not to assail, but that’s still power. And that’s what really resonated for me in Episode 5 – the feeling that the good characters largely understand power and are treating it with wary but purposeful hands, and that the bad or misguided characters are struggling to perceive clearly the kind of peril they are in. I like that in this episode, the extracanonical stuff felt really closely tied to the core canonical beats I was mentioning: it felt very much like an episode where they had thought really carefully about how to get all of Tolkien’s drama onto the screen in a context that makes it make sense.
Episode 6, conversely, feels to me like it’s about loyalty – whom do we serve? What does it mean to be true – to yourself, to your leader, to your purpose in the world? And this, to me, feels a little wobblier because I think Tolkien doesn’t have as clear a message about loyalty. After all, there are times when Tolkien is pretty keen on things like “rightful heirs”, etc., like Aragorn, the scion of Isildur. But at other times he’s pretty suspicious of power structures, from the importance of Eomer bucking the invalid orders of a bewitched Theoden to the clearly deranged demands of Elu Thingol surrounding Beren and his desire for Luthien’s hand (to say nothing of the damaging isolationism of late-stage Gondolin). Sure, we can try to reframe some of these character choices and situations as being “really” about loyalty in other ways – loyalty to other things or even to themselves – but I think for me as a reader, anyway, it’s fairer to say that Tolkien has some inconsistent messages around, say, when you choose friendship over destiny, to pick one of the dichotomies presented in this Episode. And as a result I think this episode is wobbly also – there’s a couple incidents where I think the loyalty struggle feels really true to Tolkien’s world, and a couple where it feels a little more contrived or strained, and one conversation that, man, does not work for me at all, though I’m trying to stay open minded. Obviously I’ll dig in more in the comments, but I am curious in general how these impressions strike you.
I would say, too, that to some extent the sections in Episode 6 felt a little bit like marking time – a couple storylines feel really like they’re just not advancing right now because we need their climactic moments to fall in the season’s final episodes, and while I get those practicalities, in a series this crowded I would almost rather not have seen anything at all from certain storylines (and more time distributed to others that feel more urgent right now) than feel we’re just a little bit on a treadmill right now. But as always, even in episodes that feel a little less well-structured, I get a lot of delight out of being with the characters in these spaces. [I just have to add – I composed the above post after my first watch of Episode 6, but normally I watch an episode twice before writing about it…..well, I did finally give the episode a second watch, and I liked it a lot more this time around! I think maybe the pacing, to some extent, came from expectations I had, and having a better understanding of what they were trying to do made things work better. If you bounced off of either of these episodes, I would encourage a rewatch!] The show feels to me like it’s gotten a little more momentum this season, and I sure hope they can find a way of releasing season 3 more rapidly than two full years from now. For now I’ll just look forward to the last two episodes awaiting me…and the conversation in the very spoilery comments to follow.
Comments:
So, I’ll try devoting one comment to each narrative strand here (broadly speaking), and we’ll see what I have to say (and what you have to say). Let’s start with the storylines I think are working least well for me – in Rhun. I spoke about Tom Bombadil a little when he was introduced, but I was trying to reserve judgment until I saw what they were doing with him. At this point, I just think it’s pretty clear that their conception of Tom in this series really doesn’t match the character I know from the book. And to be clear – this happens in adaptations. Faramir is substantially different in the Jackson films than he is on the page, as is his father; Treebeard and the other Ents are altered at least a little, and Meriadoc Brandybuck is altered quite a lot. Some of those changes are for dramatic reasons and some are, I’m sure, just the writers having a different idea about these characters than I do. Here, I get that they decided they needed someone to be Gandalf’s Gandalf, and once they decided that, Tom was the way they plugged the gap – to me, casting him as Middle-earth’s Yoda is just profoundly weird and out of character, but I’m just going to live with it the way I live with Faramir and Denethor every time I watch the trilogy again. And some of you love the Faramir and Denethor you get in the films, and maybe also love Tom? I’m open to being persuaded I’m missing how this is in-character for him.
As far as the others in this setting go, I think it’s getting tedious waiting for them to give the Stranger his identity – he’s so clearly Gandalf that anything else will feel like a bait and switch – and I’m not really sure what the show is waiting for getting him on the move. They’ve cast a wonderful actor as the Dark Wizard with Ciaran Hinds, and he’s been basically non-existent for a while now, which to me feels like a waste – whatever confrontation is coming, I ought to know him better to be able to enjoy it. And I love Nori and Poppy but oy the Stoor subplot feels stuck in a rut right now – I feel basically no investment in Poppy’s romance with a character who’s more screenwriting quirky than realistically appealing, and while there’s some real emotion written into the Stoors’ leader, overall I’m feeling restless when they’re on screen in ways I wish I wasn’t, and that I haven’t felt with them since early in season one. Folks, am I missing some interesting depths to explore in these scenes?
I’ll lump together Elrond and Galadriel even though they’re separated here, since we’re not getting a ton with either one – Elrond’s obviously not going to be able to redeem himself for being a jerk to Galadriel about the ring for at least a while longer, so it leaves him with almost nothing at all to do. I cannot really understand what the dispute is between him and Gil-galad over what to do – what army other than Adar’s forces threatening Ost-in-Edhil could Gil-galad be planning to attack? Anyway, we know canonically he’s got a big part to play in Eregion and I hope we see it in action soon. Galadriel’s negotiation with Adar is interesting – Sam Hazeldine is not as electric in conversation as Joseph Mawle was, but I do think he’s playing the character well. I do think they’ve given us a scenario where it’s plausible that even Galadriel, chief hater of the orc, would be willing to ally with them in exchange for getting the revenge on Sauron she desires. I do wish these things had unfolded differently – we’ve had no “revelation” scene about Halbrand in the Adar storyline, and so it’s confusing that he seems to have just “worked it out” somehow. But I have to admit, Galadriel’s struggle here – her feeling that she has to be willing to do almost anything to stop Sauron suddenly overcome by the horror of realizing they’re all getting played again – is incredibly powerful. I have no clue what’s about to unfold in Eregion, at least as far as how Sauron will maneuver himself into being in command of a force that’s seemingly here to destroy him, but I’m here for it.
Numenor is finally heating up, and though I’m also unsure exactly what the next story beats will be here, I am thrilled with Lloyd Owen’s performance as Elendil – and Cynthia Addai-Robinson is fully committed to her own great performance as Tar-Miriel, Numenor’s rightful queen. I know we’ve wandered off canon here a little, but I think it’s all to the good – the more they build up a sense of Numenorean religious practice (including superstitions and ancient ways reclaimed and folk theologies, etc.), the more I am sure we’re going to get a for-real Sauron as high priest of Morgoth arc in Numenor, which will be horrifying and fascinating. I really love the tension we’re getting between Elendil and Earien (even though it’s heart-breaking, as a dad), but I wish there was more range here – where is Anarion, to feud with Earien and to beg his father to remain faithful and to create a sense of what it means that Elendil is entering some kind of underground faith community that has its own long survival well in hand? At least, my sense is that Anarion is a member of the Faithful, out in Andunie, and I would love him to be back right now – I guess that’s Season 3 stuff. What will Numenor do here at the end of this season, though, do you think? A civil war between the Faithful and the Kings’ Men? Or will Pharazon launch an assault on Middle-Earth to seize Sauron and use him for his own purposes? Or will some new manifestation of the Valar – a less ambiguous one than the eagle or the sea worm – put a thumb on the scale? I’m not sure.
Okay, I do think the Dwarf storyline is a little stagnant, if I step back from it and assess what has really happened – I feel like there’s been a ton of scenes that all boil down to they really shouldn’t trust this Ring but ugh the King sure seems to love it. But in the moment? Peter and Owain as the Durin father-and-son pairing are just perfect – painfully tragic and energetically engaged with one another and full of charisma even as they turn away from the choices they probably ought to be making. Sophia Nomvete as Disa is working on an even higher level – I’m riveted anytime she’s on screen and somehow I both feel really connected to her character’s choices and I rarely feel I can predict them. Together, the three of them are probably giving us the best possible version of the Ring of Power problem – most of these rings are going into hands where we just won’t see the effects, or if we do (like with Galadriel) we just aren’t being given a very sensitive portrayal of how the ring affects people close to them. Inside Khazad-dum, we’re seeing literally all of it play out – the ways the ring warps the bearer while persuading the bearer that the ring is simply an extension of who they always have been. The strain as people who love the ringbearer want to relieve him of the burden, and cannot always tell where the person leaves off and the ring begins. Sure, to do this, we get some tunnel vision – we barely know Narvi, and I wish we knew literally ANY other dwarf by name. But I can’t really complain when the family drama I’m being given is this thoroughly engrossing – I know (well, I think I know) that Durin the Younger and Disa will fail, and that Durin III is about to go to his death, drawn by the ring, and yet I still am on the edge of my seat waiting to see it. How do other folks feel about where the Dwarf storyline is at, and where it’s going?
Lastly….this is Celebrimbor and Sauron’s season, much as last season was Galadriel’s. It is their doomed/wicked quest and not her doomed/noble one that’s driving the action. I love how fully both Celebrimbor and Annatar are being realized on screen – Episode 5 is a masterclass in manipulation and persuasion and isolation as Annatar shapes Celebrimbor’s reality so fully that he can’t help but follow orders, and Episode 6 takes us into the realm of Annatar’s ability to literally change the real world to deceive his prey. Tolkien never really wrote out the character dynamic inside Eregion, but if he had, I think this is just how it would go – Annatar leans so hard on Elvish and Mannish history to persuade Celebrimbor, from name-dropping Beren son of Barahir as an example of a mortal you could trust with a magical artifact to reminding Celebrimbor of the possibility that he could outdo his mighty ancestor, Feanor (and the pain he would feel if he fell short). Tolkien’s text does little to explain how these rings work – what do they do, how do they do it, what special skill in particular did the smiths of Eregion have for making them? – and so I’m very inclined to give the show room to find its own explanations. Now, the blond elf smith, Mirdania – does anybody have any idea what Sauron’s grooming her for, in particular? This is the actress a lot of fans speculated prior to the season might end up playing Celebrian, Galadriel’s daughter (and Elrond’s wife) – there’s no chance she’s Celebrian in disguise somehow, is there? I just can’t quite tell why Sauron’s picked her out for compliments, and what it means that she’s listening. I love, too, that Celebrimbor has literally put a statue of Feanor holding a newly-wrought Silmaril in the courtyard in front of his workshop – talk about tempting Fate! Of all the storylines, I think this is the one that most richly rewards the nerds right now in terms of how much it’s drawing on and echoing the material from the First Age (and portions of the Second): I am loving it, and honestly there’s a part of me that wishes they could somehow have started here, since I think a lot of people who bounced off the show in season one were looking for something like this. It wouldn’t have worked as well – I know that – but somehow I still wish it. Final thought here – Celebrimbor’s dead, right? And from the trailers we know that he will at some point realize Annatar’s Sauron (or at least evil) and that there will be a struggle over the Nine. Any predictions for exactly what will end up happening? Or for what the final shot/scene of the season will be? We’ll find out in about 11 days time – I’m looking forward to it, and then to rewatching the show multiple times, again, between now and whenever we get Season 3.